Beijing, July 28 (IANS) Now, it’s official. ‘Chinness’, the Chinese version of Guinness, has been recognised by the country’s trademark regulator.
Derived from ‘Chinese’ and ‘Guinness’, ‘Chinness’ has been officially approved by China’s State Administration of Industry and Commerce (SAIC), Xinhua reported Wednesday.
‘The trademark application took three years for verification and the SAIC’s three month announcement period,’ said 46-year-old Zhang Dayong, the founder of Chinness.net.
Zhang set up the website in 2003. Since then, it has assessed about 500 individual applications of which 300 have been recognised as ‘China’s Best’.
‘I got the idea and started to work on the Chinese version of Guinness in 1989. My mother and younger brother helped me collect back numbers and old newspapers to help me sort through the information about Chinese records,’ said Zhang.
He said Chinness is a certification body for accrediting Chinese records, set by Chinese or set in China.
The official Chinness website records a range of feats, such as the man who recited 20,080 digits of Pi (the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter); the man who did 43 push-ups in 41 seconds with only one right thumb and two legs; and Fuzhou Shoushan stone.
Another Chinese version of Guinness is the Shanghai Jinisi. However, this organisation is not recognised by China’s trademark regulator.
