Tong Junhai, a 44-year-old man from China, recently achieved international fame, after a video showing him inflating a tyre tube using only one of his nostrils has gone viral online.

On February 25, Tong Junhai stunned a crowd at Huancheng Park, in the city of Xi’an, northwestern China, with a very unusual stunt. Dressed as a Kung Fu master, the man started boasting that he could inflate a medium-size tyre tube using only his nose.

And to show people just how difficult the task is for a regular person, he invited a naysayer to try it himself, using his mouth. The man tried blowing into the rubber house, but to no avail.

When it was time for Junhai to show off his bizarre skill, he got into a half-squat position, put the hose to one of his nostrils, blocked the other with his thumb, and started pumping air into the tube.

You can see the blood veins on his forehead popping out as he struggles to push the air out of his lungs and into the tyre tube, but eventually, he pulls it off.

Luckily, Tong’s performance was captured on video and shared on Chinese social media, where it quickly went viral. Local media soon caught up with him to find out how he did it. The 44-year-old said that he had watched a kung fu master pull off the same stunt when he was a child, and was inspired to condition his lungs in order to imitate him.

Junhai added that it took him 10 years to hone his skill, which he now uses to impress people around China. “People love my outdoor performance, so I’m happy too,” he told Shanxi News.

 

Interestingly, Tong Junhai isn’t the world’s only “human air pump”. There are several of them in China alone. Four years ago, Four years ago, Xie Quanguo, of Chengdu, also made news headlines for his ability to fill up a tyre tube with his nose, with only 15 breaths of air. And then there’s Nie Yongbing, who three years ago pulled off an even more impressive stunt. He inflated four large tyre tubes at the same time, using only one nostril, and it took hi just 20 minutes to do it.