Beyond expectations

The East is odd: Nearly four billion people live in Asia, so something weird’s got to be going on around the world’s most populous continent, right? Short answer, yes—everything from an army base in Taiwan staffed by fake soldiers made out of cardboard, to a 77-year-old Japanese granny who teaches Italian soldiers karate after handing them their asses, to consumers in China buying weird, toaster-shaped cars with moving boxes full of cash. If that’s not enough, Koreans can get ringtones for dogs, lonely Japanese geeks can get tiny robot girlfriends and, in Thailand, a man has developed a solar-powered chicken grill that requires welder’s goggles to operate, at www.weirdasiannews.com.

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Comments? mikecitrome@yahoo.com
—Michael Citrome