Coaches and students of Evergrande Football School in Qingyuan, south China’s Guangdong Province, show off the certificate of the "largest boarding football school" awarded by Guinness World Records on June 24 (XINHUA)

Yangzhou in east China's Jiangsu Province had planned to celebrate the 2500th anniversary of the city with a new Guinness world record, but all its attempts finally proved futile.

The record is for the largest serving of fried rice. It was announced Yangzhou made the new record on October 23 after 300 local chefs cooked 4 tons of fried rice, beating the record previously held by Turkey. Yangzhou fried rice is a well-known cuisine in China flavored with sea cucumbers, ham, green peas and eggs. Unfortunately, the record was revoked three days later for improper food disposal.

The huge portion of fried rice, which reportedly cost 140,000 yuan ($21,938) along with subsequent event, was distributed to students in four schools, according to the organizer. But an unnamed Yangzhou tourism bureau official revealed to the media that 150 kg of the rice was not distributed because it became unsuitable for consumption after being stored for more than four hours.

The Yangzhou Tourism Bureau later admitted they sent 150 kg of the rice to feed pigs. Pictures depicting several people shoveling rice into a truck were widely circulated online.

After investigating the event, Guinness World Records (Guinness) declared the newly born record void. Guinness guidelines state all "large food" type records must be fully edible and distributed to the public for consumption to prevent food waste.

"We take into consideration moral, traditional and religious elements when approving a record. We never accept applications that are against moral standards," said Sharon Yang from Guinness. "On average, we receive about 1,000 applications a week, among which 95 percent are declined."

Sun Mingming (2.36 meters) and his wife Xu Yan (1.87 meters), the tallest couple recorded by Guinness, visit the headquarters of Guinness World Records in London on September 10 (XINHUA)

Aura of Guinness 

Guinness world records were first introduced to China in the 1980s by national broadcaster CCTV, which showed the video of the incredible challenges recorded by Guinness. It soon became a hit in the country. In 2000, the first Chinese edition of the book Guinness World Records  was published.

"Considering there are more than 6 billion people in the world, you are the very best at one thing," said Chen Zhongqin, a Guinness record holder from Xiamen City, Fujian Province. "This is thrilling enough."

Chen made the record by riding a unicycle on the bottlenecks of beer bottles for an unbroken 20 meters in 2011.

Chen, born in 1975, took a month to learn how to ride a unicycle and another year to ride on beer bottles.

"This sport demands a great sense of balance. I love this sport a lot," Chen said while talking about why he would spend so much time on a "seemingly useless thing." He has established a unicycle riding club to promote the sport in Xiamen.

The whole challenge was shown on the CCTV program The Night of Guinness in China -- launched in 2006--which shows that most people challenging Guinness records are Chinese.

"It's fun to watch this program and the many records they set are just beyond my imagination," said Hou Zhenlu, a Beijing fan of the program. "I'm astonished almost every time by what they can do."

Some of the records might sound odd to the average person, such as the record for the most needles inserted into a person's head, or who can put the most burning candles into their mouth.

"But it is very interesting to know there are some people in the world who would do these strange things. It's so different from our daily lives," Hou said. "It shows how extreme human beings can be."

This might be what Guinness is all about. Sir Hugh Beaver got the idea of compiling a book of various world records in Ireland in 1951. This book is designed to record anything, so long as it proves to be the "-est" of the world.

Wood sculpture Along the River During the Qingming Festival has been recognized by Guinness as the world’s longest wood carving (XINHUA)

Uncommon sights 

News of people trying to break, or have already broken, Guinness records come out almost every day. In 2012, the Guinness World Records Liaison Office China was set up in Beijing as headquarters of the organization's Greater China region.

On November 11, China's largest online shopping day, B2C platform Tmall.com alone broke nine Guinness records thanks to the shopaholics. One of the titles is the "platform with the most cars sold in 24 hours," which was awarded to the site for its sales of a total of 6,506 vehicles in a single day.

On November 7, a total of 18,431 people dancing to the popular Chinese song Little Apple in Xianghe County, Hebei Province, broke the Guinness record for the most people participating in a group dance.

On November 15, more than 1,500 people lined up and formed the shape of a lung in Beijing covered with heavy smog, breaking the record of the most people forming the shape of a human organ.

"What is the point of making such records," asked an unnamed netizen on microblogging service Weibo. "It is just a waste of time."

But as the most populous country in the world, such records attended by large groups of people have found their market in China. News of more than 5,000 students doing push-ups and more than 10,000 people eating lamb kebabs at the same time are not uncommon scenes.

"Breaking world records provides a perfect launching platform for both enterprises and non-governmental organizations," said Professor Gan Chunhui at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. "Guinness records many attractive challenges and people show a keen interest in them. This creates a great advertising opportunity."

Zhou Xiaozheng, a sociology professor at Beijing-based Renmin University of China, echoed Gan by describing the huge portion of fried rice in Yangzhou as a purely commercial stunt. "It should be exempt from moralizing, as long as it is legal," Zhou said.

"Guinness is a global brand now, and we have never seen a country that has no interest in Guinness," said Rowan Simons, President of the organization's Greater China region.

Guinness has also kept up with new media and includes them in the records.

In August 2014, Guinness gave the first Chinese social media world record title to a football-themed post by pop star Lu Han, which set a record for the most comments on a microblog post after it received a staggering 13,163,859 replies.

For sport or advertising? 

Professor Liu Ping at Shenyang Normal University is worried that the Guinness records will become more profit-oriented, rather than embody the true spirit of competition and sportsmanship.

In some fields, though, the expansion needs to be more open, he said.

On November 17, Dang Fei, a champion chess player from China, wanted to set a new blindfolded chess competition record. "Guinness had no such record before, so there were some disagreements on the rules," Dang said.

The competition allowed the blindfolded chess players to verbally describe where they want to move the pieces, but Guinness insisted they had to be silent during the competition and only move the chess pieces by hand.

"It is impossible for us to touch the pieces while blindfold," Dang said. "It shows Guinness is not familiar with the rules of this game."

Guinness left the competition and does not acknowledge the record.

On the Guinness World Records in China's official website, a netizen named Guo Si said in a post that he wanted to apply for a record by carving a stamp on the cross section of a piece of hair.

"To make the record is one thing, but promoting stamp-scripting art is another," Guo said. "It is a good way to spread this art to more people around the world."

Copyedited by Jordyn Dahl

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