09/23/23 - We’re a socialist country. All resources are publicly owned.
An askreddit question, “Would you be willing to donate your company that makes over a billion a year to the government?”
The top-voted reply is, “I’ve got two true stories from the 90’s.
One of them happened so long ago that I can’t find any information on it online anymore, so I can only describe it based on my memories.
A Japanese employee working at Mitsubishi was stationed in China for over a decade, and built up a deep relationship with China. When he retired, he donated half of his savings, about one million RMB, to the Hope Project, a government-owned charity that builds schools and provides educational resources to poor areas.
The Hope Project responded to him that they’ll use the money to build a Hope Primary School, and they’ll name it after him.
This Japanese guy was very happy when he heard. He recalled this after two years, and bought a ticket and flew from Japan to the place where the Hope Primary School was supposed to have been built, to look at the school he funded and the students there. He thinks that this is the most meaningful thing he’s done in this life.
You’ve probably already guessed the result. Once he arrived, he found that the supposed Hope Primary School was just a piece of empty land. There was nothing there.
The other one I found a single remaining news report about after digging deep into the Baidu search results.
Another friendly left-winger in Japan, 松岗泽明 [I’m sorry, I have no idea how to pronounce this name in Japanese, and it seems a little weird to translate it as Chinese. I can tell the surname is Matsuoka though, so that’s how I’ll refer to him from here on out], felt extremely bad for the war crimes that Japan committed in WWII.
In 1996, he went to the Chinese embassy in Japan, and expressed his interest in making a donation towards education in China. He wanted to donate 70 million Japanese yen, approximately 5 million RMB back in the day. 5 million RMB was an enormous fortune in 1996.
The Chinese International Ambassador of Education, Ben Yongzhong, said that he had the perfect project on hand. Tianjin University was modernising its student dorms and were short on funds. This wouldn’t be a donation—they merely wish to loan the money, and return it with interest after 5 years. After that, he can donate the capital and the interest combined to the Hope Project and maximally help education in China.
Matsuoka had no idea just how deep the waters were in China. When he heard he could help two educational projects for the same amount of money, he very happily agreed.
So he wired the 70 million yen over, and agreed that it would be repaid in five years, upon which he would donate it to Hope Project.
You’ve probably already guessed the result.
When the repayment was due in 2002, Ben Yongzhong claimed that the money never made it to Tianjin University, and was instead lent to his boss at the time’s son’s commercial investment project. He never made payments on time, so now, the money is gone.
Matsuoka made complains to China, and after an investigation by the department of education, Ben Yongzhon and his wife and their boss were all suspended from their jobs in 2003 and summoned back to China and moved to different posts.
Because Matsuoka continued making complaints to China, Ben Yongzhong and his wife and his boss tried to contact Matsuoka several times, asking him to stop complaining, and wrote promises that they would pay back the money in payments. But nothing was ever followed up on.
Finally, Ben’s boss’s son claims that he was a grown adult and thus his parents had no obligation to pay for his debts, and completely refused to make any payments.
Matsuoka was forced to sue Ben and his wife in court. In March of 2003, Beijing Haiding Court ruled that Ben and his wife must repay the funds.
But because the money was lent out to a third party, Ben sued his boss’s son in court.
And this is when Ben displayed just how completely shameless he was.
He claimed that he had no money for this appeals ruling, so he asked Matsuoka to borrow lawyer fees, or else he’ll drop his lawsuit.
Not knowing what to do, Matsuoka lent him another 10 million Japanese yen, and specified that it had to be used for the purposes of suing the boss’s son.
As soon as he got the money, Ben suddenly dropped the lawsuit, and Matsuoka never saw the remaining money again.
So far, Ben and his wife and his boss had scammed a total of 60 million yen or 5.7 million RMB from Matsuoka.
And yet, after embezzling international donationa, Ben and his wife were merely suspended temporarily, and never subject to any other punishments.
Throughout the whole thing, his boss was never even mentioned by name.”
Comments say, “Man, those scammers did a fantastic job.”
“Pretty business as usual. It’s still like that now.”
“We’re a socialist country. All resources are publicly owned. It all belongs to the state. Everyone’s personal assets are obtained through public assets, so fundamentally, it belongs to the state as well.”
“It’s just like when Huo Yingdong donated money to build that bridge, and then after it was built, they put a toll on it and has been raising prices every year. Or we actually crowdfunded a new hospital near where I live, and at first, they promised that local residents would be able to go for free, and then it became a discount for disabled people, and by the time it got built, it became the most expensive hospital in the whole city. I paid my own money to buy someone a knife to stab me with T_T”
An askreddit question, “What do men with high diplomas feel about Yang Li [feminist standup comedian]?”
[For a bit of context, this specifically refers to a segment of Yang Li’s standup, where she said, “I love men. Men are great. Not only are they great, they’re super mysterious. Like, you never quite know just what they’re thinking in their pretty little heads. Like, he looks so incredibly ordinary, and yet, how is he so confident?” This segment generated a meme in China to refer to certain types of men who are remarkably overconfident—普信男, puxin man.]
The top-voted reply is, “I graduated from a Master’s Degree at Fudan University [top three university]. I’ve gotten national awards. Just started working at ByteDance. 180cm. My family can afford to buy a house in Shanghai. One day, my girlfriend suddenly asked me, “Do you think you’re a puxin man?” I was stunned for a moment, and then asked, “Do you really think with my situation, I can really be called ordinary?
She thought about it, and unwillingly admitted, “I guess you’re not that ordinary…”
She graduated from a normal state university, Master’s Degree, from a very average family. I never thought I’d be asked such a question. If I count as ordinary, then feminists have entirely too broad a definition for “ordinary”. And although I’m fairly confident, but I feel like people should be confident about themselves? Growing up, we’ve always been taught to be confident in our selves, right? I mean, what, are we supposed to be insecure instead?
What I don’t get is, no matter how ordinary girls are, or even how bad off they are, why do they feel like they have the right to judge and comment on much better off men as ordinary?
I used to have a great relationship with my girlfriend, but ever since she asked me this question, I’ve been feeling grossed out like I’d eaten a spoonful of shit. I subconsciously started judging my girlfriend’s background, to see if I really wasn’t good enough for her. She’s only 155cm, only from a ordinary state school, bad temper, normal family. Her parents don’t have social security, and she’s got a younger brother.
But my family owns a fairly successful business, and my mother is a civil servant. We have four houses in my small hometown. My parents had told me before to think twice about my girlfriend, and I’d always ignored them in the name of love.
I used to be entirely wrapped up by my emotions, but ever since I was asked if I was a puxin man, I started to become lucid again. So I was just an ordinary person to her? I mean, she didn’t say outright that I was normal, but she never definitively said that I was extraordinary and special either. After thinking about her background, I started to feel like she’s more and more ordinary. And she’s got a bad temper.
I feel like hte main effect Yang Li’s had on women is that she’s raised a bunch of very ordinary women to a position where they’re above ordinary men, or even accomplished men, and given these women the right to judge men. That’s why she’s so beloved by that demographic.
Now I don’t feel so eager to get married anymore. I was originally going to get engaged by the end of this year, but now I don’t really want to anymore. She’s sharing Yang Li’s standups with me again. I don’t even want to respond anymore. Guess I’ll look for an excuse to break up.”
Comments say, “So if women start judging men like men judge women, that’s not allowed?”
“See, this is why Yang Li followed by saying to never joke about men. If you have to, only make jokes about the successful ones.”
“180cm Fudan postgrad who can afford a house in Shanghai, who’s deeply in love with a 155cm ordinary girl with a little brother? What is this, a fairy tale?”
“In the hospital bed next to me is a young man born after 1995. Super young, really good-looking, and great sense of humour. When he got diagnosed with terminal stage cancer, his mother passed out right away.
At first, his family and his doctor tried to hide it from him. But his body got weaker every day. They couldn’t keep up the lie at all. And he’s already 28 years old. He can see the grave looks on his family’s faces and the endless vials of blood they need from him and the countless tests they’re running, and know quickly enough what’s going on.
Actually, even his parents didn’t know he knew. I accidentally saw him login to the hospital website and look up his own diagnostic reports. That night, when his mother was slumped over his bed to sleep, he cried. He bit his bottom lip with his teeth and shook all over. He used his other hand to quickly wipe away his tears and block off his nose. He closed his eyes and gasped for breath. I honestly can’t begin to empathise with how much despair and oppression he must’ve felt.
The next day, he took the opportunity of his mom going out to buy some food to ask me help him go to the doctor’s office. He found his doctor and begged him to tell him the truth. He said he’s already looked up his test results. He knows he’s only got three or four months.
The doctor went silent and told him to not overthink it.
He smiled a big happy smiled.
He indicated that I should help him leave again. He even waved the doctor goodbye.
Once we got out of the office, he asked me to not tell his family. He smiled and thanked me.
When we got back, he said he was a bit tired, didn’t eat anything, and fell asleep.
The next day, he told the doctor and his family that he’d forgotten something very, very important that he had to go home for. He promised that if they let him go back, in three days, he’d come back to the hospital for treatment.
But five days passed, and he never showed up again. The doctor would ask on his tours why he hadn’t come back yet.
I’d added him on wechat, because we’d made plans to game together later, and I tried to text him for three or four days and never got a reply. On the fifth day, a message finally came back, “[So-and-so] has passed away. Thank you for your concern. Do you need anything else?”
I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it. How could this be possible?
I voice-called, and his dad picked the phone up. He sobbed as he told me that the third morning he came back, his mother brought his breakfast to him to find that he was already cold.
In between my own sobs, I calmed down my emotions and told his dad that we’d gamed a couple of days before and I owed him 500 RMB, and I was texting him to pay back the money, would he please accept it on behalf of his son?
His dad said he didn’t know about that, and I hurried to explain that we gamed together whenever we hung out. I begged him that if I didn’t pay back this money, I would always feel bad about it. I might even lose sleep at night.
After his dad accepted the money, I walked to the end of the corridor by myself, feeling upset. Honestly, I hadn’t actually borrowed any money from him. I knew his family wasn’t well off. I just wanted to help out a little however much I can.
Fuck, I can’t express just how screwed up this all is.
He made the decision he did because he didn’t want to completely drain his family, I guess. Everyone says that if they got cancer, they wouldn’t bother with treatment, but how many people can actually face death like that?
I hope he’s somewhere pain-free now.”
Comments say, “You see too many cases of this at hospitals. People who don’t have money can’t get treatment. People who do have money can’t get cured either.”
“So, if he was supposed to be hospitalised and took a break to go home and died at home, is the hospital legally responsible for that at all? A lot of hospitals have to pay recompense if something happens to people when they leave the hospital to go home, if they’re supposed to be hospitalised.”
A tiktok video with the hashtag #great-grandpa’s passed away for 11 days but his great-granddaughter is still waiting for him every day. The woman who posted the video claims that for a three year old child, they don’t understand the meaning of death at all. Although she’s told her daughter that great-grandpa’s left this world, she’ll still go outside looking for great-grandpa every day. She had a great bond with her great-grandpa, always loved to hang out with him, and he loved her right back too. She’d grown up with him since babyhood. The great-grandpa had a stroke while going to the bathroom on the 7th and went into the ICU, where he was unconscious for 3 days before passing away.
Comments say, “It’s okay if she doesn’t understand. There’s no need to understand death too young. While she’s waiting, at least she has hope. That’s not so bad.”
“I’m about to die and I still don’t understand the meaning of death.”
“Oh my god, just a couple of weeks ago, I was watching these two buy a new bike together. I can’t believe he’s already passed away.”