China Buzz

"With his devastatingly handsome, round face, his boyish charm and his strong, sturdy frame, this Pyongyang-bred heartthrob is every womans dream come true."

——A fake news story on Kim Jong-un ranking as the sexiest man alive in The Onion, initially interpreted by Peoples Daily as a serious work of journalism

“A couple can break up after a row, but Japan and China cannot. And the two countries relationship will last much longer than any human life.”

——Uichiro Niwa, former Japanese ambassador to China on the long-troubled relationship

“Female mayors are leaders, yet more than that, they are women.”

——An official with the China City Mayors Association on training for female mayors that includes flower arranging, makeup and tea ceremonies

“A strong army is to be the standard, able to fight and win wars.”

——Communist Party Secretary Xi Jinping while speaking to a military assembly during his tour of southern China

"Every one square meter of Xinjiang nut cake can buy about three square meters of a Beijing apartment."

——A Weibo user regarding a US$25,000 Xinjiang nut cake destroyed in a fight in Yueyang, hunan province

"In economics class, the professor asked what the difference between touzi(‘investment) and touji (‘speculation) is. A guy answered: ‘One is Mandarin, and the other is Cantonese…”

——Weibo user Yan Wuyang on how Hong Kong and mainland Chinese spend money

“The [intellectual-property rights] issue in China is a long march.”

——Alibaba spokesman John Spelich, following Taobaos removal from US list of“notorious” markets for piracy

“Are you from CCTV?”

——Nobel prize winner Mo Yans reply to a male student who asked him if he was happy during an event at swedens Stockholm University

“We have to say that in some of these cases, we [the big firms] could have been more rigorous in our audits”

——KMPG Chairman Michael Andrew on a US lawsuit against accounting firms refusal to turn over Chinese auditing documents