Compiled by C.ARUNO, BENJAMIN LEE and R.ARAVINTAN
THE latest fad of keeping pet stones among the youth in China has sparked worry among the public, Sin Chew Daily reported.
Teenagers and young adults were seen to be sharing photos of stones with plastic googly eyes and would dress them up in different outfits.
They would give their pet stones names, celebrate their birthdays, and even go on trips with them.
One of these owners admitted it felt weird at first but soon grew to love it, adding that as someone who was introverted, she would have conversations with her pet stone after work and could feel an emotional connection to it.
The trend began in 2023 when 25-year-old Ye Zi started an online shop in July selling pet stones which was inspired by the movie Minions: The Rise of Gru.
Each stone comes with their own name, identity card, personality based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and a unique outfit. In just two months of setting up shop, Ye Zi sold several thousand stones and sales doubled this year.
According to Ye, most of his customers were women aged between 24 and 29.
According to Dr Yin Xiaowen, who was from Zhejiang University Department of Depression Disorder, keeping inanimate objects as pets was not new, citing Tamagotchi, which was popular in the 1980s and 1990s.
> A man from Australia who learned Mandarin after being inspired by Malaysian singer Michael Wong, got to perform a duet with his idol during a concert recently, China Press reported.
The episode took place during Wong’s concert in Sydney when the fan stood up and told Wong that he fell in love with the song Fairy Tale in 2007 and decided to pick up the language.
Wong passed a microphone down stage to him and when the man sang the first verse, the whole venue erupted in cheers.
Many other concertgoers waved their light sticks to the beat of the music as they watched the Australian performed Fairy Tale in perfect Chinese.
Wong, who is from Ipoh, is currently on his Lonely Planet 2.0 concert tour.
The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.
