02/11/24 - A bride being literally packaged up like a piece of luggage and carried off.
“Studying overseas in Britain here, looking for help, this got left outside my door, what does it mean?
I put up Spring Festival couplets outside my door yesterday, and I don’t know if that’s the reason, but this got left outside my door today. I’m so scared! Anyone know what this is and what I should do? Hope big data can push this to knowledgeable sisters out there!”
Comments say, “It’s fine, China has tons of Gods, and they all have tenure. They kill puny monsters like these like they’re farming for loot. You got any room underneath your couplets? Print out a picture of the Eight Gods Crossing the Sea, and it’ll be 8 vs 1. Easier than fighting the computer in a LOL game.”
“If you believe it, it’s real. If you don’t believe it, it’s meant for the secondhand market.”
“Just hang a gnawed chicken foot on your door and it’ll be other people who are scared of you.”
“Just get on FB Marketplace and sell it, and set the options to have the buyer come pick it up in person at your door. Pass this blessing onto someone else.”
“What heathen gods are this? Send it off with a kick!”
“A very good friend of mind sent me two pieces of cured pork, and it’s all just pure fat. She said she just picked two pieces at random, but I don’t think so. I’m feeling really uncomfortable right now, because I always pick out the best for my friends.”
Comments say, “Maybe your friendship is only worth two pieces of cured meat. She sent you fat, and you exposed her on the internet. Neither of you are much better than the other.”
“Cut it into very thin slices, put it in a pot without any oil, and render it into lard, then put in cabbage. You can at least get some use out of these two chunks of fat this way. I don’t know whether your friendship’s been ruined, but if you toss the meat out, then at least the pig that died for it was wasted.”
“Just ask her how you’re supposed to eat this, and see what she says. If she keeps blowing it off, then you don’t really need her as a friend.”
“In Britain and Canada and Australia, there are a ton of Chinese students, and a lot of these people come from small towns. Their parents just have ordinary jobs or do some business, and they can still support 400-500K RMB in tuition every year. Sure, it’s probably costing these families everything they have, but it also means these families are not bad off to begin with. Looking at the statistics, most of these places don’t have many jobs that pay more than 10K a month, but they can still support their kids’ through college. China is a lot richer than people think.”
Comments say, “You save every cent and sell one of your houses. A lot of people I know do it this way. After all, a Master’s Degree in England only takes a year.”
“Only two types of people study overseas, the children of government officials and the children of businessmen. Average peasants are pretty few among their numbers.”
“Small business owners don’t have to pay tax if they make less than 30K a month in revenue.”
“Before, everyone was mad that housing prices were too high. They thought that if housing prices came down, they’d praised for it.
And now?
They’ve discovered that after housing prices fell, not only was there no applause or praise, now that everyone’s lives suck, everyone’s bitching about it.
Before, only the people who couldn’t afford houses were mad.
Now, everybody is mad.
It wasn’t worth it at all.
More importantly, workers and stakeholders are both on the verge of starving.
The whole work is shorting China.
This situation of difficulties both inside and out can’t continue, or else even the basic middle class are going to sell their assets and run.
The aftermath could be catastrophic.
In 2024, the long and short armies can still face off.
Past this crucial point in time, the long armies will quickly falter.
You achieve something in one go, or you will falter the second time around and fail the third time around.
2024 is an important turning point.
The four major first-line cities have all buttoned their shirts. They’re about to face down.”
Comments say, “It’s fallen a little, but the people who can’t afford houses still can’t afford houses, and the people who have houses have lost a ton in assets. Nobody is happy, nobody is pleased.”
“We’re not there yet. If it keeps falling, more purchasing power will be freed, and at the same time, we’ve released a whole bunch of assets from being tied up in the housing market. Right now, we’re trying to avoid an economic collapse. Who’s protecting the rights of homeowners?”
“It’s better for housing prices to fall. When housing is that expensive, rent for commercial spaces is crazy too, and it’s hard to do business.”
“Do you not get red pockets from your parents once you start working? This is the third year I’ve been working, and every year, after we’re done with New Year’s Even dinner, my dad would give us red pockets. Everyone gets one, both me and my brother. But this year, after dinner, my dad only gave one to my mom and my brother. When I saw him only take out two red pockets, my smile was already frozen. I thought this year would be the same as the last. I took out the red pockets I prepared for them and left. I was worried I’d start crying at the table. I guess my dad saw how I was upset, and send me money over wechat, but I didn’t take it. Now I’m just really sad. I can’t stop thinking about whether my parents are playing favourites.”
Comments say, “Do some people just lack empathy or something? Whose family lacks a couple hundred bucks these days? This is a family of four, and one person handed money out to the other two, with just her getting nothing. Of course she’s going to feel like she’s being treated like an outsider.”
“This comment section’s reading comprehension skills and empathy skills are so bad, it’s infuriating. Is it Chinese New Year today? I might’ve mistaken it for Halloween.” [that is, all kinds of monsters are out and about]
“This is pretty normal, right? My dad doesn’t like me. He likes my cousin. For New Year’s dinner, he gave the first crab to my cousin. No one’s even started eating, and he’s already warning me not to eat too many abalone, each person only gets one. You just need to get stronger—strong enough that you don’t have to pay attention to meaningless noise.”
“Why don’t animals have backup organs?
Because they actually do.
For example, chickens! Anyone who’s kept free range chickens know, that in each flock of chickens, you need one cock for mating, or else the only eggs the chickens can lay are unfertilised. You can’t hatch little chicks from it.
If the only cock dies or loses his reproductive abilities, what happens?
Then, a strong, healthy chicken will stand out and be like, “I can do it!”
And she will start producing male hormones, and a set of backup male reproductive organs will start developing in her body, while her female reproductive organs shrink. She’ll become more and more like a cock every day. Her crown will swell, her feathers will become more colourful, she’ll grow more muscular, and she’ll start crowing, until she becomes an actual cock, and contributes what she can to the continuation of her flock.
Sure, the chances aren’t too high. This doesn’t happen in every flock that loses its cock.
Clownfish do this too, but for clownfish, it’s males who become females, and that’s much more commonly observed.”
Comments say, “How magical! This is like how, in a family with a female only child where the father is absent long-term, the daughter will grow up stronger and stronger and take on a part of the responsibilities of protecting her family, and their fashion senses will become more androgynous too.”
“T_T It’s true. The chicken I’ve kept for half a year has started crowing lately.”
“Reminds me of ocean lifeforms that are just both male and female. Whoever gets inseminated first carries on the mission of producing the next generation.”
A blogger asks “No offense, but what the fuck kind of custom is this??” and posts a series of photos showing a bride being literally packaged up like a piece of luggage and carried off.
Comments say, “Look, it’s the holidays, and I’m a pretty blunt person, and what I want to say isn’t conducive to unity and harmony at all, so I’m just gonna leave.”
“Ningxia, huh. I suggest you look into whether the bride has even reached legal marriage age. She might not even be an adult yet.”
“Chinese made multi-function roomba packaging instructions.”
“Has anyone discovered these three weird phenomenons? Once our parents’ generation are too old to make New Years Eve dinners, then would we do away with Chinese New Year entirely?
For kids born after 90’s or 2000’s or even later, too few of them know how to make a ton of dishes. Watching my mom steam and stew and cook, I just feel like a giant baby. I can’t even bring myself to make some egg-fried rice because I think it’s too much of a hassle, much less put on a feast for the whole family. Maybe our increased standard of living has made us lose a lot of culture and customs.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of people are spending their New Year’s Even dinners in restaurants, to the point that you can’t get a reservation anywhere. After all, New Years’ Eve dinners only make sense in a rural village. When you’re stuck in a studio apartment in the big city, the vibe just isn’t great. Even if you have a nice penthouse or a mansion, nothing compared to making a huge banquet and having the whole village come over, where everyone is one big family.
There’s no sound of fireworks anymore. Back in the day, first thing in the morning, you’d wake up to the sound of fireworks, getting rid of the old year, welcoming the new year. Now, it’s quiet, and all the streets are empty. People are just eating for the sake of eating, and then each leaving their own way. And by the second or third day, everyone’s back to talking about work. This kind of Spring Festival is more like checking an item off of your list, than actually enjoying the holidays.
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed these phenomena. I don’t know if we’ve changed or if life has changed. Now, I don’t even want to visit my relatives for New Years, when that used to be what I looked forward to the most when I was little.”
Comments say, “The person who cooks has way too much work heaped on them. Everyone else can just chat and have fun and sit around. Now, nobody wants to do it anymore. Everyone eats outside now. I hate having a table of people drinking and eating and chatting, and one person in the kitchen forced to serve them all.”
“New Years is just Labour Day for women.”
“Ate hotpot for New Years’ Eve and KFC for New Years proper. It’s not bad, I think I might make a tradition out of this.”
“This is the funniest joke I’ve seen yet about the Spring Festival Gala:
Spring Festival be like: 60 year anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations with France.
Commenters: Out of the 6 people on stage, only one was French though.
Spring Festival Gala: Chinese Musical performers Yuan Changyong, Zhang Yingxi, and Yuan Dai.
Commenters: Not a one of those is actually a musical performer.”
Comments say, “Gotta say, though, Miao Changyong was the best singer there. He sounded a lot better than that French guy next to him.”
“Musical singing is pretty free, though, it’s not nearly as strict or difficult as Opera singing, so introducing them as musical performers is just fine, I think.”
“This is a show for China’s Spring Festival. I think putting one foreigner up there is good enough. And all three of those performers are awesome. I don’t know what you know as a Malaysian, but Miao Changyong’s totally sang musicals before.”
“Honestly, girls living on their own have to be careful about safety! I went back home for Chinese New Years so there wasn’t anyone living in my rental for a few days, and when I got back the day before yesterday, I found a dismembered cat head in my bedside drawer. The police said it’s been boiled in my pot in my kitchen.
Obviously, I’ve moved away. No way am I still living there. I’m so traumatised, I can’t get any sleep.”
[She shows texts with her roommate too, about them discussing this, and there is, in fact, a picture of the dismembered cat head, so people who follow this link, beware!]
Comments say, “They’ve totally been stalking you before. How else would they know that you and your roommate wouldn’t be home at that time, so that he’d have time to boil something in your pot?”
“Dismembering a small animal and boiling it is already horrifying enough, looking closely, he broke into your house to do this too? That’s really psychopathic. I hope the police can solve this case quickly, and both you and your cat will be okay.”
“Remember to change your lock when you rent places! If your landlord won’t let you change locks, don’t stay there!”