You may be cold, but you are not as cold as these two gentlemen

Chen Kecai (L) and Jin Songhao (R) are seen in glass containers during a cold endurance competition on the Tianmen Mountain in Zhangjiajie, Hubei province. Chen and Jin competed by staying in a glass container filled with ice wearing only a pair of shorts. Jin won the competition with 120 minutes in the container, which outscored Chen's 118 minutes. Chen set the Guinness record for the longest time spent in direct full body contact with ice on March 14, 2010 with 1 hour 48 minutes 21 seconds, local media reported.

(Photograph taken on January 3, 2011, via REUTERS)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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yssy

i don’t want to ruin the fun here but i think this guy is even cooler

http://translate.google.nl/translate?hl=nl&sl=en&tl=nl&u=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FWim_Hof&anno=2
chgoliz

What were their core body temps by the end?

Was there a significant difference in their body weight/fat?

And why is the ice as opaque as snow?
futnuh

This looks more about withstanding contact “burns” rather than dealing with actual cold. The Nazis ran this “experiment” with crushed ice and water in 1941 – victims died in less than 90 minutes.
- pharmavixen
  
  This post has some unpleasant associations. I also thought of the Nazi ice “experiments,” and also that Japanese camp, unit 731, where they did the frostbite “research” on largely Chinese victims. And yeah; if they mixed in water, it jacks up the danger by reducing their core temp more quickly, rather like falling into the north Atlantic in winter. Though the victims of the Nazi experiments were probably also starved, and had no body fat.
  
  Why are Jin’s glasses not fogging up? And why is he even wearing glasses?
  - Mister44
    
    Actually they were in good health. Most of the Nazi experiments were on young, healthy victims. The experiments it wasn’t sadism for sadism sake, but to find knowledge to save German lives (or end their enemies quicker). Using people already on deaths door wouldn’t give you viable results.
    
    In the case of the ice it was to find the best way to treat Luftwaffe pilots downed in the North Sea.
    
    But hey – can’t really compare two nut balls freezing their rocks off, and systematic torture in the twisted pursuit of medical knowledge.
  - Anonymous
    
    If he’s farsighted, like I am, it’s to avoid eye muscle spasms and headaches.
Sawdust

Why didn’t Jin stop at 119 minutes?!
dagfooyo

Man, I’m gonna prove I’m more badass than either of these guys, or the russian sauna guys. I’m gonna make history by entering both the sauna competition and the ice competition AT THE SAME TIME.
Ipo

In water at 32.5 expected time of survival is under 15 – 45 min.
With unconsciousness in less than 15 min.
I doubt you could get frostbite from drained ice cubes, unless they are ridiculously cold. {not all ice has the same temperature}

Curiosity! vancouvergrrl
Oh, and hassenpfeffer: best. username. EVER.

What makes Hassenpfeffer such a cool name? I guess it’s a pun, but I don’t get it. Pepperhater? A “Hase” is a hare, “hassen” is to hate. Explain.
Mister44

Dr. Rascher approves.
Ipo

Oh I see. It’s just a common spelling mistake for german rabbit stew.
Wich is weird because a Hare is (Lepus europaeus) while a rabbit is (Oryctolagus cuniculus). I now wish I hadn’t asked. Sorry bout dat.
milkman

I would be very interested in avoiding that forever. On top of hypothermia, it looks like a great way to get electrocuted (assuming the ice is melting somewhat against the guys)! Just by the facial expressions, I’d assume Jin was going to win this.
_Username

A real contest should include finding thier testials after they get out
Anonymous

This mountain is an amazing place but it is in Hunan not in Hubei :)
GreenJello

I hope they have doctors nearby, frostbite sounds extremely unpleasant!

Also, how do you train for this sort of masochistic nonsense?
neph13

that looks completely safe, almost as much as the Russian Sauna Competitions http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/08/sauna-championship-russian-dead
- Micah
  
  Yeah, I was thinking of this post from a few months ago.
Grimnir

I wonder if these guys are practitioners of the ancient Tibetan art of Tummo, which is the internal art of producing body heat by spiritual effort. It’s basically a method of controlling your digestion so that it produces more heat, and then directing that extra warmth to your extremities. Tummo experts have been shown to be able to raise the temperatures of their fingers by more than 8 degrees through this process. One of the other former record-holders, Wim Hof, linked above, claims to be a Tummo master. Pretty fascinating stuff.
- Anonymous
  
  Lewis Gordon Pugh coined a term for a similar phenomenon “Anticipatory Thermo-genesis.”
  
  I find cold water swimming, which Pugh is accomplished in, to be much more impressive than sitting in a box of ice.
Shibi

Oh my aching manbits! (And I don’t even HAVE manbits, but I certainly have a phantom ache when I look at these guys.)
hassenpfeffer

SHRINKAGE!
vancouvergrrl

And is there a prize, or is the dubious eternal glory of the Guinness Book the compensation? Or is it one of those Mount Everest things, because it’s there to be done?

I wonder what they were thinking about during their time on ice.

Oh, and hassenpfeffer: best. username. EVER.
TimDrew

Looking at the photo, I’d have guessed the winner anyhow: Jin is sitting there chillin’, while Chen looks just plain cold.
- penguinchris
  
  Well, it also appears he’s cheating – he’s got his arms out of the ice.
  - sally599
    
    I thought the same thing, clearly an ice slurry would be more fair.
Shart Tsung

That’s not fair, these men could be transcendentally meditating.

Either way, mind over matter ftw!
vancouvergrrl

There is a famous Warner Bros. cartoon I first saw as a child, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, wherein Yosemite Sam is a sort of lackey to a Henry VIII type gluttonous king (oldstyle Henry, not Jonny Rhys-Meyers model). The king announces his desire for Hasenpfeffer, which precipitates an uneven battle of wits between Sam and Bugs Bunny, once Sam sees the first ingredient in the recipe.

“Cook! Cook! Bring me Hasenpfeffer!”
- chgoliz
  
  a Henry VIII type gluttonous king (oldstyle Henry, not Jonny Rhys-Meyers model)
  
  Historically speaking, Henry VIII started out young, fit and handsome. Like many people under a lot of stress, dealing with bad marriages and untrustworthy friends as well as health issues, he did not age well.
  
  /pedantic moment
- EH
  
  “Every day the same thing: variety.”
EH

Sorry ladies, he’s married!
arikol

I may also be stupid, but not as stupid as those two gentlemen..
Anonymous

This record has already been broken:
http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/dutch-%E2%80%98ice-man%E2%80%99-wins-back-title
Mark Crummett

Our heat was out over New Years weekend and I thought I was cold. I guess I wasn’t, really.
Anonymous

this might not be as bad as it seems – given the blocky shape of the ice, I’d guess there’s a fair amount of their skin that isn’t in contact with the ice. That’s not to say that they’re not in any pain or aren’t feeling colder than most people could bear; just that this is a far cry from other potential exposures to extreme cold.

Exposures to mixed ice and water, ice cold water alone, or cold fast-moving wind would probably have about the same adverse effects on these men as they would on any other person. At some point your mind’s tolerance ends and physical, biological limits take over.