09/02/23 - if we’re absolute best friends, if I was Emperor, I would make him my Head Eunuch.
Sina News writes about the top two influencers beloved by middle-aged and old people in China, Xiucai (秀才—antiquated term for scholar) and Yixiao Qingcheng (一笑倾城—A City Fell by a Smile, a common term to refer to great beauty). Most people normally don’t particularly care what their parents are into, so when these two influencers had a battle in the middle of August, the whole internet was shocked by the amount of money that grandmas and grandpas blew in a single day on tips and gifts. Now, their comment sections is split into two clear factions—grandmas and grandpas passionately expressing their love, and zoomers having fun reporting people old enough to be their parents for inappropriate language on the internet.
These influencers are quite skilled at their jobs too—one of them professionally acts the part of the sweet younger brother to older Aunties everywhere, bold features, incredibly chaste. The other acts the part of the sweetheart neighbour to Uncles everywhere, an everygirl, naive and cute.
There are plenty of stories of just how popular these two are. A Seventy-year-old grandma from Jilin went hitchhiking on her own to come to Anhui just to see Xiucai. A whole province’s 401K suffered shockwaves as people withdrew their money for the battle. Young people watching the drama go down happening to spot their own parents in the crowd…so on and so forth.
Comments say, “I mean, whoever the platform wants to get popular will get popular. Who’s ever heard of any of the influencers these days before they became famous? They all just appeared out of nowhere.”
“Remember how much those old people were calling for the government to do something about celebrity culture and influencer culture, and put more money into the military? Look at who’s spending a fortune on these two. It’s young people who might meme all day, but don’t actually have any spare money to spend on tips XD”
“Honestly, though, if it wasn’t for this news article, I wouldn’t even know who these two are.”
An influencer asks, “What would happen if your best friend climbed to heights you could only ever dream of?” And there’s a compilation of comments underneath:
“Real story, my best friend had always been into car racing as a kid, from go-karts to F3. Every time, he threw his all into pursuing his dreams. Everyone around him, including me, tried to persuade him to give up, to go find a real job. His parents are rich, he doesn’t need to be particularly successful. He needs to find some stability in life. Until 2018, when he won third place in the European F3 Tournament. That’s when we all realised—he’d made it. That rebellious race car kid detested by all the adults had made it. And I had no idea how to feel—as an obedient little teacher’s pet who’d always done what I was told. I didn’t know how to face this best friend of mine. Or rather, I never had an opportunity to face him again. I’ll never catch up to him now. Everyone knows the story later—his name is Zhou Guanyu. He’s the only Chinese F1 race driver, an important member of Alpha Romeo. He used to be my best friend.”
“Ha. Nobody who hangs out with me can get successful.”
“If at that point, my friends are still struggling, then it’s not their fault, it’s my fault. I still haven’t climbed high enough.”
“My dad went with seven of his friends to take the civil servant exam. On the way there, the eight of them swore to each other that they’d help each other out if any one of them succeeded. They all failed.”
“I’m still pretty confident I can pull him down.”
“If my best friend became successful, I wouldn’t even bother bringing gifts if I needed a favour from him.”
“Police Commissioner, what do you think about my teddy being a police dog?”
“My best friend said if he ever had a successful business, he’d hire me as head of security, so I can play games all day and still get paid T_T”
“Your first lesson—let what’s in the past stay in the past.”
“Guys, you need to understand something. By the time your best friends climbs to a height you can only dream about, his best friend probably isn’t you anymore.”
“I mean, it depends on how close we are, right? If we’re just normal friends, this makes sense, sure. But if we’re absolute best friends, if I was Emperor, I would make him my Head Eunuch.”
“What’s the point of being successful if I can’t take my friends with me?”
“How are you guys so confident you’re so important to someone else? Where do you get that self esteem from?”
“I just had a strange thought: When it come to love, Chinese men are very, very pitiable. Because they’ve never seen a variety in women growing up.
I grew up reading western romances, watching western movies, and saw tons of coming of age stories for young men.
Gorky said that when he was young, he’d go with his neighbours to peek on the noble lady’s romance across the street. A gentlemanly military officer would kneel under the noble lady’s feet, with her feet in his hand, kissing them, telling her of his love. As a result, he saw that women can be high and mighty, can step on men like the mud below their feet.
In all 5000 years of Chinese history, can any kid see this sort of thing as they’re growing up?
In Malèna, a boy saw the seductive charisma of a grown woman, something to be admired from afar that is beyond reach. Not even Jia Baoyu [Dream of the Red Chamber] ever saw that. This sense of “something beyond your reach” is very important—that’s where someone gets a sense of boundaries from. Look at Emperor Zhou, who saw Nvwa [Goddess who created humanity] and thought he could sleep with her—that’s the result of never being taught boundaries as a child. He deserved to have lost his country.
Hesse liked dignified, tall, mature, philosophical women with a deep voice, and wrote them to be the goddesses and mentors to young men. Can you imagine a woman like that in your life? If you’ve never seen one, where are young men supposed to find them?
Rousseau was spanked by a female teacher, and he was obsessed with it for the rest of his life. But at least it teaches young men that women are allowed to discipline men. This is a possibility that can exist. But in traditional China, only mothers can discipline men, and even then, this mother is probably frequently beaten by the father. She is not an entity that commands any respect. It’s not like Europe, where Governesses is a paid and respected profession.
That is to say, traditionally speaking, the women that Chinese men encounter are very, very uniform: a loving mother, gossipy relative, and pretty cousins. And that’s it.
Even the Indian merchants in Lian Huan Tao [Chinese movie] saw their female cousins playing soccer in the yard growing up. Imagine the garden in Dream of the Red Chamber, can you imagine Baochai and Daiyu kicking soccer together?
Forget soccer, I can’t even imagine them jogging.
They’re pretty, but they’re still. The only part of their body they’re allowed to move is their eyes, and even then, it is impolite to stair. They’re allowed to move their mouth, but it’s impolite to gossip. Everywhere else—their hands have to be hidden under their sleeves. Their feet have to be hidden under their dress. They can’t move.
They must be pretty. They must be perfect. And all of this disappears once they’re married.
So Chinese men are only into young girls, because they don’t know what else there is to be attracted to about women other than youth and beauty.
This is why I find traditional Chinese men to be pitiable. But at least young men today have a chance to learn.”
Comments say, “I only pity women. The freedom to not bind your feet, the freedom to work, the freedom to divorce—all of it had to be fought for with blood. Compared to survival, love is nothing.”
“My daughter told me that it was her first day at uni, and the students were getting to know each other in some ice breaker activities, and she talked about games she liked to play, and some boys were like, “I didn’t know girls played that. I thought girls only played Love Nikki.” So I know exactly what you mean when you say, “The women they’ve grown up with were too uniform.””
“I’ve seen someone else’s take before about why men like to accuse women of being whores. They make up rumours about women as soon as they buy a new phone, or some nice clothing or jewellery, or even eat at a fancier restaurant. Sure, a part of it is envy. But a bigger part is that their life experience has told them that all women are poor. Their mothers have to beg their dads for money to pay the bills. Their sisters live paycheck to paycheck as they use their money to support him. He’s never seen a free, successful career woman in his life before.”
A tiktok video of a girl carrying two giant logs. Apparently, this is a surprisingly popular genre of videos?
Comments say, “A bunch of men doubting a woman could carry it all. A bunch of women feeling like since they can’t do this, then obviously nobody can. There are a ton of strong women out there. A lot of women do the exact same back-breaking physical labour as men because of the necessities of life. I know a girl who’s only about 160cm, who works on a construction site with her husband. She’s super strong. She can pick up a bag of cement with one hand, and those are usually 50kg each.”
“If that wood is real, it’s gotta be 100kg minimum. It looks so fake.”
“I work in interior design, and all the people hauling cement up stairs are women. There are some who carry up two bags at once. I don’t know if men just can’t do it or they just don’t want to.”
A mother made a post complaining, “There’s not a single thing on my daughter’s desk that’s schoolwork related—summer breaks are way too long. I’m so disappointed in her.”
There’s a compilation of comments underneath:
“If you’re successful enough, your daughter doesn’t have to try to get into a good school.”
“How many certificates did you get yourself this summer?”
“This is my mom’s desk—not a single thing work-related on it either.”
“Did you even spend money signing your daughter up for art or sports? Did you get her prepared for any competitions? Did you pay her way into internal tutoring classes in top high schools in your city? If not, you’re better off pushing yourself than pushing your kids.”
“If you tried harder, you wouldn’t have to rely on your kid.”
“Why can’t you pick up more work while you’re on break? Take on some overtime?”
“Have you bought a house for her yet? A car? Some high-end electronics? Have you even paid off your mortgage? Can you send her overseas? Can you pay for her tuition overseas? Can you even stand up to your own boss? Chickens can’t lay phoenix eggs.”
A tiktok video of delicious claypot rice, made by an 86-year-old grandpa who’s been doing this for 30 years. The way he keeps track of time with some green onions on top the the claypot, and putting the extra rice back into the cooker for the next claypot, are all very traditional for Guangdong.
A compilation of comments of people convinced that rats can understand human speech:
“It’s true. Rats are super smart. I had a rat chewing on my cabinet in my house. As soon as I’d come close, he’d stop chewing, and as soon as I walk away, he starts back up again. I got so annoyed that I was like, “I’m gonna put poison in here if you keep chewing on that.” And then he went quiet.”
“My dad caught a giant rat at night once, and found a board outside, and nailed the rat to it with those little thumbtacks, and let it struggle and scream all night. And my dad was all like, “Let it scream—all the other rats’ll know not to come near then.” And we never had a rat problem in our house again XD”
“It’s true! I hear some rustling noises in the convenience store before, and I was like, “Hey, Rat bro, is that you?” And a rat really did run out.”
“They hide in your house all day listening to you talk—of course they’ve learned language by now. Isn’t it scary to think about?”
“Wait, but if they understand what I’m saying, but I don’t understand what they’re saying, does this mean rats are smarter than me?”
“When I was a teenager, I saw my dad mixing rat poison into our leftover food one night, and I was like, “At least we never have to hear them squeak at each other again once they’re all poisoned.” That night, they chewed through my phone charger T_T”
“My landlord had a goddamn plague of rats in his apartment. They’d run into my room, and I’d catch them and cut them in half with scissors. Killed four the first night, then a couple more the second night. And then rats never came into my room again.”
“So, do rats think I’m super safe or something? They like to leave their babies under my neck.”
“We used to have rats in my house all the time, and one of them got caught in a trap. I felt sorry for it and let it go, and told it to not come around here anymore. And then we really did have no rats around for a long time after that.”
“They’re really super smart. My mom talks to me in English whenever we’re talking plans to catch rats.”
“Even if they get poisoned, they know to run towards the bathroom even as they’re vomiting up blood, to try to eat soap to counteract the poison.”
“Cool fact: They use rats for experiments because they’re 97% similar to people.”
“It’s true. We had rats in our dorm, and we kinda swore about it for a bit. And the next day, they’d pooped on everyone’s bed. Even the top bunks.”
“The internet said that rat screaming works, so I used my old phone to play it on loop for a whole day, and never had rat problems after that.”
“We kept some baby mouse wine in the house, and a mother mouse saw and flipped the fuck out and chewed through all of our wiring.”
“If I sit around and complain about being poor all day, would they leave on their own?”
“We had rats in our college dorm, and I yelled for it to come out and duel me, and it really came out.”
every girl -> everygirl
Seventy-year-old grandma -> A seventy-year-old grandma
persuaded him -> tried to persuade him (I think?)
to have lose -> either "to lose" or "to have lost"
This is a my mom’s -> This is my mom’s
you’re better pushing -> either "you’re better of pushing" or "you’d be better pushing"
high end -> high-end
got poisoned -> get poisoned
How do green onions keep track of time?