09/20/23 - If someone’s dead, and the driver isn’t at fault, then the family can’t get any recompense.
“A lady in the same apartment building as me sold her house for clearance prices to move to America for her kid to go to school. They were honestly pretty wealthy before covid hit. Their house is over 270 square metres, and just the furniture alone cost millions (they’re all custom made). As for why she’s selling her house, it’s not because she has too many houses at all. The one she sold was the one her whole family was living in. When I went over to her house to visit, there was a gorgeous grand piano in one corner. She said she wouldn’t let it go unless she had to. She cried the whole time she talked about selling her house. From the day she got married to when her kid’s grown, she’s lived in this house.
She just kept saying that they’re under too much pressure, they can’t help it, they had to sell the house. But she never went into detail about what happened to her husband’s business. She’s a really good wife, though. She never complained about her husband.
Now she’s in America. I checked in with her, and she said that in the beginning, she couldn’t get used to anything at all. She didn’t have any friends. She didn’t even know how to go about getting her kid into school. There were so many unfamiliar things she had to quickly figure out. She used to drive Porsche Panameras or Alphas in China or and now she drives a Toyota in America.
I didn’t ask why she had to go to America because the answer is obvious. I can tell with my ass that it’s for her kid’s education. She’s already provided the best solution she can for her economic ability for her child.”
Comments say, “Rich people can live pretty well anywhere. Stop worrying about her.”
“Is that the only piece of real estate she owns? That’s pretty unusual for her situation. Sigh. Life is so hard. A lot of people got shuffled this year. I hope it doesn’t happen to me.”
“If you can’t give your kid a safety net no matter what happens, then you shouldn’t have kids. Poor people having kids is just creating NPCs for the world. That’s the best way of putting it.”
There’s a big compilation of people showing off the hundreds of hours of paid time off, mostly with IPs in America. They all sound mostly the same, so I’ll just give a couple of examples:
“2023, I’ve used 204 of my paid hours. I’ve still got 180 left. Sick leave and public holidays don’t count as a part of that.”
“I’ve got 250 hours right now. Company regulation is that you can’t have saved PTO more than 144 hours, so from October to the end of the year, I’m forced to take about 10 days off every month. It’s mandatory.”
“I’ve been working for not quite a year, and this is what I’ve saved up [140 hours]. I’m planning on taking one long vacation at the end of the year and going back to China for a solid month.”
Comments say, “I’m working at an America-owned company [IP address in Shanghai], and I’ve got a dozen days of paid leave which increases the longer I work here. They don’t make me work extra days to make up for public holidays off. I can work from home two days a week. There’s no overtime. We start work at 10AM and there’s no clocking in, and I’ve got 2 hours for lunch. Another classmate of mine that works in a foreign-owned company and works from home year round and only goes into the office when he absolutely has to. Can Chinese companies start involuting? Let’s start with actually following labour laws about 8 hour work days?”
“Lol, that’s nothing. My company is unlimited paid time off. You can’t possible use it all up.”
“Please leave my internet. Don’t let me see this shit.”
“I’mma fight all you capitalists.”
An askreddit question, “Why does running someone over and killing them have such a light sentence? Isn’t that unfair to pedestrians?”
The top-rated reply is, “I almost ran over some old guy while I was out driving. I was going at 56 km/h, in the countryside, four-lane road, no cars in front or behind me, the speed limit was 60km/h. I didn’t break any traffic laws.
And then, suddenly, with no warning at all, just 10 metres in front of me, a scooter suddenly appeared in the middle of the road. That part of the road was supposed to be blocked off! But I guess someone didn’t want to circle around, so they cleared out a path through the barrier, and that position was invisible from where I was driving.
The old man on the scooter met my eyes, and I just about went crazy.
Because he was so close to me!!!
I practically stood on my brakes as I gripped my wheel. The wheels left a burning rubber smell against the road. I could smell it clearly even from in side the car.
As the car was almost on top of the old man, I grit my teeth and spun the wheel, and I went flying towards the left. My brain was filled with, “Oh no oh no oh no if I don’t turn this guy’s gonna die…are the wheels on fire? Why does it stink so much…”
When the car came to a stop, I just wanted to swear. And I never swear.
But there was nothing I wanted to do more than scream every curse I knew.
Maybe it’s just a way to vent my stress.
The old man was in a pretty good mood. He smiled and waved at me and went on his day.
My heart was pounding. I drove the car to the side of the road. I was covered in cold sweat, my hands and feet were shaking.
I braked and spun my car so hard that everything in the car went flying. My breakfast on the passenger seat was in the floor. My boba tea spilled everywhere. If it wasn’t for my seat belt, I probably would’ve gone through the windshield.
At the time, I thought a lot of things.
If I really ran the old guy over, would I have to go to jail?
I work for the government, I’m not allowed to have a criminal record.
Would I lose my job if I went to jail?
But what did I do wrong? He was the one that broke traffic laws. Why do I have to be responsible for it?
I talked with a really respected elder of mine about this, and he told me to remember, “Slow down, but don’t change lanes.”
I said that I knew that, but I still couldn’t just watch and let the car hit him. That’s a human life!
My relative went silent for a moment, and he confessed to me that he’d ran someone over too.
Me: “Um….” I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say. It felt like I was sitting with a murderer.
He said that it was back in the 90s. He was driving a long-distance bus out of state. A three-wheeled car was parked on the side of the road, and it suddenly cut out in front of him.
At the time, the policy of “slow down, but don’t change lanes” hadn’t come out yet. If he had hit the guy, he would’ve had to take total responsibility. So just like me, he stomped on his brakes. And as he was about to collide, he also spun his wheel.
The old guy was fine.
The bus went around him.
But it was raining that day, and the roads were slippery, and there was a lot of inertia in the bus.
It swerve and went careening towards the house at the side of the road.
A young woman was sitting in front of the house.
He stepped on the brakes as hard as he couldn’t and he couldn’t make the car stop.
He watched as the front of the car collided with the young woman.
You’ve seen long-distance busses, right? The front of the car is flat, with a big windshield. He and the young woman were only a single layer of steel apart.
He said that the young woman must’ve been too scared to move, because the car wasn’t moving that fast at the time. Only about 20km per hour maybe. If she ran, or even just moved a metre or two to the side, she could’ve avoided it. He was screaming hysterically, “RUN! RUN!!”
But most people in that situation can’t react fast enough. Shock was written all over her face.
He said the young woman was pancaked against the wall.
He heard a “pop” sound.
It was her head, being crushed by the car.
He said he saw her brains splatter on the ground. It was white. It was still moving.
He was completely in shock himself. When he got out of the car, he couldn’t even more. He crawled over to her, to check on her. Her family came out of the house with a meat cleaver and tried to attack him.
When the police came to deal with the matter, they said that the three-wheeled car wasn’t responsible at all. Not even a little bit. My relative had to take all the responsibility.
He had to pay them a ton of money. But no amount of money can raise the dead. He was also beaten up by the young woman’s family. That’s why he didn’t get the highest sentence in court.
He said he’ll always remember what that young woman looked like.
She was super young!
Her child was only a toddler!
If she was still alive, she would only be in her fifties now.
If she was still alive, her children wouldn’t have had to grow up without a mother.
Her husband was furious when he came out with the meat cleaver. It was easy to tell that they loved each other very much. If she was still alive, they would be a loving elderly couple today.
After he was done talking, I was silent for a long time.
If he had ran over the old guy on the three-wheeled car at the time, based on the laws at the time, he still would’ve had to take total responsibility. But he probably won’t get sentenced to death. I don’t know if the old guy’s relatives would ask, “Why are offending drivers sentenced so lightly? Is this not unfair?”
I’m sure the young woman’s family angrily demanded why my relative was sentenced so lightly. Why he wasn’t sentenced to death. This is unfair to pedestrians.
To the former, all I have to say is, “No one can save you when you’re screwing yourself. Don’t break traffic laws and try to get away with it by being dead, and people needing to respect the dead.
As for the later, my relative said that he knelt and prostrated himself before his family. He wasn’t asking for forgiveness. He was trying to make up for what he did. He agreed with his sentence. You can’t do your life over, but if he could’ve, he wouldn’t have swerved.
That innocent young woman did nothing wrong. She shouldn’t have died because someone else broke traffic laws.
Some people here might think that I’m getting off topic. The question specified, “when the driver is at fault” and not “when the pedestrian is at fault.”
And yet, in reality, if someone’s dead, then the police are going to rule the driver is at fault 95% of the time, just to different degrees.
Just ask your local traffic cops.
After all, if someone’s dead, and the driver isn’t at fault, then the family can’t get any recompense.
Even if the driver is only ruled 10% responsible, at least his insurance company will take care of it.”
Comments say, “Can’t you think about it from a different angle? If pedestrians merely jaywalk, do passing drivers have the right to sentence them to death? Without a trial or a defense at all? Operating a vehicle is a high-risk activity to begin with. Once you’ve gripped the wheel, you’ve taken on the lives of everyone in your car, and the health and lives of everyone else on the traffic grid. There are no excuses. If you know you can’t stop in time, then drive slower.”
“In this situation, just step on the brakes, grip the wheel, and close your eyes. Everyone has their own fate and their own destinies. He’s made his decision.”
“Traffic cops are just here to muddy the waters. I’ve been ran over by a scooter running a red light, going over the wrong way, and I was still considered secondarily responsible. True story.”
“Education information gap: first-line city hukou + Hong Kong citizenship is the winning combo.
Honestly, the real thing that kids get ahead on is information advantage. The saddest part about education are parents who’ve already lost on their information advantage and screwed over their own kids when it comes to college entrance. Its their kids who’ll end up paying for it all.
Families who don’t know what’s up: Although their kid is only in 3rd or 4th grade, they’ve filled their days with various tutoring classes. They only know about the college entrance exam as the way to success. Spin around for a decade, the parents are exhausted, the kid’s exhausted, and they still might not perform well on the exam.
Families who know what’s up: Figure out a way to get Hong Kong citizenship before your kid turns nine, and take advantage of 15 years of free public education over there. After seven years, have your kids attend the college entrance exam as an “overseas Chinese”, and you’ll qualify for top Universities with just a 400 score [out of 750]
All these parents get Hong Kong citizenships before their kid even start their schooling career. By the time their kid’s in primary school, they’re taking vacations in Tokyo, Paris, London, New York. They’ve seen through to the root of the problem—this system was designed to select out the parents who don’t know how to plan for their kids, not to select out incompetent kids themselves.
You can actually have a Chinese hukou and a Hong Kong citizenship at the same time. You can enjoy the educational resources on both sides.”
Comments say, “See, this is why I get why Mi Yang [Chinese actress] didn’t fight for custody after her divorce, because her kids are Hong Kong citizens, and they’re rich. So long as they don’t end up in jail, they’ll have a great future either way.”
“If it was that easy to get Hong Kong citizenship, the entirety of Guangzhou would be Hong Kong citizens.”
“Yeah, the hard part is, you don’t know how to go about doing it. Plenty of people know about this. I’ve got classmates who are from Beijing, and got Hong Kong citizenship, and got into Beihang University. His exam score is squared, and then multiplied by 10. Basically, he can pass with just 36 points. Zhang Xuefeng [influencer who gives college and major selection advice] has eliminated a lot of information gaps. I don’t know how long it’ll be before he’s banned…”
A tiktok video of an American baby eating an entire steak by himself. The blogger comments, “No wonder they’re so strong and fit and unafraid of the cold.”
Comments say, “Yeah, can’t really compete when we’re eating porridge and pickles.”
“I’m just shocked he could actually finish all of that.”
“Horses and bulls eat grass, and they’re still strong.”
Screenshots of a Chinese Ebay post selling a piano:
“Got my kid piano lessons, and she’s hardly learned any tunes at all, and I’ve already broken three belts. I literally left for 5 minutes, and she’s asleep on the piano! I can’t keep going anymore! I can’t afford any more belts! #Selling piano #Second-hand piano
The blogger writes, “Between her piano and her daughter, she ended up choosing her daughter after all.”
Comments say, “Hahahahaha omg I died laughing. She’s just not suited for it. You can’t force the issue.”
“Lol, can’t afford more belts made me laugh. Guess her daughter is the most important after all. [Doge]”
“Why sell it? If you like piano so much, you can learn how to play piano yourself.”
A compilation of old people being exposed to modern snacks:
“Around labour day, my cousin bought a hamburger for my 95-year-old great grandpa, and got beaten up by my dad and my grandpa. My 95-year-old great grandpa was so upset, his false teeth fell out. He’s still bugging my cousin to buy him more hamburgers, but my cousin doesn’t dare to XD XD”
“My grandpa ate an entire bag of chicken feet while I wasn’t home. All with his false teeth.”
“Bought a 200 RMB per box durian moon cake for my MIL, and even knowing the price, she just repeated how delicious it was. I bought a second box for her, and she didn’t say a word about me wasting money at all. It’s so nice to have supportive old people around the house who don’t rain on your parade.”
“I bought a pizza once meant for the whole family. My grandma ended up eating the whole thing by herself. She even said, “Man, how did they make this laobing [um, a Chinese….pizza??], it’s so tasty!””
“My grandma’s been fighting with her blood sugar for half her life, and my brother sent it through the roof XD”
“Ever since I introduced smart phone to my grandpa, he stayed up until 1am every night playing games.”
“My grandpa was hospitalised for five days, and my brother ordered five days of takeout with him. My grandpa wanted to give him a piece of jade that my mom didn’t even know about.”
“My grandma likes to use Laiyifen snacks as pickles with her porridge. I never even dreamed of this possibility.”
In the hamburger story, I assume the grandfather who beat him up is not the same as the 95-year-old grandpa?
Why did they beat him up, anyway?
Why do all these workplaces give PTO in hours rather than days?