[I literally wrote this out last night, and have clear memories of posting it, and apparently I didn’t. I have no idea what happened. Sorry.]
“I’m gonna spew some bullshit here today. I said before I wasn’t going to breastfeed, and some people started trying to persuade me, oh, breastfeeding is so good for the baby; oh, the baby can’t choose; oh, you can’t do that as a mother.
Sure, breastfeeding probably is good for the baby. But having a mom who went to Harvard is also good for the baby.
But across the kid’s whole life, from every angle, having a mom who went to Harvard is a lot more meaningful than just a mom who insisted on breastfeeding.
But most moms haven’t went to Harvard. And kids don’t resent these moms. And it’s not like this is something kids can choose either. You can’t pick a mom that went to Harvard. If you let baby’s who’ve grown up choose, I’m sure most babies would prefer a mom who went to Harvard that a mom that breastfed.
A lot of people grow up drinking formula, and live perfectly healthy, happy lives. Is breastfeeding good? Yeah. But is it that important? Probably not.
What’s important is to be a happy, optimistic, healthy mom who isn’t resentful and doesn’t feel like she’s sacrificed too much.”
Comments say, “I feel like the biggest advantage to breastfeeding is saving money. Otherwise, who wants to pull up their shirt at a moment’s notice and risk getting bitten.”
“Neither of my cousin’s sons got breastfed, and they’re both super tall. They didn’t even have premium formula in their rural village. I feel like people just need to let up on how moms choose to feed their babies.”
“My coworker just gave birth and has to feed every 2-3 hours. She says that every time she sees the baby, she feels really scared and anxious. All she can think is, “How can it be hungry again!” It’s hard to be a mom from Harvard, but you can be a happy mom.”
Under the hashtag #Man thinks his DIL spends too much money and kicks her spleen open, a relationship blogger writes, “A lot of people think domestic violence is just a husband beating his wife. But the husband isn’t the only person who’s going to beat her. His entire family could beat her. From her in-laws to her husband’s brothers and sisters, or even their extended family—they could all beat her. Because she married into this family by herself. It’s their home field, and she has no support.
Most women can’t win in a fight against a single man, much less against his entire family. That’s why a lot of women born after ’80 or ’90 don’t want to live with their in-laws, prefer to marry single children, and don’t want to marry people with a lot of siblings. It’s because they grew up hearing about this kind of shit. If their husband has no siblings and they don’t live with in-laws, it reduces contact, reduces the potential for conflict, and lowers the risk of getting beaten.
A lot of women think that once they’re married, people won’t dare to bully them because they’ll know she has a husband. But that’s not necessarily true. Because everyone knows exactly what the status of women are in a Chinese marriage, no one thinks that they’ll get in trouble for bullying her just because she has a husband.
Once you’re married, you’ll find that not only do you still have to be wary about outsiders bullying you, you have to be on your guard against your husband’s family bullying you. And his family is now in your life. They’re a lot harder to defend against than an outsider, a lot harder to fight back against than an outsider, and they have much greater knowledge of your weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
The only way women can protect themselves is choosing the best environment for lowering risk and hassle. They go to big cities, because Beijing and Shanghai society is going to be much more friendly towards women than small rural towns on the whole. They eliminate people who have risk factors. No matter how great their boyfriend is, if he has overbearing, impolite parents and siblings, then they have to eliminate him. Because once you accept him, you’ve given a free pass to his family to come in and mess up your life.
So women have to make the decision of whether they’re willing to take on more risk and hassle for the sake of a marriage, or stay single and keep risk and hassle out of their lives.”
Comments say, “People generally have more manners in a big city like Beijing or Shanghai. Domestic violence might happen in backwaters rural villages, but it won’t happen in the capital or an international city. But I live in Beijing, and my boyfriend is from Beijing too, and we’re both highly educated, and he’s even studied abroad before. You’d think he knew to respect women. But even in this situation, I still ended up victim to domestic violence. Who would think? It’s not an accident, it’s not impulse. It was on purpose.”
“Those people saying that the husband permitted it, yeah. Of course men are always going to side with his parents and his siblings. How many couples fight over this? Even if you have your own house as a woman, you still can’t avoid these issues. Once you tie yourself up with a man, you’ve tied up the rest of your life. How terrifying.”
“Domestic violence never happen out of impulse. He’s calculated it all out. He dares to hit you because he knows you can’t fight back. He even knows that your friends and family are weak, he knows how to keep you in control by threatening what you care about. He’s already thought about the consequences before he raised his hand. Otherwise, why doesn’t he ever get impulsive with his boss? Why doesn’t he ever get impulsive with other strong men?”
An askreddit question, “Why do people make fun of the people of Qi worrying about the sky? Isn’t that proof that China had a very complete system for astronomical changes?” [杞人忧天—a saying that literally means, “The people of Qi worry about the sky.” to mean people who worry about things that are way too far off in the future or are extremely unlikely to happen, like people preparing for a potential zombie apocalypse.)
The top-voted answer is, “Fun fact, according to archeological evidence discovered in 2004, the people of Qi really have been struck by meteorites! Possibly twice!
The nation of Qi was founded by descendant of the Shang Dynasty. They didn’t have much population, and was made a principality under Zhou Dynasty. After much migration, the people of Qi ended up settling around Shangdong, Xintai or Ningyang. And then they ended up encountering a meteor shower and being covered in craters.
Even today, there is the Northern Fallen Star Village, Southern Fallen Star Village, and even Meteor Star Village there.
In 2004, based on historical accounts and the names locals gave to different locations and a lot of rock layer testing, experts discovered large meteorites both at Northern Fallen Star Village and Southern Fallen Star village. One of them is even the largest solid iron meteor found to date.
Both Shi Ji and Zuo Zhuan (ancient Chinese history books) recorded that in the seventh year of Lu Zhuanggong, “meteors fell like rain” on the border of Lu and Qi. Here’s a picture of one of the meteor they unearthed.
Can you imagine this thing coming at you out of the sky? You’d think the world was ending! Of course the people of Qi worried about the sky!”
Comments say, “Lol, Northern Fallen Star Village is my hometown.”
“I mean, maybe the people of Qi were really struck by a meteorite, but it’s still silly to worry about it, because as someone great once said, “A meteor won’t strike the same place twice.””
“Did you know that you can prevent people from blocking you on wechat? There is nothing I love more than people who hate me, but can’t get rid of me. I never have to worry about being blocked again. The way to do this is to go into their settings, open up Underage Minor Protection Mode, pick Legal Guardian, fill out the information, set yourself as the Underage Minor, send it to your own phone, click agree on your phone, and it’s done!”
He shows what it looks like when you complete this, and when someone tries to block you, their phone will remind them that they’re set as your Legal Guardian, and have to remove that setting before they can block you. To remove the setting, they need to enter the 6-digit code they used to set up the setting to begin with—if you set up the setting in their place, and they don’t know the code, then there’s nothing they can do.
Comments say, “I mean, that’s not great news though. It’s super annoying to not be able to delete your ex-boyfriend.”
“So, this only prevents the person set as your Legal Guardian from blocking you, and not anyone else? I don’t get it.”
“If they’re going to block you anyways, how do you get your hands on their phone to mess with their settings?”
A tiktok video of a middle aged lady on the subway cussing out a pregnant woman for not giving up her seat for her, cursing that the pregnant lady’s whole family will die.
Comments say, “That’s a lot of healthy young men who aren’t standing up. Why doesn’t she cuss them out too?”
“Why does everyone always demand pregnant women and little kids stand up for them? Why? Why do these two groups of people keep getting targeted? Why hasn’t this old lady gotten cancer yet?”
“Men have put on their invisibility cloaks again.”
A blogger writes a post based on a real story, “I feel like some kids have less control over their bodies than dogs. An old man working as a security guard can just claim a passing nine-year-old girl is cute, and, being a completely stranger, he can just walk up and start hugging her and kissing on her and pull on her arms and keep molesting her even while she’s crying.
And if the kid gets upset and don’t like to be touched like this and yell for him to go away, then their own mothers will yell at them. She’ll feel like they’re embarrassing her, that they’re not being polite. She’s stick them right back in the old man’s lap, and tell them, “Stop being rude! He’s hugging you because he likes you!”
If someone was walking their dog, and a random old man came up without so much as a hello to pick up the dog and rub it all over, and got bitten as a result? The owner of the dog would only say, “Well, it’s your fault for grabbing him.”
In such a mother’s heart, kids aren’t allowed to dislike someone without permission. If the kid runs away, she’ll grab them and send them right back.
“He only thinks you’re cute.””
Comments say, “Kids have survival instinct. That old man felt threatening to her, and that’s why she would get upset and try to get away. But her mother is “correcting” her, killing her instinct. Then, when she grows up, when she encounters other people who make her uncomfortable, she’ll start doubting herself. “Am I misunderstanding him? Is he doing this because he likes me? My mom taught me to smile, to make him happy. I need to be the type of girl that everyone likes.””
“For old men, it’s, “They wanna hug you because they like you.” For male classmates, it’s, “He’s bullying you because he has a crush on you.” For your boss, it’s, “He’s making you drink because he sees talent in you.” All of this is used to train girls. I've heard these justifications for harassment countless times. I never thought I’d hear it from a girl’s own mother though…”
“You know, this mother was just stupid at first, but after all these comments telling her what’s up, no matter how retarded she is, she should’ve figured it out by now. She just feels too embarrassed to admit it. So now, I feel like she’s not just stupid, she’s evil too.”
Someone posts a picture, the correct way to shower in the summer:
Comments say, “Does anyone actually shower in ice water like this?”
“A cold water shower is already cold enough. Wouldn’t it be freezing to add ice on top of it?”
“I’m still showering in 41C water.”
An askreddit question, “Why do people hardly ever eat carnivore meat?”
The top-voted reply is, “There’s a fish called the northern snakehead, which is a top predator among freshwater fish. It’s an exclusively carnivorous fish, vicious as fuck, extremely durable, can survive on land for 3-7 days. Guess what? It’s the main feature of raw fish porridge, pickle fish, and sautéed sliced fish. It’s southern people’s favourite fish.”
Comments say, “I just caught one a couple of days ago that was over 2.5 kilos! Make it into pickled fish.”
“Nobody asked.”
“Lol, a filthy casual is getting buttmad.”
Eating carnivore meat would be a little pointless, you can just eat the animals that the carnivore eats and cut out the middleman. Cattle and so forth are useful because they eat things that humans can't, turning inedible grass into edible meat.
a single men -> a single man