A blogger posts about The Titanic, “Lol, although Kate got internet bullied a lot at the time, this still makes me laugh every time hahahahaha!”
They post a picture of Rose and Jack from the Titanic, along with internet commentary at the time, “It’s because Rose was too fat that Jack couldn’t climb on the board and live.” As well as an internet meme of Kate saying, “They’re all saying I’m too fat. Why is everyone so mean to me? I’m not fat at all.”
Comments say, “Jack could’ve lived if he lost some weight himself. Why does the weight have to come off of the girl?”
“But she’s beautiful. Like she just walked out of an oil painting. It’s a powerful, full kind of beauty. How can anyone call that fat?”
“Uh, but according to the end of the movie, most people didn’t drown, they froze to death. This is a sea filled with icebergs. If the main character was skin on bones, with no fat to keep her warm, she wouldn’t have survived.”
“A typical topic—why can men marry down, but women can’t? It’s not that women haven’t tried it, but everyone who came before them had failed.
When men marry down, so long as they give up on any criteria they have for the girl’s family background and money-making ability, they can probably get themselves a prettier, meeker wife.
But if a hot, middle-class girl marries down and gives her money to a poor, handsome guy, what she’s going to get is just betrayal and humiliation.
Because so few men can actually submit to someone else. I’m not saying that submission is necessary a good quality, but very, very few men can do it. It takes too much for them to bear with it.
Men have a physical advantage to women, and are naturally violent to some extent. They have a much higher emotional need to be “dominant”. And they have an easier time surviving in society than women. So in general, they have a harder time accepting submitting to someone else to survive.”
Comments say, “And if you have kids, then when men marry down, the girl is still bringing along her reproductive abilities into the marriage to balance out the inequality between them. If the girl is marrying down, the man can’t make up for the reproductive costs at all, so it just makes the relationship even more inequal.”
“Or maybe it’s because when women are the more dominant partner, they’re a lot more bitchy and controlling towards their spouses, and are more stifling to live with.”
“This is just a false paradox. When men marry down, all they mean is that they’re looking for someone who either has excellent looks, or excellent personality, or excellent diploma, or whatever, and just lacks family background. If you’re poor and you’re ugly or you’ve got a bad personality, no one would marry down for you either.”
The headmaster of Jinan University of Journalism and Communication in China writes under the hashtag #how do we have effective discussion about societal problems?, “In the age where everything is social media, more and more societal problems are being discussed and addressed online, and with the help of AI technology, it makes the truth harder and harder to find. Of course, new technology can help with this problem too. But a lot of internet commenters are only joining in a discussion to gain internet fame. If you let yourself be directed by irrational emotions, then you’ll only end up hurting yourself and everyone else.
In this day and age where likes and subscribes are everything, a more emotional take gets you more attention, and a lot of people pursue fame by posting extreme takes online, spreading fake news, maliciously drawing attention to a topic, or even inciting internet bullying. Public discussion should be a calm debate, to achieve a societal consensus. These irrational discussions and bullying has damaged the purpose of public discussion, and affected the healthy development of such discussions, and created a lot of societal conflict, ruining societal harmony and stability. A lot of experts have came up with a lot of suggestions for this problem, to effectively achieve rational discussion about societal problems and cleanse the internet environment.
The purpose of discussing societal problems on the internet should be all about “societal”. That is, communal benefits are the most important. The point is to figure out a solution together by discussing the problem, maximising public good. It’s not that you can’t bring up your personal interests, but you can’t make it more important than the public good.
When discussing societal problems on the internet, we need to objectively address the truth and rationally express our opinions, and maintain objectivity in the face of emotions and prejudices. It’s not strange for there to be different opinions, but people should stay away from personal attacks and malicious slandering. So long as everyone respects each other and speaks what’s on their mind, then we can arrived at a consensus. Even if people still maintain different opinions, we can just keep discussing. Some problems don’t have a correct answer at all. In a multicultural society, it’s not strange to have different values and ideals. Respecting different opinions and tolerating differences is the point of public discussion.
There’s nothing wrong with seeking attention on the internet. And it’s understandable that some people or groups on the internet want to attract more of a crowd by increasing their likes and subscribes. But if you try to achieve this using irrational means, and the ultimate result damages the public good or harms the people involved, then we can see these people get chased out of communities by angry internet citizens. And we can see a lot of influencers disrupting society for the sake of getting attention, and ending up banned or muted. From this, we can see that only rational discussion can maintain public discussion. That’s what we should do whether from the standpoint of public good or personal profit.”
I have no idea why this post was pushed to the front page despite only having 6 comments and 13 reposts, I’m not even sure what side he’s on. But clearly, the algorithm is trying to push something.
A tiktok video showing, “How dismissive my boyfriend can be while he’s playing his videogame.”
The video starts with her handing her husband a piece of cabbage. Asking, “Is this apple sweet?” And he replies, “Yeah, it’s sweet, where did you get it?” while not taking his eyes off his game. Then she says that she wants to be a widow, and he replies, “Yeah, sure, widows are nice. Widows are free.” She asks if her outfit looks nice, and he replies, “Yeah, sure, it looks great.”
She demands that he actually look at her outfit, and he turns his head without taking his eyes off of his game to say, “Yeah, yeah, it suits you. Nice colour too.”
She finally asks, “When are we getting a divorce?”
And he says, “Wait ’til this match’s ended. Whatever you wanna do, I gotta finish here first.” And that’s when he realises what’s going on, and goes, “Wait, divorce? Why are we divorcing?”
Comments say, “Well, at least he’s easy to keep alive. Just toss him a cabbage every now and then.”
“I died laughing when he turned his head.”
“He’s responding to everything you’re saying. But he’s dismissing everything you’re saying.”
A compilation of people discussing whether it’s better to work in Guangdong or Zhejiang, both very economically prosperous states.
“In Guangdong, you don’t have to buy winter jackets or winter boots, and you can only spend 600 RMB a month on rent.”
“Nah, there’s plenty of rooms for rent for just 400, 300, or even 200 RMB.”
“And you can go out in flip flops, no makeup, and nobody cares.”
“I’m in Guangzhou, average salaryman, making 7000 a month. If I work overtime, I can make it up to 10,000 a month. I live at a 650 RMB a month place, and only eat fast food under 15 RMB, and I’m happy with my life.”
“I’ve been living in Shenzhen for four years now. I’m getting older, and my family’s urging me to go back home. But I really like being able to just be myself here, and not care what other people think. It’s great to not have any expectations put on me.”
“You heard the saying, “Pack up my bucket and go,”? Why a bucket? Because a bucket will hold your bamboo sheet and drying rack and toiletries, plus a couple of summer outfits. And that’s everything you own. If you really run out of places to live, you can sleep under a bridge for a night. There’s fried rice noodles on the street for a buck. You can go anywhere you want in your pair of flip flops.”
“I’ve been to Hangzhou once. A suitcase that normally sells for 100-200 RMB in Guangdong costs 800-1000 RMB here. Sugar cane is only a couple bucks per cane in Guangzhou, and he charged me 30 something bucks to eat it here.”
“The generation of women who’s the worst at housework, the laziest, complains all day about being a “free nanny”.
The generation of women who are the least loyal complain all the time about being “betrayed”.
The generation of women who are the most willing to live with people before marriage and get pregnant randomly and frequently get abortions, complain all day about “having kids for men.”
They’re pocketing the bride price their in-laws paid themselves, but they talk all the time about how they brought their dowry to their in-laws’ place.
Even though they live in their own independent marital house as a young couple, they complain about having to take care of their in-laws.
Even though they married into the man’s family, once they have kids, they still want to fight their husband for the right to give their kid their last name.
Even though their mother-in-law is helping them with childcare every day, they complain all the time about how hard it is to take care of a baby.
Although this is only a minority of women in this generation, they’ve already ruined the whole atmosphere and general values in society.”
Comments say, “Meanwhile, men don’t think there’s anything wrong with living off of their parents. They’re also the least responsible, least capable generation.”
“I see your IP is from Shandong. Why are you getting involved in Men’s Rights Movement stuff now? Got triggered by a woman?”
“We just learned from you men. We’re just doing everything that you’re doing.”
“I’ve been cussing out investment funds all year, but not all of my money is on the market.
I’ve shared before, that my asset is divided into three major parts—real estate, investment funds, and insurance. Most of the real estate I bought were apartments. I live in one unit and rent the rest, and Changsha’s real estate prices have always been very cheap but very stable.
So far, the worst performing part of my portfolio is the investment funds. I’ve lost over 2 million RMB over the last two years. I’m such a fucking chive.
So far, the insurance I’ve bought seems the most stable out of everything. I planned it out in 2019 and bought into 3 insurance policies. Two of them aren’t exacting doing the best on the market, but the profit I’ve gotten is still pretty remarkable. Most of it is a commercial retirement insurance. Sunk a couple million into that, so I’d have something to rely on in the future. And I get dividends every year, so it’s basically future insurance + wealth management. Although all my money is tied up going into this insurance for a couple of years and it’s put a lot of stress on me, it’s still the best investment I’ve made by far.
Honestly, before 2017, I didn’t trust insurance much. The turning point was when I was running my business in 2017 and fell and broke a bone, and spent 60,000 RMB on a hospital stay. I didn’t have any insurance, so I had to pay out of pocket. I happened to be going through some liquidity problems at the time too, so you can imagine how much spending that money hurt at the time. As soon as I got out of the hospital, I educated myself on commercial insurance right away.
Maybe it’s because I write about my estate planning a lot, I get a lot of fans asking me in my PMs about insurance. I’ve written about this back in July, that at the time, wealth-related insurance is down to 3.5% annual interest now, and after July, it’s fell to just 3%. At the time, I’ve told everyone, if you’re estate planning, you can check out insurances. I don’t know if anyone bought in or not. I get it if people didn’t have time.
After all, insurance is a big industry. There’s a lot of different products out there. It’s normal for people to feel like they don’t even know where to start, and get worried about getting scammed because they don’t know enough about the insurance market. Especially people who are short on money to begin with, and fear wasting money if they don’t get as much returns as they’re expecting.
My suggestion is, before you buy insurance, you’ve got to find a third-party company and get a professional consultation and recommendation based on your age, income, and expected returns. In this kind of economic environment, we’ve had a reduction in interest rates twice now in April and September. This is the lowest interest rate we’ve seen since China was established. “Low growth, low interest” is going to become a norm now. I really recommend against trying to get high returns by going with high risk options. It’s just not going to work, objectively speaking. Stability is everything. You’ve got to spend your money where it counts.
As for the reduced annual interest, I’ve asked my own consultant. Right now, the most bang for your buck is a life insurance policy, Zeng Duo Duo No. 5. It only came out in October, and first of all, it’s pretty flexible about payments. You can buy it for as low as just 10,000 a year. And it grows at a very stable rate. And its cash value is written into the contract, so you’re guaranteed it. If anyone wants to get into insurances, you can check this one out.
Worst case scenario, even if you haven’t even started estate planning yet, I still recommend you educate yourself about insurances, because every normal person needs it in the hospital. You’ll discover that your attitude is completely different if you have insurance versus not. Everyone knows that imported medicine works the best, but all of them have to be paid for out of pocket. National health insurance doesn’t cover any of it. So are you going to use it or not? And if you do use it, how long can your savings last?
If you have to give up on treatment because you have no money, do you know how despairing that is? It’s enough to drive someone insane. But when it comes to insurance, if you get the right policy, you’re all set. But if you get a bad insurance policy, you’re just buying yourself a bunch of hassle. And you might end up someone else’s chive. Based on my experience, you have to, absolutely have to, get a third party to give you an evaluation. I’ll share my consultant with you. The best part about what I use, Little Umbrella, is that it’s a platform, not an insurance company. Compared to traditional insurance companies, it’s going to be a lot more sincere and objective in its recommendations.
Just one detail as an example. When I checked with Little Umbrella, not only did he tell me about all the products that I don’t need to buy ever, he also analysed all the pros and cons of all the different insurances out there, and helped me cross out any that were a bad fit. Such honest service is hard to not be satisfied with, and they guarantee everyone their own one-on-one agent.
But any valuable information is never free on the internet, especially not the service of professionals. Little Umbrella is pretty reasonable with their one-on-one consultation. They only charge one cent. You can’t do much with a single cent in life, but you can get really good advice if you need to buy insurance.
My suggestion is that people use this opportunity to really learn what you need and what you should get. Even if you already have insurance, you should get their analysis on whether or not you bought a good policy.”
Comments say, “Losing 2 million in investment funds alone. I don’t think we’re in remotely the same class.”
“You can buy insurance for your pets too, if you have them. Vets are ridiculously expensive if you’re paying out of pocket.”
“There’s just too much instability in investment funds and stocks. If you invested 2 million into growing oranges, your wealth would’ve flipped five times in two years.”
[Don’t you hate it when you spend like 20 minutes translating a post just to slowly realise that it was all an advertisement. I hate it.]
“People in Dynastic China were probably really dirty.
On Xu Zhimo’s “Raising Children Vol.2” [a standup comedian’s routine], he talks about a lot of bad habits Chinese people have in raising kids. And one of them is: dirtiness.
His childhood teacher, Mr. Yuan, was never bathed as a child by his parents because they were worried about him catching a cold. And he took that habit with him all the way into his coffin. For the fifty-odd years he was alive, he never washed his body. Nor did he brush his teeth or wash his hair, or even wash his face. That sounds gross just hearing about it, right?
He said, “Just look at how we dress our kids and you see how ridiculous it is.”
Their whole body has to be wrapped up tight. Their arms and legs are never exposed, in case they get cold. Sure, Chinese parents are terrified of the cold. But they wear open crotch pants. As soon as the kid squats down, their whole privates are hanging out in the air. Even their stomach gets exposed. But now the parents aren’t worried about the cold at all!
Kids can’t be bathed too frequently, because they might catch a cold. Where I grew up, it’s not unusual for a kid to not get bathed all year round. I don’t know how many times I was bathed per year growing up. Forget winter. There’s no heating, so of course there was also no bathing. Sometimes, you had to wash up in the summer, but we did it out of a tiny basin, with boiling hot water, so kids hated bath time.
I still remember my biggest two fears as a child: cutting my hair and getting bathed. “I need to capture him to cut his hair.” “I need to capture him to give him a bath” My mom is always saying. They never told me why a person had to bathe. They never try to make the bathing process more comfortable.
That left a deep influence on me. Even as a grown ass man, I don’t despise showering, but I definitely don’t like it either. I see it as an annoying but necessary chore, not a relaxing experience.
I never learned to swim either, probably because I grew up hating water.
My kid is even more ridiculous.
Just like me, he also doesn’t like bath time.
One time, while I was home (he was raised by grandma), I finally got him to agree to take a bath with me. He didn’t mind it. We did it again the next day, and had a good time. If I got to do it a couple more times, I might have roused his interest in bathing.
But he happened to get a small fever the next day, and everyone in my family told him, “See, it’s all your dad’s fault. He made you get a bath, and now you’ve caught a cold! Don’t listen to him next time!”
Maybe they were only joking around. But my kid believed them. He absolutely refused to take another bath with daddy.
In the end, he said, “Look at all the adults in modern society, why are they all so lazy, so dirty (especially in their deeds and their mindset), so stupid, so ugly, so trashy. Why are modern day youth so weak, so suspicious, so easily depressed, so unhealthy? This is probably because their parents never fulfilled their responsibilities. A part of it is ignorance, a part of it is sloth. And in the end, they’re failed society, they’ve failed their children, and they’ve gotten nothing out of it themselves either. Really, what is the point?”
Comments say, “It’s cause of economic background, really. If your roof is leaky and you get wet in the winter, even if the water is hot, it’ll become freezing right away. And it takes so much firewood to heat any amount of water. When I was little and I needed a bath, we’d either have to go to a bathhouse or just wait until summer. And then, you’d need to boil water with coal, then fill up four big thermos with it, then get out a big wooden basin. Then mix up big buckets of cold water and hot water, and finally get it to the right temperature. And when you’re done bathing, it always took two adults to lift up that basin of water to pour out. It’s just too much of a pain in the ass.”
“Most people in Dynastic days didn’t shower much. At least in Europe, they thought it was damaging to your health, and most people would bathe like twice in their lifetime.”
“Didn’t this guy abandon his wife and children? Where does he get off judging other people for being dirty?”
”If you’re poor and you’re ugly or you’ve got a bad personality, no one would marry down for you either.”
No lie here at all hahaha
“Most people in Dynastic days didn’t shower much. At least in Europe, they thought it was damaging to your health, and most people would bathe like twice in their lifetime.”
This is a common myth. In some parts of Europe they thought it was bad to submerge your body in water so they'd wipe themselves off with water and soap. Louis XIV only bathed a few times in his life but every morning he was wiped down with water and a mixture of alcohol and soap before being perfumed. In the rest of Europe bath houses were very common. Also, since bath houses were common places for prostitutes and you didn't have to go naked in public a lot of more religious types thought wiping yourself down was more moral than bathing.
I'm curious though: how did Chinese people bathe before plumbing?