[Sorry, I didn’t get enough sleep lately and skipped yesterday’s update in favour of catching up to sleep. One incident that occurred yesterday was that a Manner employee [coffee shop] got into a dispute with a customer over coffees coming out too slowly, and threw an entire cup of coffee ground in the customer’s face.]
A blogger writes on this case, #The Manner incident turns out to be a multi-episode drama. “Hahahahaha, I’ve been living on weibo all day long XD never thought I’d see the aftermath XD The customer who got powder thrown in her face? Her ex-worker turned that moment into a reaction image and sent it to her XD This thing just keeps getting funnier and funnier.”
Comments say, “Look at how hysterical that girl was being. How ugly. It’s not the customer who’s embarrassed, it’s her.”
“She bought a lot of bots, huh. Even though this whole thing is the employee’s fault.”
“This was actually a pretty reasonable customer. If I complained that my coffee was too slow and got told to just not buy from here, I’d get mad too. Why does someone else need to be responsible for your emotional breakdowns as a grown adult? You can go vent where there aren’t any other people. Why take it out on the customer?”
According to Shangyou News Reports, since August of last month, multiple taxi drivers in Xi’an have complained about a woman riding taxis and not paying, and even posting many videos on the internet making fun of taxi drivers and claiming to have gone “viral” over this. Based on police reports, as early as June 8th, 2023, Ms. Yang had been jailed for 10 days for taking taxi rides and refusing to pay, and still refused to change her behaviour and continued her illegal actions. She rode taxis back and forth to Xi’an’s SKP, Xiaozhai, Dongda, Luan, etc, and would come up with excuses like not having money, phone running out of charge, or just not speaking to refuse to pay her fees.
On the 17th of August, the police arrested Ms. Yang and determined that between April of 2022 and August of 2023, Ms. Yang refused to pay for 19 taxi rides, owing at least 1095.5 RMB.
On the 14th of June, 2024, Xian’s Lianhu District Court sentenced her to one year in prison for “disturbing the public peace” and ordered her to return 1095.5 RMB in damages to 11 taxi drivers.
Comments say, “Surely, we can put her on the blacklist for all Chinese transportation?”
“Looks like she’s getting one final free ride.”
“This is pretty normal for women.”
“Just ordered some takeout in my hotel room. There’s a pretty weird Xishuangbanna fruit recipe—chilli powder plums. I’ll let you guys know whether it’s good or not after I’m done eating.”
The first comment is one from OP: “Was tasty!”
“We make them this way in western Guangdong. You squash the plums and add chilli powder and salt. Great for increasing appetite!”
“Ahhh, I just tried them and couldn’t accept the flavour. I was really looking forward to them too, but they just tasted like MSG, no fruit-flavour left.”
“My boss thinks I’m not working hard enough because my periods always come on time.
The manager for the neighbouring department stopped getting her menstrual cycle for two months because of overwhelming stress, and then one month, it came twice. So she took some time off to go to the hospital to get it checked out.
Today, my boss asked about my period, and I said it was all normal, and he told me this story and said I wasn’t working hard enough or feeling any stress.”
Comments say, “Couldn’t it be that you’re just better at dealing with stress?”
“He’s a pretty typical case of people who only want productivity and not birth rates then :P”
“My boss thinks I don’t work hard because I’m really fair-skinned too, especially in the summer. The lady in the neighbouring cubicle is always going on and on about how hard she works, how she’d gotten so tanned because she runs around so much, in this really sarcastic tone. I’m just pale all year round.”
#2000’s girl deletes software after quitting job and is threatened by company with lawsuit. “On the 18th of June, a 2000’s girl from Guangzhou posted a video where she cried that because she’d deleted some software off of the company computer after quitting, she’s now being threatened with a lawsuit by the legal department.
We learned that this girl, Ms. Jiang, graduated in 2023 and had only started working not too long ago. “It was ridiculous! All I’d deleted was QQ music [like Apple music], QQ [chatting software that doubles as a way to send and store files], WeChat, Chrome, and Baidu Cloud [like Google Drives]. My boss says I’ve negatively impacted the company.” Jiang told CCTV’s “News+” reporter that she deleted some software that took up a lot of space because her computer was getting laggy, and she just wanted it to run smoother.
“I guess I screwed up despite good intentions. My boss thinks deleting those software means when new employees come in, they have to redownload them all again and that’s a waste of time and a lot of hassle, so he immediately said he was going to contact the legal department to sue me.” Ms. Jiang explained that she filmed the video because she felt wronged. She had no idea what to do, getting sued by her own company when she’d just graduated and entered the work force.
“I was so scared I wanted to call the police, because I didn’t actually do anything to damage the company’s profits, and yet they want to sue me. I’ve worked for only two months, and the company never gave me any critical documents. I just deleted all the software that I personally downloaded and logged into to begin with.”
Ms. Jiang explains that she never did get sued after all.”
Comments say, “I wanna see the followup. Did she have a proper employment contract? Were they paying her social security? Her insurance? Her 401K? Are their taxes all in order?”
“The fuck are you talking about? The company needs to provide evidence that actual harm was done. There’s no way they have any evidence.”
“Just look at the comment section and you’ll know that 996 is a true blessing. Ideally, you’d have a 996 schedule, and give them the same pay as a donkey drawing a millstone.”
Xinjiang’s Hami City Yizhou District Court had its sentencing hearing for the College Application Tampering Case in 2023. In the case, student Luo Shulong used the Exam ID info that the homeroom teacher had posted to the group chat to login to 7 of his classmate’s accounts and changed their application info, causing several students to fail to get into their dream school. Luo Shulong was charged with “Tampering with Computer Information” and sentenced to 18 months.
Some of the victims ended up not going on to further education, some were admitted by their last choice. They mostly come from farming or entry-level working families. Going into a Rail Technical School is a great choice for them and their families, it gives a relatively stable way up, and is one of the better opportunities in their life, and now, they’ve lost this chance.
Comments say, “He changed 7 people’s lives, and he only gets 18 months? That’s way too light.”
“That teacher didn’t think very far ahead.”
“This charge was such a stretch. “Tampering with Computer Information?” That’s just the means by which he got to his end. What he was actually trying to do is “Endangering someone’s life” easily! He should get at least 10 years!”
“Almost died laughing first thing in the morning. A coworker worked overtime yesterday and forgot to close the AC and got fined 20 RMB.
The key is, there’s no overtime pay [by which OP means he wasn’t getting paid at all]. He did it voluntarily.
Even funnier, he had to write up the company email criticising his behaviour for his boss to send to everybody.”
Comments say, “Wow, your workplace is the same as mine. On my very first day of work, I got fined 20 RMB.”
“20 RMB is not that much money though.”
“How do companies like this even exist to begin with.”
#Shanghai Jiaotong University allows students to freely change majors. “According to the notice published by Shanghai Jiaotong University on the 7th of April, 2024, the 2021 to 2023 graduating class can apply to change majors in the spring semester in their first, second, and third years. No colleges shall set a quota for number of students leaving. No change of majors can be denied because of grades or the fact that the student had already changed majors once before. Even medical school students can change majors with other departments.
The highlight of this policy from Shanghai Jiaotong University is that it’s “zero barrier of entry”, even allowing you to change your major in your 3rd year. On the 5th of June, STU held a press conference on undergrad enrolment where they mentioned this new policy on changing majors, causing a strong reaction from society.
But STU is far from the only university doing this. Wuhan University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China, and Jilin University are all adopting a more open policy on changing majors.
Comments say, “They don’t set a quota on anyone transferring out, but they do set a quota on people transferring in. It’s just a game of words.”
“So can nursing students change to a surgery major then? They still gotta look at your grades.”
“What a low-class “fairness” that’s given up on a fairness of grades.”
A blogger writes under the hashtag #Technical school student wins 12th place in global maths competition: “Thanks everyone for your reminder. I used overleaf to go over Jiang Ping’s solution on the blackboard in the video, and the notes here are my thoughts. Note that this was a question that the filmer came up with on the spot, and not one of the questions during the competition. Overall, I think this is a solution written by a kid who was never systematically trained in maths which is nonetheless still correct. So, she probably didn’t copy an existing answer. As for some of the mistakes and irregular notations she used, she’s a 17-year-old kid who basically taught herself maths and is answering in front of a camera for the first time. I think it’s all understandable.”
Comments say, “Some people are trying to create an idol, and some people are doubting it, and in the end, all the karma is going to come down to her. I just hope she won’t be too affected by this and can continue to love maths. If this case can bring more talented math people to notice her and provide her with some systematic help, that’d be even better.”
“But you can only prove the solution was written by someone without any training in math, not that she came up with it herself. Are you this bad at logic despite being a math professor yourself?”
“Lol, a bunch of men are going on and on about whether or not she copied down the equation correctly and questioning this and questioning that, but nobody’s brought up any doubts about how she went about solving the problem. It’s just like how when an outsider tries to comment on whether or not a doctor knows how to treat an illness. They can criticise the doctor’s prescriptions all they want, but no one can talk about whether this is the right direction to treat a disease. And yet they’re so confident that they’re copy pasting their bullshit everywhere.”
Question: “Why is it so hard for normal people to save just 30-50K a year?”
Answer: “It depends on how you’re saving money, right?
I’m 24-years-old, an auxiliary police, make about 4k a month. I don’t spend much money, though, and just lay flat for my life. The biggest expense I had this month was that I got sick and had to pay a little over 200 RMB. I save up 30-40K every year, not counting my 401K.
My dad makes 8K a month, living in a factory that gives free room and board. He buys some cigarettes every month (the cheapest kind where you can get a pack for 10 RMB), and occasionally some groceries, and never eats out. He only spends about 1000 RMB a month.
My mom makes 6K a month working in a factory with no days off every month. She’s frugal like mad. The biggest expense every month for her is probably just putting gas in her motorcycle. Plus whatever else, she probably only spends 500 RMB a month. (Starting from this month, my mom can get retirement checks too, and she’ll get 1600 RMB extra. Just thinking about this has gotten my mom all excited.)
This means that every year, we can save over 100K. But you guys think this life sounds really boring, right? Maybe you wouldn’t think this is living at all. But my mom and dad are super happy and still working hard on saving money. Like, just having money makes them happy and confident.
We’re just three normal people living in a normal small town.”
Comments say, “20-30K doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s so hard to pull off in reality.”
“30K a year? Lol, you need 6-10 years to save up the 300K you need to get a wife.”
“It’s not that hard to save up 20-30K a month in Shenzhen if you work hard, but that amount of small change buys you nothing.”
When plums come into season here, I’m going to have to try cooking some with chili powder and salt! They look really good