While doing some construction work, residents of the Liucunbu village in China's Shaanxi province came across a fake vagina that they, um, mistakenly identified as a lingzhi mushroom, legendary in Chinese medicine for its reportedy super-powerful healing and anti-aging properties. It's not clear whether the villagers really thought the sex toy was a mushroom or not, but in any case they called in an Xi'an TV news reporter who bought into the magic mushroom story. She produced a story about the discovery that actually aired. You can view that here. The following day, the TV program apologized for their error, claiming that "(the) reporter was still very young and unwise to the ways of the world." But that wasn't the end of this terrific tale. Now, a street vendor is selling artificial vaginas as the mushrooms for as much as US$2,800. As you can see from the above news report, he's even playing the original Xi'an TV news piece at his stall. When questioned by one Doubting Thomas, the vendor simply said, "It's on the news. How can it be fake?"
"ZOMG! Enterprising street seller now passing off artificial vajayjays as taisui mushrooms!" (Shanghaiist)
""Mystery mushroom" which leaves Xi'an villagers befuddled turns out to be artificial vajayjay" (Shanghaiist)
