Why China produces so many weird news?

[FoRiZon]

Is it because of the demographics? Culture? Facility? Fact that Chinas internet is "separate"? Or it is just fake?

Last time, we got a guy who got stuck in the balcony for 17?hours, too many supercars crash, weird and heartbreaking medical news, etc. While some may have questionable sources (Daily Mail or Mirror, lol), some are actually on Chinas sites and even television. Can anyone figure it out?

 

[Blitz24]

Really? I rarely hear odd news from China. I hear more odd news from Florida.

 

[niky]

Because people want to hear weird news out of China. If they didn't, these things wouldn't be deemed newsworthy, and wouldn't come out.

Look, I just talked to a guy last week who made his own car out of three bicycle wheels, a portable gasoline generator, a homemade wooden propeller and some chicken wire (to protect passers-by from the propeller).

Is it all over the internet? Nope.

But some Chinese farmer decides to put a propeller on the front end of an electric kart, calling it a wind generator, and for some reason, it's trending news.

Because it's Chinese. And for little other reason than that.

 

[Robin]

It because China is still emerging and because it had a culture few in the west are familiar with, what go on there, comes across as weird or quirky.

This no different from back in the days where sailors back from far off lands would tell stories of the weird things they had encountered.

 

[Dotini]

This is the Chinese year of the sheep. I think its a zodiacal thing. Dragons have great importance to the Chinese. In western mythology, dragons are bad. But in eastern mythology they are good.

 

[squadops]

Because people want to hear weird news out of China. If they didn't, these things wouldn't be deemed newsworthy, and wouldn't come out.

People also like shock value, this is a story I've ran into a few times over the past few years on blog sites.

 

[Imari]

Firstly, because they have 1.4 billion people. Statistically, weird stuff is gonna happen.

Secondly, because they're a foreign country. You may hear all the news big or small from your own country, and maybe even from closely related countries. But you'll only hear news from a foreign country if it's directly related to your own country, or it's shocking/funny/amazing enough to be worthy of pushing local news out of the way.

If you were in China, the Chinese news would probably have the same proportion of weird stories that your local news does about your own country.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

If you were in China, the Chinese news would probably have the same proportion of weird stories that your local news does about your own country.

Right now on the Chinese version of GTP, there is a thread debating why there are so many weird news stories out of Canada ...

 

[Grayfox]

I think it is because it is not what we see as "normal" but to the chinese it could be as common as a sunrise.

 

[Dotini]

Leishen (the "God of Thunder"), punishing evil-doers onHeaven's behalf (1923).



The Chinese have a variety of religious beliefs, but I think the bulk of the people practice a folk religion which incorporates nature gods and has plenty of room for dragons and UFO's.

http://english.cntv.cn/program/china24/20100710/100901.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_China

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[Lizard]

Orientalism is your answer.

We consider the East to be strange and thus the media makes it strange.

 

[TheCracker]

• Massive country, massive population - therefore more chance of weird happenings.

• Until recently they've been a largely insular culture, existing in their own bubble. Now they're quickly becoming 'westernised' and the two culture-styles are butting heads.