Alright, so, another incident has been sweeping the Chinese internet, so we’re gonna do a special edition just about Xu Bo.
Xu Bo is the founder of the gaming company Duoyi, worth a supposed 27 billion RMB. He’s mostly famous on the internet for the life goal he’s set for himself—he’s going to have 100 children. He does this by operating a very popular weibo account with a pinned post looking for 21-year-old pretty, virginal girls to have babies with. I’m not entirely sure how many girls have taken him up on the offer, but he has 13 children now through various means (IVF, surrogacy, etc, etc).
From what I can tell, he has a rotating harem of different virginal girls cycling through his life, but among all of them, he’s the happiest with Yang, nickname “二妞妈” (mother to his second daughter, literally). He’s the typical sort of misogynistic man, and Yang was smart enough to play directly into his ideals. She was never jealous of his other girlfriends, even to the point that she’s willing to hold hands with them in bed and chat. She took care of all dozen of his children. She never spent his money, which he only ever gave to her after noting it’s a “loan” on the transfer note. She never talks to other men. He was so confident in her chastity, that he offered to give 10 million RMB to any man who could get her to go out to dinner with them. She wrote a will that if she died, everything she owned would go to Xubo, not even leaving her own parents any money. She even didn’t mind that he had no intention of marrying her, in case she absconded with his money.
Which is exactly what she proceeded to do. Abscond away to Japan, abandoning the 13 children that were left in her care, with 800 million RMB of his money. He freaked out and immediately sued, but the courts ruled that they had lived together for so long and she’s been stepmom to his children for so long that what they have counts as a “civil marriage”, and so they ordered her to return 500 million of the money, and she got to keep the rest.
And Xu Bo has been making a flood of posts accusing her of being a bad mom, a bad wife, flirting with three men at once, not caring about her children (only 2 of whom are biologically hers), and even banning his company employees from marrying any woman who wants more than 100K in bride price.
I swear, every other post today has been various bloggers posting their takes on this development. I’ll cover a couple of the most popular or controversial takes, since this is the only thing anyone’s talking about:
First, from a technology blogger, “The case of Xu Bo’s girlfriend taking his 300 million is a classic case of morality. That is, both sides have a case. On the one hand, when a girl serves a billionaire for that many years with no title, no legitimacy, taking care of all of his children, getting some money out of it doesn’t seem entirely unfair. On the other hand, if people see that you can get 300 million RMB by being some billionaire’s mistress, what would society become?
This is the trouble with morality cases. Think about it, this is such an eye-grabbing piece of news, why is no reporter from a proper media agency covering it? Is it because they don’t want to? It’s because they don’t know how to.
To put simply, this case isn’t about how Xu Bo’s legal team is incompetent. And the woman here didn’t get to keep 300 million because she found some legal loophole. To put it more simply, if your coworker said he had some kind of emergency and needed to borrow 300K from you, and you wire him the money and make a note that it’s a loan, and demand he pay it back in 6 months. And the judge says, “Nah, you don’t have a contract specifying it’s a loan so you don’t get the money back.”?
No, in this case, the judge took one of Xu Bo’s many girlfriends to be his long-term life partner, and he took this 300 million to be a normal part of a gift between a couple. That’s how she got to legally keep this money.
This is a ruling on behalf of “morality”.
So why is it to controversial?
Because morality has to do with what we want to encourage in society. Tell the public, do you think it’s okay to encourage girls to be mistresses to billionaires?
This girl is just one of Xu Bo’s many mistresses. She just the main one who manages his harem. After gaining his trust, she took 300 million from him, and because they lived together for a long time, the judge ruled in her favour.
Once the public sees this case, what are they going to take away about relationships?
Like, oh, it’s not such a bad deal to be a mistress. Look, Xu Bo’s mistress got 300 million entirely legally.
That’s what’s hard about morality cases. Both sides have a point. And you have to rule in such a way that you help direct public morality. You can view the girl involved here as the victim having to put up with humiliation and stress for years, and support her getting her money. You can view her as just another gold digger who managed to con a billionaire into giving her 300 million.
These two different mindsets have drastically different effects on society.”
The second take is from an illustrator, “Just saw Xu Bo refusing to admit that Yang didn’t love him. He thinks she left because she was “brainwashed by feminism”. It reminds me of a lot of people…
I feel like a lot of men, especially the older ones, really do think of themselves as a patriarch in an intimate relationship. They treat their wives just like they treat their children.
And they don’t allow anything that’s outside of the realm of their imagination to happen. They seriously imagine women as an extension of themselves. For them, women are supposed to spend their whole lives serving their family, serving their husband and children. It’s not possible for them to think about anything else. No, it’s not that they shouldn’t—it’s that it’s not possible for them to.
So they can’t understand women falling out of love, because that’s not a problem for them. It’s not like men get married because of love.
I’ve seen a lot of cases among older people, where the woman wants a divorce, and the guy just thinks it’s inconceivable, unbelievable. Why divorce? We’ve been together for so many years, don’t talk to me about love. Why can’t we just keep going and you keep supporting me? Isn’t that what women are supposed to do? Why are you fucking around outside all day? Wouldn’t people make fun of you? How are you going to support yourself? What can you do by yourself? What can you do?
I saw the roadtripper Auntie Su Min. When she went back for a divorce, her husband never thought that that’s what she came back for. He assumed she’d come back because she couldn’t make it outside and came back begging to continue serving him. As soon as he saw her, he immediately went, “Oh, so you know to come back!? Couldn’t make it on your own, huh?”
That’s how men think.
They’re everyone’s dad. They’re everyone’s god. They see intimate relationships as relationships of power. They think they’re the smartest, wisest, most capable around.
“How could you possibly leave me? How are you going to survive by yourself? I don’t know anything about love. I just know that your only option is to stay home and serve me and beg me and call me daddy…”
Even if you are determined to leave, he still thinks you’re just throwing a tantrum. You’re just another Lu Yiping who has to come back for money even if it means being whipped. [segment from old TV show]
“Alright, go then. The outside world is dangerous. Once you go out there and get beaten up by society, you’ll come back crying for daddy.”
That’s how men think.”
Another take from an author, “I see a lot of people not understanding this piece of gossip, so let me write up a little PSA on Xu Bo here.
Xu Bo is one of my favourite modern male postmodern performing artists, the leader of Chinese farm feminism. He obtained a large amount of wealth through unspeakable means that is definitely not running his company, and went about trying to achieve the dream of all Chinese men: “Build a harem of virgins, have a ton of sons.”
Yang was a “girlfriend” who came to his side in the early stages of his experiment, and got his praise for never fighting or getting jealous. (I need to emphasise here that Xu Bo doesn’t marry anyone. He just fills his house with “girlfriends” to protect his assets.) At the time, Xu Bo was still having children by traditional means, and had two kids with Yang.
Xu Bo’s experiment got the attention and support of countless men online, but at the same time, he screwed himself with what he said. “Men should give 20,000 RMB to their wife every month for household expenses.” “Low-income men should give 98% of their income to their wife for household expenses.” He’s exposed himself as a secret feminist, and most of his male fans freaked out and left.
His account fell by the way side and was silent for many years. The next time he resurfaced, his experimental method had changed. Maybe he’s reached that age. He just can’t do it anymore. So Xu Bo’s stopped searching for “girlfriends”, and instead for surrogates.
In this period, Xu Bo’s created dozens of new children, raised in a daycare-like environment, taken care of by his “girlfriend” or nannies. The eggs come from all kinds of different country, ethnicities, and skin colours, but the sperm all come from Xu Bo. He’s a reproduction freak, not a retard. From the videos he’s posted, it’s almost all boys.
Xu Bo took advantage of overseas laws and tried to use “sperm donation” to make sure that none of his estate would be divided by his nearly 100 children. He said himself that the reason he had so many kids is to make his inheritors fight and compete against each other. The best will inherit his estate, and the rest can go work in a sweatshop.
Right now, I don’t think this case is about “Yang’s betrayal” at all, because 1) Xu Bo has a real victim complex and 2) he loves talking about his personal life on the internet.
Speaking of Xu Bo’s tendency to spin the story to his favour, there was a trending hashtag last year of a guy who went to a job interview at Duoyi, and was refused the opportunity because he was 20 pounds heavier than his resume said.
The guy got upset and went to get an explanation from Duoyi with his mom. And Xu Bo used his official Duoyi Network account to expose a photo of this guy’s mom, ranting about how, “Don’t get yourself taken hostage by a feminazi.”
All the men down in his comment section didn’t realise the fat guy involved here was a man, so they followed him with a bunch of comments like, “Feminazis shouldn’t get hired.” “Hamplanet”, etc, etc.”
And finally, from a technology blogger, “Dude, we are just getting started. If we’re in a 88-episode long TV show, we’re only at the first mini climax. We haven’t even reached the proper plotline yet.
Xu Bo is still in the prime of his youth right now, and he’s already unable to handle a single past girlfriend. In another 20-30 years, when he’s old and frail and facing off against his 100 children, can you imagine how thrilling that’ll get?
Forget the War of the Nine Dragons [historical case of 9 princes all going after the throne]. This is gonna be full on Battle Royale.
So, we all need to take care of ourselves, so we can follow this billionaire drama to the end!
I look forward to it so much!
Xu Bo! Good luck!”
As a westerner this is some of the hardest stuff to understand. Everything else I've read has some sort of parallel, or understandable human trait that takes its own cultural form, but this debate over semi-polygamy doesn't have any equal in western society. We've made it anathema for so long that traditional family values limit the number of kids to one woman, and the more progressive side considers it oppressive to have multiple women legally attached to one man.
If any American guy tried to publicly work towards 100 kids, rich or not he would be crushed by lawsuits before he got to 10.
How did she manage to abscond with that much money? Like, presumably he doesn't keep it in physical cash, right?