In China some strangely gifted children appear to be able to read with their ears. Find out how in this Strange but True story . . .

A 12 year old Chinese boy was playing one day when he stumbled against someone. The boy said that although he only touched the stranger's pocket with his ear he found that he could read the name of a packet of cigarettes in the man's pocket. To test the boy's claim another man wrote a word on piece of paper and crumpled it into a ball.

The boy held the paper next to his ear and was able to tell the man what he'd written. The local newspaper picked up the story and soon other reports came in of children who could read with their ears, or the tops of their head, or even their armpits or feet.

In an effort to tests the claims of these children, scientists and doctors performed hundreds of tests on them. In Shanghai in 1980, 14 children were tested and filmed. The audience was made up of 2,000 scientists, doctors, teachers and journalists. The children were seated in the centre of a hall and beside each of then was someone to make sure that there was no cheating.The members of the audience left the hall and wrote words or drew pictures on pieces of paper. Then they hid them in thick paper bags or plastic boxes and gave them to the children to read in their on special way.

The star of the show was little Jiang Yan. Her clear Peking voice rang out from the loudspeakers. "Mine is a cluster of yellow bananas painted on a green background," she shouted.

Two young sisters not only could read with their ears but if one sister placed a message underneath her armpit the other sister could read it. When holding the wrapped paper, the children said that they could feel a warm tingling feeling in their hands - like pin pricks. That feeling moved along the nerve lines of their bodies to their heads. The children said that the picture first appears as a dots and lines and then becomes clearer.

Other children had different gifts. One 11 year old boy had X-ray vision. When asked to show where underground pipes were, he was able to point to the exact places to match the official map.

A young boy and girl sat holding flower buds that blossomed into full flower after 20 minutes. And a 12 year old boy used his mind power to make a watch or clock run faster. Another girl was able to open a lock which had been sealed inside a box along with it's key. The director of the eye, ear, nose and throat hospital in Shanghai was one of many people totally convinced by the children. "I surrender," he said. "There is no arguing with facts. It seems that some children in China do have some weird and wonderful talents."