Taste The Haizhu

Ah the lovely and majestic Haizhu Bridge in Guangzhou, China, stretching out over Pearl River and everyday carrying thousands of Chinese from Yuexiu to Haizhu. I wonder how it tastes.

How bout buttery?

In another step towards total world domination, China has decided to butter their bridges. Why, one might ask, are you buttering your bridges? Is this a gross misunderstanding of the popular American phrase "burn your bridges"? No. Has the population grown so large in China that people have resorted to eating manmade structures? No. Not at all. This is all China's attempt at keeping would-be suicide jumpers off the bridge. Apparently it has become a hot-spot for desperates trying to escape the rigors of everyday life or perhaps trying to get attention for their own political agendas. Either way it apparently has become a large problem amongst the citizens of Guangzhou and they can't take it anymore. So butter it up and let's see how far these fools get.

"The butter makes the bars and frames slippery and hard to climb onto, and we can easily catch them." -bridge guard Wong Man

The whole thing came to it's apex this past May when a local man, Lai Jiansheng, seeing the traffic jam caused by one would-be jumper and deciding he had had enough. He climbed up to greet him, shook his hand and pushed him off.

"I pushed him off because jumpers like Chen are very selfish. Their action violates a lot of public interest. They do not really dare to kill themselves. Instead, they just want to raise the relevant government authorities' attention to their appeals." -Lai Jiansheng

Jiansheng then saluted the cheering crowd below.

Awesome.

"Since we put up the butter there have been no problems with these attention seekers." -Wong Man

I guess the message the Chinese are sending... you can go ahead and kill yourself, we don't mind. Just don't make us late for work.