Global Oddities

Almost 400 South Koreans have applied to marry a millionairess who advertised for a soulmate but only eight “serious-minded” applicants will make the final cut, a matchmaking agency said.

The 49-year-old woman who is reportedly worth 18 million dollars has been seeking a husband through an online advertisement since May 20, a spokeswoman for Sunoo matchmaking agency said.
Some 394 men — including doctors, lawyers, accountants, soldiers and government employees and ranging in age from 26 to 49 years — responded to the advertisement.
“As a business operator, she was too busy to find her husband herself,” the spokeswoman told AFP.
“We initially planned to keep the bid open until the end of this month but the woman felt burdened by unwelcome media attention and she wanted it closed Tuesday.”
The woman picked eight of the men for interviews and is expected to meet two or three of them per month over the next three months.
They are aged between 37 and 49 and include company employees, teachers and bank workers.
“The bride prefers average but serious persons to high-flying professionals,” the spokeswoman said.
“She wants a soulmate with a passion for life, who will share the ups and downs of life with her.”
Source: AFP June 17, 2009

A 96-year-old Taiwanese man who will receive his master’s degree in philosophy this weekend said he was able to compete with younger students by pulling all-nighters before exams.
Chao Mu-he, better known to his classmates at Nanhua University in southern Taiwan as “Grandpa Chao,” said he began graduate school after being told he was too old to continue as a volunteer at a local hospital.

“I was bored after I left the hospital,” Chao said Thursday. “I don’t play mahjong or have other hobbies. I felt I had to do something with my life.”

In London, a spokeswoman for Guinness World Records said she could not say if Chao is the oldest recipient of a graduate degree because the company does not keep records in this category.

Chao said the most difficult part of his studies was coping with a poor memory.

“I can’t remember things as well as my fellow students,” he said. “So before a test I would wake up at midnight and study all night. That way, the material was still fresh in my mind when the test began.”

He specialized in the works of Chuangtze, a 4th century B.C. Taoist master.

Twenty-five-year-old classmate Liang Yu-chen described Chao as a polite and modest man who got on well with fellow students and paid great respect to younger teachers — making a deep bow before addressing them.

“Grandpa Chao is a living example of Chuangtze’s teachings” Liang said. “He is always at ease, not fighting anyone.”

A spokeswoman at Nanhua’s graduate school, where Chao will get his degree Saturday, confirmed that he was born on July 4, 1912.

Chao, who lives alone, said he was uncertain about his future plans.

“I just want to stay healthy,” he said.

Source: AP, June 16, 2009

Embattled former President Roh Moo-hyun — a reformist shamed by a corruption scandal that tarnished his image as a “clean” politician — jumped to his death while hiking in the mountains behind his rural home in South Korea, his lawyer said. He was 62.
Roh was hiking in Bongha village when he threw himself off a steep cliff around 6:40 a.m. Saturday, lawyer Moon Jae-in told reporters in the southern city of Busan. He said Roh left a suicide note.
The former president of South Korea, Roh Moo-Hyun, committed suicide by jumping off a cliff while hiking behind his house, according to Roh’s attorney.
“Too many people are suffering because of me,” he wrote, according to South Korean media.
Roh was taken to Busan National University Hospital, where he was declared dead several hours later.
A self-taught lawyer who lifted himself out of poverty to reach the nation’s highest office, Roh prided himself on his clean record in a country with a long history of corruption. He served as president from 2003 to 2008.
But he and his family have been ensnared in recent weeks in a burgeoning bribery scandal.
The suicide — the first by a South Korean president — stunned the nation. South Koreans nationwide huddled around TV screens watching news broadcasts.
“I was utterly shocked,” said Chun Soon-im, 63, of Seoul. “They say ‘hate the sin but not the sinner,’ and that’s how I feel. The investigation must continue and we must get to the truth, but I cannot help feeling sorry for the man and those left behind.”
Last month, state prosecutors questioned Roh for some 13 hours about allegations that he accepted more than $6 million in bribes from a South Korean businessman while in office — accusations that deeply shamed him.
“I have no face to show to the people. I am sorry for disappointing you,” an emotional Roh said April 30 before speaking to prosecutors.

Source: AP, May 23, 2009

Officials in a county in central China have been told to smoke nearly a quarter million packs of locally made cigarettes annually or risk being fined, state media reported.

The Gong’an county government in Hubei province has ordered its staff to puff their way through 230,000 packs of Hubei-produced cigarette brands a year, the Global Times said.
Departments that fail to meet their targets will be fined, according to the report.
“The regulation will boost the local economy via the cigarette tax,” said Chen Nianzu, a member of the Gong’an cigarette market supervision team, according to the paper.
The measure could also be a ploy to aid local cigarette brands such as Huanghelou, which are under severe pressure from competitors in neighbouring Hunan province, according to the paper.
China has 350 million smokers, of whom a million die of smoking-related diseases every year.
More than half of all male doctors in China smoke, but the government is now trying harder to get them to kick the habit in order to set an example for others, state media reported recently.
Source: AFP, May 4, 2009

A South Korean woman who held a funeral for her husband after claiming he was lost at sea scammed insurers out of 800,000 dollars before he was found alive and well, police said Tuesday.

The fraud in the southeastern town of Tongyeong is part of an increasing trend of bogus claims, insurers say.
It began in March 2006 when she told police that her husband had failed to return from a fishing trip, a police spokesman in the nearby city of Changwon told AFP.
The husband had left his boat adrift and sneaked back ashore on a different boat as a major sea search was launched.
He went to ground for some three years elsewhere in the country as his wife successfully filed claims totalling 1.1 billion won with six insurance firms.
She even held a funeral for her spouse, receiving the customary condolence cash payments from mourners.
The pair finally came to grief when the husband shared his secret with an acquaintance during a drinking session and the friend reported it to police.
They will face criminal charges, the police spokesman said.
The Seoul Shinmun newspaper said insurance scams were becoming “low-risk, high-return” crimes.
Kim Seong, an official of the General Insurance Association of Korea, told the daily such crimes have risen sharply since the 1997 economic crisis,
The Financial Supervisory Commission said 41,019 people were caught over insurance frauds last year, up 33 percent from a year earlier.
“However, statistics on insurance frauds fail to reflect reality, as many people are believed to get away with these crimes,” Kim said.
Source: AFP, April 21, 2009

A survey of more than 1,000 men in India has concluded that condoms made according to international sizes are too large for a majority of Indian men.
The study found that more than half of the men measured had penises that were shorter than international standards for condoms.
It has led to a call for condoms of mixed sizes to be made more widely available in India.
The two-year study was carried out by the Indian Council of Medical Research.
Over 1,200 volunteers from the length and breadth of the country had their penises measured precisely, down to the last millimetre.
The scientists even checked their sample was representative of India as a whole in terms of class, religion and urban and rural dwellers.
The conclusion of all this scientific endeavour is that about 60% of Indian men have penises which are between three and five centimetres shorter than international standards used in condom manufacture.
Source: BBC news online, April 20, 2009

A Vietnamese airline passenger has been found carrying an infant’s dead body in his luggage, a senior security official said.

Security staff at southern Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat airport discovered the tiny corpse when checking the luggage of a man about to fly to the northern port city of Hai Phong, the official said, refusing to be named or to provide other details.

According to the Thanh Nien newspaper, Vu Van Tho, 36, was trying to carry home for burial the body of his son, who died when his mother prematurely gave birth.

A similar case was reported last year when a passenger was discovered carrying the body of a relative’s daughter. She died a day after birth and was being returned to the family’s native province for burial.

According to Vietnamese tradition, a dead body can rest in peace only if buried in its native homeland.
Source: AFP, April 19, 2009

China’s official media and outspoken bloggers on Friday protested over a German advert promoting the use of condoms which shows revolutionary leader Mao Zedong as a sperm cell alongside Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden.

The Communist Party’s People’s Daily devoted a page to the storm, quoting internet commentaries which called for the makers of the advert to apologize to China.
The Global Times newspaper said advertising agency Grey Worldwide, which made the safe sex advert for Doc Morris Pharmacies, had sent a letter of apology to the Chinese consulate in Frankfurt.
The campaign showing Mao, Hitler and Bin Laden as human spermatozoids has sparked a debate in China and among international blogging. Not all Chinese appear to agree with the official line of anger.
“I am a former worker who is now 70. I have thought about it a lot and I still cannot understand why these people defend Mao so strongly,” said one comment on the sina.com website.
Last year, French car maker Peugeot Citroen apologized for using an advert in Spain which showed Mao as a cross-eyed old man.
Source: AFP, April 17, 2009

An Indonesian maid has appeared in a Hong Kong court accused of adding menstrual blood to her employer’s food in an effort to improve their stormy relationship, a report said Thursday.

Indra Ningsih, aged 26, mixed the blood in a pot of vegetables in the belief that the recipe would help smooth over her difficult work environment, The Standard newspaper reported.
In some southeast Asian cultures, menstrual blood is thought to have special powers, the paper added.
The maid has been charged with one count of “administering poison or other destructive or noxious substances with intent to injure,” and has not yet entered a plea.
The report cited a prosecution statement that said Ningsih’s ingredient had been discovered after her female employer, surnamed Mok, peered through the kitchen door and saw the helper acting suspiciously.
She entered the kitchen and found the accused throwing something into the rubbish bin. When she checked the pot, she found blood clot-like substances mixed with the vegetables and water, the English-language daily said.
Mok later discovered a used sanitary napkin in the bin and called the police, according to the paper.
Ningsih told police Mok had been unhappy with her performance since being hired last July.
The helper was remanded in custody until the next hearing on May 13.
Hong Kong has around 200,000 domestic workers, the vast majority from the Philippines and Indonesia.
Source: AFP, April 16, 2009

A Thai citizen has been sentenced to 10 years in jail for violating strict laws against insulting the monarchy.

A court in Bangkok said Suwicha Thakho, 34, digitally altered images of King Bhumibol Adulyadej and his family and posted them on the internet.

The court did not say how the pictures were changed or where they appeared, but local media cited YouTube.

Thai officials say more than 5,000 websites have been blocked in the past year for insulting the monarchy.

Thailand’s royal family is sheltered from public debate by some of the world’s most stringent “lese-majeste” laws, as the police and army try to suppress what they fear is a rising tide of anti-monarchy sentiment.

One political activist was jailed for six years in November for an anti-monarchy speech she made just a stone’s throw from the old royal palace last July.

Several other people are awaiting trial.

But in February the king pardoned Australian writer Harry Nicolaides, who was sentenced to three years in jail for insulting the crown prince in a little-known book.

The 81-year-old king also pardoned a Swiss man who was given a 10-year sentence two years ago for defacing his portrait.

Source: BBC news online, April 3, 2009