Migrant workers are being advised to save money and not return to Changhegong this New Year

By RONG REN
Defense Correspondent

DALIAN (China Daily Show) – Until yesterday, Chanhegong was a quiet fishing village in North-East China near the North Korean border with a population of 160,000, known for its clear sea and mackerel fishing.

As of this morning, however, Chanhegong is now a giant crater in the earth, known for its strong smell of death and two-headed fish, with a half-life of 72 years.

China’s leaders have called for peace, calm and the resumption of talks this afternoon, after an early Chinese New Year fireworks display by the village was apparently mistaken for aggressive military action.

North Korean artillery rained down over 400 uranium-enriched shells on the small town of Chanhegong, Liaoning Province, near the Port of Dandong,  after its townspeople let off firecrackers, Roman candles and sparklers during a New Year temple fair.

Despite reports of the devastating attack on Chinese soil, top officials and PLA officers showed no sign of wishing to retaliate, instead issuing a statement maintaining its “firm opposition” towards nuclear strikes by its troubled neighbour and erstwhile ally.

“We will talk about this with [North Korea leader] Kim Jong-un, as he always listens,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Li Fu. “Probably sometime after New Year, though.”

Tensions have been raised on the Korean Peninsula since the 2009 sinking of South Korean warship the Cheonan and an exchange of artillery fire over the small island of Yeonpyeong in the Yellow Sea. On both occasions, China, North Korea’s sole chief ally, refused to join in the chorus of international criticism and instead urging a diplomatic solution to resolving the tensions.

But today, world leaders are asking just what North Korea has to do to provoke any kind of response from its seemingly placid neighbour.

Earlier this month, two North Korean diplomats treated senior Chinese PLA officers in Beijing to an impromptu Three Stooges vaudeville routine, slapping their heads, calling them “knuckleheads” and repeatedly tweaking the nose of one general while chanting, “Nuk, nuk, nuk.”

The Stooges are among the Kims’ favorite comedy acts and are considered essential viewing in North Korea.

In December, Kim Jong-un is reported to have commandeered a Chinese border train loaded with birthday presents and driven it around Hebei Province. “He was tooting the horn, laughing and letting off gunshots into the air,” an eyewitness told China Daily Show. “He then kidnapped a dozen peasants as souvenirs.”

Both events were dismissed as “horseplay” by Foreign Ministry officials.

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By CHUN GE
Spring Festival Correspondent

Ji bought enough fireworks to supply a Guangdong rebel village for a week

HARBIN (China Daily Show) – A Dongbei man has defended his decision to spend roughly half his family’s annual income on fireworks, amid criticism that the country’s orgy of New Year fireworks is growing ever-more pointless and environmentally dangerous.

Ji Guang, a 47-year-old food vendor and father of three, admitted he’d dropped nearly 2,000 yuan on a box of 25 Deng’s Delight Catherine wheels.

Ji told media he also spent 1,500 yuan on Roman candles, plus a hundredweight of Thunder King firecrackers – described by manufacturers as “guaranteed to delight neighbour, shock the Grandma and terrify dogs and small children.”

But Ji denied spending a further 3,000 kuai on a variety pack of luxury artillery shells, arguing the true figure was “more like 2,800.”

Ji said that his proposed Spring Festival show – which experts estimate will last between three to four minutes at best, not including a week of maddening, post-Chunjie firecracker displays – will provide vital memories for his children’s future.

Nutritionists point out that, without proper daily doses of vitamins and protein, his children may not have much of a future.

“Fireworks are a vital part of Chinese culture, which it has fallen upon me to protect,” said Ji. “The children will be fine – the suppliers threw in a box of traditional instant-noodles completely free, as I’d spent over 5,000 yuan by that time.”

And Ji added that his bulk purchase also qualified the family for a corporate gift: a specially commissioned, limited-edition, natural chrysanthemum stone that he received at no extra charge, other than postage, packaging and a reasonable handling fee.

“This is now a precious family heirloom. In the long run, financially, it’s bound to be worth skimping on pork and vegetables for a few months when you consider the stone,” said Ji as he cradled the misshapen item. “Just feel its weight:  the equity on this baby must be, literally, priceless.”

According to his neighbours, however, this isn’t the first time Ji has made an extravagant gesture around Chinese New Year. Last year, he ploughed much of his parents’ savings into a doomed caviar-dumpling enterprise, convinced the rural Heilongjiang market was ready for luxury chunjie goods.

Most of his sturgeon failed to spawn, however.

And a crate of General Wu Rebel Rockets (4,800 yuan/12) Ji provided for his village’s Year of the Rabbit celebrations proved something of a damp squib, with many failing even to ignite. As one eyewitness recalled, “We were promised a fireworks orgy – it was more like watching a bunch of eunuchs.”

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By XING CHOUWEN
Entertainment Correspondent

The ending of the ban is good news for both pornographers and fishermen

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – Servers crashed and internet connections slowed to a crawl yesterday, after Japan ended its recent ban on Chinese exports of specialist pornography, in what is being seen as a diplomatic gesture of seasonal goodwill.

But the move, part of a thawing of diplomatic relations after an unsteady few months, left millions still without proper access, as Internet providers buckled under the strain of the sudden pornfall. Some users were this morning being told that “holiday hand-relief” was effectively canceled until after Chinese New Year.

Senior Chinese ministers were last night demanding to know who was responsible for the lack of preparation, which they said embarrassed China and left it looking like a “developing country, like Vietnam or Great Britain or something.”

Lack of access to porn is seen as a major potential cause of social instability in China. In November, Japanese officials blocked all exports of so-called “rare” pornography as part of a tit-for-tat controversy between the two nations over a sovereignty dispute in the Diaoyu – or Senkaku –  Islands.

Japan, fondly known  in China as “Nipporn”, has long specialized in such erotic exports but the November ban left to an upsurge in fake or shanzhai product, which many described as lacking the production skill and high cinematography values of the real thing.

User Yao Ten, 23, downloaded a copy of Calamari Co-eds 5 only to find it was an inferior Chinese knock-off.  “I found myself watching a group of Shandong women awkwardly rubbing each other with dead eels. A total turn-off,” Yao told China Daily Show.

Since the prohibition was lifted, schools and universities across the country have reported widespread truancy, which is expected to last well into late January.

Undergraduate Yu Men, 24, describes himself as an angry, bitter nationalist to the point of almost total ignorance. Yet he was quick to praise its adult cinema industry: “Japan is highly superior in the quality of their adult videos compared to China, mainly because they are perverted, barbarian running dogs,” he said, adding, “I’ll give them their due, though: their porn is top-notch.”

Search engines and forums pledged this morning to put their engineers on full alert to maintain connectivity, while UNAIDS ambassador and TV personality James Chau has promised those unable to download authentic squid porn free access to an infamous full four-hour bootleg sex tape, featuring Chau, that recently surfaced on the web.

In a public ceremony yesterday attended by international media, Japanese Foreign Minister Yamata Hatanzi handed Politburo representative Li Fu a specially commissioned copy of Conger Conga 4, featuring AV star Erika Sato with a cast of thousands of fish and underage schoolgirls.

Accepting the gift on behalf of senior Chinese officials, Li said: “Our countries may disagree on some things but fundamentally see eye-to-eye over the need to maintain a constant balance of trade between cheap, disposable plastic goods and 90-minute DVDs of Japanese women being molested by octopi.”

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