Chinese army to ban snoring recruits

The Independent reports that the People's Liberation Army is now banning heavy and chronic snorers from entering the military as part of a new set of rules pertaining to new recruits. Other new regulations include the banning of tattoos (including visible scars after tattoo removal) unless they are part of the traditional decorations of ethnic minorities in China, urine/drug tests, etc. In a Chinese report on the same issue, we also found that there are sundry other restrictions, such as one's weight -- to calculate the standard weight, it says to take your height in centimeters and subtract 110. For men, you're allowed to be at most 25 percent overweight or less than 15 percent underweight. For women, it's both 15 percent over and under.

Going back to the snoring issue -- for some people, snoring is the sign of more serious problems, inflammations and infections of the nasal passages, etc. Shanghai's Ren Ai Hospital has some information (in Chinese) which states that 30 percent of all city residents (we don't know if that means Shanghai or urban residents in China, but we guess the former) have some kind of nasal/respiratory ailment. That hospital link also includes an introduction to some of their high-tech procedures for dealing with various ailments. For those that just want to decrease their nightly decibel levels for the sake of the sanity of their loved ones, there are plenty of medicines available in your local pharmacy, or on Yiqu, China's Ebay, where 鼾立停 (Han Li Ting or "Snore Immediately Stop") can be bought for a buy it now price of 18 RMB and 5 RMB shipping (this one is located in Shanghai anyway).

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