“A nail salon near my house shut down not long after opening. The reason is pretty insane. The owner was too busy to manage it herself, and hired a couple of workers. And the workers changed out the store’s QR payment code for their own, and ran a bunch of super discounted membership card programs. Got 50, 60K in a couple of days, and then ran.
The boss was a bit of a goober too, didn’t notice anything wrong after not getting any money for a few days. What kind of workers would break the law for just a couple dozen grand?”
Comments say, “Because nail salon workers make hardly any money at all, and they’re barely educated too. The girl who works on my nails dropped out of school when she hadn’t even turned 18.”
“They’re not foolish, they’re just salarymen with no diploma, so they don’t have the capability or guts to run bigger scams. They’re satisfied with just a couple dozen grand. They’ll spend money when they have money, and they don’t particularly care if they end up going to prison.”
“Poverty makes you cunning, wealth makes you forgiving.”
There’s a tiktok video of a doggy who stopped barking at strangers after being trapped on a roof in the recent floods. I don’t have a copy of the original video, but I do have a compilation of comments underneath.
“Doggy: I care about our home, but nobody cares about me T_T”
“The flood comes. The owner runs away with all his belongings and loved ones.
The doggy: Take me too!
Owner: The needs of the many come before the needs of the few!”
“It’s just like us before and after covid XD”
“He’s always protected the house for you, until you all ran away as soon as disaster came, and left it alone on the roof. Then, he understood.”
“The doggy just figured out that the home he’s been protecting isn’t actually his, it’s the wealthy elites’.”
“The doggy understood, and now it wants to live for itself.”
“Dogg: So I’m the “by any means necessary, no matter what it takes.””
“The night the doggy spent on the room, he thought through his short life. He always thought he was a member of this family, until he looked at his dog house under the flood waters, and all the neon lights not far away. Then, he finally realised, he was only a dog.”
“It took a flood for this dog to figure out who the real bitches are. [Doge]”
“He’s woken up. He’s decided to stop having puppies. [Doge]”
“A coworker of mine has 90K in secret savings. She doesn’t tell anyone about this, not even her own family. Even while her son is fighting with his fiance over the problem of bride price, she never wavered.
Once, I jokingly asked if she might be too stingy. She looked at me meaningfully and said, “You’re still young, you don’t understand, a woman’s sense of security comes from having her own money. The saying goes, “Your dad being rich or your mom being rich is not as good as you being rich, even if your husband’s rich you still have to ask—in the end, you can only count on yourself.” As for the problems caused by her son’s girlfriend’s bride price, it’s only made her realise the importance of this money.
She’s worried that she won’t be able to get any money from her DIL in the future, and so she’s decided to keep a couple of aces up her sleeve. I was a little hesitant thinking this over. I kind of agree with her point of view, but kind of not really. If she could lend the money to her son, then that’s not a bad way to solve her son’s problems with not having enough money for bride price.
What do you think, guys?”
Comments say, “Lend? Her son’s just gonna think, “Everything in this family is mine anyways, what do you mean lend?””
“Yeah, everyone needs some of their own money on hand that no one knows about it. She earned it, she’s spending it. It’s not that much money anyways.”
“If you need to guard against even your own children, then what have you done with your life?”
“A lot of people are worried about when real estate prices are gonna collapse. I’m gonna tell you right now—it’s only after everything is done collapsing that real estate prices are gonna collapse.
First, there’s gonna be unemployment. In every industry, there’s gonna be less spending and over production.
Then, there’s going to be defaulting on mortgages, starting with people born in the 90s. They’re the generation that got fucked the hardest. A lot of them bought in when the housing market was at its peak, with a mountain of debt on them. As soon as they lose their jobs, they can’t help but default on their loans.
Next, the government and government-funded corporations are gonna default on their bonds and debts. Civil servant pay and benefits are gonna fall. All kinds of wild taxes are gonna pop out of the bushes.
Then, with so many mortgages falling through, a ton of foreclosed houses are gonna appear on the market.
And finally, real estate prices will collapse.
By that point, all the people waiting out for real estate prices to bottom out probably won’t be able to afford bread anymore except as a luxury.”
Comments say, “When the economy is doing well, it’s the elites who are living large, and the proles who suffer. When the economy is doing badly, the elites suffer, and the proles suffer even more. But so long as it makes the elites suffer, I don’t mind suffering a bit more. [Doge]”
A tiktok video of a fascinating way to do maths:
Comments say, ”Making Ten Method—that’s how they’re teaching it in primary schools these days.”
“Even if I want to help my kid with homework, I don’t know how to. What the hell are they teaching these days? It’s like they’re deliberately making the problem as complicated as possible so your kids don’t understand it. It’s such a messy way of calculating.”
“Even I think the Making Ten Method and Breaking Ten Method is so complicated.”
Someone asks for advice, “I haven’t been married long, and my husband’s already after my dowry. He wants to use my dowry to buy a car for the family. I don’t want to be called selfish, but is there a problem with wanting to spend my dowry on myself?”
She attaches screenshots of her texts with her husband.
Husband: “Wanna go test drive some cars this weekend? I already got an appointment with the sales guy. If you like it, we can nail it down.”
OP: “Who’s paying?”
Husband: “You, of course. Where would I get the money for a car?”
OP: “I told you I’m not moving a cent from my dowry. You can get a car loan.”
Husband: “The car is for both of us. It’s not like we’re still dating. What’s the point of talking about yours and mine at this point? Isn’t it all ours? We should be working together towards a better life.”
OP: “A car isn’t necessary anyways. We don’t have a car right now and we live just fine.”
Husband: “But it’s so much easier to have a car. You won’t need to squeeze in the subway or busses in the middle of summer anymore. And it’ll be so much easier to get around.”
OP: “Then get a payment plan, we’ll pay it off together.”
Husband: “You have to pay interest with those too—that’s a lot of money added up.”
OP: “I don’t want to touch my dowry. I don’t even have a driver’s license anyways.”
Husband: “Bro. We’re on the same hukou. We’re legal husband and wife by this country’s laws.”
OP: “I mean, you might say it’s a family car, but in reality, I’m just buying a car for you to drive. You can pay the down payment, and we’ll pay the loan payment every month out of our shared account.”
Husband: “Are you even trying to make a life with me? You’re so selfish? I’m already making the house payments, and you want me to get car payments too? How am I supposed to live? What’s the point of your supposed support? Half of my salary goes to the house, and the other half towards household expenses. We don’t even have kids yet. If I have a car payment too, I’ll be living pay check to pay check. How the hell am I supposed to put a kid through school?”
OP: “I’m not asking for you to pay it off all on your own. I’ll help you pay it off.”
Husband: “You’re not using your money for anything anyways, why not buy a car? Just saving the money in a bank means it’s losing value with inflation anyways.“
OP: “I can help you with a car loan, but I’m not touching my dowry.”
Husband: “Why are you so obsessed with what’s yours and what’s mine even when we’re married?”
OP: “I have no obligation to buy a car for you. There’s no point to owning a car anyways. Why do you even want one? I think it’s just to soothe your ego. You can ride the subway or bus just fine.”
Husband: “If that’s what you’re gonna say…”
OP: “What, you want a divorce?”
Husband: “I see what kind of person you are now. I won’t bring up buying a car again.”
Comments say, “If you don’t have a driver’s license, how the hell is it a family car? Sure, money will lose value if you’re just holding onto it, but cars lose value too? Why are they all like this? they all start from a point of it being good for the both of you, but with such an attitude, I can’t even imagine how many times he’d drive you before he’s sick and tired of it.”
“So, basically, your money is the family’s money, but my money is mine?”
“Your dowry is your pre-marital assets. The marital house is his premarital assets. It’s not like you’re not helping with the bills after marriage. So basically, after marriage, you’re just trying your best to take advantage of each other?”
Under the hashtag #female livestreamer arrested outdoors for filming pornographic content, a blogger writes, “A phenomenon that has to be talked about: a lot of prostitutes at nightclubs have changed careers to be livestreamers. A lot of announcers for weddings and funerals in small towns have changed careers to be livestreamers. A lot of scammers selling snake oil outside of train stations have changed careers to be livestreamers. A lot of tattoo-covered chavs at the bottom of society have changed careers to be livestreamers.
Platforms see these streamers and throw a bunch of promotions at them and favour them in the algorithm like they’re treasures or something.
And the worst part is, a lot of proper artists and performers have livestreams that nobody watches.
This isn’t a problem with streamers, but a problem with our societal values.”
Comments say, “It’s true—the quality of streams are getting worse every day, but they demand more tips than ever.”
“The influencer economy is a reflection of how fucked our values have gotten.”
“Kuaishou is filled with women showing off their armpits.”
“Back in the 80s, a woman was riding a bike on her way back to work in the evening. Half way up a hill, she encountered a criminal who wanted to rape her. The lady discovered that she can’t fight back against him, and no one will hear her if she screamed here, so she pretended to agree to it, but she told the rapist, “Look, this place is just too rocky. Why don’t we go somewhere a little flatter?”
The rapist was pretty happy to hear this, and the lady took him somewhere flatter, and she told him, “Quick, take off your clothes.” That made the rapist even happier, so he hurried to take off his clothes. As he’s pulling off his shirt, his eyes were briefly covered. Right at that moment, the lady pushed, and the rapist fell backwards into a cesspit.
Just as he attempted to crawl out, she kicked him in again. She did this three times, until he drowned in the cesspit.
It caused quite the controversy at the time, whether this behaviour of shoving someone into a cesspit and continuing to kick him down counted as self-defense or after-the-fact revenge killing. But Professor Luo Xiang [famous law professor that puts all his lectures online] said directly, “Not only would I kick him three times, I would kick him four times if I had to. I would hit him over the head with a brick.”
Self defense refers to the actions someone takes when faced with criminal harm to stop the criminal, harmful behaviour. If they cause any harm to the criminal, they don’t need to take any legal responsibility.
In this case, the lady repeatedly pushed the man into the cesspit—she clearly knew this action would result in his death. From this angle, it certainly looks like she is committing murder. And yet, if he was allowed to crawl out of the cesspit, what would happen to her? That’s why she had to kick him again and again, in order to protect her life from danger.
The controversy in this case was that she continued repeatedly kicking him after he was already in the cesspit. With hindsight, we can say that her actions had probably went outside the bounds of proper self defense. But as a victim, faced with danger and fear, it’s very hard to think clearly about whether or not you’re overly defending yourself. To be too picky about the precise way that people go about defending themselves is not only cruel to the victims, it’s encouraging to criminals.
Professor Luo Xiang reminds us that when we’re faced with cases, we should be putting ourselves in the shoes of the victim, and not in the shoes of a perfect, idealised saint. Of course hindsight might point out the perfect thing to do in a situation, but while people are in that scenario, faced with worry, anxiety, and fear, as victims, they can’t think about whether what they’re doing is over the line or not.
When we read into legal cases, we should be thinking from the point of view of the average person, and not pursue some theoretical perfection. That’s how we can go about understanding victims better and help to reduce their suffering. We should hold a soft attitude towards the weak and have empathy for legal cases.”
Comments say, “The law right now always puts itself into the shoes of the criminal instead, and feels very strongly the suffering when the victim unexpectedly dares to defend themselves.”
“I’d rather see a judge than a coroner. Protecting your life first.”
“Why waste so many words? The reasoning is simple—you gotta survive first before you can defend yourself.”
code to their -> code for their
“He’s always protected the house for you, until you all ran away as soon as disaster came, and left it alone on the roof. Then, it understood.” -> inconsistent pronouns