Young-at-heart Chinese grandmother proves to be hi-tech quizmaster
Daughter who introduced her to games jokingly accuses her parent of cheating after she found an ingenious way to stay one step ahead of the game
A retired Chinese grandmother made 8,000 yuan (US$1,300) in the space of five days by playing live-gaming apps.
Surnamed Zhao, she began to play live trivia contests on apps after her children introduced them to her over the new year, Beijing Morning Post reported.
Although her age has raised eyebrows – many younger people have reportedly become addicted to the competitions – so too has her tech-savvy winning technique, which has prompted her daughter to jokingly accuse her mother of cheating.
The format of the competitions has become popular around the world and involves online quizzes that are held at regular intervals throughout the day. Those who answer the most questions correctly win a cash prize.
On those apps there is a 10-second time limit to give the correct answer, which is designed to stop people searching online to find the correct answers.
But the Beijing resident has got around that by using voice recognition technology on another phone to search for the answers to questions such as “What is the capital city of Vietnam?” or “From which conflict did the story behind the marathon originate?”*
“I was just giving it a try. One of the reasons that I play is to kill time, and the other reason is to help me, an elderly lady, to keep my brain working,” Zhao told the newspaper.
While Zhao’s daughter joked that her mother was cheating in the quizzes, Zhao insisted that she was just a trendy old lady who was willing to try new things to keep up with the younger generation.
Rather than playing mahjong or dancing in the square like many people her age, the report said that Zhao was more interested in the things that younger people love.
*For the benefit of those who don’t know: the correct answers are Hanoi and the fifth century BC war between the Greeks and the Persian Empire.
