xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx

Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.

A majority of golfers in Iran these days are women (about 800 in number), who play wearing the traditional head scarf and tunic, according to a July New York Times dispatch from Tehran. (The country’s one grass course has only 12 holes after the other six were confiscated by Revolutionary Guards, but there are several sand-based courses.)

A New York Times July dispatch, from El Alto, Bolivia, reported on “Carmen Rosa” and the Cholitas, who are indigenous female wrestlers who toss each other around the ring, wearing bowler hats, shawls and multilayered skirts (clothing of their native Aymara people), as part of a Mexican- (and U.S.-) style pro wrestling circuit.

Reuters reported in May that Yu Haitao and his bride, Fang Shuling, had filed a complaint against their honeymoon hotel in Shanghai after Yu fell off the bed and broke his arm in front of friends and family who were preparing to give him a hard time in what is apparently a traditional “heckle the newlyweds” ceremony. Fang said the bed should have been safe to stand on.

Rudeness has become so prevalent in Japan, according to a May dispatch from Tokyo in The Times of London, that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government has convened its commission on complaints, whose translated official name is the Study Group Relating to the Prevention of Behavior That Causes Discomfort Among Numerous People in Public Places. Among the public habits bothering various complainers are putting on makeup, sitting on the floor, uninhibitedly reading pornographic magazines, wearing strong perfume and (“unexpectedly,” said the Times) “using an umbrella to practice golf swings.”
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or [email protected] or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.) NEWS OF THE WEIRD