Incredible things happening in China right now (16 photos)

What is happening in China right now is hard to believe. The most populous (almost 1.4 billion people) and third largest country in the world (almost 10 million square kilometers), it is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating countries on Earth. This is a unique place where old traditions are mixed with ultra-modern technologies. But it is also one of the strangest and most unusual places in the world.

1. “Bottle”, “Mobile”, “Teapot”, “Capitol”...

Buildings shaped like the Enterprise spaceship from Star Trek, a liquor bottle, a cell phone, a teapot, and even a few "fake" Capitols can all be found in China. However, this trend may soon end as Chinese leader Xi Jinping has called for an end to "weird architecture".

2. Train China - Russia - USA - Canada - USA

The high-speed rail is planned to connect China and the continental United States. In this case, a tunnel will be built under the ocean floor of the Bering Strait.

3. Technology worth $5 trillion per year

Chinese technology transfer centers steal IP addresses, reverse engineer them and transfer them to Chinese companies, which then make counterfeits. These companies are typically run by people with strong connections to the military or government.

4. Criminal authorities

The Chinese government annually harvests between 60 and 100,000 organs from prisoners. Most of the organs are taken from representatives of the Falun Gong spiritual practice banned in the country, while others are taken from Tibetans and Uyghurs.

5. “Hunt” for Tibetans

A new border monitoring system uses radar and drones to prevent Tibetans from leaving Tibet. Chinese soldiers have been repeatedly spotted killing Tibetan refugees. However, there are still several thousand refugees from Tibet every year.

6. Underground fires

China, the world's largest coal producer and consumer, has thousands of coal mines, some of which are engulfed in terrible fires. At temperatures up to 538 degrees Celsius, these fires burn for tens, hundreds or even thousands of years.

7. "Tiangong 1"

China's first space station, Tiangong 1 (launched in September 2011), has been decommissioned. Since there is no control over the station now, it will fall to Earth in 2017.

8. Human head transplant

Dr. Ren Xiaoping thinks he can reattach the head of a living patient to a dead body. Although all medical experts are confident that such an operation is impossible, Dr. Ren claims that he has already conducted experiments on human corpses.

9. A cure for malaria

Tu Youyou discovered a cure for malaria in the 1970s as part of Mao Zedong's secret plan (to find a cure for malaria to help the Chinese and Vietnamese militaries fight the US). Tu Youyou immediately tested the drug on himself to ensure its safety. He received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discoveries in 2015.

10. 50,000 cigarettes per second

China produces 42% of the world's cigarettes. Since the tobacco industry in the country is controlled by the state, it is not surprising that there are almost no anti-tobacco campaigns in the country. It is estimated that about 68% of Chinese men smoke.

11. Wedding of corpses

In China, it is considered unlucky if a son dies unmarried, so many families actually buy the corpse of a "bride" and hold wedding ceremonies for their deceased sons. There is so much money in this “industry” that it has already led to serious robberies and even the murder of several women with mental disabilities.

12. Ghost towns

While some of China's cities are literally bursting at the seams due to overcrowding, other cities are completely empty. These cities were built to artificially increase GDP, but no one ever settled in them.

13. Jing-Jin-Ji

A combination of 3 regions (Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei), Jing-Jin-Ji is the largest urbanized region in Northern China, and it may become the largest city in human history, with a population of 130 million people. That's more people than live in the UK, Canada and Australia combined.

14. Water

In the 1950s, the country had as many as 50,000 significant rivers, but today barely half of them remain. In addition, government statistics claim that half of China's current lakes and reservoirs are so polluted that they are undrinkable.

15. World of Warcraft Park

This sounds great, but the problem is that China has not received permission for such a park. The giant park cost $48 million, and the landscapes inside look exactly like those in World Of Warcraft.