We were going to publish this story in our Sunday news roundup, but I see that the story has already broken in English, so I will just post it here.

Basically, in Gaochun Country (south of Nanjing), a road construction grew came across some bronze relics while digging. A policeman alerted protection authorities.

On Monday, it was discovered that someone slipped in with a bulldozer, pilfered 10 tombs in the area, and destroyed much of what was left behind.

well, this is a common thing in China! There was a raid going on a couple of years ago near Anhui where everything was robbed and destroyed (don't remember the amount of tombs but the numbers were high). Shame really, one would wish the authorities would have learned from that and protected the site to not let something like that happen again.

There was also a documentary a few years ago on tomb raiders and how they go about. It was interesting. Was on one of the local channels that do those nice weekly reports of whats really happening around the area.

Frantastic wrote:
One of the stories we published in our last Nanjing news roundup was about a guy who tried to steal a billboard, in order to sell it off as scrap and make some cash.

There are 1.3 billion people here who know that to live well in China, you gotta have cash.

I was impressed by the cardboard thief's level of ingenuity. Similarly, if someone discovers ancient relics somewhere in the countryside, I'm not surprised at all that when the news breaks, there is a rush to the scene to score some cash.

The deeply-rooted spirit of moneymaking (and the resulting ingenuity) is one of the things I like most about China.

In my town, they found a couple of 100 year old coffins, i don't think there was much to steal, and the bodies didn't show any sign of royalty or aristocracy. Way too many people in China.

My co-worker told me they found coffins a while back when we were expanding production. I wasn't too happy to hear about that, because that is pretty close to the dorms where I live. The other night I had a nightmare that there were Chinese zombies suffocating me, like those cheezy 80's hong kong movies:

jeffwithaj wrote:

Anyone ever had a ghost experience in China?

Francis wrote:
Not me, but I did see one in an abandoned love hotel in Osaka (long story).

captured one in beijing (background) ;-)

Anil,
love hotel? ahem, were u intoxicated?

Anil,
can we have the long story please?

come on, we all know your sooooo NOT busy jk jk

Frantastic wrote:
No can do, the story would be wasted on the internet, it's much better told in person. But yes, alcohol was involved, what difference does it make?

When I read the news, astonished but not too much.
Government always think china has long history and too many relics or antiques, doesn't matter if one or two pieces destroyed.
So thousands of tomb and relics are destroyed or stolen but authority siting over there, smile to say it's illegal but we can do nothing.
A tomb found somewhere but museums and archeology authority take very easy, after somewhile, they apply to do the urgent protection to that tomb because urgent protect can bring them triple money from local finance than normal protection. The money spend normal in other expenses but triple for allowance to those experts.
F*ck them
China is amazing in history but now losing its heritage and culture.

As mention to Anil's story, I will be more interested

We could open a poll on that Should Anil reveal his love hotel ghost story or not? :-)

Bjoern wrote:
Bjoern, your now ZE excellent German

I like the idea ... ANIL!!! be prepared we will have a poll and vote on you telling us your ghost story

(I probably get beating for that one)