06/08/24 - A bullfrog creating noise around exam locations, disturbing exam progress, has been arrested.

2nd of June, Xi’an, the City Managers [people whose job it is to get rid or illegal roadside stalls/food trucks] won’t let a stall owner sell watermelons, so he gifted the entire cart of watermelons to passers by.

I don’t deny the purpose of city management, but another similarly important, if not more important question is, how do we make sure low income earners can still survive? This is an answer that any city with any warmth to it needs to provide.

Comments say, “The people taking watermelons aren’t even saying thanks.”

“Please, for the love of god, give us peasants a way to live.”

“During covid, they were promoting all kinds of roadside stall economy. Now that covid is over, you’re not allowed to sell anymore.”

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A compilation of advice people are giving to high school students taking their exams right now:

“Don’t wash your hair for the three days of the exams. That way, you won’t damage your scalp as much when you go get them bleached afterwards.” [Dyeing your hair different colours isn’t allowed in high school, so a lot of people want to dye their hair as soon as they get out.]

“Don’t throw away your pens after your exams. You can use them all through university.”

“Don’t throw away your student ID as soon as you’re done with your exams. You can still get discounts with it when you go out.”

“Buy a bigger phone. 256G isn’t enough at all.”

“Don’t rush and buy a bunch of ugly clothes.”

“Don’t just look at the name of the school, look up the location of the school too.” [You get randomly assigned to a school within your city as your exam location.]

“Don’t rush to get your driver’s license right away, or else you’ll get a driver’s license, a long holiday during which you can’t actually go out and have fun, and a hell of a sun tan.”

“If you wait and get it during college, you’ll get credits for getting a driver’s license.”

“Buy a phone immediately after you’re done, or else your parents might change their mind once they see your score.”

“If someone asks you out after your exams, just go out with them. You can’t find any dates in college.”

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Under the hashtag #The first batch of students to lose their exam ID has appeared in 2024, a blogger writes, “In the eternally looping news about the Gaokao, the accidents that crop up are always the same. Students lose their exam ID, or their national ID, or their parents take them to the wrong location…

I remember when I went to Gaokao decades ago. Back then, if you lost your ID, it would be a huge hassle to deal with it. But now, based on the news I see, almost every location has some sort of emergency plan. It’s all become much more humane. Finally, I hope all the students get great scores!”

Comments say, “Based on the news this morning, there are exam proctors who show up to the wrong location too.”

“This happens literally every year with the Gaokao.”

“Every year, we bring up that kid who overslept and missed his exams.”

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Under the hashtag #first student to walk out of the exams prays to cancel makeup work days, Julang Videos posts, “On the 7th of June, in Shanxi, Yangquan, the first student to walk out of the exams called out to the game designers of League of Legends to bring back Lethal Tempo. He also says that if this interview is going to be televised, then he wants to cancel the makeup work days policy too. [Where you have to work extra weekends to make up for the days you got off on public holidays.]

Comments say, “You are truly thinking of the people <3”

“Child, you deserve to be worshipped in a temple.”

“You are my God!!!”

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A blogger posts the funniest news to come out of the 2024 Gaokao, “A bullfrog creating noise around exam locations, disturbing exam progress, has been arrested.”

And a compilation of comments: “So far, we’ve had 1 student locked in his own house, 1 proctor going to the wrong location, 3 students going to the wrong location, 5 people who forgot their exam IDs, 5 people who lost their exam IDs, 1 student who lost both exam and national IDs, 5 students who forgot their national IDs, 1 student who dropped his national ID down the gutters, 1 frog disturbing the public peace.”

“So what’s the follow up? Did we lock him away in someone’s stomach?”

“But a bullfrog means that every student would do great in their exams!” [牛, meaning cattle, also means “awesome” in colloquial slang.]

“Did he confess?” [The police official account responded to this comment, saying, “We sent the police dog to interrogate ti and it has already confessed.”]

“Bullfrog: What? Me? But nobody ever cares if I croak or not?”

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“Found an SOS message on the window of the train? I saw it when I got on in eastern Hangzhou, and only managed to get my hands on a steward when I was almost at my destination. A few minutes after they took a photo, the police came over to double check the train times and passenger info. I thought nobody would care. If this was just a prank, I hope they still warn the guy who did it. I hope everyone’s okay.” [The Chinese part of the message reads, “I was the last passenger in this seat.”]

Comments say, “Yeah, you gotta call the cops. Otherwise, the next passenger is gonna get on the train and send the cops after you.”

“I hope everything’s okay. Don’t waste people’s kindness.”

“My daughter’s in first grade and almost all of her classmates know that SOS means asking for help. She even taught me that.”

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“The case about the student changing her shoes [a girl who wasn’t allowed into her exam location because there were metal bits in her shoes, so she had to go buy a pair of sandals with the accompaniment of police. This story and her photo was posted to the internet, causing a lot of cyberbullying over how short the skirt she was wearing was, and the flooding of trolls made her decide to give up on her exams this year.], first of all, reporting stories like this that invade students’ privacy is very shameful media behaviour. It’s fine for the media to promote police helping people out, but they should still blur out the identities of the people involved as much as possible. Don’t post direct photos of the people involved, and especially don’t shove your cameras into their faces.

A photo of the girl’s face, or of the girl at all, adds nothing to this story. This isn’t an undercover news story where you got footage of village officials taking bribes. You don’t need to photograph anyone for a story like this. It’s fine to get a few shots of the police paying for the shoes, but photographing the girl here is just insane. Every time we get Gaokao news about a student screwing up or whatever, you shouldn’t film their face. They’re stressed out enough because of these exams. They must be freaking out more if they’re in an emergency situation. And you run over and don’t offer a word of comfort or any solutions, but shove your cameras in people’s faces and start messing with their life? That’s just immoral. Not to mention, you’re publicising it everywhere. High school students are very naive. They haven’t dealt with life yet. They don’t know how to refuse an adult with a camera. They might be obedient, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to treat them like this.

As for all the horrendous comments, to be honest, I don’t know what to do about it. That’s two different worlds from weibo. The tide of conservatism and gender wars are mainstream now, plus ignorant and vicious people, it’s all a check mate. Lu Xun was complaining about this a hundred years ago. If he didn’t solve it, how could we? I’m just totally helpless.

To some extent, even mainstream media’s given up on promoting science and tolerance and kindness as values. Back in the 80s and 90s, they’d still try to promote people to learn science, but now we’re just promoting traditions and returning to our roots.

I think you can be mad at the media, tell them not to film people. But I’ve never felt like the media was inherently evil, that all interviews are necessarily unwanted. I’m also annoyed by people who blame the media right away whenever anything goes wrong. We all want announcements whenever anything happens, but these people have no concept of the least amount of ethics when it comes to reporting. It makes it hard to argue on their behalf.”

Comments say, “Question Zhang Xuefeng [famous career counsellor known for telling people to never go into journalism because the whole industry is rotten], understand Zhang Xuefeng, becoem Zhang Xuefeng isn’t just a meme. Whenever they fuck up, they claim to just be social media influencers. They complain all the time about how hard they have it, and never do a thing official, mainstream media is meant to do. I don’t even ask they try to direct people’s values. I just want them to stop drifting along with the trends.”

“Every Gaokao has ridiculous students, parents, and even proctors. Every year, people will leave a few, “Manchild.” or “All book smarts and nothing else”. But this year’s developments were just crazy and unbelievable. Since I’m in the habit of doubting everything on the internet, I’m wondering whether all of these shocking developments were all planned by somebody.”

“There was nothing wrong with what she wore.”