I’m no doctor…but you should probably stop eating cigarette butts

By Kelsey

I love reading newspapers in other countries. It’s especially fun when the English language is still somewhat a mystery to the papers’ writers.

Take for example this article:

Thirteen-year-old Chen Junyi has had to deal with an unbearable pain in her stomach since 2000.

That same year, this girl from Huashi Town, an impoverished town in Luoding, South China’s Guangdong Province, began eating cigarette butts. Her appetite for them eventually grew from about a dozen a day to more than 30. She also started eating uncooked rice.

Her body stopped developing, but her belly expanded so that she looked like she was pregnant.

Her frightened parents brought her to the town’s biggest hospital, but doctors could not pinpoint her illness.
Somebody call the Chinese Maury or Jerry Springer.

Actually, the article ends quite sad. The girl has a rare disease that has nothing to do with cigarette butts or uncooked rice. I’m not sure what purpose the first few paragraphs of this story serve, but they definitely hooked me.