09/16/23 - I’ve never seen thin girls with dark yellow-toned skin have good lives.
An entertainment blogger posts a screenshot of a tiktok video, where the caption reads, “My parents felt like China was too high-pressure and encouraged me to study overseas, so I came to Australia with my mom. That was when I found out that there really existed schools that began at 9AM and ended at 3PM. That people actually smiled and nodded at each other whether they knew each other or not. That cars really did yield to pedestrians. That teachers passed back classroom quizzes face down to protect students’ pride. There’s a big park near my house with playgrounds. I can go ride a bike with my friends or take a walk or a job. The sky can actually be blue. The air can be clear. The sea can be clean. This is my second month here. I love it. I love the freedom and being able to control my time.”
The blogger writes, “Every time I see tiktok videos like this, I see this comment under it. He must be such a great dad. I’m so envious. His daughter must be so happy.”
She shows a screenshot of the comments beneath, where Guan’s Fermented Noodles writes, “Selling rice noodles to pay for my daughter to study overseas for seven years now. She’s 16 years old and a bottom tier student in a small town, and went to attend high school by herself in Australia. In two months, she’ll graduate from University of Melbourne.”
“I heard a story—no evidence, so I assume it’s made up. But many, many years ago, a guy fell in love with a table made from an enormous tree trunk and absolutely had to buy it. The problem was, this table was huge. Apparently, it was made from the trunk of a tree that was two metres across. It’s the sort of thing that’s put in the lobby of a hotel.
The guy lived in the upper floors of an apartment building, and insisted on taking it home. But it won’t fit in the elevators. And it’s too heavy to carry up the stairs. So what can he do? Eventually, he took apart the ceiling-to-floor windows in his house and had to get a crane to lift it up.
But just a few days afterwards, the apartment management came and said that their floors can’t handle the weight of this table, and he had to rent another crane to lower it back down.
He didn’t want to give up, though, but he had no idea where to put this thing. Just as he was feeling lost, someone told him, “Just buy a mansion with a big living room.”
So he did, and he threw the table in, but it still didn’t feel right.
So someone else gave him a suggestion, “How about you open a hotel and put it in the lobby then?” But the guy was like, “I don’t have enough money though.”
So they suggested, “Then compromise and just open any kind of store, and throw it in entrance to welcome guests with. It would look really expensive.”
The guy felt like that was a good idea, and bought a store on the first floor with a stolid foundation, to put his enormous table in.
Several years passed, and this guy had almost forgotten this table now. In the whole shopping centre, only his store was like some kind of money-laundering operation with no one ever visiting it.
A lot of people made fun of him for being young and reckless. The he was like, “I’m not even kidding though, do you have any idea how much money that table made me? You have any idea how much my store and mansion’s risen in value?”
He gestured a figure, and everyone was like, “Wow~”
But people who know him would scoff and say, “He’s just bragging—that’s all spare change to him.”
And everyone would be shocked, and also so angry that they got angry.”
Comments say, “I mean, if he wouldn’t have bought a second house if it weren’t for the table, then it did make him money.”
“You can tell he’s filthy rich, and also he really did truly love that table.”
“Reminds me of Zheng Yuanjie [author] who bought a lot of houses just to keep all the letter he got from his readers.”
A tiktok video of a man deeply fearful of his girlfriend:
Comments say, “What do you mean, fearful? If you didn’t do these things, who would? Is your girlfriend supposed to clean up after you?”
“If you can take even this stuff out as an example of a “bittersweet relationship”, then it’s clear that in most people’s eyes, forget housework, even maintaining a basic level of hygiene for yourself and not cause any trouble for your other half is a huge bother to them.”
“He didn’t even wipe down the sink and mirror after he was done.”
#Police announcement about the lady who was beaten up on the train for refusing to swap seats. On the 14th of September, 4:33PM, the G2610 train was leaving the station in Shijiazhuang, when Ms. Nie came into conflict with Mrs. Tian and Mr. Zhang (husband and wife) over a trivial argument. The argument escalated into a physical fight, where all three parties sustained different degrees of scratches and bruises on their body. The police was called and resolved the matter in a timely manner. At 6:20PM the same day, after the train pulled into Tianjin West Station, the police there processed the case. All parties involved have been to a hospital now and had their injuries examined and recorded. The police are still processing and investigating the case.”
Comments say, “A whole family beat up one girl. You call this a mutual fight?”
“There should be cameras all over the train. Why is it taking it so long to resolve this?”
“”Came into conflict over a trivial argument”? What kind of trivial argument? You mean how she didn’t want to give up her seat?”
“If they rule this as a mutual fight, then self defense might as well not exist.”
“Large numbers of couples are getting divorced in Shenzhen to get cash from the bank. Shenzhen people really are super smart.
Lately, divorce rates went through the roof in Shenzhen, about 3-5 times what it usually is. There are a lot of couples in Shenzhen who’ve had their house on the market for years and never managed to sell it for their idea price. So they came up with a brilliant idea. They get divorced, the wife takes the house, and sells it to the husband. The husband buys the house and uses it as collateral to get a loan from the bank, and the wife saves the money. The husband ends up with a lot of debt, sure, but it’s basically selling your house to the bank. For the price of a 20% down payment, you can get a huge amount of cash.
As the housing market tanks, this method’s gonna start spreading to other areas of China too. Just thinking about it makes me want to pray.”
Comments say, “No way. Banks aren’t stupid. They’re going to realise what’s going on right away.”
“You can get a loan with your house without getting divorced though?”
“But if you don’t pay back the loan, your credit will get damaged. Aren’t you worried about it affecting your kids?”
“The youtuber I follow who’s in America just had a kid. They showed off their bill, and with insurance, it came out to over 4K USD for a vaginal delivery and a two day stay in the hospital.
When I gave birth to my daughter, I had quit my job so I was unemployed. My husband was doing post-grad work for very minimal pay. I was on his school insurance. We went to the best hospital in Boston at the time, but didn’t spend a cent on having a kid. (Just like the youtuber, I also had an epidural and stayed in the hospital for two days). This made me think that so long as you had insurance, you didn’t have to pay to have a kid in America.
Later on, internet commenters told me that universities usually gave their students really good insurance. But a student from University of Pennsylvania said that she was using her school insurance, and had a kid at the hospital in University of Pennsylvania, and still had to pay some out of pocket (but I forget how much exactly).
So basically, I feel like this is a pretty common thing in a big country like America: everyone has a completely different experience about the same thing. Like, the question of “Is America safe or not?” is also kind of hard to say exactly. It has a lot to do with which state, which city, or even which neighbourhood you live in, what kind of work you do, and how easy it is for you to feel safe.
That’s why people argue all the time. Just in the case of having kids, the three scenarios I talked about all involve “having kids in America”, but they all cost really different amounts, and nobody is lying.
This happens in China too, all the time. I’ve seen a huge argument on the internet over whether kids are allowed to go out and play during break in school. I mean, what’s the point of arguing? Clearly, they can in some schools and not in others. A lot of things aren’t black and white.”
Comments say, “In Singapore at least, a vaginal delivery+epidural+2 days in the hospital adds up to just under 7K Singaporean dollars, if you pick a relatively cheaper private hospital with a two patient room and a personal doctor. If you want your own single room or a hospital with not that many patients, you’ll have to pay maybe 1-2K extra. If you go to a public hospital, and apply for local citizen subsidies, then it might only be a couple hundred dollars.”
“It’s almost free in Canada. First, it’s free to have a kid. It’s about $200 to stay two nights in the hospital, and that was covered by my husband’s work insurance. But everything is super slow. You really do have to wait 6 hours in the ER sometimes.”
“Yeah, once the forest gets big enough, there are all kinds of birds in it. It took until Pinduoduo [wholesale internet market known for selling incredibly cheap products] to get incorporated before people knew that the average after tax income for China in 2017 was only 25K. 80% of people make less than 3K a month after tax. Only 60 million people in China have a university diploma, only 6% of the population. 60% of people shop on Pinduoduo for 20 RMB hair dryers, knockoffs for 10-20 RMB, and even knock off snacks and daily necessities.”
“My third grader really isn’t getting enough sleep! I snapped a photo of him while we were waiting for the elevator in the morning the other day. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but when I found this photo last night and saw how sleepy he looked and how out of it he was, my heart clenched. I felt so bad for him!
Just to be clear, he’s a super average kid. I’m not into involution at all. And his daily schedule is like this:
Wake up at 6:30, jump rope, read some books, memorise two words. Eat breakfast at 7:15, leave the house at 7:35. It’s about a 6-7 minute drive to the school on a scooter.
He eats lunch at school, and has aftercare at school until 5:50pm. I pick him up and throw together a quick dinner, and we eat right away. About 7pm, we start in on homework, and it’s usually after 10pm that we can actually clean up and get ready for bed.
I’m constantly worried that he can’t keep up with the amount of work that he has to do. I was really stressed out when he just started school. I’ve been keeping a close eye on his emotions and talking to him about how he feels at school. Right now, he seems happy enough and tells me to not worry.
Kiddo, just do your best to study. Even if you end up average anyways, so long as you tried your hardest, there’s nothing to regret over!”
Comments say, “I feel like you don’t understand the phrase “average kid”. Mine only does the homework the teacher assigns. He wakes up in the morning just in time to brush his teeth, change his clothes, and eat some food.”
“How the hell are you not involuting when he’s doing homework from 7pm to 10pm? School lets out at 4pm at most. If he’s leaving at 6pm, he’s in aftercare. The entire point of aftercare is to finish homework at school, so he can go play at home. If you’re putting extra work on your kid, then stop complaining about too much involution in the environment.”
“Why does he need to jump rope that early in the morning? How the hell is he finding energy to listen to his classes in the morning?”
“Is this a type of magic? I’ve got a classmate in primary school who’s kinda chubby, average-looking, from a very average family, never went to university. She’s got a 6/10 husband who’s 3.5 years younger than her, who owns a factory. She lives as a wealthy housewife now who’s never done any housework.
Another friend of mine looks like a celebrity, got over 600 points on her college entrance exam [out of 750], owns 3 houses in her family. But she’s a civil servant who makes barely enough to get by, her husband looks like a super average passerby from a rural family, and they have 30 years on their mortgage.
I’m saying, though, for real, chubby girls have great lives! I’m not trying to trick you at all.
Especially super fair-skinned, chubby girls! They very, very, very rarely have any kind of misfortune in their life. They’re always beloved by people around them and can easily find a man to take care of them.
But thin girls are either born super rich, or they have to earn their own money. Maybe it’s because thin girls have more aspirations, and want to pursue meaning with their life.
But I’ve never seen thin girls with dark yellow-toned skin have good lives. Even daughters of successful politicians can easily end up with a lot of hardship in their life if they’re dark-skinned with a yellow undertone.”
Comments say, “Being fair and chubby doesn’t necessarily guarantee a good life—you still gotta look at your birthing hours. But if you’re black and thin and yellow, then you’re doomed to a life of worry. Everyone who married a trust fund brat around me has fair skin like me.”
“People who are dark-skinned have it harder in life, whether men or women.”
“Then my friend can come turn this theory around and relieve everyone’s anxiety. She’s super thin, really tiny, a dark-skinned beauty. Her family got wealthy when she was in high school, and now she owns a maternity goods brand. Her husband owns a mine, literally, and she’s completely financially independent just off of the interest on her saving’s account. She loves buying luxury bags, has dozens of birkins.”
A girl looked at her phone in class and was hit by her teacher. After class let out that day, she committed suicide. Her parents are holding up her photo outside the school gates as they break down emotionally. The school has yet to make a response.
Comments say, “Man, kids are so weak these days.”
“This is why teachers don’t care anymore.”
“What killed her is her phone addiction and lack of parental guidance.”
A screenshot of a post by a Korean person, “If I’m lacking some ingredients while making dinner, I’ll send my primary school kiddo out to fetch it at the grocery store. Every time he gets back, he’ll explain why he bought the specific product he did. I mean, all of his reasons sound reasonable enough, but they’re also all hilarious.
Last time, I sent him to by some seaweed, and he bought a brand that was 300 Korean dollars more expensive than usual. His reasoning is, “This one says it’s roasted twice.” He’ll buy a brand of bean sprouts because it’s 100 grams more than the other grand.
I sent him to buy noodles, and he explained he picked out this brand because the packaging said it was chewier.
One time, he brought milk back and said he chose this brand because the packaging said that, “Our cows are happy!””
Comments say, “The one about cows being happy reminds me of how Australians only eat free range eggs, because they think happy chickens lay tastier eggs.”
“That’s so cute~ Kids notice so many details.”
“Are you trying to trick me into having a kid T_T”
A current events blogger posts screenshots of someone’s comments, saying, “Sometimes, you can tell how happy someone is just by the way they type.”
The comment reads, “My husband and I aren’t doing well financially. We got a courthouse wedding in the morning, and went to buy a second hand car in the afternoon. It was a 2009 Sentra automatic, paid 23,800 RMB in full. When we drove it home and parked it, we were so excited that we stayed sitting in the car for two hours. It’s an old car, but it’ll accompany my husband and I in our new life. When we finally got home, my husband even said that I’m the most important in his life, he’s the second most important, and our car is the third most important. I’m so happy XD”
Comments say, “It’s because happiness like this exists that people keep deluding themselves into thinking that they can achieve it too.”
“I’ve bought three cars now and never posted it to my social media. I just keep it to myself. None of my friends post about this kind of thing.”
“Women like this are rarer than gold these days.”