An ostrich escaped from a farm and ran alongside cars on a road in the Changying area of Beijing yesterday around 8 pm, reports Shanghai Daily. “The ostrich, apparently upset by noise made by vehicles passing by, ran down the guardrails of a farm as it was being fed, according to the person surnamed Yu who is in charge of the ostrich farm.” Lest you think we’re surprised… we’re not. We’ve seen this before:

An ostrich escaped from a zoo in Zhangzhou, Fujian province recently and proceeded to run, ostrich-like, against traffic. It knocked over a motorcyclist before twice being hit by cars. Each time, it picked itself up, shook off the cobwebs, and continued running, because it’s an ostrich.

That story was from just over a year ago. May is a time for ostrich jailbreaks.

And what is it with animals on the Beijing streets lately? Just Saturday, we had a horse befriended by a dog on Fifth Ring Road. Like that incident, this one also appears to have a happy ending:

Yu failed to keep up with the ostrich but finally found it and brought it back to the farm with the help of residents and policemen.

For entertainment’s sake, let’s relive what happened to last year’s ostrich that got loose:

Bye bye birdy (Shanghai Daily)

Your daily dose of China, everyone. Here’s CRI with the details:

A horse fully equipped with saddle and bridle was seen running a very fast pace on the northern section of the 5th ring road in Beijing in the morning of May 10, 2014.

Multiple Weibo posts from drivers at the scene say a man with a pony tail was running some 400 meters behind the horse and may have been the owner of the horse.

A man with a ponytail chasing a pony on a Beijing highway. This can’t get better, can it?

The scene escalated when one driver’s dog jumped out of a car and started chasing the man and the horse. The driver then got out of her car and chased the dog.

I spoke too soon.

A happy ending for all:

The two animals were stopped 20 minutes later at a nearby exit. Both owners left with their respective pets and left the scene before police arrived.

(H/T Brittany Hite)

Killing these and other endangered species is illegal in China, but enforcement is lax. Fortunately, the Global Times takes animal rights very seriously. Just look at last week’s cartoon on dolphin hunting in Japan.

Still, at least it’s ostensibly illegal in China. Looks like we’re going to need a more robust regulatory apparatus.

They asked Yao Shaoshuang when he was coming home to celebrate Spring Festival.

Throwing his saddle over his shoulder, he whispered “马上”.

But really Shaohuang, a competitive rider, couldn’t buy a train ticket to get to his mother and law’s home, and so decided to ride his steed home to ring in the year of the horse in style. Netizens loved it, and photos of his trip have gone viral.

Additional Reporting: Chendu Daily, CNS Wire

Check out these diners at a McDonald’s in Kowloon City — photo via Apple Daily — “wailing,” according to Coconuts Hong Kong, at the sight of a seven-inch rat scavenging for food.

A McDonald’s staff responded quickly by hitting the rat with a Bruce Lee move with a stick using so much force that the stick broke into two and got the rat right on target.

Seven inches is impressive, but here’s a 45-inch rat caught and killed in Hunan province. Then eaten, by the way. There’s a socioeconomics lesson here: developed vs. developing.

The hell?

These are real mice tied to a tree in Chengdu, Sichuan province, arms spread like transepts. The writing reads, “I was wrong, I repent.”

Hug China has more information, via Sichuan Online:

The police, amused by the scene, published the picture on their verified Weibo account @PinganShuangliu at around 2:00 pm on Friday:

Who did this? They even dared to establish a court in front of the police station and executed the thieves in broad daylight!

We’re not sure who did this — tied mice to a tree, that is — but to reiterate the block-quoted section above: police published this picture… as a warning against theft, it appears.

Some netizens have taken their own message:

NetEase user 莫谈国事哦: It will cheer the people greatly when corrupted officials are paraded publicly on the street.

NetEase user  花開o : There are rat thieves all over the country. These rats are fat and big, running amuck across the country and they disguise themselves as civil servants, but our police pretend to be not aware of the situation.

NetEase user 正义鹰派 : I suppose it will take detering effect if those sexually assaulting small girls can be paraded in this way.

Don’t tie mice to a tree.

Three mice are tied up to and ‘paraded publicly’… (Hug China)

Have you seen this monkey, Beijingers?

Here, you’re more likely to have seen him from this angle:

That’s because it ran away from authorities on Tuesday morning along East Third Ring Road. “The monkey was first seen at 8 am of November 5, whereupon it evaded capture by the police and is now believed to be somewhere around Taiyanggong,” reports Global Times.

In that article, we also learn that a baboon escaped from Beijing Zoo on October 31. That baboon is not this rhesus monkey; that one is — presumably — still on the loose in our urban jungle.

This rhesus stole food from vendors, which was cute enough of a scene that some people offered to pay for it, reports That’s Online. That’s good to hear. Keep to the right side of Fourth Ring Road — the inner side — and it should be okay. No guarantees for what happens if it ventures into the boonies.

Shit, these things don’t know when to quit. Killer hornets are in Shaanxi, you already know, but they’re also ravaging the Guizhou countryside.

ITN brings us this latest report: nearly 30 children have suffered organ failure due to wasp stings.

“A lot of hornets surrounded my head,” said one survivor who was stung more than 70 times. “My head felt really sore and my heart started racing.”

Nature is terrifying.

(H/T Shanghaiist)

“It’s not just children who like it. The core value of the rubber duck is to bring back childlike innocence to all of us, especially weary adults.” – Zeng Hui, head of the Beijing Design Week Organizing Committee

This past summer, the CCP wiped three dangerous terms from the Internet: June 4, May 35, and “Big Yellow Duck.”

For the third term, the culprit — a doctored photo of a rather famous person staring down three tank-sized ducks — disappeared from most Chinese sites before it could become viral. When I first saw it, I imagined John Filo’s 1970 photo of a cold, dead body in a university quad, the incredulous onlookers’ faces superimposed with those of Bert and Ernie.

I kept the nightmares at bay, at least until the announcement that Florentijn Hofman’s “Rubber Duck” (in quotes because, ostensibly, this is True Art) was to be airlifted out of Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor to Beijing Design Week.

Well, not airlifted. Replicated. What’s the difference?

The end was near.

An 18-meter-tall ode to a bathroom toy, supported by PVC pipe and pontoons. A disposable thing, a multicolored, artificial thing, floating under the shadow of the Summer Palace. To quote Hofman’s webpage, “The Rubber Duck knows no frontiers; it doesn’t discriminate people and doesn’t have a political connotation. The friendly, floating Rubber Duck has healing properties: it can relieve mondial tensions as well as define them. The rubber duck is soft, friendly and suitable for all ages!”

Hofman channeled what must have been a common sight from his own childhood bathtub, and took it for a multiyear, worldwide tour to Auckland, Sao Paulo, Pittsburgh, Kaohsiung, and now Beijing. He and his promoters could only have assumed that (1) the rubber duck is a universally recognized image; and (2) no one would raise a ruckus if it was placed in a park, or a harbor, or, say, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

They may be right, even if the Chinese translation of “Big Yellow Duck” rejects any nostalgic familiarity. I had to take a look and see what the fuss was about. On the first day of Golden Week, I got off at the Xiyuan subway station in search for the sculpture. Riding up the escalator, I had already counted two dozen ducks, in plush form, held tightly by children and girlfriends.

At the gate near Kunming Lake, street vendors blocked most of the entryways with jianbing stands converted into Duck stores. I swam through and made my way towards the gate.

The Duck faces southeast, with its back towards Longevity Hill. The Seventeen Arch Bridge had the best location for pictures, as long as one was able to secure a spot at the front of the crowd.

The Duck was, in all truth, the least exciting thing on display. It was cordoned off by a circle of buoys which prevented any of the tourist boats from slamming directly into it. A lone boat underneath the Duck housed a man one could call the Duck Doctor, spot checking the Duck and keeping an eye out for any dangers (thrown cigarettes? vandals?) that may endanger his patient.

I yawned. The people were more interesting. I surveyed the shag carpet landscape of cameras and plush dolls. I had more questions than answers. When taking a picture, what’s the most popular pose? (A: Pretend to grab the Duck’s beak.) Why are all of these boats willing to ram each other for a closer look at the Duck? (A: Because you only live once.)

I started to leave, underwhelmed and perplexed as to why, of all of the stops on the Duck’s worldwide tour, the representative bathtubs of China have brought the largest crowds. There’s been something about inflatable art in China as of late. The Duck will one day leave Beijing, but copies and counterfeits will remain.

Like many other foreigner armchair commentators in this jeweled capital city, I tend to assume wrongly that everything Weibo’d on Weibo wields a sharp axe to social and political conventions of China, when we very well know that it is rarely the case, and at the end of the day, most people just want to take pictures of food. The Duck Man picture, even if it was uncensored tomorrow, would likely be buried underneath millions of self-portraits.

But after my brief visit with the Duck, the picture — and its political connotations — made much more sense. The Ducks are coming, part of a steady invasion of 21st-century kitsch, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Before exiting, I turned around for one last look at our new overlord. Long live the true Beijing Duck.

Chris tweets @chrisclayman and keeps a Tumblr.

It’s 42, to be precise. Reuters:

Swarms of giant hornets have killed 42 people and injured 1,640 in China’s northwestern province of Shaanxi in recent weeks, the official Xinhua news agency said on Thursday.

Now you know. Please resume whatever it is you were doing, hopefully not getting killed by hornets.

Previously: At Least 18 People Have Died Of Wasp Attacks In Shaanxi Recently

UPDATE, 3:34 pm: Business Insider brings us this video via Liveleak (h/t James Griffiths) of a hornet wound:

Ouch.

The Hunan-based Sanxiang Metropolis Daily brings us this picture of a 5.1-kilogram, 90-centimeter-long (nearly a meter!) rat that you just might be seeing in your nightmares.

On the afternoon of September 25, villagers in Shaoyang, Hunan province found this beast diving for fish in a pond. Villagers reportedly had been on the lookout because they were routinely losing fish and didn’t know why.

They saw two ginormous rats and managed to capture and at least the one above.

Some villagers have reportedly speculated that this freakish creature — “Godzilla rat,” as Want China Times puts it – may have been introduced from elsewhere (America was specifically cited, though who knows).

In the second-to-last paragraph, Sanxiang Metropolis Daily reports that a few villagers cooked the rat that same night and downed it with alcohol. (Hang on a sec while my stomach squrims.) Because the rat’s bones were too big, two knives were broken — I’m just reporting what’s in Sanxiang Metropolis Daily — while chopping the meat.

Is Godzilla rat more or less frightening than killer hornets the size of adult human palms? You decide!

I’m no zoologist, but maybe tigers deserve a bit more dignity than tugging on a knapsack pulled by two-legged jackals?

Some netizens seem to agree. Via Shanghai Daily:

Many netizens thought the games between human beings and tigers are inappropriate. One netizen worried that a tooth of the tigers might be pulled out.

This is at Changsha Ecological Zoo in Changsha, Hunan province. A live chicken is in that sack. Tourists pay 45 yuan for the right to participate.

It is reported that in one such game, seven tourists lost to a four-year-old Amur tiger.

We’ve seen this before. Last October, a zoo in Wuhan pulled out the rope for tigers to tug against humans, prompting me to write, “Judging by the popularity of the spectacle, expect copycat schemes to pop up in zoos around the country.” What took so long?

The Changsha zoo’s public relations team has tried to spin the activity as being healthy for the tigers:

Yi Ting, a media staffer at the zoo, said yesterday that the tug-of-war game aims to train the wild Siberian tigers and stimulate them, avoiding sickness that could be caused by their long-term captivity in the zoo. Tourists who buy a ticket for 45 yuan (US$7.36) can participate in the game.

That’s incredible. Look at that quote again. A zoo that keeps animals in captivity long-term is admitting that its solution to preventing sickness caused by long-term zoo captivity is… tug-of-war.

No wonder sometimes zoo animals here sometimes look like this.

Zoo’s tiger-human tug-of-war game condemned by netizens (Shanghai Daily via Sina, h/t Alicia)

UPDATE, 10/1, 2:55 pm: Here’s a video via The Diplomat:

There’s a horror movie in here somewhere — or at least an unnecessary flashback to Thomas J’s death in My Girl.

At least 18 people have died from wasp attacks in Angkang, Shaanxi province in recent months, according to the Guardian, citing city health official Zhou Yuanhong, who says more than 100 people in the area have been stung.

China Youth Net reports even higher numbers: 230 people have been stung and 21 have died in the past three months. The wasps in the area have reportedly been known to pursue their human targets for up to 200 meters. One eyewitness said, “I ran to the side of the road calling for help, but the wasps chased me for 200 meters, surrounded me and stung me for close to three minutes.”

Are villagers organizing raiding parties of wasp strongholds?

Other anecdotes include women being stung in the fields, elderly men being surrounded by dark circles of wasps in the woods, and people generally running for their lives.

Doctors say that those who have been stung up to 10 times should check themselves into the hospital.

The chief physician in the nephrology department at Ankang Central Hospital said wasp and hornet stings can result in chest tightness, palpitations, kidney, liver, and heart damage.

The hospital is reportedly setting up treatment groups specifically for bee/wasp/hornet stings. Those who are stung by wasps are advised to clean their wounds with vinegar.

A local Centers for Disease Control official also issued a public reminder that households should not try to provoke hornet nests, but should call on qualified professionals to deal with the situation.

By the way: rural animals in China have been known to terrorize the local human population before.

UPDATE, 10/1, 3:19 pm: This is the size of the giant hornets we’re talking about, via Gawker:

UPDATE, 3:34 pm: Via Business Insider, another look at a hornet wound:

Typhoon Usagi, with winds of up to 110 mph, began lashing southern China over the weekend, leaving at least 25 people dead in Guangdong province. At least one hippopotamus also finds itself stranded.

CRI has pictures of this friendly hippo lying in water outside a park in Shantou, Guangdong province. We’re told this two-ton fella has lived in the zoo since 2008; we can only hope that it finds its way back before too long.

Also, it should not pull an ostrich and run down the road.

(H/T Austin Ramzy)

Holy tiggobitties, Batman! These well-endowed cartoon characters have reportedly become a recent online hit. Via Shanghaiist: 

According to Xinhua, ‘Police Dog Rescue Crew’, produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio in 1993, was part of a public-service cartoon about post-earthquake recuse efforts. The ‘flashing’ mouse and pig were in fact volunteering to breastfeed the homeless.

Breastfeed the homeless? That’s some grade-A Grapes of Wrath shit there. Rose of Sharon would be proud.

p.s. Reminds us of this.