06/08/23 - This is a designated washing trough.
“I just had a horrifying thought. What if all the sicknesses you get as a result of not sitting the month well is just an excuse to cover up the inherent price of having a kid? I’m currently sitting the month, being “threatened” every day by my mom and MIL, that if I’m not super careful during The Month, I’ll get this or that problem when I’m older, my body will break down this and that way. But being a rather rebellious person, I found that they’re just avoiding the point of the issue. They blame all the natural consequences of giving birth on your body on you not sitting the month well, and refuse to face the actual price of having a baby. What are we all running away from?
For example, with showers and washing my hair, my mom said that I have to use Chinese mugwort water. And I have to thoroughly boil the water beforehand and wait for it to naturally cool down to a comfortable temperature, I can’t just mix in cold water. And my MIL said that after I’m done washing my hair, I can’t blow it dry, or I’ll get migraines.
But I didn’t listen to them. I just used my normal shower water, and kept using my hair dryer.
Just these last couple of days, I got migraines. But, obviously, it was because the baby is going through a fussy phase because of colic, and I had to stay up with them for several nights. I’m just severely sleep deprived, and getting a corresponding migraine. Just in the last two days, we finally solved her gas problems and I started getting good sleep again, and my head didn’t hurt again. But they completely ignored the hardship of staying up all night. They never discuss it. They act like they don’t notice it. All they know to do is blame me for not using mugwort water. And from now on, every time I complain about a migraine, it’ll be, “See, this is what happens when you don’t listen. When you don’t take care while sitting the month.” No one will ever acknowledge that I had to sacrifice a lot to raise the baby, that I was lacking sleep, and that’s what caused my headaches.
With back pain, arm pain, and leg pain too—whether I lie down or sit up to breastfeed, it’s going to be a strain on my spine. If it goes on for too long, I’ll get back pain. And before you give birth, your body will release hormones that relax your tendons to allow your bones to open up, so it’s natural to have all kinds of joint pain after birth. When you’re locked up in the same room day and night, not allowed to leave or look outside, of course you start getting blurry vision. And all they say is for you to stop playing with your phone. But the reality is, I play with my phone while I’m at work normally too.
All of these problems can be solved with calcium supplements, not lifting heavy objects, and not carrying the baby, and letting time normalise your hormones. But the older generation just goes on and on about how it’s all because you turned on the AC, you saw some wind, you didn’t listen. You’ve ruined this sitting of the month, and you have to sit another month to fix it. All the while, they’re forcing the already weak postpartum mother to keep breastfeeding and carrying the baby and putting more stress on her body.
And all the month-sitting soups—pork feet stew, chicken broth. You don’t want to drink it, and that’s why you’re weak. That’s why you have no milk. If you say that if you just drink warm water, you’ll still get milk, they’ll say that your milk has no nutrition. The baby isn’t gaining weight. They’ll keep on blaming you and not be concerned at all about whether or not you’ll get blocked milk ducts, or gain weight.
They know how much giving birth damages your body, but they don’t want to face it and admit it. They know how painful the process is, but they dismiss it lightly with, “Well, everyone goes through this. Who doesn’t hurt while giving birth? You’re only dizzy and sore because you didn’t sit the month well. You only have joint pain because you got blown by wind.”
They know you’re tired. But they need you to keep working. Otherwise, who’ll take care of the baby? The best praise for a postpartum mother is, “It’s like you didn’t have a baby at all!””
“My MIL never leaves me food when she cooks. I have to buy my own food when I get off of work. She’s helping me take care of the baby while I go back to work. Every time I get home, there’s no dinner left anymore. They’d finished everything. It’s so awful. I have to get takeout myself.”
Comments say, “My MIL used to not leave me any food either. I put up with it for a while, then I ordered over 500 RMB’s worth of food right in front of them, and put the receipt on the table while I ate. From that day on, I had a serving set aside for me every day.”
“You’ve got such a good temper. Why do you bother going home at all?”
Someone complains, “I got an award and posted it to my social media, and in the middle of the night, a friend flipped out and started blowing up my phone with 38 messages. I only screenshotted a tiny part of it. How do I deal with gross men like this?”
The screenshots from her friend reads, “We’re still young. We can’t be blinded for fame. You’re not afraid of failure and you’re willing to try new things—that’s certainly deserving of praise. And you’ve experienced a lot. But experience is not a reason to flaunt. You’re showing off for a reason, right? Have you thought about why? When you display your accomplishments, people who are more talented than you would just think you’re shallow. And people less talented than you would just envy you and despise you. Is it not so? Anyone would be happy when they accomplish something, but they need to calm down and think afterwards. Can they actually let other people know about this accomplishment? If you’re happy, you can show off to your parents, but I don’t think there’s a need to show off to other people. You could let your teacher know too, or posting it to social media? Aren’t you just asking to get bullied?
I’m just trying to reason this out. I’m angry. Not because you accomplished something great, and I’m envious. But I feel like your values and how you deal with people, and even your view of life doesn’t match mine. Maybe you don’t feel it yourself, because an outside view is always clearer, but all wise people know their limits.
You’ve been awarded as an Outstanding Party Member, but take a look at the selection criteria. Did you actually reach them? Outstanding Party Members and Eager Recruits should be people who are accomplished in morality, wisdom, health, art, and hardwork. Ask yourself sincerely, are you developed in all five areas?
Flies don’t swarm around an uncracked egg. Only worthless losers are jealous of other people. Jealousy comes from insecurity. But if other people are angry at you, you should reflect on your problems.
Sure, you’re better than some other people, you became a teacher, but can you really be a good teacher? Ask yourself, are you actually a great human being? Just because you’re a little better off than some other people, and got some things that other people don’t have, and made some tiny accomplishments, you have the right to play games during glass and lay flat?”
She posted these messages also to her social media, and got dozens of comments defending her. In the aftermath, the friend texted her again, “Sure, I kinda said too much that time. But with your ability to read people, you should have been able to tell, that I wasn’t just babbling. If you listen to me, you’d benefit a lot from it. Everyone wants to shine brightly, but with experience, you’ll naturally shine. You don’t have to polish yourself.
Other than your parents, no one wants you to do well in this world. If I was simply jealous and envious and hateful towards you, I wouldn’t talk to you in the tone of a parental figure. I hope you can figure that one out.
Really, my parents have taught me from a young age with their actions to be a kind person. I wouldn’t dislike anyone. I don’t have the right to dislike anyone. Honestly, I feel very differently about you now than before. I used to withdraw in disgust as soon as I heard of you in the past, and now I can talk to you like a normal person. That’s a big growth on my part.
I don’t dislike you at all. I just dislike the things you do. We all have different ways we can still grow. A lot of things should be hidden in your heart.
Everyone is going to be happy when they succeed and gain fame. But if you actually got there through hardwork, then you’d know how difficult the journey is, and once the happiness passes, you’ll calm down. Because awards aren’t everything. Even though you have these awards, you still have a lot of flaws too, and that would push you to climb even higher. Awards are supposed to push you towards new heights, and not for you to show off.
We’re not young anymore. We need to think like adults. We’ve still got a lot of ways to grow yet. Life is like a marathon. The journey is more important than the destination.
[He attaches a bunch of photos of tourist sites in China]
You can show off your luck. There’s no need to show off your strength. It’s not that I don’t know how to word things gently, or I don’t understand socialisation. I just want to help you, because that’s helping me too. It’s helping everyone. We’re all in the same class leadership, and a good class leadership is the glue that holds a class together.”
Comments say, “Lol, I would’ve just kept responding to him with “K”, “ojbk”, “thx”, and then finish off with, “are you just jealous of me?” before blacklisting him.”
“I didn’t even have the patience to finish reading all that. If I was you, I would’ve just deleted him right off the bat.”
“I was so angry I was on the verge of laughing, but then I thought about it, and it’s better to just go along with what he said. I’m worried he’s the type of person to stab me with a knife.”
A Jiangxi kindergarten has been caught washing children’s food trays and eating utensils inside their squatting toilet. It was discovered when a young mother went to check up on her child, and happened to see this. From the video attached, we can see a middle-aged woman squatting next to the squat-style toilet, putting the stainless steel food trays children use into the toilet, and washing them with a plastic hose, then stacking them up together again.
Based on her experienced movements, this is clearly not her first time washing food trays this way. I think any parent would flip out watching their beloved and treasured children eating off of something washed in a toilet.
Comments say, “Yeah, Jiangxi is like this. The relevant departments are gonna jump out any moment now to declare that it’s all just rumours, and start banning people left and right. It’s like the main souvenir of Jiangxi.” Someone predicts under this comment, “Watch, they’re gonna say it’s a specially designed flowing food tray cleaning system.”
The next comment is, “This is a designated washing trough. It’s better and cleaner than a sink, because it uses flowing water.” And people are like, “You wash your utensils in a trough in the floor lower than your feet, right next to a bunch of mops?”
Famous e-sports player uzi is confirmed to be joining the e-sports team EDG. I [that is, the Doomscroll translator here] literally have no idea what’s going on, but the entire comment section is celebrating, so I guess it’s a good thing?
“My teammate wants to get a paternity test with our baby. He said, “It’s not that I’m doubting you, and I don’t think we got the wrong baby at the hospital either. I’m 99% sure that he’s my baby. But I still want to eliminate that 1% of doubt.”
And on the inside, I was just like, “What the fuck is he talking about.”
He has no basis for it or anything. The baby looks like him. But yesterday at dinner, my sister said something about our baby not looking like either of us. And before, a friend of his also said that the baby didn’t look like him. But we showed that friend a different photo, and the friend said that he looks a lot like daddy in that one. And he said how while we were in the hospital, his mom kept emphasising to be careful we didn’t get the wrong baby, so he’s been stressed out about it.
But it’s like 4am, and he’s looking for Taobao paternity tests and asking what’s needed to do a test. I feel deeply insulted. It feels like making me swallow shit whether we do it or not.”
Comments say, “With this level of status-difference in your marriage, you still call him your teammate?”
“Fuck off with the teammate bullshit, your husband doesn’t think that’s his baby.”
“You can get a maternity test with the baby. So long as it matches you, it can prove that you didn’t bring home the wrong baby from the hospital.”
A famous actress writes, “Today is me and Mister Deng’s wedding anniversary. It’s been 12 years. I worked in Wenzhou, while he took care of the kids in Shanghai. In another month, we’re going to switch. This is a level of teamwork that we’ve achieved after 12 years.
Just a while back, my mom was saying to me that, “You’ve been patching up your rough childhood, and you’ve done a great job of it.” And I wanted to say, I’m so grateful to my little family, my kiddos, my husband, for giving me so much energy and warmth.
Mister Deng said that when he met me, I was a block of ice. And although I’m still not quite at the boiling heat of summer, I’m just the right temperature for a comfortable foot bath. I don’t need to get any hotter. Room temperature is perfect.
The hardest thing in life is a happily ever after. I hope we can be room temperature forever.
There are 365 days in a year. As days get longer, everything becomes more routine. But because we have each other, the days are more meaningful. Even the random details of daily life take on special meaning, and stand out in the repetition of years. Every year at that moment, without anything to remind me, I begin to look forward.
2010, February 8th.
2011, June 7th.
2011, November 12th.
2014, May 3rd.
Not just the past, but the future too. Kids going to school. Kids graduating from school. A happy family dinner. An unforgettable trip.
In the frozen winter, we warm ourselves by a bonfire. In the heat of summer, we wade through waves on the beach. One day, we adopt a stray animal. We’ll cry as we say farewell to our aged pet. We watched a great movie together. We snack as we watch soap operas. Daddy plays ball with big brother, while little sister practices calligraphy with me.
When we come upon difficulties, we’ll encourage each other. When we encounter happy things, we spread laughter to each other. We’ll disagree and fight and argue sometimes, but more often, we’ll be crying together, and screaming together, and laughing together.
And more, and more. All these insignificant moments will become our priceless memories, drop by drop, until they fill our days up. All 365 of them.
The last 3 years, it’s like my life has restarted. I’ve gained a whole new definition for myself and for life. My record of my life has become more and more detailed, because it’s in all the little things that my treasures are buried.
I hope we can continue on our ordinary but real lives, with peace and happiness, every day.”
Comments spot the key point, “We’ll be switching soon? So your husband has a role in your new show too?”
A tiktok video of a 32-week old premie baby who was delivered in the hospital lobby. His father then took his mother up to the delivery ward, leaving the premie baby lying on the cold tile floor in the lobby. A blogger asks, “This is literally inside a hospital, filled with people. There are even doctors present right there. And they’re just letting this baby lie around?”
I’m um. Not sure how comfortable I am posting the video? Supposedly, in the aftermath, at some point, the baby was taken to the emergency ward. But without knowing if they survived or not, I guess I’ll avoid it.
Comments say, “Oh my god, are there no doctors at this hospital? Why is everyone just standing by and watching?”
“32 weeks! Without any first aid when he was born. That’s way too dangerous! Even if a neonatal doctor isn’t there, surely, there’s emergency staff who can do some triage on that baby?”
“The doctor even has time to explain the situation to passersby, what the fuck.”
“At least put the baby somewhere warm?”