03/18/24 - You can’t even find this kind of true believer in Adventure Capitalist.
A series of blog posts from the same poster: “Have you ever felt like your husband is some bizarre stranger living in your house?
Watching all these married women complain about their husbands, I just feel like…
Your husbands feel utterly inhuman to me. Like some kind of alien creature wearing human skin, disguising himself as a human, living in your house, often displaying bizarre behaviours that drive you crazy.
And yet you and your family act like you’ve been psychically controlled or something, like you can’t tell he’s not human at all. You don’t even try to kick him out. You just silently tolerate him and put up with him and let this monster live in your house.
If a monster suddenly appeared in my house, I would be terrified! I’d chase him out! I would never stand living with him!”
“Wow, I did not realise what I wrote would go viral. I’ve got more.
Women often talk to their best friends and ask them why they got married to begin with. The best friend always say, “Because it was time.”
“What’s time?”
The best friend startles but can’t come up with an answer. She can only repeat, “I just felt like it was time to get married.”
Monsters have a very short lifespan. If they can’t find an appropriate host while they’re young, they’ll rapidly age. So these monsters hurry to bewitch one woman after another, move into their houses, and tie their umbilical cords around these women, to make sure they can’t escape.”
“Sometimes, I see married women complaining that when they’re sleeping, they’ll suddenly get a feeling like they don’t know who’s lying next to them at all.
That’s your instincts working. In the middle of the night, the illusions the monster has weaved lightens a little, and you gain back some of your lucidity, and realise that what’s been living with you was never human. He suddenly becomes very alien.
If at this moment, you look closely at the thing next to you, you might be horrified to discover that you don’t know him at all, and you have no idea when he started living with you, making you think he was your family, conning you into living with him.”
“Married women tortured by the illusions of their monsters sometimes run out of patience too, reach the limits of their forbearance. Usually, they’ll go on the internet to complain, vent their internal frustrations.
When they put down their phone and return to reality, their husbands are still home waiting for them, and they can’t kick him out.
They can’t see that from the day their husband moved in, he’s tied his umbilical cord to her belly button. An invisible rope keeps her connected to the monster. Wherever she goes, the monster follows. Unless she dies, she’ll never be rid of him.
Every time these women have the thought to abandon their husbands, a strange power seizes them and forces them to start thinking about houses, kids, money, love, reluctance. And finally, anger becomes powerlessness. The umbilical cord still tightly binds them.”
Comments say, “All of this seems right to me. I don’t know what all the men in this comment section is mad about.”
“You chose this yourself. Nobody forced you. You deserve it.”
“They really are parasitic monsters.”
“Something really awkward just happened to me. A guy kept asking me out to dinner, and I couldn’t keep refusing anymore, so I went. We went to Haidilao, because he said he had a 31% off student discount. He paid, and then he asked me to guess how much it cost. So I guess 300 RMB? And he said that after the discount, it was 330 RMB. I figured we didn’t order that much food, so I was all prepared to send him the money, but I felt like the number didn’t sound right, so I checked my phone again, and found that when we were ordering [which you do with your phone from a QR code], my membership account automatically logged in and there was a record of our purchases.
Now, I don’t even want to talk to him anymore. I want to pay him back for the meal, but I feel like calling him out would be really awkward. What should I do?”
She attaches screenshots of the purchase log, which shows the meal cost 231.15 RMB.
Comments say, “Are you sure it was 330? Check your payment history again, because it’s showing up as 230 RMB on my end! Did they defraud you or something? We need to go kick up a fuss at customer service!”
“If you don’t want to go eat, then don’t go eat? What do you mean, you can’t refuse? Aside from people who are paying me and people who can affect my job, who I really can’t turn down, I never go to any dinners I don’t want to go to.”
“Why would it be awkward to call him out? Do you want to go on another date with this guy?”
Lately, China’s passed a law/policy that delivery drivers must leave packages by the door instead of at a package collection centre. Now there’s a tiktok video of a certain delivery package sorting centre in Chengdu, where boxes are piling up, but delivery drivers have all vanished.
The employees say, “It’s all our fault, really, demanding that delivery drivers have to deliver to people’s doors.”
Comments say, “I feel like we can come to some kind of compromise over here. Like, valuable packages can be dropped off at Hive Box package lockers and locked up. Less valuable packages can be dropped off at Cainiao package collection centres, and people can pick it up when they get off of work. Anything inconvenient for you to receive at home, you can have mailed to your workplace, and it’s easy to pick up anymore. You don’t have to trouble delivery drivers to drop everything off at the door.”
“I don’t understand people demanding delivery to the door. Do they always have someone at home?”
“I’ve worked a few years in the delivery industry and understand this industry a bit. If everyone really insist on delivery to the door, then either delivery fees will skyrocket, or everything will go to chaos as countless delivery drivers quit. Don’t say bullshit like, “If you quit, they’ll just find someone else.” If you can only make 10-20 RMB a day, and have to face the risk of getting a complaint and being fined, only retards would work that job!”
“This is a Korean self-help ramen bar. I took a look, and it’s 4500 Korean won per pack, about the price of two cokes. I remember some dumbass opened one in Shanghai and closed its doors within a month.”
Comments say, “Seeing this just makes me pity them.”
“Isn’t this that viral ramen cafeteria from a couple of years ago? XD”
“I made an even bigger deal out of eating noodles when I was little, and it was just because I was poor.”
“My son wanted to get some takeout today, but found it was too expensive, so he went coupon hunting. It was a pretty simple thing to begin with, but then I found out he did something that really shocked and hurt me.
There was a promotion going on, where you could subscribe to this takeout app for 1 RMB a month (and the second month, it would become 10 RMB automatically or something).
I looked and I was like, “If you subscribe this month for 1 RMB, what are you gonna do? Spend 10 RMB every month on take out?”
But he just grinned and joked to me that, “I can just cancel it as soon as I’m done.”
I didn’t know what he meant, and he explained to me that after promising the app he’ll keep subscribing, he can take advantage of them and just keep the first month and cancel every subsequent month.
And he even showed off right to my face. After paying 1 RMB, he went over to his subscription page and canceled it right away!
Now he’s got the discounts for a month, and he doesn’t have to pay any other month!
I never thought that such a small event would expose his values!
Anyone got the same kid?
ETA: I told my son off and hit him. He cried. I felt bad hitting him, but I wanted him to know that we can’t take anything that’s not rightfully ours. Thanks for everyone’s concern. We’ve made an agreement that he’s not allowed to get any more takeout this month, and can only go back to getting take out next month. As for the money he failed to pay, I’ve paid the platform. Thanks again for all your concern!”
Comments say, “In actuality, she felt stingy about 10 RMB a month so she told off her kid, and then got humiliated when her kid explained that you can just cancel the subsequent months. She doesn’t want to apologise, so she has to find some kind of moral high ground to support her continued insanity.”
“You can’t even find this kind of true believer in Adventure Capitalist.”
“But…if you can cancel, then the platform is aware and agreed that you can just buy the first month for one RMB?? If you had to pay the subsequent months in order to get the first month for a buck, the platform wouldn’t have let you cancel to begin with?”
“What about people like me, who’ll sign up for Amazon Prime [referring to actual Amazon here, from a poster with an IP in Japan] only when they gift you a month for free, and then cancel it on day 27 or 28, and only open it up again next time it’s free? I love taking advantage of capitalists.”
“First time mom, I feel like I’m pathetic.
It was a beautiful day. Grandma came over and took the baby out for a bit to go play with the neighbours. I watched them leave from the doorway until they disappeared from the corner.
I felt bad almost right away and lingered for a while. Then went back to the room with my head down, feeling all empty inside…
I tried to find something to do, to cover up my feelings…but I just couldn’t…
After another half an hour or so, they still haven’t come back, and I just couldn’t stand it anymore and texted my MIL, “Mom, come back, I miss the baby.”
Maybe only mothers can empathise with me? I feel like I’m so pathetic.”
Comments say, “My SIL: Please, I beg you, take my baby out. I’ll pay for everything.”
“Psycho. I don’t empathise at all as a mom.”
”You can’t even step away for half an hour? What about when your kid starts going to school? You’re gonna just stand outside his classroom window and watch him?”
“A submission by one of my fans:
Yang, let me make a subscription. This is a true story I heard from my lawyer friend.
There was this 20-something-year-old boy, single, his dad passed away when he was 3. After a year, his mom remarried and never asked about him again after that. He grew up with his grandpa and grandma. After a few years, the grandpa passed away too, and the boy was raised single-handed by his grandma.
Beginning of this year, the boy passed away in a work accident, and got 1.2 million in settlement. All of a sudden, his mom that’s vanished for over a decade jumped out to demand the settlement. And his three aunts claimed that they helped him out when he was little, so they deserve a piece too. The only person who was sad about him passing away was the grandma.
Later, they found a video in the boy’s phone: when he was sent to the hospital for his injuries, he was still lucid, and he asked two of the doctors at the hospital to stand as witness and filmed a video dictating his will. He said that if he passed away, he wants all of the settlement to go to his grandma. Because of this video, the final agreement was that the boy’s mom would get 300K, and the grandma would get 900K. Case settled.
I just wanted to warn anyone in a similar situation to get a will beforehand so that there wouldn’t be any conflict. Sign. I feel like people aren’t gonna leave this grandma alone now that she has 900K either.”
Comments say, “Why can’t they divide the settlement according to his will if he left one? Why does his mom still get 300K?”
“I just remembered what happened last year. An employee passed away, and his family’s house had been eminently domained before too (around here, these types of people are usually pretty rich). After the accident happened, his family parked his coffin in front of the company doors and refused to leave until they were paid 2 million RMB. In the end, I’m sure the company had to pony up that much. Later on, I heard that the accident was pretty suspicious. That he could’ve escaped, but still died. Made a chill go down my spine.”
“900K. Just pay whoever is willing to take care of you by the month.”
A blogger reposts someone else’s comment, saying, “You only know to demand why bottled water makes so much money, and never wonder why we can’t drink water from the tap like Europeans/Americans/Japanese/Koreans do, and trust in our health and safety. Then we wouldn’t ever have to spend money on Nongfu Springs!”
The blogger responds, “You know why British people are all bald?”
Comments say, “Does this person even know how many pipes in America are made from lead?”
“If you dare to drink New York tap water straight, you’re a hero.”
“You can drink tap water straight in big cities in China! It’s all government-funded corporations! We’re only better than Europe, not any worse! Big government-funded organisations just care about satisfying demand, and not making money! European businesses only care about making money, because they’ll shut down if they don’t lose too much profits!”
A tiktok video showing how to make duck blood without using any duck blood. I’m personally not really sure what all the ingredients involved are, but I think it’s mostly some gelatine powder + duck blood/meat flavouring?
Comments say, “You can get free fresh duck blood every time you buy a duck. Why would you buy this kind?”
“How horrible! Who came up with this shit!? Aren’t they worried about killing people?”
“Is duck blood really expensive or something?”
Dating horror stories I suspect we will always have with us, because it's an anti-inductive problem: any solution for recognizing predators or parasites that becomes common knowledge, will also be recognized (and then circumvented or otherwise worked around) by the smarter ones, precisely because it's *common* knowledge, and because they've got a lot more time and inclination to devote to practicing the charade than your average actually-spouseworthy person.
Not to say there isn't better or worse, though - picking measures that are hard to fake is better. Bride price is I suppose straightforwardly *expensive* to fake, but it does leave a lot of gaps, and is also hard for younger men to acquire legitimately: they, and whatever relatives (or friends?) they have pitching in, by definition have had fewer years to accumulate whatever sum is being asked for.
Interesting stack. I now read this every day, and every day I feel like China is just more and more impossible to comprehend as a foreigner.