“Everyone knows how to manipulate people from the second they’re born. Your children are your natural allies. If you teach them to be obedient and honest and polite and quiet from birth, you’ve trained their natural aggression out of them. It means that when your kid grows up, they’re going to be weak and useless, and become prey to rich people. You’ve trained a wolf to be a lamb.
A lot of parents raise kids who can’t find a wife, can’t get a job, and get exploited and oppressed by society at every turn when they grow up.
True story, my daughter’s in first grade. One day, she came home crying from school. Her mom had bought her five new pencils, and her class leader robbed her of them. I told her to stop crying, and that she has to take back the five pencils. I don’t care how. If she can’t do it, then she’ll be in trouble.
The next day, she comes back. I ask if she’s gotten the pencils back, and she got really scared and shook her head. I knew she failed. I told her that if she doesn’t bring back the pencils by this weekend, then I’ll beat her.
When the weekend came around, I asked if she got the pencils back, and she mumbled for a while, and eventually said that she was too scared to bring it up. I told her that tomorrow, she had to tell the teacher, that she has to get the pencils back for her.
My wife is complaining this whole time that I’m making a big deal out of nothing. It’s just a couple of pencils. It’s no big deal. Why do I keep hounding after this? I’m scaring the kid. I’m never this invested when her grades are doing poorly. I didn’t explain anything to my wife, because she’s never studied human nature like I have. She’ll never understand the world of power.
That night, I called my daughter’s homeroom teacher, and told her about the pencils. She promised to deal with it the next day.
The next day, my daughter came back from school super happy and took out the five new pencils she’d gotten in compensation. I praised her, and then told her that tomorrow, she needs to go to school and take out these five pencils and keep three of them for herself. And she needs to give 2 of the pencils to her class leader, and tell her that she wants to be good friends from now on. They’ll share everything they have.
My daughter was totally confused, asking me, “Dad, why do you make me take the pencils back, and then make me give two of them away again?” I looked at how dumb she looked, and told her that she’ll understand when she grows up.
Why do I care so much about this, but not about her grades?
First, let’s talk about why I forced her to take the pencils back. Because this is the first time the class leader’s bullied my daughter. If you let her get away with it, then there’ll be a second time, and a third time, and countless times after that. If you don’t fight back against someone the first time they bully you, and you let the bullying become a habit, and then you start resisting, they’ll be pissed off. They’re beat you down until you stop. They’ll think, “How dare you fight back again me, you spineless coward? If I don’t deal with you, what are other people going to think of me?” This is all because you didn’t fight back the first time you were bullied. You told him using your actions that it’s okay to bully you.
Then, let me explain why I made my daughter gift back two of her pencils. I have a different approach to raising kids than most Chinese parents. Other parents are teaching their kids to study hard and stay optimistic, and find a good job when they grow up. And once their kid grows up, they don’t know how to do anything except studying hard.
I’ve always taught my daughter that there are people who are good at maths in your class, there are people who are good at English, or people who are good at Chinese. They’re all very talented, and when they grow up, they’re going to be looking for jobs. Your job is to find good jobs for them when they’re grown up.
Other parents only tell kids to get good grades. I teach my kid how to be a good leader. If your kid can lead other kids, and be the popular kid at school, that means they’ll grow up with the charisma to lead others. I told my daughter to gift her class leader her pens, to train her how to part with her things, to be the popular girl, to lead the class leader.
Looking back through history, we see a lot of people climb to the peak of power, and they all have one commonality. They were all the popular kid growing up. Before Liu Bang started his rebellion, he was already bros with Fan Kuai, Xiao He, Cao Can, and Lu Wan. Zhu Yuan Zhang were popular as a kid too. He played with Tang He and Zhou De Xing all the time, making them do stuff for him, making them listen to what he said.
Popular kids are always thinking of ways to make other kids listen to them. And they’re always thinking of ways of dealing with those who don’t. So we need to do everything we can to make our kid class leader. We need to use whatever method is available to help them onto that position. If you can’t, you need to train your kid how to lead the class leader.
Your kid needs to learn how to part with things. Lai Changxing said a famous line, “Leaders with principles are a lot better than leaders without principles”. That’s the core of leadership. People are willing to follow you as a leader because they can gain benefits from you.
Do you remember what kind of kids we liked playing with when we were little? Basically, it was whoever shared the coolest toy, whoever gave out the best snacks. That’s the person we’d listen to.
The true charisma of a leader is in their generosity with their money and their skill in splitting it. If you’re willing to part with money and you know how to divide it, you can make people see you as a God. If you’re a stingy person in a group, you can’t make up for that image no matter what you do. Because people will know that theres never anything to gain from you, and they’ll never be led by you.
This explains why a lot of people who are brilliant in school became employees, and a lot of people with bad grades ended up leading their friends in starting a business and became an employer. Because people with good grades spent all their time studying books, and people with bad grades spent all their time studying people. They know human nature.
People with bad grades are bored, they’ve got nothing to do all day except to dream that one day, they’ll become a wealthy billionaire, and make that awful Maths teacher their personal secretary.
I taught my daughter how to take back her pencil and then give it out again for two purposes.
The class leader isn’t going to bully my daughter again.
My daughter didn’t gain an enemy, she gained a friend.
Three tricks to teaching your kids the opposite way:
Make them used to jungle rules from birth
Our parents taught us growing up to find a stable job. They never let us brag. They never let us handle money. And of course, when we grew up, we didn’t disappoint them. When we grew up, we stayed so poor that we don’t have any money to handle anyways. We’ve been raised poor, we’ve been raised weak. We look down on rich people, we’re hostile to the wealthy. We believe that only poor people are truly good and kind. We try to make kids have a pure and innocent heart.
And then those kids enter society, and most people can’t handle the rules of the jungle. They’ll find that how the world operates is exactly the opposite to what they’ve been taught. And because they’ve been taught growing up to look down on rich people, they have no idea how to get rich. Because they’ve been taught to believe in the fundamental goodness of humanity, they have no idea how to deal with being fucked by truly bad people.
And those kids become entirely unable to take care of their parents in old age, causing them to become empty-nesters, alone and helpless. It’s not because those kids aren’t filially pious. They’re just helpless. It’s just like how we don’t abandon our kids because we’re heartless and cruel, but because we’re helpless. If we don’t teach kids the ways of power, then they’ll only ever grow up to be lambs eaten by the wolves.
Strong people are raised through hardship. When kids are small, you need to be ruthless as parents. You need to create hardship and setbacks for him. You need to bully him at home so that he doesn’t get bullied when he leaves home. You need to yell at him and call him names and beat him up, so that he can withstand it when he goes out into society.
Some kids have been totally spoiled by their parents. And in my heart, I am like, “Just you wait. Your hard days are coming. When he’s in society, nobody’s gonna be his dad, who’s going to put up with him? Who’s going to care about his feelings?”
If you can’t spoil a kid for the rest of their life, then don’t create a habit of being spoiled by him. You need to use hardship and setbacks at home to teach him how to estimate the situation he is in, make plans according to the context, fight when he can fight, negotiate when he can’t fight, run when he can’t negotiate, and bear with it when he can’t run.
Basically, he needs to learn how to reduce the damage to himself. He needs to learn how to handle hardship and stress. That’s true wisdom. You need to treat him at home exactly how society is going to treat him in the future. If you solve every problem for them when they’re little, then all of those problems are going to come back to haunt him when he grows up.
2. Teach him a competitive mindset.
There is a painting in the conference room at Mengniu Dairy, of a lion and an antelope. There’s a caption on the painting, “In the morning, the antelopes on the African Plains wake up from their dreams and know that a new race is about to begin. Their opponent are still lions. If they want to live, they must run faster than the fastest lion. And on the other hand, the lions are under much pressure too. If they cannot run faster than the slowest antelope, they will have nothing to eat. When the sun rises, for the sake of survival, run to your heart’s content!”
We need to teach kids from birth that nothing falls out of the sky for free. Everything is obtained through competition. All of our success is built upon our strength and the defeat of our opponents. How do you train a competitive mindset? We need to teach them Go or Xiangqi or Luzhanqi (all form of Chinese chess) or other competitive interests. So they have a concept of competition, of winning against an opponent. And if they lose, that teaches them how to handle setbacks too. A lot of rich people favour chess because they make your competitive mindset stronger.
Why do I not recommend sports? Because physical activity will reduce mental activity.
I’m not saying do no sports whatsoever. You still need to exercise to have a healthy body, in order to compete better, but you still need to focus on mental competition.
3. Teach them how to wield power.
You need to make your kids read a lot of books published before the Wu Emperor of Han’s time, like Han Feizi, Guiguzi, Zuo Zhuan, Sun Zi’s Art of War, anything in that genre, because they need to learn how to make money from childhood. Any thought that doesn’t lead to making money is a useless thought. You wallet should be the only standard you have for your thinking.
One time, my daughter had a performance at school, and came home with make up on. At dinner time, my wife immediately noticed that our daughter had taken her make up to school. Because my wife had a rotten tomato coloured lipstick, and she spotted it right away.
She asked our daughter if she’d taken mommy’s lipstick. My daughter was a little kid. She’s scared of being beaten. So she stubbornly raised her head and insisted that she hadn’t. That really pissed my wife off, that a seven-year-old would dare to lie. What’s she going to do when she grows up? So my wife kicks the shit out of her, screaming the whole time, “How dare you lie to me!? How dare you lie to me!?”
When I came back at night, my wife told me about this, all proud of herself, trying to show off her parenting skills.
I just about had a meltdown at her. I was all like, “Why would you beat her up for lying?”
My wife was like, “Are you kidding me? Are you crazy? Why wouldn’t I beat her for lying?”
I asked my wife quietly, “Have you lied in the last month?”
She was shocked by my question. And after a long time, she mumbled, “No.”
I asked her again, and she still said no. And I said, “Do you remember when you were playing mahjong, and you got a call from your mom, and you told her that you were out shopping? Did you forget?”
Then my wife knew she couldn’t get away with it, so she said, “Well, it’s different.”
My wife lies all the time. That’s far from the only incident I can name. I lie all the time too. I told my wife, “If you beat up our daughter for lying, who’s gonna beat you up for lying?”
Sigh. My wife really need to grow up. If she keeps beating up our daughter, she’s going to beat up any manipulative and deceptive behaviour right out of her. And once my kid grows up, how’s she gonna get any money out of the market? She’ll be utterly useless.
I told my daughter, “It’s not that you can’t lie. But you have to choose when it’s beneficial to others to lie.”
My daughter stared back at me like an idiot and asked, “Like, a white lie, daddy?” And when I heard her ask this, I was super happy.
This amount of comprehension is leagues ahead of my wife. Even Xuanzang swore up and down that monks never lie, and he still told Wukong to put on the pretty hat. And once he was done chanting the shrinking charm, Wukong said, “Did you trick me, Shifu?” And Xuanzang said, “I’m only doing this for your own good.”
Ruthless actions + a kind heart = Buddha. Ruthless actions + ruthless heart = bad person. Weak actions + a kind heart = useless person.”
“I was flying back to Beijing from Korla yesterday, and while waiting for my luggage, I overhead a mother and daughter next to me. The little girl was about 6 or 7, super cute, and she whispered something to her mom that I couldn’t hear. And her mom was all like, “Stop mumbling! Who can hear you when you’re so quiet!? Alright, alright, just shut up. Stop talking. I don’t want to listen to you anymore. I don’t want to bother!”
The little kid got really upset and didn’t dare to say anything else. I thought the mother had a hell of a temper, but I didn’t say anything either.
But the mom carried on, “How could you not figure out such a simple question? And you still dare to come to Beijing with me? You just got 98 points! Aren’t you the least bit embarrassed?”
I turned my head to look at her, and she looked genuinely actually stressed and angry. I thought about it, and still didn’t say anything.
The little girl is just burying her head lower and lower, when her mom suddenly slapped her on the back, “Do you have any shame!?” I guess she was mad at her daughter for hunching. The little kid looked on the verge of tears, but was still holding it back.
I thought that if this goes on, this kid’s gonna be ruined, so I turned around and said to the little kid, “98 points is pretty high! What grade are you in?”
I was wearing a hat, covering my face, so they didn’t recognise me.
The mom said, “She’s in first grade, it was a fill-in-the-blank. She wrote, “crawling in the water” and the answer is supposed to be “swimming in the water”. Doesn’t that just piss you off?”
I laughed and asked the girl, “Do you have pet turtles? Did you see them crawling around in the water?”
The girl stared back at me with big eyes, and the mom said, “That’s right! It was totally because she was watching turtles crawl around!”
And I said, “Then it counts as 100 points, full marks! Your teacher was the one being silly.”
The mom said, “That’s what I said too! Why can’t you crawl in water!?”
And I told the mom, “Stop telling at her. You’ll ruin her brain yelling at her like this—it’ll delay frontal lobe development. You’ll realise the mistake when she gets to puberty.”
The mom saw how serious I was and got scared. She explained, “I can’t help it. Those Haiding parents (a specific community in Beijing known for its level of involution in schools) are way too scary! They’re taking PET Exams in first grade. I don’t even know what a PET exam is!”
I said, “But there’s lots of suicides in Haiding too. They make their kids study too early, they burn out too early, and go crazy early. Stop watching videos designed to engineer anxiety.”
The mom said, “No way. It’s way too hard to get into 985s or 211s or top universities. I’m taking her on this trip to look at Beijing University and Qinghua University.”
I laughed. “She’s only in first grade, and you’re already thinking about university? What she needs right now is your love. Talking to her gently right now is the most important education she can get. Your gentle attitude will shape her brain, and she’ll study better and better. Also, never help her with her homework.”
The mom said, “Well, she does actually do her homework herself. She’s pretty hardworking.” The mom had gotten a lot calmer now, and is stroking her daughter’s hair.
The daughter looked up and said, “Mom, but turtles do crawl in the water. Why was it wrong?”
I told her, “Turtles are amphibian creatures. They crawl around on land, but if they can’t reach the bottom of the pond, what do they do?”
And the little girl said, “They’ll swim! So they swim in the water! Now I get it!”
The mom asked, “What do you wanna eat today?”
The little girl hesitated and said, “That depends on what you let me have.”
And the mom said, “Tell me. I’ll agree to anything.”
And the little girl said, “Roast duck!”
And the mom laughed, “Sure, roast duck! It’s for celebrating getting 98 points!”
When the luggage came out, I said, “Look what a great kid you have. Relax. The better you treat her, the stronger her ability to learn.” Then I waved goodbye to the little girl.
Sometimes, parents need just a little reminder, and their gentleness can be reawoken.”
Comments say, “This post made me cry, because I was yelled at like this growing up. Only I know how painful that was.”
“I got tearful after reading too. Mister Fan is always so warn. This mommy is so lucky. My kid’s 9 years old and still doesn’t know how to talk yet, and I haven’t given up. I’m just waiting and teaching slowly.”
“What a lucky little girl. I know her mom isn’t actually going to change, but every time the little girl thinks back to this, she’ll feel a little bit of warmth. What’s wrong with this batch of parents? They’re useless themselves, and force their kids to achieve greatness.”
“This is a picture from my sister, who lives in Hunan. She and a lot of her friends are all having kids, and she took a picture of the guide the hospital gave for what to pack in your hospital back. They completely ban mothers from bringing formula bottles, nipples, and formula powder. I know that everyone’s promoting breastfeeding, but isn’t it crazy to ban formula outright?
What if you don’t have enough milk for the baby? What if you get a split nipple? Why can’t we let mothers decide for themselves whether to breastfeed or not?”
The list reads:
For mommies: 2-3 sets of pyjamas, 2-3 pairs of socks, 1-2 hats, 1-2 packs of menstrual pads, 2 towels, 4 maternity menstrual pads, 2 wash basins, 1 cup, 1 set of toiletries, 4 packs of tissues, 8 clothes hangers, 1 pack of straws, 1 medical bedpan, 1 maternity sanitary pad, 1 abdominal binding in case of surgery, bank card, national ID, birthing license, insurance card, checkup documents. You may prepare some milk or rice porridge or pulpless fruit juice, or other easy to digest foods. DO NOT BRING RED BULL OR CHOCOLATE.
For babies: 2-4 changes of clothes, 3-4 pairs of socks, 2 hats, 2 towels, 1 bag of diapers, 2 swaddles, 1 set of toiletries, 2 bags of wet wipes, 2 measuring cups, 3 bibs, 2 bath towels, 2 wash basins larger than 40 cm diameter. DO NOT BRING FORMULA OR BOTTLES OR PACIFIERS.”
“Rolling eggs can save babies’ lives! It’s just that a lot of people don’t know! If you learn Chinese medicine, there are a lot of super useful little tricks! This rolling egg yin-energy absorption method is super useful! It can lighten skin, remove hives, and reduce fevers or bloating. Wherever there’s a problem, roll an egg over it.
Do not eat the egg after you’re done rolling with it! Peel the egg before rolling it! I’ve attacked pictures of eggs after rolling—you can see they’re covered with disease hives.”
He attaches screenshots of his texts with his fans/patients.
“Is there a way to treat pneumonia is babies?”
“Roll eggs! Rolling eggs will cure anything! But you’ve got to believe in Chinese medicine and be faithful.”
“I believe. I’m super faithful. Can you roll eggs on the stomach?”
“Roll eggs over the whole torso. Over the lungs and the stomach. You’ve got to boil 4 eggs at the same time. Hope your baby gets better. Use the egg right away—don’t worry about scalding the kid. Once you’ve been rolling it for a couple of seconds, it’ll cool down super fast.”
“I’ll try it tonight, thanks!” “After I rolled eggs on the 4th, my baby’s only coughed twice at night. By the afternoon of the 5th, the doctor said there’s not that much mucus in his lungs anymore. From the morning of the 6th, you could hear the mucus on his coughs and he’s coughing them out now. I’ve been rolling eggs on the baby day and night.”
“Keep on doing it! I hope you can keep me updated, and have a grateful heart. Rolling eggs can save lives! It’s just that most people don’t know. If you can, roll the eggs in the morning or afternoon, not at night.”
“Okay, I will. My baby is cured now. I only knew rolling eggs cured hives. I didn’t know before, and just let the doctors put the baby on an IV. She’s been on an IV for 5 days. The more medicine they give her, the worse she does. My heart was breaking. Rolling eggs really work. Thank you so much!”
Comments say, “Wow! You’re awesome! My friend’s son went into the hospital for pneumonia, and it cost him 8K or 9K RMB! And his wife even worked at the hospital!”
“How does this work? Do eggs absorb coldness?” OP replies, “Eggs are alive! They’re spiritual. They can absorb yin, cold, and wetness.”
“How long are you supposed to keep rolling eggs?” OP replies, “There’s no set time, just keep doing it until it gets better.”
Were the comments supportive or derisive of the pencil dad? Because he seems delusional and stupid.
Typo: "The little girl was about 6 or 6"