02/08/24 - Have you ever seen a negative number as your end-of-year bonus?
[I’m putting in a link to the original weibo post at the start of every section, since some people said that they wanted that sort of thing. I do my best to copy-paste the URL, but sometimes, I put my phone down for a while to go deal with kids and when I come back, the app’s automatically refreshed a bunch of new posts and I can’t find the original post again, so if there’s a link missing, that’s probably what happened. But I will definitely make an effort!]
Question: “Why do the young of animals fight for food, but human babies have to be coaxed and begged into eating?”
Response: “Somethings, you can’t go into too much detail on, or it’ll chill your heart.
There were tons of foods I wouldn’t eat as a kid. I wouldn’t eat this, wouldn’t eat that, and my grandma hated me for it. So I was skin on bones. A lot of people figured that I’d never survive to adulthood. Every time I got sick, I would stop eating. My mom would cry all the time about it.
When I started going to school, I was so much thinner and smaller than other kids my age that the teacher wouldn’t believe I was old enough to come.
My grandma didn’t care at all. If I was gonna die, I was gonna die, just have another kid then.
But then, my maternal grandpa came.
Aside from the main building at my house, we also had three sheds to hold the grain we harvested, plus some dried fish and sausages and stuff. My grandpa took up residence in one of these sheds, and built a firewood stove next to it with mud and rocks. And he asked someone for some pots.
And it was at that point that my days began to get better.
My maternal grandpa would take me to the river every day to sunbathe, and let me play around while he fashioned a fishing stick or weaved some small nets and caught fish and shrimp. He’d make the bigger fish for the whole family, and stew the smaller fish for me to eat.
Every time he made porridge for me, half of it would be fish and shrimp, with just a handful of rice in it. Once it’s all cooked soft and squishy, he’d add in some seasonal vegetables. Right before serving, sprinkle in a little bit of salt or a dash of soy sauce, and I could eat two or three bowls of it in a sitting.
That’s when I realised that the food my family made, especially what my grandma made, just plain sucked. Every time my maternal gramp would cook, I didn’t need anyone to feed me. I could feed myself.
Round where we live, a lot of people kept chickens, and some of the chicks would be runts or sickly, and they’d toss them away. My grandpa would take these chicks back, weave a bamboo cage for them, and keep them in their own individual cages with a small plate to feed them from. He had a couple dozen cages outside his house, all filled with his chicks. He didn’t need grain to feed them either. He’d take me hiking and come back with wild greens and fruits. We fed them three times a day, and most of the chicks survived, about 40-50 of them.
When autumn came, my grandpa began killing the chicken. He’d carve a chicken up for the whole family, and keep the feet, head, and bones to marinade and dry into jerky for me. He’d also save three pieces of chicken meat, and put it in my rice porridge once a day. Once we’re done with the three pieces of meat, three days will have passed, and he’ll take the preserved chicken feet and necks to stew for me. And then, he’d kill another chicken.
My grandma’s ran a household for decades, and knew how many pieces a chicken could be carved into. She knew exactly what was going on, so she started complaining. It’s only a girl, what’s she gonna do if you spoil her rotten like this now? And then she’d start chastising my mom for not having a son.
My grandpa would just chuckle, not mad at all.
My dad used to be a soldier when he was young, and he’d been deployed to several different places and worked as an accountant before, and he knew how things worked, so he’d say, “Those are his own chickens anyways—and it’s not like you didn’t eat any.”
And my grandma would reluctantly shut up and just mumble something about how lucky I am to have a grandpa who favours me so much.
But believe it or not, despite always being sickly from the day I was born, after being nursed like this by my grandpa for two years, my body started to get better.
That’s when my mom finally realised that not eating well enough will actually cause kids to get unhealthy, to get sick.
After my grandpa went back to his own place, every time I got sick, my mom finally realised she had to roast some sweet potatoes or corn for me. If you’re sick, you need to eat well. Kids only grow well if they eat well. Even better if you can provide them with meat or fish.
And my dad finally learned that you can’t feed a child exactly what you feed an adult. So he bought a fishing net and began fishing in his spare time too. From that point, he stopped listening to my grandma and stopped serving just greens and thin porridge for every meal, but worked his best to put good food on the table.
In middle school, I began going to school in the city and couldn’t make it home for lunch, so my mom told me to eat with my friends. And every once in a while, she would bring rice and flour and peanuts and pumpkins and whatever to these friends’ families.
I finally learned that you have to blanche eggplants before frying them, or else they’ll be super bitter. If you make stir-fried cabbages, you need to add plenty of grease or put in some pork belly meat, or else it won’t be flavourful at all.
I finally realised why my mom and my grandma’s food sucked. Because they wouldn’t add any oil at all. Just the tiniest bit to make sure the food didn’t stick to the pot. Other people’s food tasted good because there was plenty of grease in it. This had nothing with culinary skill.
You can throw meat and fish into a pot and just heat it over a fire with some salt, and it would taste great. But even the best chef in all of China couldn’t do much with just watery porridge.
If your child is picky and needs to be spoon fed, the main reason is because she’s too sickly or you’re giving her sucky food. There’s no other reason. This is true all over the world. You can’t argue against me.
After I started working, the company would provide us with a health checkup every year. When it was time to measure weight, everyone was really jealous of a paper thin female colleague, but she always looked upset about it.
Later on, the accountant told us in private that she’s too thin, she’s underweight. The doctor said she was salted earth.
We were confused. Isn’t it good to be thin? How is she salted earth? Don’t everyone want visible abs and a waistline smaller than an A4 sheet of paper?
The accountant pursed her lips. “You can’t have kids with a body like that. Even if you somehow managed to get pregnant, you’ll miscarry. How is she not salted earth?”
We were all shocked. When I heard this, I felt like something was wrong, so I went home and asked my mom about what happened back in the day.
My mom burst into tears and started fighting with my dad right at the dinner table.
My dad argued back that my grandma wasn’t stingy, she just didn’t know nutritional common sense. She had grown up all her life with nothing but greens and porridge. She wasn’t deliberately trying to short anyone. Their generation believed, down to their bones, that wanting to eat meat is just spoiled rotten behaviour. You’re just a glutton.
Turns out, when my mom was pregnant with me, it wasn’t that they couldn’t afford food. But my grandma was used to being frugal. She was anxious about food. And they’d go several months without seeing any meat on the table at all. Every meal would be some variety of greens and watery porridge. Even the eggs were rationed and my mom couldn’t eat any.
My mom had lost a ton of weight by the time she gave birth to me, and I was thin and bony like a kitten when I was born. That, and I was a girl, so my grandma completely ignored me in my infancy, and my parents took care of me by themselves, and they had no idea what they were doing. So my mom and I have always been sickly.
When I was around 6 months old, my grandma forced my mom to wean me so she can start preparing to get pregnant again. But she was so malnutritioned that she miscarried twice, and my grandma hates her for it to this day.
The family was on the verge of breaking apart, when my grandpa came and moved in for two years. He didn’t dare to say that he was there to nurse my mom back to health. He only said that he wanted to see his granddaughter. He never dared to eat one of my grandma’s chickens either.
My grandma said that she’d ate nothing but greens her whole life and had six sons and one daughter, and they’re all healthy. My mom is just a glutton, demanding chicken and duck. What a pain in the ass.
My grandpa would figure out a way to catch fish and shrimp and try to keep chickens to keep my mom fed. I ate everything openly, but my mom would have to sneak food. My grandpa would keep a bowl of food in his bedroom, and my mom would sneak in to eat when nobody was looking.
My dad knew, of course. We were just keeping it secret from my grandma.
My grandma isn’t stupid, though. She’d spend all day cursing at the chickens and dogs, every word an insinuation at my mom. My mom’s cried countless times over it.
My grandma said that if you marry a chicken, you live like a chicken. If you marry a dog, you live like a dog. Why is my mom so spoiled? She’d even curse my mom for eating on her own, that she’ll get sick from it.
The problem is, she never allowed anyone to eat the chickens she raised, nor the eggs they laid. She’d save up the eggs until she had a hundred of them, and then sell it at the market. And the chickens and ducks were all accounted for, when they had to be given away as gifts, used to put up a pretense during the holidays, served up as an offering to the Gods. My mom would never get any of it.
My grandpa would counsel my mom in private, that anything she eats will stay with her. She needs to recover her body and quickly have a son soon, so my grandma will shut up.
With my grandpa’s care and my dad’s help covering for it, my mom finally got healthy. She wasn’t spoiled at all. She was actually suffering malnutrition. Every time my mom fights with my dad, she’d bring up how when she was sitting the month, she never ate a single one of his chickens or eggs.
My dad would say, “I didn’t know about stuff like that back then. I got better eventually, didn’t I?”
And my mom would argue back, “Look at your daughter!”
And my dad would have nothing to say to that, because compared to other people my age, I am a lot less healthy than them.
Every time they talk about this, my mom would get furious, because my grandma has mocked my mom for spoon feeding me for 20 years. She’d say my mom didn’t know how to raise kids, didn’t know how to be a mom, couldn’t run a household.
So to answer OP’s question, why do the young of other animals fight for food, and human babies have to be coaxed into eating?
Other animals fight for food because they’re strong. They have the energy to fight for food.
Sickly animals aren’t spoiled. They’re too weak to get to any of the food.
I’ve said before, why do people who keep chickens throw away the runts of the litter? Because they won’t win fighting for food against the other chicks and will starve to death eventually anyways. Might as well throw them away early and save some grain.
Why does my grandpa have so much success raising these sickly chicks? Because he kept them one to a cage with their own individual plate of food, so these sickly chicks still got to eat their fill.
Why does my grandpa cook food especially for me? Because I’m sickly too, and I couldn’t digest what adults ate, so I never could grow well.
I’m not saying there aren’t a minority of kids who are eating plenty well and just acting like brats.
But saying that a kid is a brat just because they don’t eat well is asshole behaviour!”
Comments say, “Parents aren’t picky eaters because they don’t buy things they don’t like to eat.”
“If a kid is picky, it’s probably because the food is bad. All the food I hated as a kid, I love now as an adult once I’m cooking for myself.”
“Thank god you had a good grandpa!”
“Learned about another weird Shandong custom last night. Got to experience it first hand.
Every year, I try to organise my whole family to go out to dinner, since we almost never get to get together as one big family, especially now that my siblings are all married. The family is getting bigger and bigger as the years go on too. A couple of years ago, we had about 20 people, and now we have almost 30.
For last night’s gathering, I wanted to treat the whole family, and it’s also an early celebration for my dad’s birthday. I didn’t buy any baijiu this year, since not a lot of people in my family drink, I just bought two big bottles of sake to the restaurant. I went out of my way to pick up my grandma first, and left one bottle in her place, so we could have something to drink on actual Chinese New Years Eve. And my uncle gave me another bottle of baijiu. So now we had a bottle of sake and a bottle of baijiu to bring to the restaurant, and I figured people could just drink whichever one they prefer.
The weird custom was brought up by my cousin, since I told him that I bought a bottle of sake, a 1800ml bottle, which should be enough, but if it’s not, we could always order more at the restaurant.
He said that according to Shandong custom, you can never bring just one bottle of alcohol.
I told him that I was already warned about this, so I’m also bringing a bottle of baijiu.
He said that’s still wrong according to Shandong customs, that I should bring two bottles of baijiu and two bottles of sake.
And I was like, fuck Shandong customs then.
And he was like, well, it’s fine since it’s all family, but if you were bringing this to a business dinner, your would never get a deal.
And I was like, this is why I hate doing business with Shandong people, and only work with people from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, or overseas.
And then he shut up, but he did complain about how my sake sucked when he had it.
Everyone else had fun though.
Fuck Shandong customs. Fuck Shandong customs. Fuck Shandong customs.”
Comments say, “The only people I refused to work with were people from Shandong. I just can’t stand them.”
“I’m moving to Shandong long-term after the New Years. Why are their customs all so weird?”
“Hahahahaha, northerners are obsessed with even numbers. I totally get it.”
“I dunno if it’s Chinese New Year coming up or not, but there’s a lot of family conflict posts lately. I was just scrolling around on Chinese Instagram, and found some pretty ridiculous posts:
A girl handing her pay check to her parents every month, and still gets yelled at her dad for lazing around at home living off of her parents. When she said she wanted to move out on her own, her parents said she was insane.
A girl who’s only started working for 7 days, and her parents are already demanding living expenses from her.
Parents who let an adult man who molested their daughter sleep in their daughter’s bedroom (she’s working out of state and hasn’t gotten home yet), and when she expressed displeasure, they verbally abused her.
I’ve discovered that a lot of people don’t love their kids or care about them.
They’re just a bunch of cold-hearted, selfish capitalists who’ve invested in a new account and plans to drain it dry for everything it’s worth.”
Comments say, “I’ve seen a big argument on Chinese Instagram about whether grown children would pay living expenses to their parents, and a bunch of people with IPs in Guangdong and Guangxi are saying paying living expenses is a sign of filial piety and it’s absolutely required. And everyone with a different IP is just absolutely astounded by all of this.”
“All these people in the comment section who don’t want to give their parents money, were you abused growing up? If you’re living at home, isn’t it normal to contribute to the expenses? Otherwise, would you be taking advantage of your parents? My favourite part about getting a job is being able to give my parents money and start paying them back.”
“I think they just don’t love daughters.”
“Have you ever seen a negative number as your end-of-year bonus?”
This is a post from a civil engineer employed with a government-funded corporation. He explains, “In 2023, I was responsible for roughly 50 projects. 25 of them were fully my responsibility, another 20 were in cooperation with other designers. Some of these projects were completed and paid for, some fell through half way, some were better paying, some were worse paying.
Just looked at my reimbursement forms, and I was on business trips 83 days out of this year. That is, I was away from home almost 3 months out of this year. And when I opened this document [a excel sheet showing his end-of-year bonus], I went numb.
Everyone else’s workplace is rife with gossip about how much money people got. In my workplace, everyone’s asking around for what other people owes.”
He ends with a screenshot of a friend asking, “So how much do you owe?”
And he responds, “12,000 RMB.””
Comments say, “A government-funded corporation, civil engineering, doing projects that were completed and paid, and it’s still like this…can you imagine what architectures in private companies are dealing with?”
“Tell you a secret tip, if they demand money from you, insist that you’ll only wire money into a company business account. Never pay them back personally or in cash.”
“Is your company trying to curry favour with you by being all like, “But I’m merciful, so I’ll waive this debt?””
When they talk about "living expenses" are they just talking about the kid paying for their own food and stuff, or are they talking about, like, paying rent to the parents?
when my grandma came -> when my grandpa came
northerns -> northerners