09/09/23 - Even a proper dog meal of four dishes and one soup is better than white people food.
“Wow, it’s really useful to have a workplace persona. I recently established a hardworking, honest persona for myself, and it’s amazing how much it works. It’s like the best persona for any salaryman. I slack off just as much as anybody when there’s no one around, but I never hesitate to put on a performance when it’s necessary either. I treat my boss and my work like I’m dating—say whatever sounds good, you don’t actually have to do it. But if you don’t say anything, your boss will never know.
I’m gonna continue my persona empire:
Goes To Bed Early Persona:
My boss always gives me work super late at night once I’m home. So I established a personal characteristic that I go to bed super early. “Oh, I already went to sleep so I didn’t see your message.” “I don’t know, I go to bed really early.”
Bad Temper Persona:
Throw a fit every now and again, loudly declare my position and show my bottom line. Make people back off and not keep dancing all over my boundaries.
Trustfund Brat Persona:
This is a great combination with the Bad Temper Persona. Show off a little bit of wealth occasionally, but act super humble when people ask about your family background. Make sure none of your coworkers or boss knows exactly what’s up with you, and it can avoid a lot of trouble. Everyone knows to bully the weakest one out of the bunch.
You really need to be careful with the extent of this persona, and not go too far with it though.
Momma’s Boy Persona:
If coworkers want to borrow money from you or invite you out for drinks and you’re too awkward to refuse them directly, you can use the Momma’s Boy Persona: “Oh, my mom’s super strict. She’ll yell at me if I do [whatever it is].”
Motion Sickness Persona:
If you’re riding in the same car as your coworker or boss and it’s too awkward to talk, you can use the Motion Sickness Persona, and just pretend to sleep the whole drive, to avoid having to try to come up with topics to talk about.
Naive and Innocent Persona:
If people ask you for help, you just say, “I don’t really know either, I’ve never done it before.” If they teach you, then learn. If they don’t, then don’t involve yourself. The more you do at work, the more of a chance you screw up. Just don’t get involved in things that aren’t your business. It’ll greatly improve both your mood and your efficiency.”
Comments say, “I’ve always used the Purely Stupid, But Very Sociable College Student persona. It’s super useful. I get to slack off a lot.”
“Me: Looks super sincere, but actually never changes my ways.”
“For men I don’t like, my persona has always been: I need to get married as soon as possible, so I can use my bride price to buy my brother a house.”
“The Trustfund Brat Persona is so me. I just act like I’m super rich, but I don’t talk about it. I tell everyone I don’t have any money, but I act like it doesn’t particularly matter to me whether I have this job or not.”
“I’m trying out personas for myself too. It’s such a strange feeling. It’s really true what they say—when you’re out and about, you can put on whatever identity you want.”
“I’ve got a Trustfund Brat Persona too. Like Evian bottled water isn’t actually that expensive. A whole box is only 80-something RMB. Just buy a couple boxes and put it under your desk, and say you can only drink Evian, all the other water is too hard and you don’t like it. Soon, everyone’ll know you’re rich.”
“When I meet anyone who discriminates against my job, my attitude is always, “Well, I’ve dissected a lot of dead people, but never a living one…What are you looking at me for? Oh, I wasn’t talking to you just now, it’s something one of my bodies said to me the other day.””
“In 1986, the richest woman in Shanghai, a 53-year-old Wu Shengming, was sentenced to death for smuggling. After she was imprisoned, her husband left with all her savings with the nanny, and her only daughter committed suicide by drinking weed killer.
Wu Shengming was born in a wealthy businessman’s family in Zhejiang, and left her home when she tried to escape her arranged marriage. In 1952, a 19-year-old Wu Shengming arrived in Shanghai by herself, and opened a convenience store and earned her first bucket of gold—2000 RMB.
Using this 2000 RMB, she opened a restaurant, and used her brilliant business skills to expand her business. By 1984, a 51-year-old Wu Shengming had a net worth of over 20 million RMB, and had multiple companies throughout the country.
Now that she had eight figures to her name, Wu Shengming became more and more daring, and she started looking into other businesses. Little did she know, she would end up losing everything in a single night.
In 1985, using her connections, she imported a batch of 48 high-end cars. At the time, they were all rare luxuries that were sold in the blink of an eye. She earned a good couple of million from this. But she had no idea that what she had just done was against the law.
Shanghai police arrested her under the charge of “Opportunistic Behaviour”.
At first, Wu Shengming thought this was no big deal, that she’ll just spend a couple of months in jail and get out again. She never thought she’d be sentenced to delayed death sentence.
At that moment, she felt like her whole world had fallen apart. She almost passed out.
Thankfully, she was extremely cooperative with the police’s investigation, and behaved extraordinarily well, so eventually she had her sentence reduced to life in prison.
A former multi-millionaire was now stuck in prison for the rest of her life. And what happened next only made Wu Shengming’s fate ever more bitter.
Shortly after she went to prison, her husband eloped with their nanny. When her 16-year-old daughter learned her mother had been sentenced to life and her father had abandoned her too, she was bereaved and committed suicide in a moment of passion.
When Wu Shengming heard the news in prison, she cried her tears dry. She felt like there was no more hope in her life. She attempted to end her own life multiple times.
After she was saved by the prison guards, they tried to persuade Wu Shengming, “If your daughter’s gone, then you should work even harder on reducing your sentence, so you can go apologise to her in front of her grave. And once you’re out, you can help more people correct their mistakes. I’m sure this is what your daughter would’ve wanted too.”
When Wu Shengming heard this, she changed her pessimistic ways, and very proactively sought rehabilitation in prison.
In 2003, Wu Shengming was released from prison. She was a 70-year-old crone by now.
She had no money and no home. The Township Committee saw how pitiful she was and hired her to work as a street sweeper for 400 RMB a month. Wu Shengming never looked down on this job for its low pay. Instead, she took her work very seriously and carefully swept every corner, and even used her time off to write an autobiography.
After her autobiography was published in 2005, it caused waves in society. All sorts of media arrived to interview her. Wu Shengming had gone “viral” overnight. Her tragic life soon attracted the help of kind people.
Soon afterwards, someone invited her to be a partner in their business. After checking the situation out, she decided to rent a vineyard in Sha’anxi. This would become another important turning point in her life.
Wu Shengming had always been someone with incredible business brains and very sharp vision. After she took over the vineyard, she began making money right away. Then she started investing with this money.
In 2012, she started several tech companies, chicken farms, and restaurants.
In just six years, she had once again earned over eight-figures of total assets, and became a multi-millionaire again.
Now, she was exactly 80 years old.
But this time, she didn’t stay in the business world for long. She handed her business over to other people, and used a part of the money to open a retirement home to help other old people in need. It was her way of fulfilling her daughter’s last wishes.
Right now, she’s 89 years old, and still healthy and optimistic. When she was interviewed by Lu Yu [famous talk show host in China], she revealed that she had plenty of pursuers, some of them only 38-year-old “boys”.
Wu Shengming’s life has been like a rollercoaster ride—her highs were extremely high, and her lows were extremely low. But she still became a legend thanks to her optimism and proactiveness.
Everyone is bound to encounter difficulties in their life. They just need to learn how to get through it and put the painful past behind them, and they will have a colourful future too.”
Comments say, “So who’s gonna do an expose on her husband and that nanny?”
“I don’t understand her husband at all. Even if he was going to elope with the nanny, couldn’t he have brought along his daughter? Why did he have to abandon her?”
“She worked in the smuggling business and never knew it was illegal??”
A tiktok video of a 21-year-old mother of two in America making dinner for her children:
Comments say, “I just don’t understand what the purpose of cutting the blueberries at the end is?”
“Even a proper dog meal of four dishes and one soup is better than white people food.”
“Oh my god, drinking that stuff at such a young age and living in a trailer. That’s so underclass. What poor kids.”
A tiktok video of a poor man whose phone fell into the otter pool:
Comments say, “Well, it’s not an Act of God, so it’s covered by warranty!”
“Otter: I swear to God I am going to open this clam today or else.”
“Good news is: apples are waterproof. Bad news is: apples aren’t smashproof.”
“It wants to break open your phone and eat the Siri inside.”
“Phone: I’m tough and drop-proof. Otter: Then how about this? Or this? Or this?”
“Otter: Why do the clams look so weird today? And why are they so hard to crack?”
Teacher’s Day is coming up, and there’s a long, asinine video from People’s Daily News that shows a lot of teachers giving talks about how bullying is bad, okay? It’s honestly the same placid thing American teachers say too, and since it’s from a major newspaper, the comment section is nothing more than people wishing teachers a happy Teacher’s Day.
“Mom, you’re the one who pushed me away. I thought I’d finally found a good point of balance in our mother-daughter relationship. I never thought you’d break everything this way. One second earlier, I was still happy that the girl whose acceptance letter was stolen by her mom still got to go to her dream school, and one second later, I’m typing into my phone as I’m shaking with sobs. I’ve been disappointed so many times I’m on the verge of despair. This time, I’m not going to have any more hopes in you.”
OP shows screenshots of texts with her mom:
Mom: “[blurred name], from today on, aside from maybe helping you out with getting some certificates, we can’t keep supporting you anymore. You’re an adult now. If you’ve started working, you have to hand over 20% of your pay cheque to your parents, so you can save up for the big things in life. And you can’t keep asking your parents for money anymore, and we won’t be giving you any. It’s not easy to bring up a child. No one wants to control anyone else’s economy. A lot of children want their parents to live better and proactively give their parents money to travel with. But we won’t spend your money on travelling. We’ll save up your money for you, for when you buy a house and get married.”
OP: “I don’t need you to help me save money, thanks. I’m not going to buy a house, and I’m not going to get married. You’ve already controlled every aspect of my education. I don’t want you to control the rest of my future too.”
Mom: “Don’t get PUA’d by people.”
OP: “You’re the only one who’s PUA-ing me. It’s always been you.”
Mom: “Something’s wrong with your head.”
OP: “Something is wrong with *your* head.”
Mom: “Who’s actually controlling you? Your own stupid decisions.”
OP: “No, it’s your stupid decisions.”
Mom: “You need to look at your conscience.”
OP: “I refuse to give my money to you. That’s not against my conscience at all. If your intention is really to help me save money, then I refuse. I don’t need you to save it for me. I haven’t done anything wrong. I’ve just refused to let you help me save money. I want my money to be in my hands. What’s wrong with that?”
Mom: “But you’re still asking us for money all the time? Pay us back?”
OP: “I asked for money because I didn’t have a job! If that even counts.”
Mom: “Now that you’re making money, pay us back.”
OP: “Do you have to calculate the returns on everything you do? I’m not paying a cent. In your dreams. How ridiculous.”
Mom: “Of course it counts. My social security is only 3400 a month.”
OP: “You can break off your relationship with me, but you’re not getting a cent from me. I never thought that the whole reason I was born is just to pay you back once I became an adult. The reason I was born is to pay back a debt I never agreed to. That’s so laughable.”
Comments say, “Man, your mom is so cold. It would be a great thing if kids started making money and wanted to buy some gifts for their parents or whatever on their own. But if she’s forcing you to hand over money, then it’s all wrong.”
“I’m the second kid in my family. Since the One Child Policy was really strict at the time, our already poor family got fined 7000 RMB when I was born. At the time, that was more money than my family made in two years. My parents used to joke when I was little that they had to pay 7000 for me to be born, so I had to get 7000 back in my bride price. Once I grew up and started working, and my mom would ask how much I earned, and if it’s really little, they’ll ask if I want to change jobs. But they’ll never demand that I do whatever with my money, they just remind me to remember to save up a little.”
“Honestly, so long as my parents can guarantee to never gamble or get scammed, it’s pretty useful to have them save up money for me. I give 1/3rd of my salary to my mom every month to get saved up, because I have no self-control and spend way too much. I’m just over thirty and I’ve only got 100K in savings. Parents always watch out for their kid. OP needs to be less extremist.”
I was sure that Wu Shengming story was going to end with another Genshin Impact plug.
“Even a proper dog meal of four dishes and one soup is better than white people food.”
This comment is fucking sending me. We didn't grow up with much, but in true Cantonese fashion, there was always rice, one soup, one meat, one veg and one egg dish every dinner.