January 6, 2008
The Changchun-based City Evening News ran a notice on its front page (see the front page photo) looking for jigsaw expert to recover five thousand yuan worth of banknotes which were accidentally shredded in a corn grinder.
The owner of the shredded notes is a farmer named Ji Zhankui. At the beginning of last year, Ji decided to store the money in the corn grinder. His home had previously been burglarized and he believed the grinder to be a safe place. A few months later, he needed to grind corn for pig feed but forgot the money was there. By the time he realized the red scraps of paper pouring out of the machine represented the family’s total income for the previous year, it was already too late.
All the banks he has contacted have refused to accept the money. Now Ji’s only hope is to reassemble three-fourths of each note, which the People’s Bank of China will exchange for the full face-value.
Also:
● A number of brands of a hair dye shampoo that promised results in minutes were found to contain m-Phenylenediamine and p-Phenylenadiamine, two carcinogens. The low-cost products, sold under the name 一洗黑 (“black in one rinse”), claimed to be “completely natural.” The news was first broken by a CCTV consumer investigation program.
● Hong Kong singer and actress Vivian Chow got married to her long-time partner Joe Ngai yesterday. Chow was highly popular in the 1990s, both in Hong Kong and on the Mainland. The news of their marriage comes after Ngai’s highly-publicized sex scandal last month which led to an announcement that the two had broken up.
- City Evening News (Chinese): Farmer loses five thousand kuai to his corn grinder