In the afternoon of January 9, 2007, Wei Shengchu appeared in Chongqing City and immediately a huge crowd gathered around him. “Look at the needles all over his face, it nearly scared me to death!” somebody in the crowd yelled. Wei said he broke a world record, having inserted 1790 needles into his body.
Too Scary
According to Chongqing Morning Post , Wei was invited by Tokyo TV Station to shoot some video footage in Chongqing City. Before he showed up in public, he had already spent a few hours inserting 800 acupuncture needles into his face and head. His “hedgehog head” sent the crowd roaring.
Most of the Chongqing residents found it hard to understand. They remarked, “Won’t those needles hurt the body?” “Are they real needles?” To ease their doubts, Wei let the onlookers touch the needles for themselves and he even skated back and forth with his “hedgehog head.” “It’s too scary, like self-torture,” said a sixty-year-old lady who left after watching for a few minutes.
Listed in Guinness Book of World Records
Wei told the reporter from Chongqing Morning Post that he got the idea from a newspaper. In 2002, he read in The Reference News that a Canadian man poked 420 needles into his arms to succeed in setting a world record in the Guinness Book.
“I was thinking at that moment that his needle poking couldn’t even compare to the acupuncture of our ancestors,” he said. With his earlier education in traditional Chinese medicine, he started to experiment on his body. At the beginning, he just started with two or three needles. Later, he poked in more and more needles, once inserting as many as 2000 needles. “I now enjoy poking needles. No matter whether I am working or resting, I try to find time to do acupuncture. After doing that, I feel comfortable all over my body.” In 2004, Wei poked 1790 needles into the face and was approved for a listing in the Guinness Book of World Records. He spent nearly 20 hours poking the needles and removing them.
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