Geoff Ng…Around

Basically, this is what the titles says.  Man some weird shit happens in China.

• Bear bites off boy’s hand.  Yes, really.

• Don’t want to wear a seat belt but tired of the car beeping at you?  Use one of these.

• Chinese Midgets.  I bet you click on that.

• The “Smooch Patrol” is cracking down on PDA on a university campus.  Probably about time.

• Fake condom factory busted.  I’ll let the actual article add to the hilarity:

Officers seized 40,000 boxes of condoms labeled with Jissbon, Durex, Sixsex, Love Card, NOX and Rough Nider brands and more than 1.62 million unlabeled condoms worth a total of 536,000 yuan (US$78,511).

Dusty condoms were scattered over the floor and lubricants was stored in large oil drums.

Teenage girls hired by Li were lubricating condoms and putting them into two packaging machines when officers broke in the 20-square-meter workshop, according to a China Youth Daily report.

More next week, or whenever more weird shit goes down.

There’s a black market for everything in China, and kids are no exception–especially when supply is restricted by the one-child policy.

So for years, there have been reports of kids getting abducted and sold for money, written up everywhere from Reuters to the LA Times.  The Guardian even reported in 2007 that 190 kids were getting snatched every day.

But I guess that’s what happens when a kid fetches RMB18,000 (USD$2,626) on the open market.  That might not sound like a lot, but the alternative–doing it the right way and getting a university education–only gets you a RMB3,762 (USD$551) starting monthly salary.

So anyway, it was great to see this headline last Friday: Child trafficking probe saves 2,169 kids.  With 19 more were rescued Saturday.

Hopefully, that’ll help stem the tide a bit and prevent more edgy parents from lynching shady-looking book salesmen.

Postscript: Children are also sometimes born and sold (or even auctioned off online) by their parents willingly, often for large sums.  Right or wrong?  Hard to say, given the lack of central adoption processes and the poverty blanketing most of rural China.