Xpat Magazine June, 2007
The largest retail company in the word: 7-11
Amount of money American Airlines saved in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first class: USD$40,000
The year that the first Wal-Mart opened: 1962
Wal-Mart’s world ranking in terms of economic output, if it were to be considered a country: 20th
The number of corporations that, if considered to be countries, would rank among the 100 largest economies in the world: 53
The method employed by the Fumin County Government in China’s Yunnan province to improve the feng shui of a mined out mountain: they spray painted the barren mountainside green
The percentage of the earth’s original forested area still standing: 22
The number of trees on average that it takes to print the Sunday edition of the New York Times: 63,000
Number of times that the total amount of paper used by US businesses in one day could circle the earth: 20
Percentage of women in the world who will ever wear a diamond of one carat or more: 1
Factor by which the bacteria on the average office desk outnumbers the bacteria on the average office toilet seat: 400
Average life expectancy of an enemy combatant in a Chuck Norris movie: 4 seconds
The top three pirated software producing countries in descending order: Vietnam, China and Ukraine
The top importer of US made spaceships and parts in the world: Taiwan
The country with the most mobile phone’s per capita in the world: Taiwan with 106.45 phones for every 100 people
The percentage that Taiwan’s GDP increased from 1980-2000: 210
The only country whose GDP increased more during the same time period: China (382%)
Percentage of Taiwan’s population that lives below the poverty line: 0.9 (the lowest of all countries listed)
The number of terrorism acts committed in Taiwan between 1968 and 2006: 1
The only South-East Asian country never to have been (officially) colonized by a Western power: Thailand
The jail term a 61-year-old Thai man was sentenced to after attempting to copulate with an elephant: 15 years
His excuse: The elephant was a reincarnation of his late wife and he “recognized her by the naughty glint in her eyes”
The percentage of men and women respectively that have told lies to sleep with somebody: 34 and 10
The proportion of Americans now carrying a viral STD: 1/5
The proportion of people carrying an STD that experience no noticeable symptoms: 80
Two unsuccessful methods employed by officials at the Bangkok Zoo trying to encourage a pair of pandas to breed: Giving the pair a mock wedding and showing them ‘panda porn’
Percentage of the all websites that are pornographic: 12
Percentage of search engine requests pornographic in nature: 25
Percentage of internet users that view porn: 42.7
Top three pornography producing countries in the world in descending order: China, South Korea and Japan
The year that the Chinese government officially removed homosexuality from its list of state recognized mental illnesses: 2001
The year that Phoenix Satellite Television launched China’s first gay-focused T.V. show: 2007
The amount of money that one Chinese man offered to pay in a web ad seeking a woman to pretend to be his mistress so that his wife could beat her up: approx. $400 USD per 10 minutes
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