02/04/26 - The workers processing your registration can just change it to whatever they want?
“I hate the idea of birthdays being mom suffering days.
Just turned midnight and I told my husband happy birthday. He said he doesn’t celebrate birthdays because his birth day is his mother’s suffering day.
And then he told my son that when it’s his birthday, it’s my suffering day.
I told him that was nonsense. I gave birth to my son so he could grow up healthy and happy. I am happy that I had him. So long as he grows up safe and healthy and leads a good life, I don’t feel any suffering at all.
He didn’t beg us to bring him into this world. We brought them into this world. Why would we use something like this to emotionally blackmail them?”
Comments say, “My mom used to tell me that my birthday is her suffering day so I should celebrate her, and I told her that means mother’s day is actually my holiday because she wouldn’t be a mom without me.”
“Are young people this fragile these days? You can’t mention any suffering as a mom at all or they’ll flip out and start arguing back?”
“I don’t get how it’s emotional blackmail. He just didn’t want to celebrate his own birthday. He never refused to celebrate his wife’s birthday or anything. All he said was why he doesn’t celebrate his own birthdays, how is it emotional blackmail?”
“Name change ideas. I want to change my name.
My original name was Chen Jintiao [陈金窕], and it got registered as Chen Sanmei [陈三妹—literally “third sister of Chen”, an extremely careless name]. Should I switch it back to my original name?
My family has always called me Chen Jintiao growing up, but the person who did my household registration said they didn’t know how to write “窕”, I don’t know what’s going on. For some reason, they just ended up registering me as Chen Sanmei. Tiao is such an unusual character that a lot of people might not know how to read it, so I’m hesitating whether to change it back to Chen Jintiao or go for a totally new name.”
Comments say, “Add a little bit to each character and change it from Chen Sanmei [陈三妹] to Chen Yushu [陈玉姝—rare jade], because you’re getting better a little bit at a time hahahahaha.”
“I am shocked by this comment section. A name is something that sticks with you your whole life. Some of them were carefully selected with the best blessings in mind by your elders. The workers processing your registration can just change it to whatever they want? And they don’t give any shits at all…”
“The people processing your registration can change you age however they want too. My husband’s older brother was born in 1967 and they wrote it down as 1977. Then they saw my husband was born in 1972, and someone born in 77 would be younger than him, so they crossed out his older brother as “first born child” and changed him to “second born child”.”
“Back when they hand-wrote household registrations, my granduncle was named 杨树权 [Yang Shuquan] and the worker accidentally poked a hole in the paper, so the registration became 杨树杈 [Yang Shucha, literally “branch of populus tree”, not at all the name of a person] and they never changed it.”
“It’s a part of the word “窈窕淑女” [a proper lady]. How is it an unusual character?”
“Even if you change it, you shouldn’t change it to Jintiao, because people are gonna call you “gold bars” [金条 is pronounced the same].”
“My dad was called Yunsheng [云生, born of clouds], and they registered it as Yongsheng [永生, immortality].”
“My grandma was supposed to be called Qi Yanlan [戚颜兰—the beauty of a lily], and the people doing her registration wrote her name as Qi Caomi [戚糙米--wholegrain rice], and she always got called Qi Caomi after that.”
“My mom’s name is Liu Zhulan [刘竹兰] and it got registered as Liu Aiping [刘爱平]…I don’t even know what to do. I don’t know how it ended up as a name that has literally nothing to do with the original.”
“They did it on purpose. My mom said that when she went to get my sister registered, the girl deliberately wrote something else down and my mom saw and made her change it back.”
“My god, even if they can’t do Jintiao for some reason, they shouldn’t give you a bullshit name like Sanmei. They could’ve just changed Tiao to another character pronounced the same and it would be way better.”
“Workers were super irresponsible back in the day, and all the registrations were hand-written. They were uneducated and just wanted less work. A lot of people with the surname 萧 [Xiao] got registered as 肖 [Xiao] just because it’s easier to write. They’d change your whole last name.”
“My dad was called 兆林 [Zhaolin], and they changed it to 照莲 [Zhaolian—to shine upon lotus flowers, a very feminine name.]”
“My grandpa was called Tang Qinghe [唐青河--blue river], and his name on his ID is Tang Bojiao [唐跛脚--cripple]….I don’t know how you could even make that mistake.”
“I’ve got a friend named Liu Dachong [刘大虫—big bug, a dialectic slang term for “tiger”.] He told me that his dad was a bit drunk the day he got him registered. He was supposed to be called Liu Dachen [刘达晨], and his dad slurred it into Liu Dachong.”
“Nobody has a more ridiculous name than my grandpa. Originally, his family named him Guangxin [光新--new light], and I don’t know how but household registration got his name down as Tiechui [铁锤—iron hammer] instead. And it was super inconvenient to change names back in the day, so he had to use that random name for his whole life.”
“Forget it. My mom always taught me to write my name as Yilin [仪林]. When I opened up my household registration for my high school entrance exam, my world collapsed. I was registered as Yuling [玉铃]. I feel like I was born 800 years ago or something.”
“Someone said that his surname was Wei [魏]. The household registration people didn’t know how to write it so they wrote down Wei [位], and his whole family had to change their surname.”
“My mom was born in 1963 and they changed it to 1953.”
“I was supposed to be calle Nihao [倪好] and they registered me as Nihao [倪浩--a much more masculine variant]. I got assigned to the male dorms in college, and my student ID was issued as male and had to be changed to female too. So annoying.”
Question: “What kind of person believes in the Kill Line?”
Answer: “I believe in it.
I work in garnishment in the court. A little bit earlier, we caught a garnishee in a small motel, around 50-years-old, didn’t owe too much money. He told me that he worked laying tile. All of last year, he only got 20 days of work. He has to borrow money just to eat. He owed too much money on his phone to receive calls, and he owes the motel money for his stay too which he plans to pay off the next time he manages to find some work. I checked his Wechat chat log and payment logs and looked at how shabby his clothes were and believed what he said. I mediated with the Garnisher and got him released.
He’s still young enough to work for now, but even if he got over this hump, in another couple of years, when he can’t work anymore, who’s going to take care of him?
And there’s another case where we were taking someone’s estate to pay off debts. The bank filed a foreclosure on his house. The homeowner had died the year before last which caused mortgage payments to stop, leaving his mother and two kids in primary and middle school behind. His ex-wife had left for another state and couldn’t be contacted. Now the whole family of three gets by off the help of some relatives. The house is sold off and they don’t even have anywhere to stay, and the bank doesn’t even want to give them enough money for rent. I don’t want to make their lives even worse, so all I can do is delay the case. But while the case can be delayed, I don’t know how they’re going to keep living.
I’ve worked as an enforcer for many years, and often times, these Garnishees get brought in and can’t even put together a thousand or even a couple hundred bucks, which causes them to get jail time. They all say the same thing for me: “People who get a steady income like you can never understand what I’m going through.”
I don’t know how to answer them.”
Comments say, “There’s clear regulations that your last real estate property that you live in cannot be foreclosed on. The bank is just going through the motions with their application.” [To be clear, this policy has been amended to say the bank can foreclose so long as they leave you a couple of years of rent money.]
“No good person attacks the Kill Line theory.”
“They could get any random construction job and avoid starving to death.”
“The 50-year-old tile layer can come work at my company, free room and board, fully insured, 4500+ a month.”