A Chinese restaurant recruited a new chef by inviting applicants to slice a melon on a woman's stomach.

The hotel restaurant, in Hankou, Hubei province, put the knife skills of more than 15 candidates to the test. A woman volunteer laid on a table, with her stomach covered with a thin sheet of plastic, while would-be chefs chopped up their melons.

"They had to chop the gourd into very thin pieces in a limited time," said a spokesman for the hotel. The successful candidate, Chef Hu Gua, won the job by chopping up his melon in less than a minute without hurting the woman. Chef Hu told the Changjiang Business Daily that he had been very confident before the recruitment test.

But he added: "I still felt a bit nervous when it came to is as it was the first time I ever chopped up something on a woman's belly."  One of the judges commented: "Hu did such a god job - you could tell he had been in the trade for more than 10 years."

Being a fast slicer seems to be a minor skill when it comes to cooking!

Nicely chopped but tastes a bit like belly button fluff...

The original was here