In Guangdong, China the Shenzhen Nongke Group, involved in agricultural science research, grew an orchid in 2005.

An anonymous buyer at an auction bid 1.68 million yuan for this orchid. It’s roughly $202,000 USD and that’s just how much the world’s most expensive flower sold for.

China will launch “the most luxurious train in the world” to ply the route from Beijing to Tibet’s capital Lhasa, state media reported Sunday.

However, a ride on the train, which will begin operations on September 1, will be about 20 times more expensive than the ordinary fare of about 2,000 yuan (280 dollars), Xinhua news agency said.

“The interior of the train will be decorated according to the standards of a five-star hotel, making it the most luxurious train in the world,” said Zhu Mingrui, general manager of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Corporation.” Such a train can only seat 96 passengers.

A fisherman in China’s Zhejiang province has netted a fish that, according to local tradition, may sell for over 1 million yuan (about 140,000 U.S. dollars).

Li Shaoshuang, from Cangnan county of the coastal province, caught it in his Saturday’s first cast while working offshore nearby the Xiangshan harbor.

“It is dark brown all over, 1.2-meter long and 15-kg in weight,” said the veteran fisherman Li who has already frozen the fish. “It’s my first time to see this kind of fish.”

A fellow 60-year-old fisherman who came with others to Li to get a glance of the fish told him in great surprise that it is Bahaba flavolabiata (Chinese bahaba) which have disappeared from the site for at least 50 years.

Due to its extreme scarcity, the air bladder of Chinese bahaba is said to be as expensive as gold in weight. More than a decade ago, another fisherman of the same county caught a Chinese bahaba of less than 3.5 kg but fetched for more than 100,000. Therefore, fishermen on the scene urged Li to ask for at least 1 million for his.

To make sure it is a sky-high pricing Chinese bababa, the fishermen sent for an aquatic research institution expert the next day, who uttered the appearance should tell it’s a Chinese bahaba no doubt, but, still, a dissection is needed to make sure it is not another species similar to Chinese bahaba.

Li declined the expert’s suggestion in fear that it would ruin the fish and lower the selling price. He also turned down a fish vendor’s offer of 500,000 for this queer fish, making it clear he would not let it go for less than 1 million.

In April 2007, a fisherman in Zhanjiang City, Guangdong province, netted a 49-kg Chinese bahaba and sold to a restaurant for 580,000 yuan. The restaurant cooked the fish meat but has kept the dried maw since, tagging it at 2 million yuan with words “not for sale.”

A 999-meter-long scarlet wedding dress is displayed in a shopping mall in Dalian, Northeast China’s Liaoning Province, February 21, 2008. The hand-knitted dress features 2,008 pieces of jade, 29 golden phoenixes and 880 peonies that took dressmakers three months to finish.

China has officially taken the wrapping off its National Aqautics Center, nicknamed the “Water Cube”, which resembles a gigantic box of bubble-wrap. Designed by a joint Chinese-Australian consortium, the center is one of two iconic structures constructed for the Beijing Olympics this year. It stands alongside the 91,000 seater National Stadium, more affectionately known as “Bird’s Nest”. Work on the Water Cube began at the end of 2003 at an estimated cost of US$100 million, and took three years to complete.

The honeycomb structure will host the swimming, diving and synchronized swimming, and water-polo events during the Games. The 17,000 seater Cube is expected to offer spectators a visual spectacle at night, when its LED system of 16.7 million tones transforms the structure into a glowing kaleidoscope.

Source : dezeen

It is official that China has become the country with the second largest population of billionaires in the world, just behind the US.

Revealed by the World Entrepreneur magazine, a list of 2007’s top 500 Chinese magnates determined their combined wealth more than 587 billion dollars.

Though the list included many from Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, the Kwok brothers of Sun Hung Kai Properties in Hong Kong topped the list.