Oddity Central

Oddity Central

Chinese Boy Has Been Living and Sleeping with a Python for 13 Years

Posted: 05 Feb 2013 04:53 AM PST

A family from Dongguan, China, has recently made headlines after it became known that their 13-year-old son’s best friend is a 15-foot Burmese python. The predator even looks after the boy when his parents are away.

Most grownups would turn away and run for their lives at the sight of a 220lb python, but 13-year-old Azhe Liu can’t get enough of his slithering friend. Ever since he was just a few months old, the two have been sharing the same bed, and today they are simply inseparable. Six years before Azhe was born, his father, Chen Liu, found a snake egg, brought it home and hatched it out. When the boy came, the python already weighed 20 kilograms, but having a snake around the house didn’t seem to bother the family. ”I’d always thought them the most beautiful creatures and I was interested to see what would happen when my son came along,” Chen says. ”After a while we were certain the snake wouldn’t hurt him and we began to leave them together alone. They really are inseparable.” Azhe and his Burmese python started sharing the same bed, and when he was just 9 months old, he was left alone with it, as the parents left to work. They would play and cuddle all day long, and during the hot summer months, the snake’s cold body acted as a natural air-conditioner.

Chen Liu says his boy has never really had an interest in other toys, and always prefers to spend his free time in the company of his python. They have spent every day and night together, and the father swears the snake has never once hurt Azhe. ”She’s very careful with me and never squeezes to hard,” the 13-year-old confirms. “If people understood animals more they’d be kinder to each other.” In 2012 Azhe had to go to school, and could only sleep at home on Saturdays, which made him really sad, but now he’s set a goal to become a zoologist when he grows up, so he can spend all his time with animal friends.

 

 

Source: ChinaSmack

Chinese Boy Has Been Living and Sleeping with a Python for 13 Years was originally posted at OddityCentral.com

Fearless Artist Photographs Herself in the Most Precarious Positions

Posted: 05 Feb 2013 02:41 AM PST

It’s hard to believe the photos bellow are real, but South-Korean artist Ahn Jun insists she does not photoshop any of her works. Although she will sometimes use measures of protection like a harness, the young daredevil really is dangling on the side of buildings or leaning out skyscraper windows, all in the nae of art.

Remember Natsumi Hayashi, Tokyo’s levitating girl, who used to post photos of herself jumping at just the right time to make it seem like she was floating through the city? I loved her work, and today I get to write about an equally talented and creative Asian photo artist, Ahn Jun. Her project titled Self-Portrait, for which she photographs herself in precarious positions on high-rise buildings around the world, has taken the art world by storm. Many have claimed that the photos are digitally altered to create the death-defying portraits, but the young South-Korean photographer insists it’s all real. She just sets the timer on her camera to take as many pictures as possible until the memory card is full, and then gets into position, either leaning dangerously over the edge of a skyscraper, climbing out the window or just staring at her feet into the abyss below. She then goes through the thousands of photos, picking just one or two in which her body looks “peaceful or aggressive, rather than fearful”.

Talking about the start of her Sel-Portrait project, Ahn Jun says: "There was a day when I recalled my adolescent years. I was sitting on the edge of my apartment in New York and looking over the cityscape. I had a thought that suddenly my youth was coming to an end and I could not figure out the future. I sat on the edge and looked down. Then I saw the empty space, the void, and there was a sudden change in my perspective on life and death, present and future. The vision of the cityscape I was witnessing was not real for that moment – I felt the illusion of beautiful buildings was just like the future, or an ideal that we can never reach, but which surrounds us. Then I looked down and saw that what I was actually standing on was empty space. It was 'the present' for me. So I took a picture of my feet and that was the start of my project."

“Of course it is not a safe situation,” Jun Ahn says. “But I always try to be careful.” Her incredible photos remind me of the Russian skywalkers who climb the highest structures in the country only to strike a pose and have their pictures taken.

 

 

 

 

Source: British Journal of Photography

Photos © Ahn Jun

Fearless Artist Photographs Herself in the Most Precarious Positions was originally posted at OddityCentral.com

Grown Men Have Been Playing a Game of Tag for 23 Years

Posted: 05 Feb 2013 01:52 AM PST

23 years ago, nine boys were playing a fun game of tag around the campus of Gonzaga Preparatory School in Spokane, Washington. Fast forward to present day, they’re sill playing the very same game, but with a few exciting twists.

Playing tag is fun when you’re a child, but men in their 40s can’t really chase each other on the playground, screaming “you’re it!” So Bill Akers, Patrick Schultheis, Sean Raftis, Mike Konesky and their other five childhood friends devised a plan to keep playing their game without making people around them nervous. The last time they played the tag in their home town was on the last day of high-school. Joe Tombari remembers that day in 1982 when he plotted to tag a friend that had left school early. Little did he know that his buddy had been tipped off and was waiting for him in his parents’ car with the doors locked. There was no time to tag someone else, so Joe was “it” for life. ”The whole thing was quite devastating,” Tombari told the Wall Street Journal. But that wasn’t going to be the last tag session of their lives, not by a long shot…

Photo: Sean Raftis

Eight years had passed when the old friends got together for a reunion. They started reminiscing and someone brought up Joe Tombari’s last attempt to tag his friend. Then they started talking about making their favorite pastime work under current conditions. They were grown men now, had jobs and families, and some had moved to distant cities, so the old rules of tag just weren’t going to cut it. Patrick Schultheis, then a first-year lawyer, drafted a “Tag Participation Agreement,” which stated that the game would be revived every year, only in the month of February, and that no back-tagging (tagging the player who just tagged you) was allowed. They all signed and the game was on. This time, there were no geographical boundaries, so players who were “it” had to travel to their target’s city to tag them, to prevent being ridiculed for the next 11 months.

It’s safe to say this unusual game of tag has spawned some really cool stories and managed to conserve a friendship that would have otherwise fizzled over the years. One time, Mike Konesky, drove to one of his friends house in the dead of night, sneaked in through the garage, stormed in his bedroom, and flipped on the lights. He remembers his buddy’s wife screaming “Run, Brian!”, but there was nowhere for Brian to run. Another time, Joe Tombari and his wife got a knock on the door. ”Hey, Joe, you’ve got to check this out. You wouldn’t believe what I just bought,” a friend told them as he led them to his car. As he opened the trunk, Tombari’s old tag partner Sean Raftis, who had flown in from Seattle, jumped out and tagged Joe. His wife was so frightened she fell and tore a ligament in her knee.

During the month of February, some of the friends prefer to leave town in order to avoid getting tagged, while others rarely leave their home and check under their cars before getting in. This year, Sean Raftis, who moved to Montana where he works as a priest is most likely going to get tagged, as most of his friends noticed he is a sitting duck on Sundays. ”Once I step foot outside the rectory, all bets are off,” the Raftis admits. “I have to be a little more careful.”

Grown Men Have Been Playing a Game of Tag for 23 Years was originally posted at OddityCentral.com

Comments system

Disqus Shortname