Quirky China: Petrol station hires bikini-clad women as pump attendants, elderly man blasted for massaging pregnant granddaughter, and more
A new petrol station in eastern China has hired several women in bikinis to serve customers, attracting so many drivers that their queued cars have blocked surrounding roads, according to local media reports.
The station opened this week in Qingdao, Shandong province, eastern China, with women in bikinis seen filling up cars with petrol and other promotional activities, news site qdxin.cn reported.
The municipal market supervision authority said they have ordered the petrol station to stop the “improper” marketing.
Some people online claimed that many cars flocked to the station mainly due to significant discounts on petrol prices.
An invoice showed that the petrol there was sold at half the price of the original 7.82 yuan (US$1.21) per litre.
Video of grandpa massaging granddaughter causes hysteria
An 89-year-old man in China is at the centre of a new hysteria after being seen massaging his pregnant granddaughter in a video.
In the video which was published online, the heavily pregnant woman, surnamed Zhang, is seen laying on a sofa at her home in Weihai, Shandong province, eastern China, while her grandfather sits in front of her and massages her feet, news site china.com.cn reported.
A public backlash has since arisen, with many who have seen the video online claiming it’s not appropriate for a grandfather to massage his granddaughter as he is an elder member of the family and is of the opposite gender.
The woman responded to the public hysteria that her grandfather had massage experience from when he was young. He initially tried to teach the woman’s mother massage techniques, hoping she could help her daughter, but the mother had not been able to grasp the skills required. So the grandfather had undertaken the massage by himself.
“I also want to let my Grandpa know that I need him now just like when I was a little girl,” Zhang said, adding she has deep feelings for her grandparents.
Coma girl saved after doctors give up
A 17-year-old girl on the verge of brain death was saved after an organ transplant coordinator refused to give up on her and asked medical experts to try one last time to save her.
The teenager, nicknamed Xiao Yu, fell into a coma after overdosing on unnamed medicines at the beginning of this month, the China Youth Daily reported.
Doctors in her hometown of Chibi, Hubei province, central China said she would most likely be almost brain-dead as she had been in a deep coma for many hours. She could not breathe by herself and there were no signs that her brain could recover.
Her parents then agreed to donate her organs hoping her life could be extended through others.
But Ji Chunlan, an organ donation coordinator at a hospital in the provincial capital Wuhan, suggested the parents transfer Xiao Yu to her hospital for further treatment.
“We should not give up a single life for the sake of saving others,” she said. “We must use all our efforts to save a life, even when there is an extremely small chance of success,” she said.
Doctors in Wuhan spent more than 10 hours replacing the girl’s blood to clean out the drugs in her system.
Xiao Yu opened her eyes and regained consciousness soon after the procedure was completed and was discharged after two weeks in the hospital.
This article was first published in South China Morning Post.
