10/03/25 - We’re all worker ants. It’s normal for us to not have any descendants.
Question: “Why aren’t young people afraid of having no descendants?”
A compilation of answers:
“A lot of the high upvote responses all point to one core mentality: In an age of advanced productivity like today, aside from objective suffering brought on by disease or injury, all other suffering comes from your own values.”
“As the apartment manager of a senior living development, I have to tell you a fact. The old people who survive by scavenging trash, who stink up their apartment for half a month before the neighbours call the police to find their dead bodies? They have kids. Just some of them are in prison and some of them don’t want to come back.”
“I saw a joke before that a Tibetan and a Uyghur were cursing each other. I forget exactly how the joke went, but basically the Uyghur cursed the Tibetan that he was going to be torn apart by beasts and die in a fire. And the Tibetan cursed the Uyghur that he was going to die oppressed by dirt, unable to ever reincarnate. And both sides thought the other one couldn’t even come up with proper insults and just walked away.”
“Cursing that someone will have no descendants is a product of outdated clan culture from evil old society. In our happy new society, “I hope you never have a weak spot,” is a sincere blessing. Manual doge.”
“You deserve no descendants! I’m a monk, it’s normal for me to not have any descendants. You deserve no descendants! We’re all worker ants. It’s normal for us to not have any descendants.”
“When I die, I’ll come to the pearly gates and the angel lady watching the door will tell me, “Sir, you saved a child’s life.” “But I have no children?” “Exactly.””
“A lot of the responders who are pro-children are forgetting something—not everyone is energetic, social, and full of hope and love towards life when they’re young. Some people have been living like a quiet background extra since childhood, reading and drawing and having fun by themselves. They don’t have any friends, they haven’t taken any trips, they don’t have any fun youth to speak of. At the same time, they are burdened with painful memories because of their clumsiness at socialisation. Do you think people like this will be scared of the loneliness and emptiness that they’ve grown used to their whole life? Or do you think they’re more scared of a conflicted bond that they can never be free from for the rest of their life? A bond that robs you of all personal space from the moment you make it?”
“When childfree people encounter misfortune, society tries to blame their misery on not having kids and never thinks about the actual reasons this befell them. When married people encounter misfortune, society will blame their misery on everything else and never thinks about whether their marriage could be the problem.”
“Would you still go to morning tea if it stopped tasting like anything?
Old restaurants in Guangzhou like Taotao Ju or Banxi Tavern have been called out that they must have 70% of their menu items freshly cooked or else they’re going to lose their brand.
In 2023, they posted an announcement that shrimp dumplings have to have 18 folds in the skin, and pork buns have to be closed by hand, because they’re worried that frozen products from a factory will steal all the flavour away.
But a lot of small teahouses are still secretly steaming precooked food. The cost of a cage of Shumai has went from 3RMB to 1.2RMB. Tables turn faster, more money comes in, of course the owner is happy.
But visitors aren’t stupid. 59% of people are willing to pay 8-10RMB extra to eat the “heat” of something that just came off the stove.
In order for morning tea to survive, you have to rely on your spatula and your heart. Don’t let your grandchildren only remember what microwaves taste like.
So long as the taste remains, Guangzhou remains. Don’t let your tongue forget.”
Comments say, “Supposedly, Diandude’s breakfast is all precooked.”
“You can’t avoid precooked food. I just want precooked food to be sold at precooked prices, and freshly cooked food is sold at freshly cooked prices.”
“If precooked food actually got cheaper, then I wouldn’t mind eating it every once in a while. You can’t eat it every day or you’ll get colon cancer.”
“More and more people are taking advantage of “overproduction”.
When I was in school, I studied economics and saw that some Western capitalists have so many cows producing milk that they’d rather pour out their milk than give it out to free people.
No wonder. They want to maintain stable prices and avoid getting taken advantage of by poor people.
In our real life, there’s also a problem of “overproduction”, but most of the time, you can’t just throw it out. You can let more people enjoy it.
Anyone who knows how to live their life are starting to take advantage of “overproduction”. It’s something we can all learn from.
There was a trending hashtag a while back, “#Supermarkets full of poor fucks after 8PM.”
It’s not just old people. More young people and middle-aged people start weeping the produce in supermarkets after 8PM.
In our traditional mindset, by the time it gets late at night, the only remaining thing in supermarkets are stray veggie leafs that have been palmed through by countless people, and mishappened, rotting cake.
But that’s not the case. A lot of supermarkets at night have foods and fruits that may have a short expiration date, but still look and taste just fine.
In order for new produce to be stocked in supermarkets and make sure everything is sold within the expiration date, it’s normal to see discounts upon discounts.
A lot of people familiar with how supermarkets work started to assault nighttime supermarkets.
They’re dressed up very night, but living life very frugally. Walking into a supermarket at night really does reduce your daily expenses.
They don’t care about other people calling them “stingy”. They care more about the thickness of their own wallets.
A lot of people are proud of buying cheap products. That’s the best kind of face to have. “Knows how to live life” is the best label applied to them.”
Comments say, “Walmart gives the best discounts. Every other market is just chump change.”
“I specifically rented near wholesale agricultural markets in Hefei. There’s not a lot of those. The HOAs on the second ring will find leftover pieces of land to host it. The fee isn’t high and the farmers are usually selling at half the price of supermarkets. By the time it gets to 4-5PM, all the fresh produce is 1-2RMB for a big pile, or 1RMB a pound. For a family, over the course of decades, you can save quite the pretty penny.”
“If we don’t have overproduction, a married couple wouldn’t be able to afford one kid.”
[There was a drunken woman making a scene at the Shanghai Masters tournament for tennis.]
“The woman making a scene at the Shanghai Masters was just confusing! She was screaming so much during the match that they were forced to pause the game. When someone tried to talk to her, she pulled out her foreign passport and Chinese national ID to taunt them.
As if those IDs were a get out of jail free card. She ended up getting carried out of the stadium and everyone clapped.
What’s the funniest is her “double ID logic”. China has made it clear early on that it doesn’t recognise dual citizenship. If you have a foreign passport, then you automatically lose your Chinese nationality. There’s no point in keeping your national ID. She’s not flaunting her privilege—she just doesn’t understand the law.
The most annoying part is that she was throwing a tantrum with her kid there and wouldn’t even listen when her kid tried to talk her down. She was so focused on taunting everyone else, she forgot to think about how traumatised her kid might be by all this chaos.
Simply put, she’s not trying to pick a fight, she just can’t comprehend the rules.
She genuinely thought that a foreign passport meant she could do whatever she wanted in public spaces. And her administrative punishment is the answer—it doesn’t matter which country’s ID you have, if you don’t follow the rules, then you’ll be punished.
What do you dislike the most about waving around ID to intimidate people?”
Comments say, “What typical Guangxi/Guangdong appearance.”
“Deport her.”
“Throw her in the trash.”
“Sold 200K in gold and the police told me that I broke the law.
Gold jewellery really doesn’t suit me. On the 29th of September, 2025, I sold my Chow Tai Fook necklace and hairpin offline (at market price. I bought the gold at the Hangzhou Plaza and I have the physical and electronic receipt.) The buyer confirmed the authenticity of the gold and transferred me the money. I confirmed I had received the money and gave the gold to the buyer. But after the buyer left, all the money in my bank account got frozen…T_T
I called around for two days to learn that it was frozen by the police in a totally different state—Hainan, Sanya. Nobody ever contacted me or let me know anything this whole time. The reason my account got frozen is because the person who bought my gold got their money from scams. They’re scammers, and now the police want me to give back the money I made selling my gold. I told the police that I’m a well-meaning third party performing a legal transaction. I didn’t break the law. Why do I have to pay back anything? What happens to my gold if I pay the money back?”
Comments say, “Do not give the money back. You won’t be able to get it back again, and the police won’t help you chase down your jewellery. The police just want to wrap the case up as fast as possible. If you have evidence proving that you’re not involved in the scam, then you can appeal to the Prosecutor’s Office or other supervisory department, and your bank account should be unfrozen soon.”
“I’ve encountered similar people. Shanghai froze my card, a total of 980K. I run a completely legal business. The other party drove off with my product and I accepted his money, and it turned out his money was from scamming other people. The police froze my card and made me go to Shanghai to do an interview. As soon as I went there, I got handcuffed and locked in the police station, and they took my phone too. It’s been 3-4 months and my 980K is still frozen and my phone hasn’t been given back to me either. I provided all my documents and security footage to the police but they still say I’m a suspect. They said that so long as the victim’s money ended up in my account, no matter what the reason, I’m a suspect. And they told me to go call the police and look for my own stuff. It’s not their business. They just want me to pay back the victims.”
“Girl, I’ve gotten in the exact same situation and I got my account unfrozen. The police are doing “deep sea fishing”. You can go to your local police to report the case (if you’re overseas, then call wherever your hukou is registered) and ask the local police to defend your rights. Either way, do not give them the money. You did a legal transaction.”
“I’m wondering if that police is even real. Seems a lot like getting money for nothing. Someone bought your gold and the police immediately show up. I wonder if they targetted you because you’re overseas. It’s hard to tell.”
“It’s probably the real police. A lot of merchants in Shuibei [big international jewellery reseller location in Shenzhen] has had this happen to them and posted to Rednote about it. It’s basically getting scammed. The buyer uses dirty money to buy large amounts of gold from Shuibei, and a lot of Shuibei merchants got frozen en masse too. It’s really hard. If you’re just an individual selling that much gold, you should still be able to get it back.”
“When I saw the word “frozen”, I knew the other side’s money was dirty.”
“You’re overseas. What are they gonna do, arrest you? It’s got nothing to do with you to begin with.”