04/30/24 - But it’s illegal to beat your kids in Hong Kong, so she drove him over to Shenzhen overnight to beat him.
China’s Fujian aircraft carrier is setting sail for the first time. Based on its construction progress, the purpose of this sail is mostly to test its motor and electric system’s stability and realiability. Fujian’s construction is coming along steadily.
A blogger posts a compilation of comments, “I’ve got a friend in Hong Kong who was helping her kid with homework and got super frustrated. But it’s illegal to beat your kids in Hong Kong, so she drove him over to Shenzhen overnight to beat him. Holy shit.”
“It’s true. When I was in primary school, I’d go to the Red Forest Park, and I see a lot of Hong Kong parents drive their kids over here, and start beating them as soon as they get off the bridge.”
“It’s true. Every time I’m at Shenzhen customs, I hear some moms say, “Don’t make me beat you. We’re in Shenzhen right now, not Hong Kong.”
“Hong Kong dads be like, “Do you want to go to Shenzhen again?””
A compilation of western food safety:
“Remember Haitian soy sauce? They got chewed out on the internet for having two different ingredient lists for their Chinese products and overseas products. But the reality is, they just didn’t write everything down for the overseas version.”
“A lot of western pipes are still made from lead, and when lead dissolves in water, it gets really sweet, so a lot of Chinese people go overseas and finds the water is super sweet. But it’s got a ton of heavy metals in it. It’s like drinking poison every day.”
“Holy shit, what kind of spy has been brainwashing me from childhood?”
“A typical case is Cup Noodles. They have to write everything down in their ingredient list in China, so everyone can see that it’s got more shit in it than the periodic table.”
“Oh, you guys are just finding out? You could conduct a whole voodoo ritual with the shit in Cup Noodles. The ingredient list is so long that I can’t even find the production date.”
“A lot of people sing the praises of Hong Kong’s Bili Tong, and once I took a look at the ingredient’s list, I found out it was just a big dose of acetaminophen (which is a painkiller). It’s got twice the legal amount of acetaminophen in it than Chinese law allowed. The fast-acting version’s also got a shitton of caffeine.”
“No wonder their food is cleaner. It’s because they delete all the unsavoury stuff from their ingredient list.”
“My brother brought back some fruit juice powder from America, and my son refused to drink any, and I had to throw it all away. After making some in a cup, it still smells after half a month, and the colour never washes out. I refuse to believe black technology [an internet meme, likening food additive technology to black magic] isn’t involved.”
“There’s an anti-itch cream in Japan called Wubidi that makes your mosquito bites stop itching almost right away…that’s because there’s anaesthetic components in it.”
“Your beloved EVE painkiller contains apronal, a type of sedative. The side effect is causing your platelet count to go down. Long term use could even cause purpura. Right now, only Japan still permits the use of apronal. It’s either not sold in other countries, or been withdrawn. China explicitly bans the use of apronal as a sedative.”
“Ohhh, that’s how it works. I used to think American drugs are magical since they work right away. But they’re just prescribing a higher dosage.”
“It’s true, a lot of Kobayashi Pharmaceuticals products use ingredients that are banned in China.”
“If British drinking water standards were half as high as Wahaha [bottled water brand in China], I wouldn’t be losing so much hair.”
“I used these Japanese eyedrops for the longest time before I found out it was banned in Canada since hit had shady stuff in it.”
“Isn’t this common knowledge? A lot of times, western countries can’t achieve higher standards so they just lower their standards. The most typical case is that they can’t (or won’t) fully prevent cockroach parts from ending up in chocolate, so they just went ahead and ruled that it’s okay for chocolate to have some cockroach parts in it.”
“Some fans have been telling me that they’re coming across a lot of dating profiles that have a line, “briefly married, no kids, no ceremony.” The “briefly married, no kids” part is understandable, that’s just being open and honest about your past relationships. But why emphasise “no ceremony”?
That means a lot of people don’t understand the point of a marriage ceremony, what it’s meant to achieve.
Let me make an example here. In our day and age, premarital sex isn’t a big deal. It’s not immoral at all for your boyfriend to have had sex with his past girlfriends before ever meeting you. It’s perfectly legal. You can’t really accuse him of anything. And while all of that is true, if you ever discovered a video of your husband and his ex-girlfriend doing it, wouldn’t you have a little mental breakdown? If you found their chat log full of flirting, or their vacation photos together cuddling with each other, wouldn’t you be upset?
To put it simply, knowing about something and seeing it is different. No matter how rational you are, you can’t take the massive negative emotional impact of witnessing it in person. This isn’t just restricted to husband and wife, it can happen with friends and acquaintances. If a man and a woman simply went to the Civil Affairs Bureau and got a marriage certificate, and never announced it on social media and never had a ceremony, then even if they’re legally husband and wife, there’s no sense of “Oh, they’re married” in their friend circle. Their friends know they’re married, but they didn’t go to the wedding, they didn’t get drunk, they didn’t prank the bride. It’s different. If they ended up breaking up, people who haven’t went to a wedding would just be like, “Wow, young people are impulsive these days.” But if you actually went to the ceremony, you’d be like, “How did someone get divorced so young? Now he’s onto his second marriage?”
And people on their second marriage have a different style of dating.
In a lot of places, once you’ve had a first ceremony, you can’t hold another one for a second marriage. At least, your friends and family won’t go along with it. At the very least, you can’t get wedding gifts again. That’s charging your friends twice. That’s shameless behaviour. Even if you insisted on throwing together a ceremony, people will make fun of you behind your back.
Mrs. Xiang [Hong Kong billionaire] has said that in Hong Kong, it’s not a real wedding unless there was a ceremony. That’s because all legalities aside, marriage is a social relationship. If none of your social relations acknowledge it or know about it, then you might as well not be married at all.
So going back to a wedding, I used to not really be into them. I was forced into a ceremony by parents on both sides. Now, I’m starting to realise that as a ritual that’s important in almost every culture, you shouldn’t get too creative with your wedding ceremony. Just hold one traditionally and get it over with. Especially for your first marriage. But you can be a bit smarter about inviting guest—invite more of the other side’s friends and family and invite less of yours.
Why? Because you’re increasing the cost of a divorce to them then, and you’ve lowered what kind of date they can get once they’re divorced, and you’ve lowered the impact for you. And later on, you can tell them, “I didn’t even invite most of my family for the same of accommodating more of yours!”
Turn the lower budget into a sacrifice you’re making out of love to them, make them feel guilt, so you can get more out of them later. Don’t give up on such a rare opportunity.
A lot of techniques work just as well at home as in the workplace.”
Comments say, “Why would you not invite your own family? Because you expect to end up divorced?”
“How are you so productive? How do you steadily churn out so many posts?”
“Is it the same overseas? A lot of celebrities get married without ever holding a ceremony.”
A blogger reposts someone’s comment, “If you’re sick, you don’t have to keep making your mortgage payments. I’ve got a friend living in Japan and he says it’s totally real. He told us that after he took out a 45.5 million yen loan (about 2 million RMB), his interest rate was 0.5%, and if he got seriously sick, he could put his mortgage payments on hold for a while. If his sickness was particularly severe, he could even waive the rest of his mortgage.
The whole table thought that was inconceivable at the time, but that’s how it is. That’s how it’s worked for a long time. All of a sudden, I feel really sheltered.”
The blogger says, “A lot of what the Japanese and American governments have been doing is completely going against their roots as capitalist nations.”
Comments say, [IP in Japan] “It’s true. When we bought our house, we only had a work visa, so we had a higher interest rate, 0.75%. We added on major disease insurance, and the interest rate went up to 1.05%. If we get any of the covered diseases, then we don’t have to keep making payments anymore. Though obviously, I hope I don’t get sick.”
“Think about India. Nothing’s free under the sky. Keep dreaming.”
“Such evil capitalism. [Doge]”
“Our banks are nationalised. If you don’t pay back your mortgage, that’s diminishing national assets XD”
A compilation of Chinese people and allergies:
“My mom’s allergic to shrimp. After countless attempts and trials, she’s discovered that she won’t have a reaction so long as she only eats three shrimp. It doesn’t matter how big the shrimp is, she can only have three. If she eats 4 shrimp, her eyes will swell up.”
“I tried some grapes and it made my throat itchy. I told my parents and they said that’s normal, grapes make everyone’s throat itchy. And the whole family sat around coughing and eating grapes. Eventually, I found out my entire family was allergic to grapes.”
“I’m allergic to mangos, makes my lips and chin swell up with hives. It’s really itchy and kind of hot. I prepared some ointment and after many tries, I discovered that it’s okay if I cut the mango into small pieces and put it in my mouth directly.”
“If I run for too long, my thighs will get itchy. I thought my fat was burning, so I ran a lot, until my whole body started itching. I thought for sure I’d lose weight, only to find out it was an allergic reaction.”
”I’m lactose intolerant. I’ve been treating milk as a healthy and nutritious laxative all these years.”
“Hey guys, cool fact, if you get sleepy after drinking coffee, it’s because you’re allergic!”
“I’m allergic to shellfish, and after 20 years of experimentation, I’ve discovered that I’m only allergic to dead shrimp. I’m fine with fresh shrimp. I went and had sea food last time, and the restaurant switched our fresh shrimp for dead ones, and I had to get rushed to the hospital by ambulance. Final result: that restaurant sucks.”
“I’m allergic to squid, and I’ve tried squid everywhere, and somehow, Guangdong squid doesn’t provoke a reaction. I found out later that I was just allergic to the stuff they soak squid in, in inland cities.”
“Pineapple makes me dizzy. I buy some pineapple every time I have trouble sleeping.”
“I’m allergic to kiwi fruit. I always thought it was just underripe, and that’s why it hurt my mouth to eat. But I kept eating it anyways, because surely, the next one would be ripe.”
for reference btw: japanese pharmacopoeia/standards just have a bunch of outdated stuff in it because its so conservative i suspect (not limited to Japan, last time i was in china i got prescribed something that's almost never used in the us)
I don't get why China wants aircraft carriers. Strategically aircraft carriers are mainly good for projecting power far away from your country. They're basically mobile military bases. They'd be useful if China thinks it's going to attack California or intervene in Africa. But for Taiwan, Japan, etc they could just use their own territory. Aircraft carries, unlike islands, can sink so they'd be a vulnerability in that conflict. They also can't keep them resupplied far away from China because they don't have America's alliance network. Their aircraft carriers also can't really beat American aircraft carriers because aircraft carriers are primarily delivery mechanisms for aircraft and their aircraft are still worse. (And their designs, which are Soviet, are worse too. Their engines have a tendency to catch on fire.)
The two ways I can make sense of it are:
1. China doesn't think it's going to war with the US anytime soon and expects there's going to be a long period where they want to intervene abroad. The fact they wouldn't be very useful in a conflict with the US is irrelevant if they don't think that's going to happen. And they're useful for putting Chinese military assets in Africa, for example, to protect Chinese interests.
2. China just wants whatever the US has. The US has aircraft carriers so superpowers have aircraft carriers and China's a superpower so it has to have aircraft carriers. The more sensible planners got drowned out by the "everything you can do I can do better" crowd.