Frane Selak, a music teacher in Croatia, was born in 1929. He is probably the unluckiest and luckiest man in the world, whose story is so incredible that it will leave you speechless.

The first time he was on the verge of death was on a cold January day in 1962, when he was traveling by train to Dubrovnik. The train suddenly derailed in a frozen river, killing 17 passengers. He managed to escape with only a broken arm, a few scratches, and bruises. A year later, he was flying from Zagreb to Rijeka, when suddenly a door came off and the teacher flew out of the plane. We don’t usually hear much about survivors when it comes to plane crashes, as evidenced by the 19 people who lost their lives in the crash. With one exception — Frane Selak, who was lucky enough to land on a haystack and woke up a few days later in hospital with minor injuries.

The series of unfortunate events did not stop here. Or are they fortunate? In 1966, Frane Selak was traveling in a bus that crashed and fell into a river. There were four casualties, but Selak cheated death again. In 1970, Selak was driving when suddenly his car caught fire. He was lucky to get out of the car just before it exploded. Three years later, another of Selak’ scars caught fire. He lived moments of horror, caught fire, and lost almost all his hair, but again he survived without major injuries.

In 1995 he was in Zagreb and one day he was hit by a bus, but miraculously survived and was left with only a few injuries. The following year, Frane Selak drove into a parapet to avoid a truck coming from the opposite direction. He was thrown out of the car and left hanging from a tree, only to see his car explode 100 meters below.

To make the picture complete and the character’s luck unquestionable, in 2003, Selak won 1 million dollars in the Croatian lottery. In 2010, the 81-year-old retiree decided that “money can’t buy happiness”, and decided to live a modest life with his fifth wife.

Frane Selak is now world-famous for escaping death.

Benjamin Alexander, a 38-year-old man from Northampton shire, became the first athlete to represent Jamaica in an alpine skiing event (高山滑雪) at the Winter Olympics.

But his story started in 2015. When he saw friends did the sport so skillfully, he was in awe and decided to take a ski lesson.” That first time, I fell 27 times on the way down the hill. I think a lot of people would have given up at that point.” “But I kind of just took that as the baseline. If I can aim for falling less than 27 times on the next hill, then I am progressing.”

However, it wasn’t until two years later that Benjamin considered seriously competing in the sport. “In 2018, I went to the Winter Olympics as a spectator,” he said. “I noticed that there were only three athletes representing Jamaica. I found that very strange since my mother country is a powerhouse full of athletes in the summer game. So coming into 2019, I just had a plan to say, ‘Let’s see if this crazy idea of going to the Olympics is even possible. Let’s just go and ski for a little while and see what happens.’” he said.

Alexander has no full-time coach. He built a support network that included Stokes and the US skier Gordon Gray, who called Alexander’s technique “terrible” but thought his lack of fear would give him an advantage in competition. A strategic approach and fearless technique have led the engineering graduate and former DJ not only to make sporting history but find success as a black athlete in a historically white sport. Alexander bills himself as a “reinvention expert” and has used skills learned in his other careers to develop his pursuit of skiing success. “I’ve been to 67 countries. I’ve spent a lot of my life on the road.” he said. “I’ve always loved to travel and a big part of my previous role as a DJ was getting myself out there, marketing myself in the right way, figuring out ways to get into venues, clubs and festivals that I wanted to perform at.”

When it comes to the most refreshing Chinese YouTube figure of 2019, most people think of Li Ziqi, a Chinese vlogger whose videos focus on the beautiful scenery and the rural life in the Chinese countryside. With more than 7.5 million subscribers on YouTube, Li also has more than 1.9 million likes, and close to 3 million followers on her Facebook page. Experts from China claim that Li Ziqi is a better advocate for Chinese culture than the country’s state media.

Li’s fans think it is the spirit of craftsmanship behind her works that makes Li’s video clips attractive. She strictly follows the authentic traditional steps and procedures in making traditional Chinese food and handicrafts, such as peach flower wine and silk. Sometimes she spends several months producing one of the videos.

Li Ziqi’s videos are rather unique. Most of the videos have English titles to ensure better recommendations by the algorithms(计算程序). In fact, most of her videos that are produced in a professional and delicate way involve very little speaking at all. Instead, they focus on the visual aspects, and the natural sounds of the landscape. Li’s videos convey a more universal message. People can enjoy these videos with little or no background or knowledge about the country. Therefore, Li’s videos can be enjoyed by many with different language backgrounds.