ZACHARY JOHN shares some unusual news from around the world.
Serious Lego
When I was a child, Lego meant hours of building fun for me — and many plastic pieces to be put away after that. Now, a man in Vietnam, Hoang Dang, has created a studio that looks like many children’s dream. With what looks like millions of Lego pieces crammed into drawers stacked floor to ceiling on all four walls of his workshop, Mr Hoang recreates Vietnamese scenes in intricate detail. One scene made up of 5,000 pieces can take Mr Hoang up to five months to complete. “I often spend a whole evening to look for just that one brick,” Mr Hoang told Reuters. While Mr Hoang hopes to contribute to the growth of the serious-Lego community in Vietnam, he mainly uses Lego as a means to rest and relax. “Building Lego helps us to recharge our creative energy after working on long and tiring projects,” he said.
A water-tight case
Taiwan is in the midst of its worst drought in over 50 years. With no seasonal typhoons and unusually little rain, more than one million households and businesses are on water rationing programmes. For one Taiwanese man, however, the drought has brought fantastic news. More than a year ago, the man — identified by Taiwan News only as Mr Chen — was paddle boarding in the famous Sun Moon Lake. He accidentally dropped his then brand-new iPhone 11 into the water. The phone was in a water-tight case. However, the lake was too deep for Mr Chen to recover the phone. With the drought, the Sun Moon Lake has now dried into an arid mud puddle. Mr Chen’s iPhone 11 was found! Though the case was encrusted in mud, the phone survived. Mr Chen posted on Facebook that after charging it, his phone was as good as new.
No classmates, just tombstones
As a place with both tests and bullies, school can be a very scary place for some kids. Imagine, though, if you had to go to a cemetery instead. For Neydi Alanoca, a primary school student in Bolivia, going to school does mean going to a cemetery. With classes still online, Neydi has no choice but to follow her mother to work at a local cemetery. There, Neydi can use the free wifi and her mother’s handphone to take part in virtual classes. “Because of the situation we are in, I have to bring her to work,” Neydi’s mother, Jeanete Alanoca, told Reuters. On the bright side, at least her new “classmates” are very quiet and do not disturb her.
Singing low
For many musicians, life is a series of highs and lows. However, for Canadian singer Joy Chapman, it is all about getting lower and lower. Last month, Ms Chapman was awarded the Guinness World Record for performing the lowest note recorded by a female singer. She tried many times but ran into technical difficulties. Ms Chapman finally managed to perform a C1 note, at 33.57Hz, while singing into a microphone connected to specialised sound technology. C1 is the first “C” note on a piano — the one on the extreme left-hand side of a keyboard. The lowest audible frequency is 20Hz, and the experience of that would be more like a vibration than a sound. Ms Chapman’s world record performance, which is on YouTube, sounded like thunder rumbling. As a sound enthusiast, I found Ms Chapman’s “singing” interesting, if not pleasant.
Intruder cleans up
It was past midnight when Yana Syndor was woken up by a sound in her house. “I heard it over my meditation music, ‘Boom, boom, boom’,” Ms Syndor told KOVR-TV. She frantically texted her friends that someone was in her house, and they told her to call the police. Quietly, Ms Syndor dialled 911 before hiding in her closet with her daughter. The police arrived and broke Ms Syndor’s door down, only to find the “intruder” rolling around her living room. It was the Syndor family’s robot vacuum cleaner. An embarrassed Ms Syndor told KOVR-TV her son had put it on without her knowing. “We hadn’t used this vacuum in almost two years,” she said. At least this intruder cleans up after itself.
VOCAB BUILDER
audible (say “o-di-bel”; adjective) = able to be heard.
drought (say “draut”; noun) = a long time with very little or no rain.
Singing low
Watch Joy Chapman set the world record for singing the lowest note.
Serious Lego
Take a tour of Hoang Dang’s Lego workshop.