06/04/23 - Where did all her education go? How pitiful and despicable.
Someone posts screenshots from famous Chinese TV show The Eloquent Ji Xiaolan, of a conversation between the protagonist Ji Xiaolan and famously corrupt minister He Kun, saying, “Oh shit. I’m starting to think He Kun sounds pretty reasonable.”
[I can’t attach the video, because it’s copyrighted, but here’s a transcription]
He Kun begins, “One pound of grain can be exchanged for 3 pounds of bran. That means the food that once might have fed one person can now save three people.”
Ji Xiaolan: “But bran is for livestock. People can’t eat it.”
He Kun: “Do refugees count as people? Don’t glare at me. Do you even know? Those who are on the verge of starving to death don’t count as people anymore. They are literal animals. So long as it keeps them alive, screw bran—bran is an unobtainable treasure—they’ll eat grass roots, tree bark, even dirt.”
Ji Xiaolan: “I am shocked to hear that coming from the Great Minister He’s mouth.”
He Kun: “Of course you’re shocked. You’re just a scholar, spending all your days in a library, reading philosophy, criticising the government. You think I only know how to embezzle and steal? I have been to the disaster zone. What I saw there chilled my heart. No matter how much grain the government sends, it’s never enough. If I don’t figure out a different method, what you’d be seeing there wouldn’t be refugees. It would just be skeletons.”
Ji Xiaolan: “If the relief food isn’t enough, you can apply to the government for more of it.”
He Kun: “The government. [scoffs] Do you know how much silver is left in the treasury? The treasury is nigh empty.”
Ji Xiaolan: “But the government did send relief funds.”
He Kun: “I’ve seen the records. Every single official, no matter their rank, is skimming off the top of the relief funds. If you want to save the people, you have to save the officials first. If the officials are starving themselves, why would they care about saving people?”
Ji Xiaolan: “Ridiculous.”
He Kun: “This is reality. There are tens of thousands of refugees. Who’s going to actually pass food out? You? Or me? We have to rely on all those officials. We have to feed them first, because we can make them work for us.”
Ji Xiaolan: “I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous in all of history.”
He Kun: “This is the experience I learned from my decades of working as a minister. How do you write the word “official”? (官) There are two mouths, one above and one below. You have to feed the mouth that’s above before you can begin to feed the one below.”
The blogger finishes by saying, “Sure, He Kun isn’t a good person. What I wanted to say was that I understand him, but I don’t necessarily support him. There are tons of He Kuns out there today. If you have to choose, which would you rather have as a minister? A man who can create 500K of good and doesn’t embezzle a cent? Or a man who can create 2 million of good, but he’ll embezzle 1 million of it? Of course, if society wants to develop, what’s actually needed is a man who creates 2 million’s worth of good and doesn’t take a cent.”
Comments agree, “If I said I agree with what He Kun said, would people get mad at me? On the basis of human nature, demanding people be Hai Rui (well known principled minister) is just unrealistic. What the people actually need is for government officials to be eating the best of the best, but the people can still have meat on their table every day. That’s the most practical kind of official. He can work for a long time, and the people can enjoy stable days. Those officials who eat the best of the best, and leave the people without so much as some soup obviously need to be kicked out. But the officials who drink soup themselves to make sure the people can eat to their fill, can’t really last long either.
“But he still shouldn’t embezzle.”
“He also said that it’s necessary to mix sand into relief food. That’s the only way it actually ends up in the hands of the refugees.”
“I don’t like the note my boyfriend attached to his red pocket, like he’s trying to emphasise something. He never sent me red pockets on Children’s Day before, and I had to pick several fights with him. This time around, he did send me a red pocket, but I don’t like the tone of his note. Why does he emphasise that it’s for “kiddos”?”
OP shows screenshots of the red pocket, where the note reads, “Happy 1st of June! Red Pocket for kiddos.”
Comments say, “What a nice note. This way, if you break up, he won’t be able to sue you for it in court. It’s proof that it was a voluntary gift.”
“You can’t have a cake and eat it too. Write back, “Thank you, sweetie. Your love is making me feel like a little kid again. I’m so happy—let’s be happy together forever.””
“Break up with him so I can date him.”
A female college student attending Beijing University (top 2 university in China) had committed suicide, and her boyfriend has been charged with abuse. His sentencing hearing is happening soon. In 2019, on the 9th of October, Bao Li (false name), who was majoring in Law at Beijing University, committed suicide at a hotel by overdose. On 12th of December the same year, Southern Weekly News published a report of, “A Chilling Romance: Texts revealed in the Beijing University Suicide Case”, showing Bao Li’s boyfriend demanding that she send nudes, making her pregnant, then forcing an abortion on her, and demanding that she get her tubes tied. Bao Li passed away in the hospital on the 11th of April, 2020. Bao Li’s mother claims that she has been depressed about what happened to her daughter for years, and that after what happened, the boyfriend and his family never contacted her again.
Comments reply, “Couldn’t she just leave this asshole? Why did she need to kill herself?”
“Are you sure she was studying law at Beijing University?”
“Where did all her education go? How pitiful and despicable. Why was she so obsessed over a man?”
“Imagine how much money and effort went into raising a Beijing University student.”
A Cool Fact of the Day blog writes, “Why do aquariums feed beluga whales ice? Is it to cool them down? The answer is, beluga whales eat ice just to hydrate, not to cool down. Beluga whales are saltwater creatures, and seawater has high levels of salt and low levels of just fresh water. You can’t drink it directly. And when beluga whales eat, they swallow whole and do not chew. If you directly introduce them to freshwater, they’ll think it’s seawater and not swallow it down. So caretakers make ice cubes out of freshwater, so they can swallow it directly to hydrate themselves. Beluga whales also like to eat cold things, so ice cubes are great for them.”
Comments ask, “So what about beluga whales that live in the wild?” Where OP helpfully replies, “Beluga whales mostly hydrate through their food, because they eat food that contains high levels of water. After they eat, their body’s metabolism can process water out of their food. Additionally, beluga whales can drink water water or eat ice to hydrate. Around the north pole, there is frequent rain and snow, and this provides opportunity for beluga whales to hydrate.”
More people joke, “But if they get too much cold energy?”
“What if their uterus gets cold and they can’t have sons?”
“I hired a maid to cook for me, and she keeps acting like she’s in some kind of period piece romance novel? I was just totally sick and tired of cooking, so I hired a maid to come over every day to make me lunch. She makes delicious food! I’m super satisfied!! But um, I feel like she might be addicted to trashy romance novels? She’s in her sixties, and insists on calling me “Young Mistress”. I told her a million times that it’s okay to just call me Xiao Dong, but she’s all like, “That would be very inappropriate, young mistress.”
She normally comes over to make lunch, so she hardly ever sees my husband. On the weekends, my husband doesn’t have work and he’ll eat with us, and she’ll be like, “The young mistress smiles the most when the young master is at home.”
God, does anyone understand this feel? I could have dug out an entire castle with how much I was curling my toes.
My mom came over to see my puppy, and we got onto the topic of having kids, and she was being super pushy and we had a fight. After my mom left, the maid was all like, “The Missus just wants to make young mistress happy.”
God help me.
I told her so many times not to call me that, but she still lives in her bizarre romance novels. If it weren’t for the fact that my husband isn’t some kind of moody Count, I’d suspect I really was in some kind of simulation. What should I do, people?”
Comments say, “That’s so cute! I want to be young mistress for a day too!”
“Hahahahaha, she’s letting you experience what it’s like to be a billionaire.”
“If she’s having fun, maybe just roll with it. She’s in her sixties, after all.”
A celebrity actor who was sponsoring a girl in rural China has withdrawn his sponsorship after news that many of the things he donated went to the boy in the family instead. In response, a blogger writes, “A lot of people seem really bothered by sexism. When we’re looking at problems, maybe we should set our biases aside for a moment and question, is sexism really necessarily bad? Maybe that’s not such a certain thing. Sexism, after all, is a type of collective social consciousness. There might not be so much active maliciousness involved. It’s more like, in a situation of very limited resources, farmers will make the most reasonable split within their household. There’s no objective right and wrong about it.
Why? Because you already have limited resources, you want to reduce your risk to as little as possible, and raise the profits as high as possible. Giving resources primarily to men just makes sense. If people weren’t sexist, it would make an already poor rural family take on far more risk than is necessary.”
Comments say, “High bride prices, cars, houses, is this not a type of oppression on men by women, a type of negative feedback loop?”
A relationship blogger writes, “I’ve got a coworker whose parents would never admit that they’re sexist. They think they’ve done pretty well just for putting their daughter through school. After my coworker graduated from uni, she found a pretty decent job by herself, and saved most of her money, sending 1K back every month to take care of her parents.
When this coworker got married, her parents gave her 20K as a dowry, and said that they had no money, they couldn’t afford more. My coworker was very grateful, and cried a lot at her wedding.
Two years later, when her younger brother got married, her parents pulled out 600K to buy a house and car for him, and borrowed another 100K as bride price for his wife. My coworker was upset, of course, but she understood that it’s necessary for men to own a house before marrying, and girls can just marry with whatever, so she never brought it up to her parents.
But soon after, her father was diagnosed with leukaemia. Both my coworker and her brother went to get type-matched, and their parents told my coworker that she was a match and she needed to donate bone marrow. She agreed, and aborted her 5-month old child behind her husband’s back. When it was found out, she got in a huge fight with her husband, and to this day, her MIL won’t speak a word to her. But she said that her father only has one life. She has no regrets.
But lately, she accidentally saw the original analysis report, and both her and her brother were a match. She couldn’t control her sadness. All their claims of being equal were false. Her father would rather sacrifice his unborn grandson, than have his precious son donate bone marrow.
Now my coworker feels like the sky has fallen. She doesn’t have a relationship with her in-laws anymore, she doesn’t have a relationship with her parents anymore, and she doesn’t have a child anymore. She’s truly alone in this world.”
A tiktok video of a primary schooler cooking the shit out of some noodles like a pro.
Comments marvel, “He’s got strong arms!”
“You can tell that is years of experience.”
“Lol, a primary schooler making noodles for uni students. It’s gotta be tasty as fuck.”
“You can tell his arms aren’t enough and he’s using his back instead.”
A compilation of people’s comments after finding out that ants cannot see people. “Just a couple of days ago, I was playing with some ants by putting my hand down in front of them to not let them pass. But they know how to get around it. So I guess they just think a mountain appeared out of nowhere?”
“Ever since I found out ants can’t see people, I feel like a whole new world’s opened up to me. The universe is so big, there’s no way Earth is the only planet where life exists. I believe in aliens, they’re just not in the same dimension as us, so we can’t see them.”
“Maybe we’re just ants to people on a higher dimension.”
“I mean, how come the human world doesn’t have suddenly appearing mountains, or other completely unexplainable phenomena then? There are still unexplained mysteries in the world, but they don’t happen often at all.”
“But fire ants and bullet cans can do a lot of damage to humans. Don’t underestimate ants, you baka!”
Someone suggests, “Maybe the reason we have such terrible sex education isn’t out of shyness, but because if you explain everything, no girl would want to give birth anymore. Like everything you have to go through for pregnancy, and dealing with postpartum depression.”
A blogger makes a compilation of comments under this post. “Like uterine prolapse. People are too shy to talk about it and just push it back in after peeing, and it only gets found out by their kids after they die.”
“Or leaking pee, and wearing a towel inside their pants for years, but it can be fixed with a 10 minute surgery.”
“Before I studied medicine, nobody told me that giving birth while severely short-sighted can cause your retina to detach and you can go blind.”
“My mom went blind for a whole year after giving birth to me.”
“I’m was almost 23 when I found out that when you sit the month, you have your period for that whole month.”
“And postpartum haemorrhoids.”
“Hot Fact: when you deliver vaginally, you’ll poop and pee on the table too. Your pride is going to crumble in that moment. You need to believe that everything is a lie, including motherliness, diamonds, willpower, whatever a mother’s love overcomes all. It’s all lies.”
“Look at my stretch marks. I leak pee too. I can’t fit into my dresses. I have less and less hair, and wrinkles all over my face. My body feels 40 years old, and I’m only 21. There’s nothing good about this. Don’t have kids.”
“Even middle and high school sex ed never tell you about postpartum menstruation, or pee leakage, or amniotic embolisms. We did learn about how some babies have to be pulled out by forceps in high school though, and that was gross enough.”
“Yeah, I didn’t even know pregnancy gave you stretch marks, or you bleed for a month afterwards. I thought giving birth was trivial, and only learned about all the pain involved later. They never teach about this area at all.”
“Ten months of suffering, amniotic embolism, episiotomies, leaking pee, hormones, blocked milk ducts, bleeding, diabetes, gaining wait, haemorrhoids, stretch marks, saggy boobs, raising a baby, no sleep, hair loss, insomnia.”
“We did learn that the way to raise birth rates is to reduce female education rates. I remember our teacher going into this in a lot of detail.”
“Disregarding all of that, in my twenty years of life, what I hear the most frequently from my parents is, “If you stay like this, your in-laws are gonna beat you to death.” Who hasn’t heard this from their parents?”
“I made a joke at my brother’s engagement dinner, and now his girlfriend doesn't want to marry him anymore. What should I do? I’d gotten drunk, and saw that her sister is kinda hot, so I joked that half the SIL’s sister’s ass belongs to her BIL, and my brother is a lucky man indeed. But the sister threw down her chopsticks, pointed her finger at my nose to demand what the fuck I meant. What was our family planning? My brother tried to help out by saying that I was just too drunk, they should let it go. But she wouldn’t, saying things like, “You’re not even married yet, and your family is bullying me, a high school student. Once my sister’s actually married in, you’d bully her to death!” My parents tried to laugh it off and say that’s impossible, but I saw her parents and her sister’s faces go dark. So I couldn’t hold back and yelled at her to STFU. I didn’t think she’d immediately burst into tears, flip the table, and ruin the whole night.
It’s been a week now, and my brother’s girlfriend won’t talk to him. My parents wanted to bring me over with gifts to apologise, but her parents are saying it’s unnecessary. We try to bring up the bride price, and they won’t respond, and just say that they’re still thinking about the marriage. I kinda regret it now. Is there any way to make up for this?”
He posts a follow up later, “I just got online lately to see the disaster zone that is the comment section. I’m not trying to rile up gender conflict. I wanted to delete this post, but it’s already locked.
First, I didn’t joke to her face. People might think we were at the same table, but actually, I was drinking at the men’s table, with my uncles and stuff. We’d all been drinking, and we weren’t thinking clearly, and I was just trying to warm up the atmosphere. I thought it was pretty obvious that this sort of thing is a joke, it’s just for a laugh. I didn’t plan for her to hear me. I’m not sexually harassing her. I’m just running my mouth and not thinking about it. It’s stuff that’s pretty commonplace in men’s dorms. If you know, you know.
When she heard and started flipping out, I didn’t know how to deal with it. I was gonna apologise at first, and my parents had a super good attitude too. They weren’t trying to defend me. And my brother wasn’t insisting that they let it go, he blamed me right off the bat for drinking too much and being childish. They weren't unconditionally on my side. It was my fault for losing my temper, I admit. But was it appropriate for her to make a scene in front of all our relatives? Did she not think how people would see her when she came over and flipped my table? Is she not embarrassing both our parents? Is she not thinking about her sister? Did she really think my parents and my brother are such shameless people?
My uncle said she was being unreasonable too. We’re all one big family, we could’ve resolved this in private. She has no concern for the bigger picture. If she’s unhappy, I can apologise and buy whatever gifts she wants after the fact. But she made such a big scene, now the whole village is gossiping about it, and my family is super embarrassed.
The person who introduced my brother and SIL has already called and yelled at us. The whole family is over at SIL’s place this weekend to apologise. I bought snacks and dolls for her sister. My parents and brother are super nice people, they don’t have any ill will. I was just running my mouth. I wasn’t trying to bully her, I wasn’t trying to sexually harass. I didn’t have any pervy thoughts about her. I’m only in uni too. I didn’t think that much.”
Comments say, “He still doesn’t think he’s at fault, and he thinks it was the victim’s fault. His whole family too, they’ve all got fucked up values. Don’t marry them, run now!”
“When it’s okay in a family for a bunch of people comment on an underage girl like that, run away ASAP.”
“You asked for it. If I met people who make sexual jokes before they’re even married, I would never let my daughter marry in. Running your mouth in all kinds of occasions means you haven’t been raised well, and you wouldn’t treat my daughter well either.”
A video of a 2.5-year-old kiddo in Inner Mongolia, playing the piano by ear. Supposedly, he’s playing “Afterwards”. His mother claims that he’s never played this song before, and this is his first attempt at it. Internet commenter are shocked at this kiddo’s talent, and say that, “This is god spoonfeeding him food.”
Comments say, “This is not spoonfeeding. This is shoving food down his throat.”
“He didn’t drink his Meng Po soup, did he? He was probably a pianist in a past life.”
“The mother must have played frequently as home, for the baby to pick up on it so much. I’ve seen a mother be super into calligraphy, and do calligraphy every day at home, and her baby can write excellent calligraphy at 2.5 years old too. So if you want your kid to be talented, first, you’ve gotta be talented.”