From dead mosquitoes to someone to yell at, the e-commerce site is full of oddities, report Erik Nilsson and Zhang Lei.

Need a human hamster wheel? A spaceflight? Breast implants?

A fake boyfriend? An enchanted totem to conjure a breakup with a real significant other?

To scream whatever - really, almost anything - at someone on the phone?

How about a squashed mosquito's photo sent to your cellphone?

If you desire any of these things - or something stranger - look no further than Taobao.

The Chinese answer to eBay has everything anyone would want.

And more. Much more.

That's despite being relatively unknown outside China until recently. An early September BBC headline, foreshadowing its parent company Alibaba Group's now legendary initial public offering, echoes the premonitions of foreign media headlines: Why A Company You've Never Heard of Is Expected to Have the Biggest IPO Ever.

The country's largest online shopping website isn't just a one-stop shop for shoes, clothes or other daily necessities. (And that's what most people use it for.)

It also means cow brains, live leeches and underwater restaurant construction materials, not to mention early hominid androids, inflatable donkeys and robotic dinosaurs, are just a click away.

"It's beyond your imagination," says Dutch Sinologist Manya Koetse.

Growing pains

But Taobao's oddities aren't merely amusing. They're a testament to Chinese society.

They point not only to the expansion of the country's online shopping but also to the growing pains of marketization, internationalization and urbanization in what's arguably history's fastest-changing culture.

"The rise of the Internet has made Chinese people creative in making money online," Koetse says.

"No matter what they sell or services they offer, there will often be people buying."

The editor of Whatsonweibo.com, which tracks Chinese Internet phenomena, points to services in which you may scream and curse at a stranger on the phone.

"There are people who feel very stressed, and yelling at someone over the phone makes them feel better," Koetse says.

"This means that, one day, somebody thought: 'I'm going to charge money for being scolded'. Taobao makes people come up with the strangest ideas."

Stress relief

But this fosters chicken-versus-egg questions about bizarre Taobao versus its peculiar products.

Such "scolding" services exist because of demand. There are many providers because there are many consumers.

Chinese need release from the mounting pressures of work, exorbitant housing prices and pollution - plus supporting a graying generation, whom they must also gratify, despite immense fissures in values.

"I for one love to earn money by being yelled at," says Lemon Consulting Room's owner, who only gives his surname, Chen.

He charges 2 yuan ($0.33) a minute to be cussed out and shouted at.

"I'm not a psychiatrist. But I'm sure it helps relieve their sadness. A tender voice can be very soothing to the wounded soul. That's why many pay to yell."

People call for diverse reasons, Chen says. "Some experience the deaths of relatives or friends and feel deep sorrow.

Some are puzzled by their marriages. Some are betrayed by friends. Some can't endure the fast pace of life nowadays and think the pressure is too intense. They just can't take it," he explains.

"Yet they often can't find a good listener, or vent anger or sadness on the wrong person. Sometimes, a total stranger with no real-life connection may offer the best medium for release."

A little magic

A Taobao user who only gives her online name Fast Sail sought a different Taobao solution for her failed marriage's vexations - a talisman whose supernatural properties she believes terminated her glum relationship.

"I've never encountered such an insufferable person, dragging me into a marriage without love. He refused divorce because he wanted to sustain a positive image in front of his colleagues and friends but kept seeing other women," she explains.

"The magical figurine is very effective. My husband has promised a divorce. I really appreciate the help."

She bought the statuette from vendor Xian Yuange, who says the breakup talisman is among the most popular traditional enchanted items he sells.

"This spiritual figure is used to pray for guidance from the goddess of ninth heaven to break up doomed love or inappropriately obliged couples, so both sides are no longer entwined and quickly split," he explains.

"I advise prudence and that clients weigh the magnitude of their purchases. Only if your spouse has engaged in an affair and your marriage is beyond redemption will I sell to you."

Another set of popular and distinctly Chinese "magical" items on Taobao are amulets that profess to buoy test scores - a trendy commodity in a country that esteems education within a system that venerates exam results.

The statuettes' powers are unleashed when they're immolated, Xian claims.

But there's a caveat. "It only works if you believe in it," he says.

Fake partners

While some use Taobao to end real relationships, others employ it to find fake ones.

Boyfriend rental services are popular among single career women approaching or past their 30s, who face parental pressure to start families.

Hired men often charge additional fees for such extra services as smoking cigarettes or swilling baijiu (traditional Chinese liquor) with aspiring fathers-in-law.

And whereas some women rent sham suitors for their parents' sake, other phony Taobao "boyfriends" are purchased for women's personal needs and are likely to be concealed from their families.

Lonely single women grappling with contemporary life's alienation can order life-sized plastic partners - and, no, not just as sex aids. Some of these platonic boy toys come with interchangeable heads, presumably to spice things up.

'Silicon-sucking' mosquitoes

That said, at least partially fake date bait captures such a considerable segment of the niche market that vendor Luo Yu's mosquito-killing Taobao service devoted to food safety and environmental awareness largely focuses on killing mosquitoes. That is, mosquitoes that might otherwise "choke" on breast implants.

He sends photos of the squished parasites to customers' cellphones for a donation of 1 mao per bug to the Magic Baby Bean project, named after a Taobao vendor with leukemia. His pitch is a wisecrack, in which a mosquito tries to gulp blood from a woman's breast but slurps silicon and dies.

It's a satirical interpretation of society's superficiality, environmental protection and food safety.

"It's for fun and a way to raise public awareness about our deteriorating environment and the world's shallowness," he says.

"Even mosquitoes lead hard lives. Our environment is getting really bad. Let's pay attention to food safety."

Luo claims to let the insects gorge on his blood before killing them so they die "happy". He has received 24 orders since May.

Ying Jing, who paid Luo to send a dead mosquito photo to his phone, explains why he financially supported such a sardonic initiative.

"His gimmick is good," Ying says.

"So I gave a cent. It's good to contribute to public welfare. I hope we can use many ways to care more about our environment and health."

Most of the "weird" items and services on Taobao, from photos of dead mosquitoes that theoretically dined on breast implants to actual implants, are mostly absent elsewhere, industry insiders say.

"It's not possible for (these items) to be profitable in traditional stores," general manger of Taobao agent Obook Harry Kwok explains.

"E-commerce helps locate and condense demand. Logistics' explosive growth also makes the business economically sound. Niche-market customers only constitute a small percentage."

Breeding specialties

Yet, like with most China market realities, it's about both an economy of scale and a scale of economy.

Koetse believes China's e-commerce sector is "worlds ahead" of Europe's and points to the vast population generating a titanic market.

"Over 45 percent of (China's roughly 1.4 billion people) are on the Internet," she explains.

"Taobao is one of China's largest shopping platforms and has millions of people every day. Among all those people, of course, there will always be people who want to sell and buy strange items."

"There will certainly be more strange and stranger products as so many come out," he says.

"It's proof China's colossal productivity is growing ever-huger."

Koetse also points out China "has an enormous selection of products".

"No matter where you look in the world, you'll always find made-in-China items," she says.

"On Taobao, you can buy anything that is made-in-China. And more."

Yet it's not just products made in China that fuels Taobao's niche markets.

It's also made-in-China demand - that is, for people who want insurance to compensate them if they can't see the moon during Mid-Autumn Festival or to hire someone to visit their relatives' graves on their behalf during Tomb-Sweeping Festival.

Contact the writers at erik_nilsson@chinadaily.com.cn

Taobao Founder Jack Ma celebrates as the company's stock goes live during the company's initial price offering at the New York Stock Exchange. Provided to China Daily

Clockwise from top: Moon insurance - compensation will be given to the insured if he can't see the moon on Mid-Autumn Festival; horses are sold on Taobao; ring malfunction logo T-shirt of the Sochi Olympics; tomb-sweeping services for those who can't make it on the very day. Xie Zhengyi / for China Daily Zou Hong / China Daily Zhu Xingxin / China Daily Liu Junfeng / for China Daily

(China Daily USA 10/27/2014 page7)