A well-known author posts screenshots of messages from a fan, “Hi, Mister Qiaomai, I just wanted to tell everyone’s story and see if anyone has any ideas. Today is my fortieth birthday. Five years ago, on my birthday in 2019, when I got debt-collecting calls for my husband, I was totally shocked. The reason he got in debt was because of sports gambling. After many promises from him, we grit out teeth and paid off all his debts. Between 2019 and 2020, I knew he was getting small loans behind my back again. By 2021, he was playing cards with people. I think he must have lost between 100K to 200K RMB. We live in a super small town, where average income is below 5K a month. That’s quite a large amount of money, at least in my world.
We’ve fought countless times in those years. In January of 2023, I finally couldn’t take it anymore and got a divorce. He got all of our savings. I took the house, which still had a mortgage on it, and full custody of our 8-year-old son. Before the divorce, he was quite proud and arrogant, didn’t see our son for a whole month. That was what I expected honestly, since I’ve been taking care of our son by myself for long before our divorce.
What’s funny is that in March, he got arrested for gambling. Because he was a civil servant, that meant his career was done too. Lately, he’s been constantly harassing my son and I. He’s cried a lot before me, made countless promises and apologies.
I don’t believe him this time around. Honestly speaking, I don’t have that much confidence in my future either. I’m very anxious about my son’s future education and career. I’m afraid I can’t give him a good life.
Thinking back on this marriage, there were so many mistakes. I was a hopeless romantic, I had endless patience, I even dreamed that if I paid off his debts, he would change. But that was all it was—just dreams. I’m just projecting my hopes for a happy future onto him.
Gambling may be the primary reason that our marriage fell apart, but there have been plenty of conflicts piling up in every day life long before that.
Life is hard enough. Marriage is entirely unnecessary.
I’m not worried about myself. I’m just worried about my son. Because my ex-husband is visiting so frequently and bringing him so many snacks, my son thinks that his dad isn’t gambling anymore. He doesn’t understand why I don’t want to get back together. I’m always teaching him the importance of changing your actions, the importance of forgiveness. He doesn’t understand why the same doesn’t apply to his dad. I don’t know how to explain it to him. I’m worried I’m going to destroy our mother-child relationship too.”
The author writes, “What advice do you need? If your son likes his dad so much, ask his dad, “Can he go over to stay with you for a while?” Ask right in front of your son. Let him go experience the hard life for a while.”
Comments agree, “A lot of mothers don’t seem to understand that they have no responsibility of maintaining a false perfect image for the dad.”
“Don’t let your kid think gambling is a small matter.”
“Don’t worry. Since he’s a boy, you’re bound to not end up with much of a mother-child relationship anyways. Men have a lot of empathy for men. Sons are always on their father’s side.”
A woman posts a PSA of, “Guys! Stop playing with your phones on your side! Look at me. Now my pupils aren’t in the same position anymore. It’s because I spent my whole pregnancy laying on my side and playing on my phone, because of my tummy. But I’m afraid of pain, so I don’t think I’ll get it fixed. I’m too scared of surgery. I’ll just deal with the lazy eye. Even if it makes me look a little…derpy.”
Comments follow up with other stories, “My sister’s 26 years old and always laid on her side to watch TV or read books or write homework. Now the two sides of her face are uneven. She’s got deeper wrinkles on one side. Her one eye is -3.00 and the other one has perfect vision. Hahahaha, you’ve gotta change that habit.”
“I always read on my side too, and I’ve got one eye at -4.00 and one at 0.00.”
“You should probably still get surgery. Lazy eyes can get worse over time. One of them might even end up blind due to not being used enough.”
“Yeah, you need to get to a doctor. I was like this, and now I’m seeing doubles of stuff.”
On the same debate before about #you should give birth at a public hospital, a blogger writes, “As a mother of two who gave birth both times at public hospitals, I want to just share my experience for people’s reference. I think the biggest factor in whether you choose public or private hospitals is going to be the condition of your body. Through all my checkups, I’ve never had a problem. I kind of regret not choosing a private hospital for my second baby. I’ll talk more about this later.
Public Hospitals’ Pros:
A top-ranked public hospital has certain guarantees of medical competence, and are equipped to deal with emergency situations quickly and more effectively. If you’re showing signs of high blood pressure or diabetes through your pregnancy, or you have a rare blood type or heart issues or whatever, you should definitely go to a public hospital with good reviews.
While I was giving birth to my first, at Tianjin Central Ob/Gyn Hospital, the mother who shared a delivery room with me had a super rare blood type and high blood pressure. She had a hell of a delivery, was screaming for a c-section, but her family members wouldn’t agree to it. She was screaming the whole time for an epidural too. Apparently, this had been going on all night when I was wheeled into the delivery room. I remember clearly, she was on my left-hand side. After screaming all night, she had completely ran out of strength to keep going with the labour. The whole time, the doctor was pushing for her. He was sitting on top of her, across her stomach, pushing down on her stomach while yelling at her. All of the doctors were busy tending to her, leaving just a nurse to help me. But she still failed. The situation got too bad, and she had to get an emergency c-section. When her kid was born, they weren’t breathing and had to get taken to be revived. I heard the baby survived. If she had gone to any other hospital, the kid probably wouldn’t have. She might not have survived either, to be honest.
Public Hospitals’ Cons:
There are so many people and so, so many lines for everything! Customer service obviously can’t compare to private hospitals. Most importantly, when I got to 2cm open, I got wheeled into the delivery room, and the whole time, no family was allowed to accompany me. And I wasn’t allowed to bring my phone with me either. First deliveries are always pretty slow, and that was definitely the longest day of my life. Also, the second baby was super fast. Just a couple of hours and I was done.
Private Hospitals’ Pros:
First, keep in mind to choose a dependable, professional private hospital with good reviews. Their main benefit is good customer service, no lines, you get all your checkups taken care of, family can accompany you while you give birth, and you get your phone. As a mother, you’ll be more relaxed and chill and have a better experience.
Private Hospitals Cons:
They’re not gonna be nearly as professional about or equipped for emergency situations, at least not compared to professional public hospitals. And also, it’s gonna be more expensive.
The safety’s sake, I chose to deliver at a public hospital with my first child.
Finally, a reminder for everyone: listen to your doctor when it comes to vaginal delivery or c-sections. Everyone’s got a different situation. Some have babies with a bad facing and have to go for c-sections. Don’t put yourself in more risk than you have to. And anyone doing a vaginal delivery—please get an epidural! It is the goddamn messiah of vaginal deliveries! I got epidurals for both babies and never had back pain! Don’t listen to all the stupid rumours!”
Comments say, “I gave birth at a public hospital too, but I got the VIP package, so I can go straight home after checkups and they’ll email me the results. I get to cut in line. And I got to have a family member join me. I think it was totally worth it.”
A tiktok video of an absolutely goddamn adorable little girl on the subway, with people commenting, “I strongly suspect her dad has a car and still rides the subway every day just to show off.”
Commenters say, “Yes, this is exactly like when people get a big fish and carry it all the way home on their backs on foot.”
A post seeking advice, “What should I do? My daughter has stopped contacting us after getting a job.
She graduated last year and is working out of state. After she got a job, she never makes contact with us anymore. We have to call her, and she’ll pick up, but she doesn’t ask our advice about big things in her life like changing jobs or changing apartments. She just does it first and tells us later. One time, I even told her off, that when she was going to school, she still knew to think about her family. Now, she never gets in touch. And she just said that she was busy.
I’ve never been satisfied about her job. She’s just working at a customer service call centre. It’s not like it pays a lot, and it’s not a job anyone respects. She’s just barely keeping herself alive. But she said she likes the job. She’s been working it for over a year now. I don’t know what to say to her.
She has even less contact with her dad. She never calls him all year round. A couple of days ago, I was telling her off that her dad misses her, he just doesn’t know how to show it, maybe she should talk to him more often. That’s when she told me that it was because while she was interning, she asked her dad for some rent money. Her dad initially promised to help, but once she found an apartment she liked, he changed his mind. He said that she should just squeeze with some friends. She was out of options and had to call me, and I gave her rent money. Her dad also promised to buy her a scooter to commute with, and he never followed through with that either. The place she rented doesn’t have public transportation nearby, so she had to borrow money for a scooter. She said because of this, her whole entire internship, she was super poor, had to split every penny into two, never got to eat anything good.
I asked if she would really hold onto such tiny grudges for over two years? You know, maybe her dad told her to squeeze with friends so she can save money on housing, so she can buy better food. She fell silent, and I just told her to think about what I said.
After a while, her dad’s birthday rolled around, and she didn’t say anything. Not even a single text. I even texted her to remind her to wish him a happy birthday, and she didn’t reply to me either. I was mad as fuck. No matter what happened, you can’t just pretend you don’t notice your own family having a birthday, right? When she comes home for the holidays, her dad is always overjoyed. He’s always rushing out the door to pick her up, getting her favourite food for dinner. And her heart is just cold as ice.
When she filled out her university applications, she said she wanted to go out of state. When she graduated, she doesn’t want to come back to our state either. She said the wages here were too low and working conditions were bad. I worried that if she married far away, she’ll get bullied. I wanted her to come home so I can introduce her to dates. But she decided to meet someone herself while out of state. It was a colleague of hers. I asked how much he made, and she said that just about the same as her. I told her to come home and meet more people. We have very few girls here, she can get married to a pretty good guy for what she’s offering. But she won’t listen.
There’s a reason I want her to come back home. That way, I could take care of her. Like, when she was working part-time through college, she got into conflict with someone and got beat up. And all she could do was continue working with a bruised face. She called us then and told us, but she was out of state, several hours drive away, and we were busy at home, so we didn’t go. Her dad sent her 200 RMB to comfort her. If she was working or going to school locally, it would be so much more convenient. There’s no way her dad would sit by and watch when she’s bullied. But she just doesn’t want to come back. I have no idea what she’s thinking.
Her good point is that growing up, we’ve never had to worry that much about her. Although she wasn’t super talented or anything, she always did all her schoolwork on her own. She worked part-time all her weekends and holidays through university. Every month, I just had to send her 1200 RMB. Starting from junior year, she picked up a tutoring job that actually made good money, and I stopped sending her money. She’s not like her brother at all, where I have to chase after him every day to make him do his work. He spends over 3000 RMB every month. My daughter can understand the difficulties of this family a lot better than my son can.
But her bad point is that she holds onto grudges forever. Last year, once she started getting a pay cheque, she started buying her brother clothes and shoes. I didn’t have to spend a cent on my son’s clothes that year, because she took care of all of it. But over Chinese New Year, she got into a fight with him, and afterwards, she hadn’t spent a dime on him again. I didn’t say anything at the time, but now I feel like she’s getting more and more distant from our family. If she married out of state, she’ll come back to visit even less. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She won’t even call me now. Sigh.”
Comments say, “Oh, so she has a brother, and he gets twice as much money as her. Makes sense now.”
“I read the whole thing and all I could see between every line of text was suffocation.”
“Run, girl. Run as far as you can.”
“How dare she not come back and get married this instant to get 300K in bride price for her brother!? [Doge]”
On the topic of the lady who removed her uterus to solve period cramps and anaemia, a blogger writes, “I actually do have the authority to talk about this. I’ve had six surgeries in my life, and half of them were in the ob/gyn department. Ignore everything else, can you imagine how many office visits I’ve done to the ob/gyn department? I’ve probably seen more ob/gyn patients than most people have in their whole lives!
For Chinese women with ob/gyn problems, the real problem is how many of them would rather have children than their own lives. Even if they already have children, if they don’t have a son, 80% of them would rather die than cut out their uterus. Forget cutting the uterus, if it even has a chance of perhaps affecting pregnancy rates later on in life maybe, 80% of them would absolutely refuse to go along with treatment.
All of these men jumping all over the place on the internet, spewing shit like, “I’m just worried women will get tricked into cutting out their uteruses and harming themselves”, do you think they give a single shit about all the women who really have died because they refused to cut out their uterus? Do you think they’d ever say, “Gals, if a doctor is suggesting a hysterectomy, then your situation is probably bad enough that you won’t get pregnant anyways uterus or not. Your life is way more important!”
Would they? Would they? When it comes to the uterus, all the people claiming to be worried about women’s well-being, do they care at all about the women who are actually at risk? Are they worried about women’s well-being, or uteruses’ well-being? I’m sure everyone knows.
Every year. Every single year, there are so, so, so, SO goddamn many women who won’t cut out their uterus for the sake of babies. Who turn down minor ob/gyn procedures for fear of it affecting babies. The chances of someone getting impulsive and needlessly cutting out their uterus is less than one in a million in the Chinese healthcare system.
So they don’t care about life or death the women who might actually die, who actually exist, who are actually alive right now.
But they’re worried about women who might possibly theoretically maybe get a hysterectomy?
With the state that the Chinese healthcare system is in, this doesn’t even exist as a possibility.
Who the fuck do you think you’re fooling?
Shameless fucks. You’re all fucking cannibals. You pretense of sainthood fucking disgust me.
You scum.”
Comments say, “In some people’s eyes, uteruses don’t belong to women.”
A famous Chinese female fitness coach posts a video talking about how she had dated her ex-boyfriend for six years, and those six years had been filled with all kinds of unhappiness. Then she was diagnosed with six fibroids. It seems like in this world, women can’t be in a bad mood long-term, or else they’ll get mammary gland problems, reproductive issues, thyroid problems, etc, etc. So, end your unhealthy relationships, redirect your bad emotions, and focus on loving yourself. That’s the start of any life-long romance.
She says, “I was very tired and super, super scared. I didn’t know what to do. I got a covid test and it came back negative, so I knew I wasn’t sick. I’m grateful to all my friends and my boyfriend for being there for me, listen to me vent, let me cry. But most of the time, I didn’t want to vent to my friends, because I feel like there’s too much negative energy inside my body. I’m worried I’ll move that negative energy onto others and affect their moods. I listened to my fans and went to a doctor.
The psychiatrist diagnosed me with acute anxiety. The reason my brain is in such a state because it’s tired and overworked, it’s entered into a self-protective state. It’s resisting taking in more information. That’s why I couldn’t process anything.
So I started counselling, and it’s been so incredibly helpful. That’s why for the last month I haven’t been active online and I haven’t been updating my fitness videos. I’ve cut down on the amount of information I’m taking in. Because my brain is sick. I need to give it more time to heal.”
A compilation of underaged girls getting married in China. The blogger writes, “They’re not done with children’s day yet, and they’ll already celebrating mother’s day. Babies are marrying babies to birth babies and raise babies. Why don’t Women’s Rights Committees ever do anything about child marriages?”
Comments say, “Wow, that is literally too young to join a nunnery, but not too young to be married.”
“That’s just the culture of Hui people.”
“My daughter’s 18 and she’s still just a little girl to me.”
“She’s a minor! Isn’t this illegal? Someone call the cops!”
“No wonder she looks so pissed off in all the videos. She’s just 15!”
“15 is like still middle-school aged holy shit.”
“We really need to do something about these ethnic minorities.”
This is the first time I've heard of "Men have a lot of empathy for men. Sons are always on their father’s side."
I am more familiar with the idea of "mama's boys" and "daddy's girls".