They thought it was a weird mushroom. (HT: Ray Sawhill)
The discovery of a double-headed sex toy mistaken for a mystical rare fungus brought national notoriety to a Chinese village and TV program this week.
Villagers from Liucunbu, a rural community outside western Chinese city of Xi’an, encountered the sex toy while drilling a new well shaft. Hard-pressed to identify the flexible, fungi-like object, perplexed residents alerted the local news station, which immediately sent reporter Yunfeng Ye to the scene.
In her coverage of the finding, broadcast last Sunday on the station’s investigative journalism program Xi’an Up Close, Ye thoroughly probed different aspects of the discovery, interviewing locals and inserting her own research on the alleged mushroom. Despite Ye’s earnest reporting, her and the villagers’ obliviousness of the object’s real identity has now lent itself to national amusement.
[...]
“Our program last night made everyone laugh,” the apology said, expressing regret for an “uncomfortable and misleading” report. “Our reporter is very young and sheltered.”
The original report from Xi’an Up Close can be found here.
I’d love to meet a lovely young woman so innocent and sheltered that she can look at an object like the one shown in the video in the link, and not tell what it is. Alas, when I saw the video, it was immediately obvious to me what it was, and furthermore, I can’t help but laugh at the whole episode. But still: good on her, and the naive villagers, for their innocence. 
Funny. Charming in its naivete.
This story reminds me of the scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey when the cavemen discover the monolith.
I wonder if this small Chinese village will ever be the same.
@ Columnist: Indeed.
@ David: Ha!
Alas, no doubt not, if they’ve found out; now they’ll stop making more people and die out.