08/27/23 - A middle school in Henan, where 116 people are living in the same dorm room.
Under the hashtag #over 2000 artefacts missing from the British Museum, a blogger is calling for unconditional return of all Chinese historical artefacts.
Comments say, “There’s a Streaming Platform original show coming out about anthropomorphised historical artefacts waking up and escaping out of the British Museum to return to China on their own, only to find that it’s far from the China in their memories. They’re forced to flee and hide in an unfamiliar modern China as villains trying to recapture them arrive too, and in this course of this misadventure, they find that plenty of China’s historical culture is still being passed down, like lion-dance and Chinese New Year and fireworks displays. I’m really looking forward to it.”
“That line, “Some of the best porcelain ever unearthed in China is in the British Museum.” really made me upset and mad. Return our stuff to us.”
“It’s true, I’ve went, and it’s filled with Chinese relics. There was a 4 or 5 story tall Buddha statue in there that was obviously ripped out of some mountain somewhere. It was kind of hard to look at. They’ve got a ton of Egyptian mummies there too, just out for displaying, not even able to rest in peace as corpses. It’s too sad.”
“A friend of mine is 56-years-old and he got laid off.
I told him, go sue them. At your age, you’re only a couple of years away from retirement. They can’t lay you off now.
And my friend was all like, “It’s fine. Even if they don’t lay me off, they’ll switch me to a position in the sweatshop, and torture me in every way they can think of to force me to quit. If I take the lay off, at least I get 200K in compensation.”
And I said, “But if you work for another 4 years, you’ll make way more than 200K, and you’ll get 4 more years of insurance out of it, and your social security cheque will be a bit bigger.”
He said he wanted to try looking for new work. And I was like, “Give up. At this age, who’s gonna hire you?” And he was like, “It’s fine if no one hires me, I can always just pay insurance out of my own pocket.” Sigh. It’s so hard for people at this age.
What would you do if it was you?”
Comments say, “Honestly, at this age, so long as they actually pay you compensation like the Labour Laws say, I’d take the layoff too. Just live on unemployment for two years, then pay your social security for two years, and then apply for retirement and you’re good to go.”
“He’s 56! Isn’t he way better off taking the money and just chilling at home? Why does he have to work?”
“So long as he’s getting compensated, it’s not that bad being laid off at that age. It won’t affect is social security too much. The worst is getting laid off at 40. Not quite old enough to ride it out, not young enough to start back over. You’re practically check mate’d.”
A man in Shanghai got a nail infection, and went to the hospital, where he was prescribed Cephalosporin to deal with the infection. The prescription wrote, “Take 12 tablets once every six hours.”, each tablet was 0.25g of Cephalosporin. He took a total of 24 tablets, when he started having diarrhoea in the evening and went into urgent care, where the doctor told him he had overdosed on Cephalosporin. 24 tablets is the maximum limit of the human body. The medicine pill didn’t say anything about maximum dosage.
He’s currently out of the hospital and is going back in to get checked again in a couple of days. He reported the situation to his doctor, who told him that he’ll answer in 7 business days. He has since made a complaint to the Health Department and 12345 [a general complaint line to city council].
Comments say, “That’s a really careless typo. They’re meant to write “take 1-2 tablets once every six hours”, and typed out “12” instead.”
“I mean, like, sure, the doctor screwed up. He’s the one at fault. But did you really think it was normal to be taking 12 tablets at a time?”
“It’s one thing for the doctor to screw up, but the pharmacist didn’t think something was wrong either?”
A writing prompt blogger gives a prompt, “It is the Tang Dynasty. An incredibly average single man is returning from the fields, to find his dinner table covered in fragrant food, to his surprise. He thinks about the big river snail he brought in that morning, and instantly thought of the Miss River Snail fairytale he’d heard growing up. [Similar to the story of the Crane in Japan who is saved by a farmer, and pays him back by becoming his wife, with the condition that he could never peek in on her when she spins cloth. He can’t resist his curiosity and looks in, and she is forced to fly away. Except in China, it wasn’t because he saved her life, but because the Celestial Emperor noticed he was exceptionally hardworking and upstanding, and rewarded him with a wife.]
He followed the instructions in the fairytale, and found the strange young woman working in his kitchen.
But he wasn’t delighted at all. He was terrified that a complete stranger had just appeared in his house.
The young woman heard him coming, and turned to look at him calmly, with none of the shyness or nervousness in the fairytale.
“Dude, chill. You’re not the first one I’ve done this for. I’ve been going thorugh this for a hundred years.”
“Look, sure, I’m a magical snail, but God didn’t send me because he pitied you for being so hardworking and yet so alone. God doesn’t pay attention to trivial stuff like that. I got punished by being sent into the mortal realm. I have to collect enough karma through experiencing suffering before I can leave.”
“You’re my last customer. Just go along with it.”
In confusion and terror, the man looked at the young woman, and finally managed to nod his head with difficulty.”
Comments say, “So even God knows doing housework for a man is a punishment.”
“Anyone who’s read the original Journey to the West knows that if Gods really existed, then humans would be nothing more than livestock in their eyes.”
“Yeah, taking care of a human is probably like being sent on a chore to feed the chickens or ducks in the eyes of a God.”
A tktok video posted by a farmer’s daughter in Liaoning, showing 300 grape vines in their field being hacked to death in a single night. Grapes were already growing on the vine. They would be ripe in another month. She doesn’t know who they pissed off either. Her father had always been nice to all his neighbours. She never thought this would happen.
Comments say, “You might not have done anything at all. Some people just can’t stand to watch others do better than them.”
“Whenever my family’s grape fields are nearing harvest, they need to hire two dozen people to patrol it 24/7.”
“People might be cunning in the city, but the countryside isn’t so naive these days either.”
“People really need to learn just what male-facing webnovels are like, and how men go about writing male and female characters.
Tropes in male-facing webnovels: Everyone looks down on the male lead at first, but soon enough, he’ll rise above all of them and take his revenge on those who bullied him before. Then he’ll move onto a higher-level place, and get looked down on by everyone again, and then get stronger, so on and so forth, until he’s the ruler of the universe.
Just read a couple of webnovels and you can understand what men think about all day, and what their mental state is like.
I think the most important aspect is: for men, their catharsis comes from stepping on top of everyone else, from having all kinds of titles and status. This is why male-facing webnovels don’t have a lot of romance elements. Because fundamentally speaking, female character are just another objects for the male leads to conquer and possess. Men can get catharsis from lots of places—women is just the most basic kind.
But what about female-facing webnovels? The female lead might as well be a drone camera that records every detail of the male lead’s life. She is the soil that the male lead grows up in, she is his support, his doll.
Wish fulfilment for men is to climb on top of everyone else and become the ruler of the universe. Wish fulfilment for women is to climb on top of every other girl and become the most beloved of the male lead, break through all kinds of obstacles to finally end up with the male lead, and then enjoy their happily ever after.
But even so, this kind of plotline will be marketed as, “Anti-Patriarchy”, “Rational, Independent, Powerful Female Lead.” When you read male-facing webnovels, it’s telling you again and again, that you are truly meant to be the ruler of the universe, your individuality is the most important thing of all, women are just one of your many possessions. When you read female-facing webnovels, it’s telling you that as a woman, pleasing men is equal to pleasing yourself, and that’s where you should get your identity and emotional value from. And whether you’re reliving your life or you’ve time travelled or you’re taking revenge or you’re moving on from a past relationship, your life goals still need to be fulfilled by finding a man. Your greatest accomplishment is becoming the most important person in the world to a man. The greatest punishment you can give a man is to kill yourself and bring him a lot of grief.
Whenever I see discussion in the comment sections of female-facing webnovels, about whether yaoi is misogynistic, or whether this story or another is feminist or not, I just want to tell people to go read some webnovels for men, and look at how they treat their male and female characters. A lot of female-facing webnovels are nothing more than just a copy-paste of male-facing webnovels written from the view of one of the female characters. And this mentality and perspective is probably rooted in real life.”
Comments say, “Chinese people’s gender views: Men conquer the world, women conquer men.”
“All the female leads in female-facing webnovels have to be sweet and kind and loving…honestly gives me a headache. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with being kind, but even when writing wish fulfilment power fantasies, women can’t get away from the shackles of morality.”
“Female facing webnovels are all about a bunch of women revolving around one man. Male-facing webnovels is about the whole world revolving around one man. And in male-facing webnovels, women are way less important than getting a new spell or another perk. They completely see women as objects, and only write harems. Who the hell wants to be one-on-one with you?”
“It’s so wild eating with older people. They’ll spend all of dinner talking about who just got a divorce lately, whose husband is cheating on them outside, whose son got more high-interest loans, and then turn around and tell you in no uncertain terms, “You’re at the age you should get married now. Marriage will bring you happiness.””
Comments say, “They can’t come up with one benefit of marriage, but they want everyone to get married and have kids.”
“So ironic lololol. It’s like they earn karma by telling you to get married or something.”
“One of my relatives told me that they just feel like once you get married, you’re settled now. It’s not something you have to ever worry about again. It’s like they’re seeing marriage as an obstacle you have to climb in life, like going to university.”
A video of a middle school in Henan, where 116 people are living in the same dorm room. The local Department of Education responds, “It’s a dorm converted from a library. It fits all fire safety regulations.”
Comments say, “?? They turned their library into a dorm? Where are they putting all their books now? It fits fire safety regulations? For a library or for a dorm? Can 116 kids live together and actually get any rest? If a stranger hid in there, would anyone even notice?”
“The fire department is literally shaking in their boots XDD”
“Concentrated Quarantine: School Edition [Doge]”
A tiktok video of the road outside of the Second High School in Henan, Zhengzhou, when the parents come pick their kids up from school. Because the school has no parking lot, the road is absolutely crammed with cars. Parents say that once you get in, you’re not getting back out for 1-2 hours at least.
Comments say, “Man, people are having a lot of kids. No wonder the college entrance score is so high there.”
“This is all illegal parking, isn’t it? It’s all because of government ineptitude that this is happening.”
“Why do they even have to pick them up? If they’re in middle school already, then they can ride the buss home, right?”