“Double checking whether I’m sexist or not. Guys, tell me if this is misogynistic behaviour.
I read yaoi romances.
I liked one piece so much that I spent 3500 RMB to commission a female artist for art. This money helped her go to university despite no support from her sexist family.
The art I commissioned was so good that it drew more people to read the story, which was written by a female author. The money she made from the increased readership let her have more bargaining power when her parents pressure her to get married.
Am I a misogynist or not?”
Comments joke, “Sorry, reading yaoi eliminates you from the very beginning.”
“Liking yaoi is, like, the height of dick worship.”
“You’re just patristically using your money to try to save fallen women. That’s such typical male behaviour.”
A Sichuan university student has gotten in trouble when she thought she had caught a man doing an underskirt shot of her on the subway, and demanded to look through his phone. When there was no inappropriate photos found in his phone, she nonetheless still took his photo to “expose” him online.
A blogger reposted her original post, “I was on the subway, wearing a face mask, and didn’t bother sitting down since it was a short ride. I was standing around a corner, but before I even settled in, I felt a creepy old man staring at me and try to take his phone to aim at me. At this point, I was already suspicious that he was trying to take my photo. I glared at him, and he put down his phone again, and I knew that most likely, he hadn’t actually taken any photos. It would’ve ended like it, and I would have just “put up with it”, but after a minute, my brain started spinning. “Should I not defend my rights just because they weren’t actually violated? Do I have to wait until something happened before I can say something?” I feel like this isn’t the first time this creepy old man has tried this, his movements were so experienced and he was acting so shameless. That lead to what happened in the video I uploaded. I originally thought that if I found even one photo, I wasn’t going to let him away with it. But I didn’t actually get to do anything with my fists. All creepy men need to die.”
As well as her comments, “I’ll say it again, he aimed his phone at me first. When I noticed him, he put down his phone again. But I still didn’t feel safe, and that’s why I demanded he show me his phone. If he wasn’t trying to take creepy photos, why hasn’t he come out and said anything?”
The blogger writes, “We need to investigate how someone like this was able to be a Master’s Degree student. She’s clearly breaking the law here, invading this man’s privacy and slandering his name. She’s even in the journalism major, but she shows none of the basic morality of a media person. The fact that this kind of person gets guaranteed entry into a Master’s Degree program is an insult to all the other Master’s Degree students out there.”
Comments say, “Didn’t you watch the video? This man was taking photos of people, he just didn’t take a photo of this girl. Just because it wasn’t underskirt shots, doesn’t mean he wasn’t taking photos of people.” Underneath this are thousands of replies of people taking blurry photos of crowds in a subway station asking him if it counts.
“This girl is like mysteriously confident. The guy didn’t photo anything, and she’s still threatening that he needs to be careful. And she’s posting everything on the internet. She’s a true villain.”
“I guess we men need to just stop playing with our phones on the subway, in case a feminazi decided to report us, check our phones, and post it on the internet to invite trolls. I’m talking about feminazis, not normal women.”
Someone posts a PSA on the important points of sitting the month in summer, reminding people, “Don’t get yourself a whole bunch of illnesses because of ignorance! Sitting the month in the summer is even harder than in winter! You’re really weak postpartum. If you can at all, sit the month for longer if possible. 42 days. 56 days. No shorter than 30 days. The most, most, MOST important thing is to maintain a happy mood while sitting the month. Don’t cry! Put yourself first, everything else comes later. Hope everyone and their babies stay healthy and safe!”
The PSA she posts says, “You can turn on the AC during summer! Don’t wrap yourself up! It’s too hot in summer, and if you wrap yourself up head to toe, you’ll sweat too much and get heatstroke. The best temperature to set your AC at is 26 degrees. If your AC is aimed at your bed, get a barrier so that it doesn’t blow directly on you. Let fresh air into your room for 20 minutes each day at morning and night. While you’re letting in fresh air, go to a different room, so the wind doesn’t blow on you.
Important notes for mommies:
Walk around a good amount, it’ll help you recover better, whether you had a c-section or delivered vaginally.
Don’t look at your phone! I could feel my eyesight getting worse. If you’re bored, listen to audio books.
5 days after your vaginal delivery and 7 days after a c-section, you can wash your hair. Lie on the bed and get someone else to wash for you, immediately blow dry, then blow-dry again after 10 minutes in case it gets humid again. The nurse helped me wash my hair in the hospital with mugwort water. It’s supposedly better for postpartum mothers.
Don’t carry your baby too much, learn how to breastfeed laying down, and don’t carry anything too heavy. (It can lead to carpal tunnel or uterine prolapse)
Don’t touch cold water!
Learn how to breathe with your stomach, and keep it up during the month. It can help your tummy get tighter again.
If you’re breastfeeding, you need to get a pump. Newborns have a small appetite and won’t be able to drain you, so you’ll get blocked ducts a lot and need to manually pump it out.
Prepare some breastfeeding underwear, the kind that’s easy to wash. You need to wear proper bras for support, or your boobs will sag.
If you’re having trouble with constipation, try glycerol.
Talk with your family while you’re sitting the month and refuse any visits. Babies have weak immune systems and you’re still recovering.
Don’t eat any meat or fish for a week after giving birth, don’t drink thick soups, or you’ll get blocked ducts.
For a week after giving birth, you can drink a small amount of red sugar water. It’ll help you push the uterine lining out during weeks 3-6. After you’re done with bleeding, you can drink some Five Red Soup (red beans, jujubes, red-skinned peanuts, red sugar, and goji berries) to recover your blood.
If you don’t have enough milk, drink more warm water. Every time before or during pumping, drink 500ml of warm water. Broth works too.
Prepare several month-sitting outfits. You’re extra-weak, so you’ll be super prone to sweating as soon as you drink water. Choose clothes that absorb sweat well and is convenient for breastfeeding.
Important notes for baby:
Don’t carry the baby too much, it’s bad for their spinal development.
Don’t feed the baby as soon as they cry. It’s very easy to overfeed. Check if they’re fussy because they’re wet or too hot.
Babies under 3 months don’t need pillows. You can just let them sleep on a little square of burp cloth for absorbing sweat.
Let the baby sleep on their side, with back support. Make sure they’re sleeping for equal amounts of time on both sides, so they don’t get asymmetrical heads. It can also reduce spit-up.
If you’ve been in an air-conditioned room and need to go outside, stand in the doorway for a bit so the baby can get used to the temperature transition.
Babies can totally tolerate AC. Buy a humidity detector, and get a non-misting humidifier, or just put a bucket of water in their room.”
A blogger posts a compilation of people’s complaints about this year’s college entrance exam’s pens.
““It’s super leaky, runs dry, and the ink stays wet a long time. I switched pens four time in a single exam.” A Zhengzhou student complains that the stationery they were given at the exams were really low quality. Officials have explained that after public bidding, they bought 140,000 sets, for 8 RMB per set.”
“Why can’t we bring our own pens? The pens they prepared at the exam itself comes out with way too much ink, and it’s not fast-drying. My whole answer sheet was super dirty, and there’s ink all over my hands. God, why can’t they get better pens?”
“An employee at the exam centre in Zhengzhou confirmed to reporters that the brand of the pens is Aihao.”
“The government’s said they’ve emergency sent out several thousand new pens to all the exam locations.”
Comments ask, “If I told you this has nothing to do with corruption, would you believe it?”
”Remember how we found out during the first Sino-Japanese war that all our bombs were filled with sand instead of gunpowder like they’re supposed to be?”
“Bloodsuckers have even made their way into the college entrance exams. Truly, China’s economy has a bright future.”
A compilation of terrifying moments in Chinese college dorms.
“I found a razor blade in my pillow. I’m certain it wasn’t there before, because every time I change the pillow covers, I refluff the pillows thoroughly. I don’t even like the pillows, so I usually hug them to sleep, or fold them in half to rest my head on when I play with my phone. So there’s no way I wouldn’t have felt this before. I’ve already called the cops, I don’t know what’s going to happen next. It’s true that for our dorm room, if no one is around, we keep the keys on the doorframe. Don’t be like us. I’ve already learned from this mistake.”
“I found a needle in my winter coat. I was lucky I didn’t lay down while wearing my coat.”
“Wow, hugs, OP. I’ve been through something similar. I left a beef bun on my table, and came back to eat it, and found a needle inside. I took a small bite, so it only poked me in the lip. If I had taken a bigger bite, it would’ve stabbed through my mouth.”
“When I was in highschool, some student at the neighbouring university got jealous of my dormmate for being too good-looking and buried a bunch of needles in her towel. She couldn’t see properly after washing her face, and those needles completely ruined her face.”
“My old dormmate was cheating on multiple guys. She had a boyfriend in her hometown who she used as an ATM. She’s got a rich guy at school who buys bags for her. And two orbiters outside of school. Her hometown boyfriend found out, so she’d take lewd videos of her dormmates to send to this boyfriend as some sort of “recompense”? When I found out, I was absolutely furious, but everyone else was acting all flattered about it? So this dormmate started bullying me, like singing super loud at night for two months straight to keep me up. Everyone else is a night owl, so they didn’t care. I was gonna have a nervous break down because of sleep deprivation. After a couple of fights, I started finding mysterious powder substances in my thermos and cups. I switched dorms, but even the dorm manager said I was making too big of a deal out of it, because she hadn’t taken any completely nude videos. She originally didn’t want to let me switch dorms at all. Thank god, my family knew the headmaster and school leaders, and a relative was a police chief in the police station nearby. The attitude of the dorm manager turned around 180 degrees.
The dorm manager was really good at PUA-ing victims. I hear that she pushed a girl close to graduation to suicide, and just paid some money to make it go away. She really sucks up to men and is misogynistic as fuck. Any girl who goes to her office with make up on or wearing skirts above the knee gets a lecture about how they’re being a slut. She always gives financial aid to the boys and never the girls. She’ll go check on the boys’ dorms all the time and make jokes with them. During sports day, boys were gathering in big huddles and smoking, and us girls were coughing like crazy and looking for some fresh air. And she yelled at us for not protecting the face of the boys and not being understanding of our classmates. That’s why she’s stuck as a dorm manager for so long, and after my dorm incident, she got yelled at by the leadership and lost her chance at a promotion.”
“Yeah, girls, just in case, check your blankets and pillows regularly. I’ve had really bad internal dorm drama in my senior year, and found broken glass shards in my pillow and bed. Like, it was super subtle, and I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t used a lint-roller. Another dorm mate found shoe prints on her sheets, and although we suspected who did it, there was no evidence, so there’s nothing we could do about it. And we weren’t even involved in the actual drama, and this still happened. I can’t even imagine what the other girls were dealing with.”
“This might be unrelated, but I was in a four-person dorm, where everybody got along with each other. It’s to the point where we’re practically family. When I wasn’t feeling well, they took me to the hospital in the middle of the night. When another dormmate had a bad stomach, I took her to the hospital. A different dormmate and I literally shared our wardrobes. We ate together all the time. We’re in four different majors, and once, when the other three were away, I got up from my bunk and was going to go to the bathroom, when I noticed a needle standing up in my slippers. Thank god I didn’t actually step down. At that point, my brain was spinning like mad. For a split moment, I thought, “Did I say something unintentionally that really offended someone?” But then I reflected on myself—although they’re filially unpious, they would never dare to commit patricide. How could I doubt my own sons? So, I channeled Zhuge Liang, and started investigating where the needle could’ve fallen from. There was a net hanging off to the side of my bed, and in that netting, I actually found some thread. I don’t know how such a coincidence happened that only the needle fell, and happened to bury itself in my slippers, but I’d rather believe that 1/10000 chance than suspect my teammates. After all, we’re non-blood-related father and sons.”
“I’ve found a razor in my water cup. She was just jealous. She ended up pulling a lot of other shit too, but it was all in the past. I’m actually grateful she showed me the dark side of people. I had such a shallow understanding of human nature before. Now I’ve grown up. You can’t harm people, but you can’t let down your guard either. But there’s lot of good girls out there too.”
“I don’t know what to say. Sometimes you think you’ve got a great friendship with your dorm mates, but everyone’s heart is hidden behind their chest. It’s not so certain at all. When I was a freshman, I was an idiot and thought my dorm mates were all super nice too. I only found out later that they were spreading nasty rumours about me behind my back every day. Even if I just eat some fried chicken, they’ll make fun of me for a month. Those hanging chairs were pretty popular those days, so I got one for my seat, and they would make fun of me for “hanging myself in the dorms”. I didn’t like carrying around a huge, heavy thing of laundry detergent, so I bought little plastic bottles and re-bottled the detergent. And they rumoured that I was preparing poison for the water dispenser. Dude, laundry detergent is bright blue—there’s no way you wouldn’t notice it in water. Some people look like human beings on the outside, but you never know how dark they are on the inside. Don’t be a good old person like me, being nice to everyone like an idiot. You can’t let down your guard around people.”
“I read a short story once, called Grandma’s Front Teeth, by Mo Yan (莫言), that I thought was really well written.
On the surface of it, it was about MIL and DIL relationships. The new bride had married in for 3 days, when the MIL gets her son to beat the shit out of the new bride. The MIL said, “When I married into this family, on the third day, I got beaten by my MIL too. This beating is to teach you that water will eventually flow into a river, DILs will eventually become MILs.
The DIL put up with it and eventually birthed a child who had teeth the day he was born. The MIL thought it was a bad omen and wanted to drown the baby in the toilet. The DIL had a huge fight with MIL and punched out the MIL’s two front teeth. The MIL could do nothing but cry quietly, and didn’t fight back, and from that moment on, their status in the family switched.
Later, the 90-year-old MIL grew two tiny new front teeth, like little baby teeth. Everyone in the village gathered to look. Later on, even the village leaders were promoting it and getting more people to come look. It was a crazy period, new people, new society, palm trees were flowering, and century-old people were returning to babies.
The DIL didn’t want this many people crowding around, they were getting in the way of her work. But the village leaders liked the tourism money, so they promised to pay her in food for it. So the DIL reluctantly agreed. So more and more people came to see the MIL, and even reporters came. Reporters asked the MIL many questions, and she dodged every one of them, but when the reporters asked how she lost her original teeth, her eyes lit up. The moment for her revenge had come. She said, “My good DIL punched my teeth out.”
The village leaders had given them bad food. It was all mouldy. And the mould killed the pigs and chickens that the DIL had kept. The MIL stood in the door way and repeated again and again, “My good DIL punched my teeth out.”
Furious, the DIL grabbed a pair of pliers and pulled the MIL’s baby teeth out again. Now, the two old people sat together and cried. And you could not tell them apart from each other. And Mo Yan concludes by saying, “After many years, father and son become brothers. After many years, MIL and DILs become sisters.”
It was a very short story, and took a very interesting angle to look at things—that is, through teeth. The MIL’s teeth. The grandson’s teeth. The teeth of conservative thoughts. The teeth of MIL relationships. But Mo Yan still delivered what he wanted to say, through the mouth of the DIL and the village leader. This isn’t a matter of common sense. You can’t say certain things. We all know it’s false. But if anyone dares to come out and say that it’s false, they’ll get kicked out right away.
This short story is a textbook example of using small things to reflect big issues, and it has great re-read value. Some people see just a joke about teeth. Some people see problems with MIL relationships. Some people see the problems of traditional, conservative thoughts. Some people see surrealism.
But if you think about it, we’re living pretty surreal lives now.”
Comments say, “I still don’t get it. So why were they crying together?”
“She should’ve punched out her MIL’s teeth after 3 days of marrying in.”
“It’s two surrogates at the bottom of society hurting each other.”
That first post is hilarious. “Fellas, is it misogynistic to pay female artists?” 😂
> “You’re just patristically using your money to try to save fallen women.
"Patristically" is probably not the right word in this context ( https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/patristic ); based on context, probably "patriarchally" or "patronizingly" would better represent what was meant.