# Is this Chinese video a parody piece or real
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-chinese-video-a-parody-piece-or-real/667681
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [August 31, 2013, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-chinese-video-a-parody-piece-or-real/667681 "2013-08-31T18:57:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2013, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-chinese-video-a-parody-piece-or-real/667681/1 "2013-08-31T18:57:57Z")
[![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=789he-8T_-E)
Chinese villagers dig up a strange mushroom that nobody has seen before, which is actually a discarded sex toy. Is this a real thing, or is this a parody? Everything I can find says this is real (plus I don’t know if the Chinese would allow this kind of humor on TV) but it seems hard to fathom nobody would know what that was. China must have really strict porn filters.
edit: the title should say ‘or’ real not of real.
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2013, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-chinese-video-a-parody-piece-or-real/667681/2 "2013-08-31T19:15:23Z")
It certainly comes off as ‘real.’ Kudos to the makers if it’s a parody or hoax.
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### Author:  [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2013, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-chinese-video-a-parody-piece-or-real/667681/3 "2013-08-31T20:12:38Z")
China has sex toy shops on every other corner, so it’s not like the concept is unknown.
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2013, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-chinese-video-a-parody-piece-or-real/667681/4 "2013-08-31T21:00:51Z")
Do we have any trustworthy third party to translate the speech and titles and vouch for the reality of the station or network that supposedly carried this?
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2013, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-chinese-video-a-parody-piece-or-real/667681/5 "2013-08-31T21:07:56Z")
Once they started spouting actual “knowledge” about it, like that it usually grew in other parts of the country and that it was in the medical journals, it was clear that it was a joke.
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2013, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-chinese-video-a-parody-piece-or-real/667681/6 "2013-08-31T21:15:38Z")
Ah, you’re probably right. It’s very well done, though. I wonder who the original audience was. Does Chinese television do this sort of spoof stuff, like I know Japan does?
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### Author:  [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2013, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-chinese-video-a-parody-piece-or-real/667681/7 "2013-08-31T21:57:49Z")
“What is it for?”
“I don’t know. Fuck it!”
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### Author:  [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2013, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-chinese-video-a-parody-piece-or-real/667681/8 "2013-08-31T23:34:11Z")
> [@even\_sven](#):
>
> China has sex toy shops on every other corner, so it’s not like the concept is unknown.
Only in the big cities and the majority of Chinese still live in the countryside.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2013, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-chinese-video-a-parody-piece-or-real/667681/9 "2013-08-31T23:40:54Z")
Parody, and obviously influenced by **The Gods Must Be Crazy.**
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2013, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-chinese-video-a-parody-piece-or-real/667681/10 "2013-08-31T23:54:35Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> Parody, and obviously influenced by **The Gods Must Be Crazy.**
Probably but not certain, and nahhhh. It’s a basic trope that long predates that film.
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### Author:  [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2013, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-chinese-video-a-parody-piece-or-real/667681/11 "2013-09-01T00:04:16Z")
According to ABC news it was a real story.
> **[Sex Toy Fools Entire Chinese Village](https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/06/sex-toy-fools-entire-chinese-village/)**
>
> Get breaking national and world news, broadcast video coverage, and exclusive interviews. Find the top news online at ABC news.
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2013, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-chinese-video-a-parody-piece-or-real/667681/12 "2013-09-01T00:10:18Z")
I’ll be damned.
I still have trouble believing it was found “eighty meters down.” I mean, did it originally come from Oog-Oog’s Neolithic Marital Aids Shoppe?
I think the report is genuine and the reporter was indeed shenned. But I suspect most of the villagers were in on the joke.
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### Author:  [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2013, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-chinese-video-a-parody-piece-or-real/667681/13 "2013-09-01T01:43:14Z")
The villagers would have never seen anything like it. Rural China is not like rural America. They do not have many modern amenities. And China is a family based prudish society on the whole.
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### Author:  [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2013, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-chinese-video-a-parody-piece-or-real/667681/14 "2013-09-01T02:04:50Z")
Meh, I lived pretty far out there. While you probably won’t find a sex shop in the deepest rural villages, the small town where people buy their seeds and fertilizer probably has a sex toy shop.
China can be prudish about some things, less prudish about others. Our local strip club was a super secret underground mafia place complete with secret passwords, but the brothels operated completely openly. The sex toy shops were not particularly covert.
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### Author:  [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2013, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-chinese-video-a-parody-piece-or-real/667681/15 "2013-09-01T02:23:23Z")
Reading the ABC story, it does seem like someone in the story got fooled at some point. I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t the villagers pulling one over on the reporter, however. “Villager finds fantastical creature” stories (which later turn out to be hoaxes) are a pretty common story on Chinese news.
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### Author:  [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2013, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-chinese-video-a-parody-piece-or-real/667681/16 "2013-09-01T03:14:25Z")
The clip is too fuzzy for me to read the station ID characters. The person who translated said “local dialect” when the local folks are clearly speaking Mandarin with an accent.
Sheeeet, you’re telling me villagers don’t know a rubber product from a plant? These folks are 4 gazillion generations of farmer and they can’t tell a manmade something from a plant??? JFC, get real.
This is a pure put on.
madsircool - have you spent time in rural china? From the building, that is obviously not a poor village. Or at least not a poor house.