06/30/24 - FAQ Time!

[Wow, time flies. I’m still recovering from jetlag, so update times might be very weird in the coming days. But I’m doing my best to keep on top of things. If there’s any context you feel like you’re missing, or anything you’ve always wanted to know about China, feel free to submit your questions here, and I’ll answer them as best as I can! The Singer compilation is coming soon, as soon as I get enough sleep to do a final round of editing! Thank you guys for all of your support!]

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A video of a grandma using a stone wheel to press reeds:

Comments say, “Wow, she’s so stable.”

“This grandma’s got some talent.”

“What amazing balance! I just don’t know why reeds need to be pressed?”

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A compilation of why you should never sign a blank piece of paper:

“A little PSA for you—signing a blank piece of paper is considered to be giving unlimited permission.”

“I’ve been fucked like this before. A guy in our town sells concrete, and when we were building our house, we bought about 200K-300K of concrete from him. Every time I paid him, he’d make me sign something. I stopped paying attention to what I was signing the last time, and he ended up suing me saying he had signature proof that I’d borrowed money from him and got 10+K plus interest from me. There are all kinds of people out there, take care of yourselves.”

“I signed on a piece of blank paper and ended up paying off 200K of someone else’s debt. And it was my best friend too.”

“That’s how my coworker ended up in jail as the scapegoat (he was an accountant).”

“Oh, I believe this! Never sign your name anywhere. I used to work as shift manager in a big hairdresser’s chain, and signed for a package for my boss. (I wasn’t dumb at the time, I refused at first, but the postman said he needed a signature and he was in a hurry to get off of work, and I called my boss and everything). The next day, the boss came into the the store and I gave her the letter, and she ignored it and never opened it. Later on, we got an order from the court, and inside that envelope was a notice that the store owed 100K in rent. My boss claimed that I never told her. Thankfully, that store was a partnership between like 10 people, and after splitting it up, I only had to pay several thousand. I was pregnant at the time, and my boss screamed and cried and threatened suicide. I had no choice but to pay money to make the hassle go away. That was the most frustrating lesson I’ve ever learned.”

“I remember a guy suing his landlord for owing him 400K, all because the landlord signed a blank sheet of paper the guy gave him. Won the court case too.”

“True story, a friend of mine was fucked out of 1.3 million for signing random shit. I’m still in contact with him, and he’s just given up on ever paying it back. He’s just a normal salaryman, he can’t afford to pay it back anyways.”

“You gotta be super careful signing anything. True story, a female friend of mine worked in HR at a small company. Her boss told her to sign a bunch of documents, and she did it without really paying attention, and she ended up in prison for 6 months. Her boss got sentenced to 10 years.”

“Let me put it this way, if you’re filling in a contract, wherever there’s a blank space, you need to fill it up. If you can’t, draw a line through the rest of it. If you leave anything blank, and the other party filled it in, the court’s will go with his side, and you’ll get screwed.”

“The most laughable part is that some companies leave the “pay” and “work responsibilities” part of the contract blank, and they only fill it in after you sign the contract.”

“However much empty space they give me, that’s how big I make my signature.”

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A video of a woman learning how to ride a scooter. This is two weeks into her lessons:

Comments say, “This is exhausting just to watch! Just put your feet on both side and you achieve balance, right? If you’re a beginner at scooters, don’t hurry to put your feet on the floor of the car, just leave it on the ground for now.”

“Just give up.”

“Shouldn’t her coaches start by teaching her how to ride a bike?”

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“Just how big are Chinese software getting? Aside from WeChat, I’ve deleted the cache on all of them and I’ve never downloaded anything else. But they’re all 1-2 gigs.”

Comments say, “Every app wants all the food for itself.”

“My Honour of Kings is 23 gigs.”

“I don’t get why my music app has to have short videos and livestreams on it too. As soon as I click in, there are a dozen options and it’s just dizzying. Next thing you know, you’ll be able to book flights and hotels on there too.”

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“I’ve ruined myself after three years in uni. I don’t want to waste too much time talking about how incredibly disciplined I was in high school, how I motivated myself, how I looked forward to the future.

But in the last couple of days, why have I stayed up so late at night? That’s right, playing video games, scrolling Xiao Hong Shu [Chinese instagram], chatting with people on QQ (Chinese discord). But the problem is, I’ve got an exam coming up in three days, guys. Three of my courses have exams, and I haven’t even studied for two of them. And what I m studying, I’m only glancing at once a day. It’s not like I didn’t pay attention in class. It’s not like I don’t get the material. I just don’t know why I can’t just make myself study.

Okay, calming down a little…I’ve been having a hard time lately. It looks like I wake up early every day and stay out ’til late at night, but actually, I’ve just been spacing out in a lecture room. I blow hundreds buying stuffies, and I get anxious if I can’t get the stuffies I want, and once I get it and send it to a DIY store to change out the cotton inside, I start getting anxious how long it’s gonna take. I don’t get why I keep getting distracted every time I study.

It feels like I blink my eyes, and I’ve been scrolling instagram for half an hour. I can’t control myself, and I don’t even remember what I read. I just click in, upvote, subscribe, back out, and refresh. Even machines in a factory aren’t as autoamted as I am hahahahaha.

Although I’ve figured out that jogging at night can help me wake up a little early the next day after staying up too long. I’ve tried it even when I have 8AM classes, and I feel alert even if I only went to bed at 1 or 2AM last night. But I’ve been staying up so late that I can’t even exploit this bug anymore. My head feels cottony whenever I wake up, like it’s creaky. It’s just like when I tried to study for my postgrad entrance exam. The second I open a book, I want to fall asleep. The second I sit down in the library, I want to fall asleep. The second I sit down on my dorm chair, I want to fiddle with my stuff. I looked it up on Xiao Hong Shu, and they say it’s covid brain?

I wanted to get a cup of coffee to reward myself, but it was too hot and I finished it too quickly, and after I was done, I didn’t want to keep studying anymore. And those goddamn experiments. I have to fuck with them all day long. Fuck. It’s late at night, don’t mind me. I had all these weepy feelings in my brain, but it sounds to aggressive when I type them out…

I’m wondering if I should uninstall Xiao Hong Shu. I’m really upset. Time is flying by and I’m wasting all of it. I want time to pass a little slower. I’m not done studying yet. But time moves on so quickly.”

Comments say, “You should prepare for some kind of exam. Like a teaching license, or the civil servant exam, or a postgrad degree. Having a goal makes you more motivated. It doesn’t matter if you fail, you can just look for work as normal anyways.”

“I’ve ruined myself in less than a year.”

“But once you’re working, you’ll really look back on these uni days. You can plan how to use your own time, and go travelling whenever you want.”

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#Korean Jeju Island faces ramen soup threat. “According to American news, Korea’s highest peak is facing an unexpected environmental threat—instant noodles.

According to the report, Hallasan National Park Management has initiated a program encouraging climbers to not dump instant noodle soup into the rivers on the mountains to protect the environment.

Hallasan is 1947 metres tall, the highest peak in Korea. It’s located on popular tourist spot, Jeju Island. In Korea, bringing some instant noodles with you to eat while climbing a mountain is a trend.

There are banners reading, “Protect our clean Hallasan to pass it onto our descendants”, encouraging mountain climbers to only add half the recommended amount of water.

Smoking, littering, entering without permission, and drinking is banned on the mountain, and violators face up to a 2 million won fine (1442 USD roughly).

In a post on facebook, the National Park Management says, “Instant noodle soup contains high amounts of salt. If it’s dumped into rivers, it’ll make water-based insects unable to survive.”

According to the report, Jeju Island police launched a short term crackdown after many residents complained about tourist behaviour. Tourists may be fined for littering, peeing in public, and smoking. According to Jeju Island police, the first day the policy was instituted, 9 foreign tourists were fined, mostly for jaywalking.

Based on government statistics, last year, 923,680 people summited Hallasan.

Eating instant noodles on a mountain peak has become a trend overseas now. According to Korean media reports, instant noodles are being sold on Switzerland’s Matterhorn peak.”

Comments say, “But this is their national food! How could they not show it off?”

“Sometimes, I wonder, with Korea’s obsession with both ramen and kimchi, which are both high in nitrite and salt, how do they not have more problems with their liver and kidneys?”

“Why do they love instant noodles so much? Do they not have anything else to eat? [Doge]”

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#Bank apologises for 130K of husband’s savings vanishing. According to Ersanli Information, the Pingli County branch of the Agricultural Bank of China posted a notice regarding rumours that one of their customer’s deceased husband’s savings “mysteriously vanished” in their bank. After investigation, the depositor, Mr. Kan (deceased April 2018) opened an account at this bank in April 2005 and has been using his bank card for transactions ever since. Based on the card payment history, the card was in use until June 2018, and there is now 0 dollars left in said bank account. However, since these transactions were not recorded in the passbook, the passbook still shows the remaining amount as the value the day the bank account was opened, 133,900 RMB.

In December of 2020, when Mr. Kan’s wife, Mrs. Deng came to the bank to check into his account information, the counter employee mistook the amount in the passbook as the amount in the bank account itself, and issued Mrs. Deng with a statement that there was money in said account and told her she needed to go through probate to obtain the money. This was a mistake made by the counter agent due to lack of experience, and the bank apologises for causing such a misunderstanding. They promise to deal with the counter agent severely.

Comments say, “Does anyone actually believe this shit!? You don’t just look at the passbook to determine account balance! The bank’s computers show how much is left in the account!”

“So if she hadn’t made a big deal on the internet, they were just never going to address it?”

“I thought the bank employee just mistakenly told her the wrong thing, but he actually issued an official document and everything, and all you’re gonna offer is an apology??”

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Lately, there was a mass-stabbing in Suzhou where a man assaulted a Japanese school bus [going to a Japanese school in China, set up for kids of Japanese expats] with a knife and the bus stewardess tackled and held him, saving many kids and getting an award from the government as a result. A blogger writes on this, “The heroic deeds of the Suzhou woman Hu Youping has really moved me. I believe she’s also moved countless Chinese people. Because she was just an ordinary person, but she was willing to sacrifice herself to protect those kids. It must be an instinctive act, and as a fellow ordinary fellow myself, she’s encouraged all of us.

Hu Youping is probably a mother herself, maybe even a grandmother. Japanese media claims that she was the bus stewardess on the Japanese school bus, and she had the kindness and justice that didn’t let her sit by while watching someone hurt kids, as well as a feeling of responsibility towards her job. Before she even had time to think, she tackled the assailant and grabbed him, getting stabbed herself, but also buying time for people to stop the assailant. She never paused to think whether what she did was worth it. Her protective nature made her instantly choose the heroic way to act in this critical moment.

Hu Youping saved Japanese kids. Because of this, there is a minority of anti-Japanese netizens making fun of her and criticising her on the internet. But for Hu Youping and probably most Chinese people, all she was doing was saving kids. And because these kids were Japanese nationals, it’s only made her look more humane. No matter whose kids they are, they deserve protection when faced with a knifed criminal. Humanitarianism has no borders, it can overcome all barriers.

Hu Youping is so ordinary. It is precisely this ordinariness that’s made her shine with the light of humanity and bravery, and it’s glow shocked many people, awed them, and made them think. Hu Youping probably never thought of international relations, or herself and her city and her social credit, but in that moment, she protected Suzhou’s reputation and showed the whole world just how kind and just Chinese people are. And she resolved a near diplomatic disaster between China and Japan.

Imagine, if Hu Youping didn’t fight with her life to stop the criminal in that moment, and he got away with murdering all the Japanese kids on the bus, what would that news look like? Although this was just a singular instance, but think about how different the impact would be between one Japanese kid getting minor injuries because of the protection of a Chinese woman, and many Japanese kids being severely injured or even killed!

This Suzhou woman never thought that much, but she still did something great. What she did was probably much more meaningful than I’ve been able to cover. Hu Youping is a hero among ordinary people. She protected the mutual values of humanity single-handedly.”

Comments say, “Most Chinese people know right from wrong. Mrs. Hu deserves an upvote. I hope they punish the criminal harshly!”

“No matter who she saved, she’s really brave!”

“Honestly, I don’t know how many people could’ve acted unthinkingly the way she did here. I’m really in awe of her.”