China’s Kids Are Too Fat and Masturbate Too Much to Get Into Their Army

Apparently, I can add the Chinese military to the list of places I’m not welcome, as they’ve noted an uptick in recruits being turned away for being too fat and masturbating too much. At least that’s what the People’s Liberation Army Daily said on WeChat, according to The Shanghaiist.

According to an article posted on the WeChat account of the People’s Liberation Army Daily, 56.9% of armed services candidates at one unnamed town were rejected for failing to meet physical fitness standards.

One-fifth of these candidates were rejected for being too fat, others because excessive smartphone use had damaged their eyesight or because they had consumed too much snack foods or soda pop, resulting in poor liver and gallbladder function.

Meanwhile, 8% were rejected because of “abnormal enlargement of small testicular veins,” caused by too much masturbation.

I did some digging around, and this enlargement of testicular veins is a condition called vericocele, and it isn’t caused by masturbation, excessive or not. According to Wikipedia, 15% of men are affected by vericoceles, meaning it’s apparently less common in potential Chinese soldiers than the general population. Frequent masturbation has also been shown to have beneficial effects for men, including reducing the risk of prostate cancer. I’m not sure that’s entirely relevant, I just feel better about myself if I point it out as often as humanly possible.

Of course, being China, they weren’t going to take the whole world thinking they’re a bunch of fat masturbators, and they quickly published a propaganda piece on why rejecting a bunch of fat slobs is actually improving the Chinese military.

“China’s recruitment process has strict rules and procedures,” the Defense Ministry office said. “The quality of our recruits is guaranteed, and the headwaters of our military will flow long and strong.”

You know, we spent decades in a Cold War with Communist Russia, but there’s nothing in world quite as poetic as bullshit propaganda from a communist country. Imagine Donald Trump saying that “the headwaters of our military will flow long and strong.” He’d probably say something like “We have the best military, our military is tremendous, it’s really great,” because we elected a man who talks like a third grader to be our president. Which is still better than being a communist dictatorship, but is getting less so every passing day.

[Image: Flickr/Times Asi]