01/16/24 - The baby has got 4 layers of clothes on, with a swaddle, plus 5 layers of blankets.
“My impression of Chengdu:
The sun rises way too late in the day. The sky is only starting to lighten at 7:30AM.
Can’t see the sun. The sky is really gloomy and grey from morning to night, even at the height of noon.
The city is really small. Its second ring is only about 10 km diameter.
There’s so few supermarkets. The biggest supermarket locally is actually a chain convenience store. You have to go to the farmer’s market to get groceries.
The pace of life is really slow. There’s a lot of young people hanging out on the street even on work days, like nobody needs to work.
It’s great for tourists. Routes are all well-marked, subways are easy to navigate, and you can park your bike wherever you want.
Most people can only speak impenetrable Sichuan dialect, including employees at tourist spots and shopping malls. A couple of people will switch over to equally impenetrable Sichuan-style Mandarin when they learn you’re from out of state.
Tons of places to eat at. Great if you like spicy food. Basically, it’s great for visible, but you’d get depressed if you lived here long-term.”
Comments say, “That’s just because he didn’t stay long enough. If he did, he’d learn that sometimes, you don’t see the sun for weeks at a time.”
“This is a pretty objective take. There really is no sun and nobody speaks mandarin. It’s not like the latter issue couldn’t be fixed, and it’s necessary to becoming a metropolis.”
“I only teach my daughter how to speak Sichuan dialect. It’d be sad if she grew up not knowing it. They’ll learn mandarin on their own, but if you don’t speak your dialect all the time, you’ll forget it. Sichuan people should speech Sichuan style.”
“Every time, this time of year, the ER gets super busy. There’s people who overwork themselves trying to clean all their windows, there’s people fighting over how to spend the New Years. A couple just left, where the man came in crying.
The woman was pregnant with her second baby, a local, 30 weeks along. Their oldest is a daughter, born in 2019.
The man was from out of state.
He really wanted the woman and the daughter to go with him to his hometown in Sha’anxi. They need to take a train from Beijing first, and then ride in a car for 5 hours. He said that back in 2019, their oldest was still too little so they didn’t go back. And then they didn’t go back for 3 years because of covid. And in 2023, both his wife and his in-laws just got positive again, so they didn’t go back again. He just misses home a lot. He wants to go back. He wants to go back so much he’s crying.
The woman told him to take their daughter and go home then.
And the man said that he’s never taken care of his daughter by himself for that long or to that far away. The furthest he went was that one time to Tianjin for an event. He wants the woman to take his daughter back with him.
The woman is like, “That journey is exhausting. I just want to spend the New Years with my family.”
Apparently, they’d talked about this several times, and never could settle on an agreement. Now it’s time to buy tickets, and the man is getting super frustrated, and while they were arguing about it again, things got physical.
Checked her over and she’s fine, so I sent her to rest.
Now he’s crying even harder, because now she has even more reasons not to go with him.”
Comments say, “It’s so obvious he’s never participated in child care. What a great life he’s living.”
“Can’t he go back by himself?? God, it’s so frustrating to read! If my husband was like this…no, no way, there’s no way I’d marry such a wussy crybaby bitch of a husband.”
“It’s not that he can’t take his kid himself. But he hasn’t been back in several years. He has to visit all his relatives, get drunk, play mahjong, brag, show off, and his kid would just be a burden on him, but he can’t not bring her along or he’d lose face. So he needs a babysitter.”
“My dad lied to all of us! He secretly bought himself a 1000 RMB watch on Taobao, and told us it was a gift from someone else. Today, I was using his phone to process some returns, and accidentally saw his order history and I was really furious! 1000 RMB is a big amount of money for my family! My mom never even gets clothes for herself—she just wears my and my sister’s left overs. And even we only get clothes when they go on clearance when the seasons change. I really feel so helpless here.”
A compilation of responses to this: “Lol, how ridiculous. What the fuck are people talking about, that if it wasn’t for raising her, her dad could buy countless watches? Are you shitting me? Her mom is the one who was pregnant for 10 months and went through labour. Her dad just ejaculated once. Her mom is the one wearing left overs. Her dad is the one buy a watch. You guys really are good at turning things upside down. If you don’t want to raise a kid, wear a fucking condom, or get an abortion. Don’t have the kid, and then tell them about what a great life you could’ve been living if it hadn’t been for them.”
“No, really, what the hell is the comment section doing? Isn’t OP just feeling angry on her mom’s behalf that her dad would rather buy a watch than buy some new clothes for her mom?”
“Your dad’s worked hard all his life. He doesn’t have much he cares about. He’s already bought it. Now all you can do is tell him how great the watch looks on him and cheer him on and make him happy. The fact that he didn’t dare to tell you he bought it means that he didn’t want to make you feel pressured or like your family’s in a worse financial position. I’m sure he hesitated a lot when he bought it. He’s getting older too. He doesn’t have much time to enjoy things anymore. Let it go. At least, don’t get upset to his face. If my dad worked hard every day and I got mad at him over a watch, how sad would he be?”
“And yet you’re piercing your ears and buying earrings? Why not save your own money to buy some clothes for your mom?”
“If it wasn’t for you and your sister, you dad could’ve bought countless watches.”
“OP probably never wanted to be born into this kind of family that can’t even afford 1000 RMB. It’s not like she got to choose her birth. Just the fact that this kind of family has two kids makes me think they’re probably sexist shits.”
“You mom can blame him, but you have no right. You didn’t earn that money. And your mom didn’t earn that money on her own either. It’s not like they didn’t clothe you or feed you. If you feel bad for your mom, then let her wear new clothes and you wear her leftovers. If you hate your dad for spending money, then go and make money on your own.”
A tiktok video of a famous influencer describing her ex-husband and his family coming to her door and beating her up, trying to get custody of her kids, blaming her for ruining his life. The OP reposting this advises, “Call the police. Now that you’re not married anymore, it doesn’t count as domestic violence. Your MIL can actually go to jail for beating you up.”
Comments say, “Yeah, why isn’t she calling the cops? What does she expect the internet to do about this?”
“They want to take the kid away, and then sue her for child support.”
“Speaking of calling the cops, back when I was in uni, a thief came into our dorm, and we called the cops. They came over, asked a few questions, then lectured us, and then nothing. That was over twenty years ago.”
“The logic of the underclass.
About thirty years ago, there was someone from my hometown who went into the cloth business in Yiwu with the guidance of some family. I dunno what kind of idiot he met, but the guy paid five-figures in just deposit for a big order. So my neighbour immediately closed up shop and took the money and ran back home, and used that money to buy an old second-hand house in the city he lived in.
A couple of months later, two people came over looking for him from Yiwu, and asked all around my village where this guy was. When he was asking, he was actually only 50 metres away from his house, but nobody told him.
This story shows us that people don’t have morals at all. The more uncultured they are, the more you can’t reason with them. And if you spend your money, it’s really gone.
As someone who came from a rural village, I’ve seen too much unbelievable stuff. That’s why nothing surprises me anymore.”
Comments say, “So what became of him later?” OP replies, “Of course his life sucks now.”
“If he had done business with integrity, he could’ve really made it. He was just too short-sighted.”
“It’s just how shit was done in the 90s. My family lent money to someone claiming they were gonna start a business. Paid interest for 3 months and then disappeared. Go ask around the village, and you won’t ever find where they live.”
“My boyfriend’s dad is in the hospital. He’s in a different, distant city, so I didn’t visit in person or anything. My friends suggested I send him some supplements, but I really don’t know anything about those, and I’m worried about getting the wrong kind. My boyfriend says they’ve already gotten a ton of fruit and milk from people. They won’t take my money, and I don’t have a lot of it anyways since my pay check hasn’t arrived yet. So I thought I’d order him food every day instead, since my boyfriend was complaining about how hospital food sucked. At first, I thought he was only gonna be in the hospital for 2-3 days, since my boyfriend said the situation wasn’t very serious. But today, he told me it’s gonna be another ten days or so. That’s a bit over my budget. What should I do? I gotta feed myself too. But now that I’ve started, it feels really awkward to stop. Is there a high-EQ way to resolve this?”
Comments say, “Oh my god, his parents are shameless. You’re only his girlfriend, and they can rest easy eating your food?”
“No, everyone involved here is a weirdo. I don’t get why she feels the need to order food for them, it’s not like they’re engaged or anything. And I don’t get how he gets the face to keep letting her do this. Does he feel no shame?”
“Spend this kind of small change here and there just disappears into the noise of daily life. You would’ve been betting off just putting the total amount into a big red pocket and sending it over all at once.”
Under the hashtag #Son lies about burst testicles to con 300K out of dad, a blogger writes, “Underneath this news, someone left a comment, “Lol. My parents wouldn’t wire over so much as 1000.” I opened up her page, and lo and behold, gender: female. I read through a couple hundred of her weibo posts, and confirmed she really is a woman.
I guess Chinese women really do have an accurate idea how much their parents value them.”
Comments say, “Do you have to hurt me like this. My parents are like that too.”
“All those people talking about how societal is equal now, come back to me when you have inheritance rights, or it’s nothing more than an empty promise. Money is what really tests people.”
“I couldn’t get 300K out of them, but I think I can manage 10K. My brother’s different though. If he asked, he could have whatever he wanted.”
“The minimum social security base amount has skyrocketed to 7300 RMB in Shanghai, causing a lot of small businesses to face immense pressure. Even if their employees are only getting paid 3500 RMB per month, the company needs to pay into their social security as though they make 7300 a month. That’s an expense of 2560 RMB per month. This burden has caused hiring people to become an insurmountable challenge to small businesses, causing unemployment rates to continue to rise.”
Comments say, “The higher they raise it, the more people don’t pay into it. The more people don’t pay into it, the higher they raise it. It’s all gonna fall apart soon.”
“Sometimes, I wonder to myself, if 900 million people only make 2000 RMB a month, why is average salary almost 5000 RMB a month? Are there 400 million people out there making 15000 a month?”
“Social security checks are really high though. Can’t even spend it all, and it rise every year. You would never be able to make this much money by working.”
“It’s winter, and it’s super humid down here in the South. It’s only 7C outside, maybe 14 or 15C indoors? We’ve got the heater on, but grandma is still worried about the baby getting cold. The baby has got 4 layers of clothes on, with a swaddle, plus 5 layers of blankets.”
Comments say, “Are you not scared of SIDS? This is ridiculous.”
“Grandma grandma grandma. Do you have no agency as a mom? That you have to go grandma grandma grandma all day long?”
“Just put a single pair of jammies on the baby and throw the same blanket you use on him.”
“Let me show you what laying flat looks like for overseas Chinese people.
IP address America, a Chinese family, a couple with two kids. The man immigrated early, and both sides’ parents are in America now too. According to him, he’s completely laid flat.
He’s 41-years-old, and runs a small business in the finance world (like a manager for some small funds). A couple of years ago, he made about 200K a year on average. Last year, it suddenly exploded to a million a year, and he thinks it’ll stay that way in the future. His wife has a Master’s Degree in America and is currently a full-time mom, with both her children going to private school.
Right now, the family lives like this:
For the husband, he works, works out, cooks, and sleeps. His hobbies are just tea and reading up on psychology, philosophy, and theology. Low materialistic needs, very into Marie Kondo style decluttering. He’s deleted all his social media and just has a few close friends. He’s not in contact with any family from China anymore.
They don’t have any expectations for their kids. Their son plays soccer, their daughter figure-skating. Whatever makes them happy. The purpose is just to get them healthy and fit. Every year, for the holidays, they take their kids to tour the world, prioritising wilderness and hiking, and then museums and historical sites.
They’re not worried about death either. They’ve already got a trust fund set up.
The whole family’s goal is to achieve true financial freedom before 50-years-old and completely lay flat. They have no intentions of buying big fancy houses or fancy cars. Right now, they’re just trying to achieve financial freedom by cutting out unnecessary expenses.
The only flaw is that for the past three years, the husband has had to go to a psychiatrist every week because of the stress he faces at work. According to his description, a lot of people who work finance on Wall Street do drugs. If not illegal ones, then definitely prescription ones.
Aside from his mental health issues, this is basically my ideal laying flat life. He’s still working hard, and he’s still looking out for his kids, but he’s also enjoying life. He’s infinitely close to being able to do whatever he wants within reason. He’s really throw aside all standards purely for the pursuit of mental freedom. I really hope he can achieve financial freedom soon and completely lay flat.”
Comments say, “Yeah, but in order to lay flat, you need to make a million USD a year.”
“If your work is so stressful you have to see a psychiatrist, I really wouldn’t call that laying flat.”
“How much taxes does he pay with this kind of income?”