7,000 gold-digging Chinese women apply for a matchmaking cruise

by Annie Scott on

The JiaYuan matchmaking service in China is hosting a modern-day Cinderella ball. And friends, it’s a juicy one.

Basically, they’re taking applications to fill 80 spaces: 40 men and 40 women. The men must be worth over $7 million, and the women, well … “they will be stringently screened for their looks, physique and intellect, with marriage counselors on hand to judge whether they are ‘kind, gentle and tasteful,'” organizer Cheng Yongsheng told the Xinhua news agency, according to Reuters.

Apparently, after last year’s event (which includes a banquet, a ball, a five-star hotel and a cruise, all over the course of just two days), ten couples began dating and one couple has even gotten married. It’s like a reality show without the cameras.

Over 7,000 women in China have reportedly applied. Seven thousand! If you’re “kind, gentle and tasteful,” maybe you should, too. But you’re going to have to speak Chinese to navigate the website, and you’re also going to have to admit to yourself that you’re a gold-digger.

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If you’re into this, you should also check out Mike Barish’s article on Air New Zealand’s matchmaking flight.
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Rube Goldberg meets Japan: The bizarre Japanese art of Chindogu

by Aaron Hotfelder on

“If you’re not thinking about Japan every day,” popular blogger Tyler Cowen likes to say, “you’ve yet to wake up.”

Today’s bizarrely fascinating cultural nugget from Japan: Chindogu. Literally translated as “weird tool,” Chindogu is the Japanese art of creating deliberately complex devices that solve simple everyday problems. It’s Rube Goldberg meets Japan.

And Chindogu, like just about everything else, has developed a cult following on the internet. There’s the International Chindogu Society, the Ten Tenets of Chindogu (Number Three: “Inherent in every Chindogu is the spirit of anarchy”), and scores of websites devoted to tracking the newest, and most ridiculous, Chindogu inventions.

Here are a few of the most creative examples of Chindogu…

The Solar-Powered Lighter (above)

Tired of running out of fluid in your lighter? Fed up with wet matches that won’t make a spark? Now there’s a better, greener way to light your cigarette– with the solar-powered Chindogu lighter. (Note: May not work at night, or on cloudy days, or at all.)

More examples below the fold…

The Dumbbell Phone

People cite “lack of time” as the number one reason they don’t work out more. With the dumbbell phone, that’s no longer an excuse. Great for bulking up at your otherwise worthless telemarketing job, this phone will have you shaped and sculpted in no time.

This phone also makes a great gift, especially to that parent, friend, or girlfriend who’s been known to talk your ear off on the phone. It’s subtle, but effective, especially for those with weak arms.

The Chopstick Fan

There’s nothing like a warm bowl of ramen to make all your problems disappear. But when the noodles and broth are scalding hot, you’re just asking for trouble. Fortunately, some of the most creative minds in Japan have come up with the solution:

The Grid-Backed Shirt

Finally, we all know how difficult it is to tell your partner exactly where your back itches. “A little to the left– no, too far. Wait, higher, no, lower…” Enough!

With the Grid-Backed Shirt, you’ll be able to tell your partner the precise location of even your most obstinate itches. Just imagine the efficiency of directing your significant other that you’d like “four scratches in D-7, please.”

Ahh, that feels good.

For more mostly useless but always hilarious Chindogu inventions, go here.

For more from Japan, dig into Gadling’s archives and check out Matt Firestone’s excellent series Big in Japan.

New to Hong Kong Disneyland: Big Grizzly Mountain

by Alison Brick on

The Wild West is going farther west. So far west that it’s the far east.

The newest roller coaster announced for Hong Kong Disneyland is Big Grizzly Mountain. Set to open in 2012, it will be the main attraction in Grizzly Trail — Hong Kong’s version of the original park’s Frontierland.

The ride follows a runaway mine train through the mining town of Grizzly Gulch, which comes decked out with a stagecoach, a jailhouse, and the world’s largest nugget of gold — plus the ubiquitous audio-animatronic bears, of course. Disney legend has it that Grizzly Gulch was founded by gold prospectors on August 8, 1888 — all of the eights make it the luckiest day, month, and year in Chinese culture.

Big Grizzly Mountain will be part roller coaster, part water ride — with geysers, leaking buildings, and a splashdown finale.

These are big days at the theme park. This ride is just part of a $500 million expansion that will add on three new theme lands — Grizzly Trail, Mystic Point, and Toy Story Land — to increase the size of the park by 23%.

[Thanks, LATimes.com]

World Heritage Sites done in Legos

by Kraig Becker on

The World Heritage Sites are some of the most amazing places on the planet. The list, maintained by UNESCO, spotlights places from around the globe that hold particular cultural or natural significance. Many of the places on the list are amongst the top tourist attractions in the world, so what better way to do them honor, then to replicate them with Legos?

Eco-friendly website Environmental Graffiti has an amazing gallery of some of the most famous sites in the world remade through the use of the popular interlocking bricks. Some of the places that get the Lego treatment include the Acropolis, found in Athens, Greece and the Great Pyramid of Giza, complete with Sphinx, from Cairo, Egypt. Red Square in Moscow, the Statue of Liberty, and even the Taj Mahal, amongst others, are impressively recreated using the iconic toy.

The amount of work that must have gone into these recreations is quite impressive, as the smallest details have been painstakingly added to the models. Personally, I think I’m most impressed by the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but each of them is a work of art in its own right. Perhaps Lego should make a new “World Heritage Series” so that we can all recreate our favorite places when we get home from our travels.

An open letter to Kim Jong-Il of North Korea

by Sean McLachlan on

Dear Leader,

I’ve heard that’s how you like to be addressed by the people of North Korea, but since this is the beginning of a letter I guess I should say Dear Dear Leader.

My editor sent me this article claiming that while your people are starving you own six luxurious trains fitted with high-tech communications facilities, conference rooms, and even ballrooms. Since you’re reportedly afraid of flying, I can understand you needing a train with all the communication equipment you’d find in, say, Air Force One, but do you really need the ballrooms? Do you like to invite your nuclear scientists to an evening of waltzing?

Perhaps this story isn’t true. Not all stories about dictators are, after all. The rumor that Hitler only had one ball is highly debatable, for example, and while you did kidnap a South Korean director to start your own movie industry, that doesn’t mean that you have 19 train stations around the country for your exclusive use. This report was in a South Korean newspaper and cited U.S. and South Korean intelligence agencies. Not the most sympathetic observers, to be sure.

I’d like to get to the bottom of this, so here’s a modest proposal. How about you set up a railway tour of North Korea? If you don’t have any luxury trains, you can market it as “Adventure Travel” and bring in rugged backpackers accustomed to hard journeys on third-class trains. If you really do have some luxury trains, perhaps you could spare one of your six, ballroom included, and market it as “Luxury Travel”. You’ll attract a richer clientele and prove your generosity by opening up one of your moving ballrooms for public use.

Instead of paying money, the visitors could pay with food. The food could be pulled along in boxcars behind the ballroom and distributed to your needy people along the way. This would be a great propaganda coup. Your media could broadcast how the Dear Leader is giving up one of his trains to feed his people. Getting your people to actually believe your media is your problem.

I would, of course, be invited along to cover the event. I’ve always been curious about your country and this would be a good way to see it. I’d even bring along some food to give to hungry North Koreans, whom I would insist on interviewing privately and anonymously about life under your rule.

I know you’re going to see this, because even a relatively unknown writer like me Googles himself on a regular basis, and I’m sure you have a whole team of secret police Googling you. So what do you think? Shall we prove those South Koreans wrong and make North Korea the newest destination for backpackers? Or perhaps prove them right and make North Korea the new Monaco? I promise that if you let me leave the country alive I’ll publish a series of features right here on Gadling, and give you an idea of what your people say about you behind your back.

sincerely,

Sean McLachlan

PS: Don’t kidnap me. I have no experience making nuclear weapons or movies.