April Fools' Day is an unofficial "holiday" for pulling pranks on others in many countries. Back home news channels report funny or overly optimistic news to celebrate April 1. I remember once we drew fish on our exam papers at school on the first of April. Someone left a plastic insect on the teacher's desk, which she surprisingly found very cute. (That's how we learnt our maths teacher loved insects).

At the royal palace in Brighton, UK, I remember having read one of the stories about the emergence of April 1 as a fools' day. The king insists on an illogical declaration, and people pretend that day (April 1) as Fools' day in order to cover up for his... well, stupidity. You fear someone so much that when it is obviously necessary to criticize, you find a creative way to deal with the "problem"; and make it a day of jokes and pulling pranks on others.

Coming to "cultural difference".... I heard in southern Africa, when locals want to get rid of hyenas they put a few pieces of stone, then cover them in blood. Hyena, not being the most intelligent animal, thinks the stones are a wounded animal, and eats them all. Sadly, the poor hyena dies a painful death because it can't digest and poop out the stones.

Li Zhurun, who used to work for Xinhua news agency, posted on Weibo a similar "confession". He, as a reporter had fallen for the April Fools' Day news and published it, showing the Western media as the source. Chinese eagerness for propaganda and "conquering the world" apparently had made him mistake bloody stones for a dead animal.

"In his posting, Li said he had been duped by an unspecified Western news outlet, which reported on April Fool's Day 1981 that the West Point military academy in New York State had held up the People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldier as an example for all students.[...] Over the past three decades, the West Point myth has become so entrenched in China that even a member of the country's advisory discussion body, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), cited it in a 2009 proposal urging Beijing to apply for UNESCO recognition of the “Lei Feng Spirit.” "