10 Unusual Things You Can Buy in China
If you're looking for a new experience, try skydiving. If you want to completely forget the dreary everyday life, buy a ticket to China. And if you're already living there, you'll already know all about it, and owning some of the strangest things available for sale only there is just a few hundred yuan away. Below is a list of the ten most unusual things you can buy in China. If you know of any other interesting items, let us know in the comments.
In 2010, Twin Lakes Crab Co., a Chinese crab supplier, decided that sometimes going to the grocery store wasn't quite convenient. So they built vending machines selling live crabs. These machines were installed in subway stations throughout Nanjing. Imagine a regular vending machine, then replace all the chips and cookies with air-filled plastic containers containing live, moving crabs—that's exactly what it looks like.
The crabs are kept at a temperature of 5 degrees Celsius, cool enough to induce temporary hibernation but not enough to kill them. They sell for about two dollars, and the bottom row of the vending machine also features bottles of ginger vinegar, which is typically served with the crabs.
It's worth noting right away that Panda Tea is a drink made from panda excrement. It's the most expensive tea in the world—a kilogram of this dried tea will set you back approximately $77,000. But why would anyone want to drink it? It's believed that pandas only digest 30 percent of the bamboo they eat, excreting the rest of the unprocessed bamboo in their feces. People believe that, in addition to various nutrients, bamboo contains antioxidants that can prevent cancer, which is why Panda Tea is marketed as an anti-cancer tonic and a weight-loss remedy.
The factory that produces this tea is located in Sichuan Province, and the owner of the Panda Tea brand is Yanshi An, who founded his company by purchasing 11 tons of panda droppings from a nearby panda sanctuary.
Apparently, any food, from noodles to spicy chicken, tastes better when prepared by the cool, metal hands of a robot. Three such establishments already exist in China, clearly demonstrating the growing trend for robotics in the food industry.
In 2011, Chinese inventor Cui Runquan created Chef Cui, a humanoid robot that prepares and serves homemade noodles, a popular dish in China. It's typically prepared by hand-cutting strips of dough and then boiling them in water. The robots are already in mass production, and one can be purchased for around $2,000. To date, over 3,000 of these machines have been sold.
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A fast-food chain in Shanghai also uses robots—but here they're being used as real chefs. Their clear advantage is their efficiency: a single robot can wash dirty dishes, mix ingredients, prepare a meal, and serve the finished order on a plate in just three minutes. The downside? Introducing robots into yet another area of our lives, making their job easier when they want to kill us.