Episode Details

Welcome to China Compass on the Fight Laugh Feast Network! I'm your China travel guide, Missionary Ben. Follow me on Twitter/X (@chinaadventures) where I post new/unique Chinese city prayer profiles every single day. Also, you can email me any questions or comments (bfwesten at gmail dot com) and find everything else, including my books, at PrayGiveGo.us!

During the past couple of weeks, I’ve been podcasting from Turkey. Well, we just landed back in Malaysia this morning and it’s good to be back at my own little desk. Today I want to run through a half dozen or so rando Chinese news articles that I stumbled across this week, mostly in the vein of “Not the Bee”. In other words, crazy true stories that sound almost like satire:

Chinese Bridges Falling Down

https://www.theblaze.com/return/china-bridge-collapse-engineer-experts

Oldest Grapevine in the World in… Tibet?

https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/11/11/Guinness-World-Records-Tibet-grapevine/5031762871976/

Himalayan Mountain Goats Running Wild in… South Africa?

https://www.getaway.co.za/travel-news/look-himalayan-tahrs-spotted-on-table-mountain-cliffs/

China Invented Picnics

https://www.ft.com/content/85c5d51a-5a92-4855-bbfc-2be79a6abee3

Cheap Chinese: Two Meals for $1

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2pvlvdve7o

Beijing's Deflation Dilemma

https://www.yahoo.com/news/beijings-deflation-dilemma-falling-prices-030401849.html

Memoirs of a Beijing Delivery Dude

https://www.economist.com/culture/2025/11/06/what-a-hit-memoir-reveals-about-work-in-china

Typical Chinese School Day

https://fortune.com/2025/11/11/china-us-rivarly-in-the-classroom-longer-days-ai-race-trump-shifts-tone/

Commie-World Problems: Dictators Get Lonely

https://www.newsweek.com/xi-jinping-getting-lonely-at-the-top-after-chinas-new-purge-10887454

Now let's take a look at this coming week's Pray for China (