Chinese Drug makers Office Looks Like Royal Palace

The luxury interior decoration of the office building belonging to the state-owned Harbin Pharmaceutical Group Sixth factory in Harbin, in northeast China's Heilongjiang province. The building contains three floors of offices and three more floors of a print museum belonging to the state-owned pharmaceutical firm.

It looks more like a view of a luxurious palace for one of the world's richest leaders - but this is actually the interior of an office building. Even more surprising is that the block is in China, a country more known for its minimalist, functional approach.

Li Xiaomeng, a CCTV anchor, said in his weibo.com (China’s twitter): “The first reaction is, the 6 Pharmaceutical Factory of Harbin Pharmaceutical Group is a state-controlled enterprise. According to the Ministry of Finance, in 2010 the state-owned enterprises realized a total profit of nearly 2 trillion Yuan, only about 5% was paid out as ‘dividend’. People should know where the profit has gone, do people love to see the ‘imperial palace’ ”. A netizen “sherry” said:” I can only say it is too much like an upstart and far from a pharmaceutical company. Another netizen“大米爱折腾” said:”it is so luxuriously decorated, no wonder Chinese medicine is so expensive! ”

Harbin Pharmaceutical Group appears to have modelled its factory in Harbin, in the northeast of Heilongjiang province, on the Palace of Versailles. The state-owned drug firm has caused outrage with the lavish decoration, which includes gold-tinted walls and chandeliers.










































Source: xinhuanet

Former Chinese Farmer Builds Homemade Flying Saucer

A former Chinese farmer with little formal schooling who later worked as an automobile mechanic has designed and built at least one ultralight that briefly flew (before crashing) -- he has now moved on to a flying saucer. Shu Mansheng's project is a structure powered by eight motorcycle engines mounted vertically. They drive individual fixed-pitch wooden propellers. The engines are arranged in an inner and outer group of four engines each. An open cockpit located in the center is mounted above spokes that both support the engines and extend to an outer circular ring. Supporters will be hoping for a more positive outcome than the innovator's last attempt.

Shu Mansheng built his first aircraft in October 2010. It was saved by an inadequate powerplant that failed to lift it off the ground. A second effort was aborted when the innovator determined it would be too heavy to fly. This April Shu built another aircraft in a span of about 15 days. He managed to fly that one over approximately 30 meters at an altitude less than seven meters above the ground before he crashed. Shu Mansheng has been able to focus on his aviation exploits after some advances in his career led him to a financial windfall. He retired from his day job and now works full-time on his aviation adventures. His latest scheme has consumed the equivalent of nearly $10,000. His dream is to create a school "where kids can learn things not taught in regular school," he told WorldTourist.com.

Mansheng (in red) tests the engines of his flying device ahead of his first test flight. The round steel flying device, which cost more than 20,000 yuan, was the fifth model made by Shu, a junior middle school graduate. It measures up to 5.5 meters in diameter, and is powered by eight motorcycle engines. (Jason Lee / Reuters)

Handmade Chinese Submarine

A worker polishes the surface of an unfinished miniature submarine at a workshop of Zhang Wuyi, a local farmer who is interested in scientific inventions, in Qingling village, on the outskirts of Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei province. Zhang has successfully tested his self-made miniature submarine “Shuguang Hao”, which is 12 feet long, 6 feet high, has a maximum diving depth of 65 feet, can travel at a speed of 20 km per hour for 10 hours underwater and is shaped as a dolphin. “I hope to sell my submarine as a civil product with the price of about 100,000 yuan ($15,670) after safety tests, and a merchant has decided to order one in this month”, Zhang said. (Jason Lee / Reuters)