BEIJING (China Daily/Asia News Network) - From giving away 90,000 yuan (S$19,383) to strangers, selling apples with luxury cars, and a BMW-driver who collects swill, rich Chinese have become a wealth of fodder for the country's media.

1. Money opens elevator's door

A man, identified only by his surname Li, built a lift that reached right up to his 90-year-old mother's apartment on the fifth floor of an ageing building that did not have a lift, reported Zhejiang-based Qianjiang Evening News.

But the move riled the neighbours because the lift was much closer to the building than planned, causing inconvenience to residents going in and out of the building.

Li came up with a solution: he bought all the houses on the floors below his mother's home at 6 million yuan.

2. Family puts up highway billboards for son's birthday

Everybody wants to be a celebrity these days, and one family bought their son fame for his birthday this year.

The family displayed 16 billboards along a 400-metre stretch of road in Jinjiang, Fujian province, each with the message "Welcome to my 16th birthday party" and their son's photo, reported news.qzwb.com on Wednesday. Dozens of LED arches nearby flashed the same message.

According to the family, the boy is dearly beloved by the whole family. They had used the billboards to advertise the family business and only changed them several days for the boy's birthday.

3. Spanish football club investor takes leave to watch team play

Wu Bin, from Ningbo, Zhejiang province, recently applied for leave with a rather unusual request: to watch a football game in Spain.

Wu, who is a shareholder of Eibar, a team in the Spanish La Liga football league, had been invited by the team's president to watch the home team take on Real Madrid in Spain on Nov 23.

Many Chinese football fans, including Wu, became Eibar's small shareholders earlier last year when the club went public, with its offering priced at 50 euros (S$80) per share.

The leave request note has been viewed by more than 1.14 million Internet users on Chinese Twitter-like microblogging service Sina Weibo, the Beijing Times reported.

4. Newlyweds spread 90,000 yuan worth of joy

A newlywed couple gave away 90,000 yuan (S$19,383) to random people on their wedding day in Dongguan, Guangdong province, the New Express Daily reported.

The money, dispersed in about 40,000 red envelops, sparked a scramble. The wedding also used more than 100 luxury cars, which attracted a crowd and snarled traffic.

The groom, who runs a well-known Internet company, reportedly spent 1.5 million yuan on the wedding.

5. Well-off graduate turns to collecting swill

Zha Xiaogang, a 27-year-old college graduate whose family owns a business, drives a BMW to work, and yet, his work involves collecting swill in Jiangyin, Jiangsu province, reported people.cn on Thursday.

Zha used to work as a researcher for an aerospace institution, earning a good salary in Shanghai, but his parents wanted him to come back home. He soon found a job as a swill collector.

He and his co-worker spend 10 hours a day collecting swill from a company canteen and picking out the larger chunks of garbage, before processing the remainder into organic fertiliser with a machine.

Zha says he does not think the work is "less valuable" or that he's wasting his knowledge since he believes his job requires his knowledge of automation and chemistry.

6. Luxury cars used to sell apples

If someone amasses a fleet of luxurious cars, the last thing you expect them to use it for is to sell apples.

A college senior, surnamed Zhang, at Ningbo University in the rich coastal province of Zhejiang, arranged beautifully packed apples on the hood and trunk of an array of luxurious cars, among them an Aston Martin valued at more than 4,000,000 yuan, a Maserati, a Porsche, a Hummer and others to attract consumers.

Zhang said she wanted to do some business before graduation and chose to sell apples around Christmas.

7. Year-end cash giveaway

At a year-end company gathering in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, a generous boss offered his employees who performed well last year a chance to grab as much money as they could from a box full of 100-yuan notes. One woman walked away from the exercise 20,000 yuan richer.

8. Restaurant's commitment to quality is worth 1 million yuan

How can you prove that the food you cooked is absolutely safe? A Chinese restaurant owner tells its customers that its promise is worth a million yuan.

On the wall of a hot-pot restaurant in Zhengzhou, central Henan province, hangs a transparent glass box with cash inside it. On it is the written message: "The restaurant will give 1 million yuan to anyone who finds recycled oil used in its hot-pot", the microblog of zynews.com reported on Saturday.

The restaurant owner explains that for security reasons, only 20 hundred notes are real and others are coupons. But the move shows restaurant's commitment and customers are welcome to supervise its food safety.