[Once again, let’s do our monthly FAQ! If there’s any questions you’ve always had about China, or some context you feel like you’re missing, ask away! I’ll answer to the best of my ability! To give people enough time to post questions, I’ll post answers on the 2nd! Sorry for the late update today, guys. I totally lost track of time while preparing for my DnD session.]
CCTV reminds people that it is Children’s Day today! Remember to eat snacks, play hopscotch, and jumpsies. The way your feet get lighter when you’re happy is written into your DNA with childhood memories. CCTV hopes that all children, big or small, keeps their hearts true and bravely goes forward.
“My daughter’s been unhappy since she got back from spring excursion. Someone’s high-end watch really set her off. She’s been crying since she doesn’t have a Little Genius Z-series smart watch. Why can other kids buy whatever they want without caring about their grades, but she has to get first place? We tried explaining that there’s a lot of people who can’t afford smart watches at all, there’s no extra value to high-end watches, blah, blah, blah. But she won’t listen. She just feels like she’s been wronged. Fine. I guess. This still comes down to our inability as parents.”
Comments say, “When it comes to grades, you compare her to the best. When it comes to possessions, you compare yourself to the worst. =_=“
“She’s not sad over a watch. She’s sad that other parents’ love is unconditional.”
“Stop having kids. Kids are so goddamn annoying.”
An askreddit question, “Why do people say Hua Chenyu (singer) has no representative works?”
Top-voted reply is, “Out of all the famous singers, there are two I just cannot comprehend. One is Li Yuchun, and the other is Hua Chenyu.
These two have been famous for a long time. They’re judges in singing reality TV shows all the time. They’re considered well-established in the music industry. But I’ve never heard of any of their songs. Honestly, not a single one comes to mind.
Maybe I’m just out of touch, but I like music. I listen to all kinds of music. There are no other singers who are half as famous as these two, who I haven’t heard a single song from.
Like, Wang Zhengliang, he’s not too famous, but a lot of people have heard, “Where Has Time Gone”.
Or like Mao Buyi, who got famous in a reality TV show that Hua Chenyu was a judge at, but he’s got two popular works—“Drowning My Sorrows” and “Somebody Like Me”.
Zhao Lei, folk singer, he has “Chengdu” and “Painting”.
When you mention Zhang Bichen, a lot of people will think of “Cold” right off the bat, like a reflex.
So I’ve never understood these two.”
Comments say, “You could’ve just baidu’d it. Do you not have internet at home? What a poor guy.”
“I Love This World, Dust In The Fireworks, King And Beggar.”
“Happy Wintertime by Li Yuchun, and I Love This World by Hua Chenyu. I’m not even a fan.”
A entertainment blogger writes, “I love reading the comment section of posts of parents asking people if their kid could become a child model.
Commenters: Good-looking people are good looking no matter what the angle or lighting. I’m not trying to put you down, but this is going to come up anyways when he starts dating. [Attaches photo of actual child model]
Parent: My son is super good-looking and has great vibes. I’m just bad at taking photos.
Commenters: Maybe you’re just looking at him through a mommy filter. The kid in that picture is leagues better than your kid in both vibes and facial features.
Commenters: I work in this industry. It’s not just a matter of whether the kid is good looking or not. Is he talented? Does he know how to pose? Does he know how to work with a camera? Does he know how to model?
Parent: He doesn’t know anything, but little kids learn quickly.
Commenters: But it takes money to get trained, and people just want to make money.
Commenters: Ordinary families can produce extraordinary kids who can be models, but your kid is entirely too ordinary. He doesn’t fit the criteria at all.
Parents: There are so many models out there, you don’t have to be the best looking in the world, do you? I just took some casual photos. I just wanted to show off his clothes in the beginning.
Commenters: But there are a lot of kids too? Why not pick a good looking one? Your son is super, super ordinary. Even the outfit you’ve picked out for him isn’t fashionable at all.
There are people being sarcastic too, like, “He’s gorgeous. He’d be wasted as a model—why not be a child star? Take him around some acting agencies.”
Other internet commenter: Yeah, keep indulging her.
Someone posts a picture of their son in the comment sections.
Other commenters: Looks like Li Dan。
Someone posts asking whether their son looks good on camera.
Commenters: Eh.
Another asks if their kid can be a model.
Commenters: You’re thinking too much.
Another wants to know if they’ve got mommy filters.
Commenters: I don’t know if the truth would be offensive or not. Either way, it’s inappropriate to pick a kid’s looks apart. So all I can say is that both of his parents are extremely mediocre looking, with not a single stand-out feature between either of them.
Another wants to know that their son looks very handsome sometimes, whether that’s a mommy filter.
Comments: Yup, it’s a filter.
Another asks can my son do it?
Comments: Go for an internet career. He’s got potential as a reaction image.”
Comments say, “Every time I see posts like these, my morality and my sense of beauty begin fighting each other.”
“The best I’ve seen is someone commenting that they’re ugly, but they have a super cute kid, and attaching a photo. Everyone underneath her were shocked what she’d have to look like to be even uglier than her kid.”
“They’re useless themselves so they put all their hopes in making money by exploiting their kids. I just feel sorry for the kids who are born into that environment.”
A tiktok video from the west, of a black dude reminding everyone to drink more water and eat plenty of fruits and veggies.
Comments say, “I’ve never seen my anus before, and yet all of this looks so familiar.”
“Whenever I have constipation, I pull my cheeks apart and pull my anus in, and then push. It works great, but sometimes, I’ll get bloody tearing, so don’t copy from me. It hurts a lot.”
“My record is not pooping for seven days. Every time I sat on the toilet, I’d cry. It was right at the edge of the door, and it just wouldn’t come out.”
“I gave my social media to a flight stewardess, but she never friended me back? I’m a guy. I got on my flight yesterday, and the flight stewardess asked me, “Hey, weren’t you just here the day before yesterday?” And it was true—my flight out and back was the same plane, the same stewardess.
I was super shocked and shy, so I didn’t react much, but later on, this stewardess (I really like her! I’ll tell you why later) was super nice to me. She helped me turn on my reading light, asked me if I needed anything else, asked for a five star rating, and everything. When the plane landed and everyone in my cabin had left, I used my bookmark to draw five stars, wrote my wechat ID on it, and handed it to her. I was super nervous. But a whole day has passed, and I haven’t gotten any friend requests. Do I have no hope at all? TT_TT
The reason I like this stewardess is that when I flew out, I sat next to two old people. When she was passing out drinks, they didn’t want any, and this kind stewardess told them it was free, and gave them apple juice and orange juice. I felt like she was so detail-oriented and sweet.
I’m not some kind of perv or creep. I’m going to start studying overseas this August, and I don’t want to get into any long distance relationships. I just wanted to be friends with her. She seems like such a cool person.”
Comments, “PS. I’m gonna be studying overseas. How can any woman resist?”
“She’s not nice to you, she’s doing her job. From the point of view of the two old people by you, she was nice to them too. It just means she was properly trained and professional and can figure out what each passenger needs. She’s a responsible and experienced flight stewardess.”
“No, no, no, you are a total creep.”
A man has been sentenced to 19 years in prison for raping his girlfriend’s underage granddaughter multiple times. The victim was diagnosed with multiple STIs at the hospital. Sina Frontline News puts out a poll asking people what they think about the punishment, whether it was too light, just right, too heavy, or other.
Comments say, “It’s way too light!”
“A man who’s half way in his coffin destroyed the childhood of an innocent person. He is truly a demon.”
“Why the fuck would you show this to me on Children’s Day. This is too much for me to handle.”
An askreddit question, “What’s postpartum depression like?”
The top voted reply is, “Let me talk about this from the man’s point of view. I almost got depression after a period of looking after the baby.
My baby was born last year, and I was lucky enough to have a mother-in-law who was willing to shoulder the burden for us. So my wife and I never went through too much chaos in our immediate postpartum life. The problem happened at the end of last year. My mother-in-law had to go back to her hometown because some stuff came up.
I had just started a business with my wife. We were busy day and night, but we had to leave somebody at home to take care of the baby. Some of you might say, well, it goes without saying, when a kid is that small, obviously….
I, the daddy, will stay behind.
I had no option, really. We were trying to meet our year-end goals, and my wife’s professional capabilities were way beyond mine. She couldn’t leave. But I could do my job from my home office.
I made all kinds of promises and reassurances to my wife, feeling like it’d be easy to handle the baby and work from home. But reality proved that I was far too naive.
At the time, our baby was 6 months old. She practically ate and slept and did nothing else. But she had a very shallow sleep. The least amount of noise made her wake up and scream. So my heart was raised all day.
Just as I was getting settled down to do something, she’d start screaming, and I’d have to abandon whatever it was to go comfort her.
Is it tiring to take care of a baby? When you break down each individual task, no, not really. Like, if you look at feeding, changing diapers, putting her to bed, making baby food, bathing her, individually, they’re all very small tasks. Nothing that looks immediately exhausting. That’s what a lot of married men don’t understand.
Why do women keep complaining about taking care of the baby when it’s just a bunch of tiny little tasks? Why do they never shut up about being exhausted? I’m way more exhausted trying to make a living out there.
As an extremely straight man from Shandong, that was my mentality too. But after just two days of taking care of the baby, I realised something was wrong. Sure, each individual item isn’t exhausting, but every single item is completely random. That is the biggest thing about children under three—they’re unpredictable.
When she’s up and awake during the day, her behaviour is super unpredictable. When she can’t talk, she cries over every single little thing. Why? Is she thirsty? Is she hungry? Is she poopy? Is she wet? As a parent, you have no idea, you just have to deal with whatever’s coming.
Once she’s mobile, but still can’t express herself, she’s even more unpredictable. You have to maintain a high level of tension, not letting your kid step out of sight for even a moment, and adjust how you’re protecting them based on their behaviour.
It’s the same as when she’s sleeping at night. You have no idea when she’s going to wake up. When she’s in her crib, she’ll cry. If she’s in your bed, you’re worried about crushing her. What if she kicked off her blankie? What if she got cold? What if she rolled off the bed? As a parent, there’s no ultimate purpose to any of your actions, and everything has to change as the baby changes.
You’re in a highly chaotic state constantly.
From my experience, taking care of a baby is way more exhausting than working. And this exhaustion has nothing to do with how much work the baby is making you do. It’s an exhaustion that stems from the chaotic, purposeless, unresponsive, reactive system that you have to use with a baby.
I’m a workaholic. I started a business in Shenzhen with nothing to my name and spent all my days in my company. But although I worked all day long, I knew exactly what I had to accomplish every single day. I knew what I was achieving. I just had to keep my eyes on the goal and keep pushing myself. Even if I worked until 1 or 2 AM every day, I didn’t feel that tired.
But the half a month I spent taking care of the baby at home, I’d be tired to the bone by 10pm. Every single one of my pores would be screaming at me that I’m done. So every day, when my wife got home and I could hand the baby off to her, I felt like a slave finally liberated to freedom. Oh, Great and Powerful Goddess, you are finally home.
Don’t underestimate the power of a purpose. It’s far more important than you imagine. To illustrate this system, let’s use a questionably historically accurate example. When Napoleon was leading his army to march on Egypt, they had to cross an endless desert.
After a few days of marching, the army got slower and slower. After a while, an underling reported to Napoleon that large numbers of soldiers in the army were going blind.
Napoleon was shocked and had the doctor see to them. But after the doctors examined the soldiers, they said that they observed no actual damage to the eyes. So what was causing the blindness? Finally, they found the reason.
Apparently, because for the entirety of the monotonous march, all the soldiers could see was unchanging dessert, the light-receiving cells in their eyes began to cease to react and that caused blindness.
So with the suggestion of the doctors, Napoleon had scouts plant colourful flags along the route of the march. That way, soldiers could use the flags as a milestone as they marched. Once the soldiers could see a goal, not only did they march quicker, but no one ever became blind again.
I don’t know if this case every actually happened in history, but what I want to express is that raising a baby is just like marching through the desert. All of the kid’s unpredictable behaviour is like the unchanging landscape of the desert. When mommies are taking care of babies all day, there’s no clear milestones or ultimate destination. So they sink into a reactive state that’s full of high stress and exhaustion. And it is very mentally exhausting to combat this state. That’s why mothers feel exhausted after a day where they seemingly didn’t do anything.
The problem is, if you try to talk about how you’re tired, you’ll just get looked down on by your husband and family. Didn’t you just stay home and play with the baby? How tiring can it be?
When you sacrifice yourself to do a purposeless task, and nobody understands you, that’s an even more exhausting feeling.
So I totally understand why mothers can fall into a lazy state where they don’t want to make any improvements.
Originally, I didn’t get it either. I would often accuse my wife, “When the baby’s sleeping, couldn’t you read some books? Why do you just keep playing on your phone?” No self-discipline!
But once I experienced this for half a month, I knew how arrogant and unsympathetic I was being. During that half a month, aside from completing the baseline job of keeping up with the kid, I couldn’t think about anything else. As soon as the kid would fall asleep, and I’d get some free time, I’d grab my phone and read reddit, scroll the news, watch tiktok. I couldn’t stop.
It’s a type of psychological reward reaction. You’ve spent all day around the kid. You’ve been under high stress, you’ve been exhausting your mental resources. As soon as you’re free, you don’t have any energy to do anything that requires thinking or concentration. You just want to relax. There’s no way you want to waste your brain cells on reading.
And I can understand why some mothers will stay up on play on their phone after their kid goes to sleep, no matter how exhausted they are. It’s not that phones are addictive or anything. It’s that that’s the only bit of me-time you’ve got in a day.
If you stay up a little, you’ve got a little extra me-time. If you go to bed as soon as the kid goes to bed, you’re just going to wake up tomorrow to time that isn’t yours. It’s hard not to feel cheated.
But the problem is, this kind of behaviour is super politically incorrect. If you keep up with it, a lot of women will start to feel a sense of guilt and shame. And your husband and family won’t understand you either. Aren’t you constantly talking about how you’re tired from taking care of the kid? Why don’t you go to bed early then? See, you were totally lying about being tired. You’re just complaining for the sake of it. You’re just being an attention whore.
You’re already guilty, add on the accusations from your family, and that increases your mental burdens, and puts you into a depressed state.
So modern mothers have four archetypical states:
Not wanting to deal with their kid
Fantasies about living alone
Staying up way too late, daydreaming about winning the lottery
Suffering a mental breakdown and then patching themselves back up again.
The state of chaos makes mothers lose their own personal value in it, so in order to save themselves, a lot of mothers will try their best to maintain their personal order and boundaries. And the process of this is also very hard to be understood by other people.
For example, the half a month I was at home with the baby, aside from cooking, I did all the housework. I mopped, I did laundry, I put away junk, I did everything around the house. It was wintertime, so when the baby caught a cold and had a runny nose, I took her to the hospital too. I’ve completely become a house husband.
People are the products of their environment, and environments can sculpt people. Once you’ve lost a clear goal and proper feedback from your work, how do you build value and a sense of order for yourself? Since I was in a housewife environment, I began to imagine that doing the dishes, sweeping, cleaning the toilet, and every step of taking care of the baby was my work task, was my product, was my KPI. No particular reason. I just needed to find value. I needed feedback I could see.
During that time, when I was mopping the bathroom in the morning, I found my wife hadn’t thrown her toilet paper in the waste basket. She’s done this several days in a row now. I understood that she was busy with work, and I knew it was such a minor issue, so I never brought it up. But that morning, when I saw the toilet paper lying around, I flipped out. I screamed at her for a whole minute.
She was totally lost when she saw me that angry. “Why the fuck are you so mad over some bits of paper? You psycho!”
I knew I was losing control, so I made myself stop. I thought over it later. The reason I got mad at her isn’t because she didn’t throw her trash in the trash bin. I was trying to maintain my sense of order.
What does that mean?
After cleaning the toilet for several days in a row, I’ve made cleaning the toilet a part of my value as a human being. I work hard on cleaning the bathroom, and you just leave your trash lying around, and you insist it’s a trivial issue? You’re denying my value and my identity! Of course I would be furious, in order to protect my value!
It’s not just mopping the bathroom. If I had just mopped the living room, and you come in with dirty shoes and made my floors all messy again, I’d get mad too. If I’d just reorganised the bedroom and you just took everything back out again, I’d get mad. If I cook, and you say it doesn’t taste good, I’d get mad. If I just corrected the baby on a behaviour and you messed with that, I’d be furious.
All of this might be trivial in your eyes, but this represents my order, my values, my dignity. If you dismiss all these little things I’m doing, of course I’d get mad and pick a fight. If you look it from this point of view, a lot of crazy mom behaviour makes sense.
That’s why a lot of women will get into patterns of excessive dieting, or showing off their kids on social media, or get involved in MLM schemes. The fundamental reason behind it is all about a personal sense of order and worth.”
A blogger posts two photos, showing how much she had changed with the birth of her child. She had went from 49kg to 70 kg. “Although I’d recently lost weight down to 65kg, I’m still super chubby. I’d always had wide hips and now they’re even wider. Even my nose is bigger than before. I’ve lost all my energy. I feel tired all the time. Do I regret it? Well, not that much. What can I do? I can only work on myself. Ganbatte! The road is long and windy yet!”
Comments say, “I’m the type to not gain weight no matter what I eat.”
“You need to change your metabolism first.”
“I didn’t gain any weight, but my body shape has totally changed.”
“My brother’s son’s daughter is one month older than my daughter. What should my daughter call her? Who knows? I’m so totally lost. This is so frustrating.”
Comments give the correct answer, “She’s your daughter’s niece!”
“My grandma is in her seventies. She found out I’d had a baby, so she made a winter outfit for the baby. She made a blue version too, and sent both to me from where she lives in Shandong. When I was sorting today, my MIL said that this is useless in Shanghai, indoors. And you can’t wear it out, because people will make fun of it. And we’ve got too much stuff at home, and we’d just bought a whole bunch of baby supplies for 11/11. There’s no place to put it. My husband offered to send it back to my mom, but none of our relatives have babies around. So chances are, we’re gonna throw these two outfits away. Such a shame for how much heart my grandma put into these.
Edit to add: People are right. I’ve stored them safely.”
Comments are yelling at her, “You honestly don’t have space for two baby outfits? If you really don’t, throw out two of your outfits to make some room. Even if my baby never wore it, I would keep these around as a keepsake. I store all the clothes that my husband’s grandma made for him.”
“Stop bringing up Shanghai. I don’t have anything against Shanghai, I just don’t want it associated with ungrateful shitheads like this.”
“But it looks super cute?”
“If you time travel back into the past and must marry one of the following options, which would you choose?
Younger Brother: The adopted son of your father—super cute and sweet and obedient in public, and cold and cruel and ruthless in private. He’s clean and cute looking with red lips, and has been secretly murdering any man who gets close to you. Right now, he is staring at you pitifully, “Sis, choose me, please?”
Regent: The cold and heartless regent, with sword-like brows and starry eyes and thin lips as he draws his sword across the neck of his enemy. He notices you looking at him. He’s a little panicked, and suddenly runs up to you to squeeze your hand. “I…Can you choose me?”
Bodyguard: The little bodyguard who obeys your every command. He always wears black, tall and slender, red lips, white teeth, agrees to everything you ask, the first to charge when you’re in danger. Even if he’s severely wounded, the first thing he says when he wakes up is, “Is the young lady alright?” Right now, he’s flushed red with shifting eyes, “Young lady, could you…” It looks like he remembers something, and he lowers his head dejectedly, “I’ve overstepped my bounds.”
Crown Prince: The gentle Crown Prince who smiles like the spring wind, who is like an angel descended upon the earth. He wears white and looks otherworldly. From five metres away, he tilts his head and smiles at you, “Sweetie, are you not going to choose me?”
Childhood Friend: The childhood friend who’s always playing pranks on you. Handsome and fit, and beats up anyone who bullies you at school and yells at them, “Only I can bully her!” Right now, his phoenix eyes are narrowed as he pulled on your hair, “You dare to not choose me?”
Comments say, “I think I can handle a mere five.”
“C or E. I feel like anyone else would murder me.”
“Someone write a fanfic between the bodyguard and the childhood friend.”
That stay-at-home dad guy is really insightful!
Can you explain a bit how the "hukou" system works and why it exists?