01/20/24 - Huawei phones get the most expensive prices, and iPhones get the cheapest.
“A private school in Henan had a fire last night, causing 13 people to die and 1 person to get injured. It happened in the school dorms. There’s some interviews by teachers saying that the victims are all students. That’s so tragic. 13 families have been destroyed. Chinese New Year is coming up. I can’t imagine how they’re going to get through the pain of losing a child.
It’s still not clear why the fire happened yet, but with this kind of disaster, there’s bound to be some screw up with safety measures at the school. The news reports say that the school’s warned students about fire risks at home before, and yet a fatal fire happened in their own dorms.
The principal of the school’s already been arrested. It’s 13 lives! I mean, sure, it’s not easy to run a private school. The reports say that this school’s always had a good local reputation. But safety always has to come first. Everything else comes after. This fire is probably going to completely upend this whole school. Can they even guarantee the education of thousands of their other students? Being lax on safety really will hurt everyone, including yourself.
As the exciting atmosphere of New Years gets here, a lot of people might go easy with safety sometimes. Stay alert! You can chill on everything else, but you really do always have pay the utmost attention to safety! Remember, everyone—anything can be vetoed in favour of preventing disastrous fires like this!”
Comments say, “Just this morning, I saw security guards walking around our apartments checking our fire hydrants. I think smoke alarms should be rolled out all across the country, just like installing safety valves for natural gas. Install them where there are kids first. They’re small and don’t know how to protect themselves.”
“Oh my god. The first major tragedy of the year. I can’t imagine how their families are going to deal with this upcoming New Year.”
“Old Hu needs to donate money to their family.” [A former media worker turned influencer who’s well known for promoting the party line and singing the praises of the CCP.]
“I really hate my friends meeting up together without me after I introduced them to each other. Like, it was only coincidence that we all hung out for dinner once, and I don’t know when they even added each other’s WeChat. But they’re hanging out on their own now, and even deliberately sending me texts while they’re eating to tell me that they’re together. Like, it’s so annoying. Are they really that close? I hate socialisation more and more.”
Comments say, “They just met each other through you. If they like each other and want to continue being friends, they have the freedom to do that.”
“Okay, sure, it’s his freedom, but if he’s that eager for socialisation, why doesn’t he go make friends on his own? Does he have to steal someone else’s friend? Is he jealous that OP has good friends and he doesn’t? Is he so desperately lonely that he has to bug OP to introduce friends to him?”
“It’s totally normal that you feel uncomfortable, but they also did nothing wrong.”
“When you’re single, you control your friends. When you’re not, you control your SO. Once you’re pregnant, you control your kids. Once you’re old, you control your descendants. It must be so hard being alive.”
“I would be really happy! My friends became friends because of me!”
A tiktok video of street drinks being made in India. Op says, “Every time he gets a food ingredient, he washes his hands. The end result looks really tasty!”
Comments say, “Actually, the stinky tofu you buy off the street every day is a lot dirtier than this.”
“It’s a pretty green and healthy drink, but not everyone can safely drink this! People with strong lack of Yang or severe kidney deficiencies can’t drink cold drinks like this, because there’s no ginger inside!”
“Indians all have the talent to turn perfectly good food into something that looks like shit.”
A tiktok video showing a 100 year old grandpa skipping over his 59-year-old youngest son to feed his 54-year-old oldest grandson. Apparently, Grandpa Wang has five generations in his family—a total of 3 sons, 3 grandsons, and 2 granddaughters. He raised his oldest grandson and favourites him. His oldest granddaughter-in-law says that everyone loves grandpa, he holds the whole family together:
Comments say, “Wow, imagine having a grandpa to dote on you at 54 years old! How lucky is that!”
“Grandpa, your oldest grandson is already big and strong XD He doesn’t need more food XD XD Give some love to your poor youngest son~”
“But which of his great-grandchildren is his favourite? :D”
“On a business trip and borrowed the office of the hotel I’m staying at to print off some materials. The hotel’s partner was there too, so we chatted for a bit. The partner was like, “The service industry is getting harder and harder to work. You get bad reviews over anything these days.”
Apparently, they’d just had a girl who somehow managed to utterly ruin four towels during her stay there. (He didn’t say exactly how). When she went to check out, room service called the manager in and wanted her to pay 100 RMB in damages for it. So the girl started arguing with the manager. The partner came over and saw that the girl was completely in the wrong, but she was a uni student and wasn’t going to listen to reason at all, so he just told her to go. A couple of days later, the girl left a bad review saying that the hotel banded together to extort money out of her.
The partner said super angrily, “If I’d known, I’d have gotten the 100 bucks from her. I’m getting a bad review either way, and now I’ve lost four towels for no reason.”
And I could only try to comfort him, “Well, you meet all kinds when you run a business.”
Comments say, “It’s people letting manchildren get away with shit like this that causes more and more shameless manchildren.”
“There’s a lot of utterly unreasonable feminazis like this than men, I don’t know why.”
“Honestly, take some photos as evidence, and if there’s a bad review, make a reply and explain the actual situation and attach the photos. People are smart these days, they actually bother to read the bad reviews. So long as you’re in the right, they won’t mindlessly believer the customer.”
A blogger posts a screenshot of a comment on the internet and says, “This is why we have so many depressed kids.”
The comment reads, “I don’t plan to let my youngest (4 years old, girl) go to kindergarten. She’s been working out since 18 months old, and now runs 800 metres a day, 60 backflips, 30 high jumps, 40 minutes hitting a sandbag, 3 minute hand stand, and next month, she should be able to jump up from a laying position without using her hands. As for her studies, she can recognise 1000 characters and can read short stories on her own. As for English, she’s at a fifth grade reading level and can have conversations in English. She’s memorised about 400 poems, same with historical stories. We just started on maths this year. Right now, time is super tight, but my kiddo’s really happy. We don’t have strict goals, just getting through day by day. I wanna send her to a 4-year primary school, so she can enter society a little faster, since we had her pretty late in life.”
Comments say, “Just reading that passage made my mental health worse.”
“I feel like this person has mental problems of their own.”
“Is she raising her kid to be special forces?”
“It’s only special regions that need to pay sky high prices to get a wife. Why? Because as supply goes down, price goes up. In these special regions, daughter never get born.
In an urban family, or in any family that’s relatively well off, girls get good education growing up, can make plenty of money for themselves, or they’re only children and will inherit their parents’ estate. Marriage isn’t about just bride price, because they’re not after a one time deal. Marriage is about combining two families’ assets to reach a bigger, better platform. How many houses do you have? How many houses do I have? How are we gonna get rent? What resources do you have? Sharing all their connections, etc.
The poorer a region is, the more backwards, the more marriage and having kids (particularly having sons) is an urgent demand. And when supply is lower than demand, then the poorer a region is, the higher the bride prices, generally. Not just because of the shortage in supply, but because girls never get a good education and have no rights to inherit, and so this is the only deal they can make in their life.
And the invisible hand of the market has levied the punishment—in a poor rural area, if you don’t let your daughters be born and don’t give them good education and don’t let them achieve independence by making money on their own and don’t leave them any inheritance, then they have to make all the money they can off of their marriage. And now the government’s trying to clean up this shit.”
Comments say, “Yeah, rural villages don’t allow women to inherit land. It’s pretty scary oppression.”
A tiktok video of a brilliant magic trick:
Comments say, “Goddammit! I actually didn’t see it the first time!”
“I can’t control my eyes!”
“They’ve captured the core of magic—directing attention.”
“I swear I’ve watched ten times and didn’t see the trick.”
“Haven’t been back to China in 4-5 years. Several big things I noticed coming back this time:
The economy’s really taken a big dive from before. Shanghai used to be packed with people. All the entertainment places are stuffed full—restaurants too. Now, they’re all empty, and you can’t hardly see any foreigners on the streets. Went to Shenzhen, and the amusement parks are empty too. A lot have closed down three years ago. And a lot of fancy mansions have become ruins.
Almost all cars are electric now. It’s more bang for your buck, and the government cares more about the environment. They do a good job with sorting trash.
It’s so convenient! Getting an Uber Eats delivery in America is like 7-10 USD, and you’ll get spit on if you don’t give any tip.
Everyone has more manners, especially young people. There’s less people cutting in line and randomly screaming insults at you. Most people are pretty friendly.
Coming to a big city, I really feel like a dumb American hick. I want to move to Shanghai to live for a couple of years.”
Comments say, “Honestly, I feel like you shouldn’t praise take out, because it’s a convenience that’s only achieved by exploiting the shit out of people.”
“You’ll have a lot of fun if you stay for a few months, but it’ll suck if you have to live here for years.”
“It’s Chinese food that keeps me coming back hahahahaha”
“I can’t believe you didn’t comment on how bad the air is. I came back for 3 weeks, and the air quality in Shanghai was terrible the whole time!”
“How terrifying is big data when it comes to exploiting you?
I wanted to get plane tickets for the Chinese New Year, and used an app on my phone to search for tickets. Note, me and my wife use the exact same account. But tickets show up as different prices for each of us—it’s about 100 RMB more expensive on my phone.
I was shocked. The same account can show different prices?
One of my subordinates had went over to this app company a while ago, and I asked him how they do it, and he told me that even if it’s the same account, they’ll give out different prices based on the model of your phone.
In his experience, Huawei phones get the most expensive prices, and iPhones get the cheapest.”
Comments say, “And they’ll track your search history too. The more you look up a certain city or date, the more those flights go up in cost.”
“Yeah, the same outfit shows up as 100 RMB more expensive for me than for my friend.”
“What about Xiaomi?”
“People with Xiaomi phones can’t afford to fly.”
“I’ve been telling a joke for years now, and I still really love it.
The UN gives a question to all the little kids around the world: “Please give your point of view on solutions to other countries’ food shortage problems.”
After reading the question, kids in Africa asked, “What’s food?”
Kids in Europe asked, “What’s shortage?”
Kids in Latin America asked, “What’s please?”
Kids in America asked, “What’s other countries?”
Kids in the Middle East ask, “What’s solutions?”
Kids in China ask, “What’s “your point of view”?”
Kids in China often get a standard answer, an official response, and slowly lose their ability to think critically. We often demand that our kids be “obedient” and praise kids for listening to their elders, to their seniors, so they can avoid mistakes. Chinese people are already more prone to obedience, and people more easily form the same collective opinions and ideas. And in a Chinese classroom, it’s always the teaching blabbing on while the students copy down as much of it as they can. When would they ever have the opportunity to talk themselves?”
Comments say, “”A teacher is one who teaches the way, passes down skills, and resolves confusions” is the biggest mistake in history. [A Confucius saying.] Questioning isn’t allowed, only acceptance.”
“Not asking what food is means we have plenty. Not asking what shortage is means we have a good education. Not asking what please is means we have manners. Not asking what other countries is means we have a broad awareness. Not asking what a solution is means kids can problem-solve. As for the answer of what “your point of view” is, there’s only one answer—pull yourself up by your boot straps.”
“If you won 50 million RMB, what would you do?
Me: Hey, excuse me, I want a spicy chicken burger, a fry, a popcorn chicken, and a coke.
Cashier: Do you want the combo, sir?
Me: No, I want them all by themselves.”
Comments say, “I’d buy a trending hashtag for the academic fraud case.” [Happening in China right now, I can’t remember which university.]
“Get myself ten male whores and slap them all in the face.”
“Oh my god, how much confidence do you need to just spend 50 million RMB however? I’d plan it down to the last cent so I can live on it for the rest of my life.”
“My niece is in her sophomore year in college, and I told her to come visit me in Germany for spring break, and I’ll take her on a week-long cruise in Italy. My niece asked me if she could bring a classmate of hers, and I told her that I’m paying for all her stuff, but her classmate would have to pay for their stuff. Tickets (from New York to Munich) is 1200 USD. I got a luxury suite on the cruise, and the first two people is 3200 USD, and adding one more person would be 2707 USD.
I told my husband last night, and he said that my niece can come, but he won’t welcome her classmate. We can’t take that responsibility. The cruise is going to stop at 5 ports and two countries. If something happened, we can’t be held responsible. Not to mention that’s at least 4000 USD spent on a 14 day spring break. It’s not appropriate for a uni student to be spending that much on a vacation when they’re not making money yet.
Do you guys think I should invite this classmate too?”
Comments say, “Your reply isn’t bad, but your husband has a point too. You’re hanging out with your niece, not doing charity. I’d advise you turn her down too. You really can’t take responsibility if something happened.”
“Your husband is right. All kinds of economic issues could come up, and safety issues too. If she ate something bad, it could be a huge hassle.”
“If she insists on bringing a friend, then she can stay at home too.”