An askreddit question, “How easy is it to destroy a parent?”
The top-voted reply is, “It only takes eight days to completely destroy a person.
An auntie I know, she must be in her sixties now, was super successful when she was young. Even back in those days, she was a rare university graduate in the field of railways. Her career was going splendidly. She was some kind of fancy engineer when she was only in her twenties. And she was pretty. She’s not very tall, but she’s super fair-skinned and good-looking, with thick, neat hair.
After she got married, she had a son.
When she was done with her maternity leave, the state railroad bureau had an opening to send someone to work at the Beijing Railroad Bureau. She was the only candidate who qualified. No matter which way you looked at it, she was undoubtedly the most suited.
She gave her son to her husband and MIL to look after. The first day, the kiddo had a huge bruise on his head. It wasn’t even just a bruise, skin was broken. He was a newborn who couldn’t lift his head or roll over yet. I can’t imagine how he hurt his head.
The next day, the kid got a cold and coughed nonstop. My mom took him to get shots in the middle of the night, and told the father to keep giving him medicine throughout the day.
The third day, the kiddo got worse and started burning up. The dad and swore up and down that he’d given medicine to the kid, but later, the MIL and my mom counted the millilitres of medicine left and was certain the baby hadn’t taken any. So my mom had to take the baby to get shots and medicine in the middle of the night again.
The fourth day, she comes home from work, the husband said, “The baby did great today. There’s nothing to worry about.” She went over to check, and the kid was burning up so high he was having a seizure. She had to take him to the ER, where he was put in the ICU right away. He stayed there for 8 days. The hospital issued a notice that he was on the verge of death three or four times.
During those eight days, my mom stayed by the baby during the day, and she went to work. At night, she would stay with the baby all night (my mom was a nurse in the Paediatrics department, so she would let her into the ICU). She didn’t sleep for eight days and eight nights. Her eyes were blood red. It looked like she was sleepwalking everywhere. After that, her memory went down. She would repeat a sentence a dozen times, like some kind of broken record. What she said didn’t make any sense.
Her husband kept drinking as normal, going fishing, playing basketball. Her MIL kept singing opera, playing er’hu, tending to her flowers, drinking tea. Those two basically never visited the hospital.
Her son was saved at the end. Aside from being a little on the small and thin side, he was more or less normal.
She gave up on her opportunity to go to Beijing and gave it to one of her interns. She stayed in this small town, assigned to the logistics department of the railway, and has taken time off to stay at home and focus on taking care of the baby. Once she went through her savings, she would pack the baby on her back and go around doing part-time jobs to make money to provide for them. She’s sold soy milk, tea leaf eggs, breakfast. She’s delivered milk and newspapers. She only kinda went back to work when the kid started going to kindergarten. She never had time to take care of herself, so she’s become short and fat and hunchback’d. She would keep repeating things she said, was always dirty. She looked like just another village lady.
Her intern, the one who went to Beijing, went on national news and made quite a name for himself. If it wasn’t for that sickness, she would’ve been the one to go to Beijing.
If it wasn’t for my mom and her graduation photos I’ve seen, I would never have believed that she was one of the first uni graduates of China. That she used to be the MVP of her department, an elite career woman.
Thankfully, her son is now a driver of bullet trains, one of the youngest drivers in the whole state. He’s got a bright future ahead of him. Although nobody really liked to talk to her (since she was short and fat and dirty and always rambling about stuff that made no sense), her son is really nice and really good to her. Her son said that before he marries, he gives all of his money to her. His salary gets wired right into her account. Every time he has to leave home to drive the train, he would do all the housework around the house first. His mom was always rambling about something or other, and he always acts like he’s listening intently. He never talks back to her.”
Comments say, “But if she really had thrown everything down and went to Beijing, then this kid probably would’ve died. Because her MIL and husband were 100% deliberately torturing the kid so she wouldn’t go to Beijing to work. If she didn’t stay and just left the kid to her MIL and husband, then once they see she’s gone, they’ll completely abandon the kid. They want the kid dead so the husband can remarry quicker.”
“If it was me, I might not go to Beijing, but I’ll be damned if that family has a day of peace afterwards. Either they can pay me off with money, or I’ll smash up their whole house every single day. I won’t lift a finger to do housework. I’ll just wreck as much destruction as I can in their house. The MIL is a nurse, right? I’ll take my baby to her hospital and cry every day to her boss. We’ll see who breaks down first.”
“It’s so fake. Their only grandson is in the ICU, and the grandma doesn’t care at all? It would be so much more believable if it was a granddaughter instead.”
A tiktok video of a guy who went vacationing in Yunnan, buying a raw ore that nobody had taken a second look at for three years for 720K, and cutting it open to discover jade inside:
Comments say, “With today’s technology and detection methods, you really think you need to saw it open to see what’s inside? Only idiots try their luck. The seller knows exactly what’s inside.”
“Guys, help out. Their rock sales are falling.”
“What are they so excited about? Look how many cracks are in it. You can’t make any bracelets from that.”
“When it comes to misogyny in Dongbei, it’s not as nice as everybody thinks. Dongbei men are just like men everywhere. They’re not really any better than the national average.
But Dongbei women are a lot better than the national average: if they’re not happy, they’ll fight. If they can’t fight, they can at least leave.
The divorce rate in Dongbei proves this. In summary: they never put up with men’s bullshit.
Maybe I can’t win in a fight against you. Maybe I don’t have siblings who can back me up. But I still won’t put up with your bullshit. If you’re an asshole to me, and I can’t beat you up, and I can’t tell you off, then at least I’ll leave. I’ll never be like Hakkas who just beat with everything. Never.
During covid, there was a video floating around the internet, where an ugly, short Hakka guy was telling his wife to have kids and she wouldn’t do it, so he slapped her about the face like two dozen times? Where her face was covered in blood at the end? The wife in that video was really good looking too. I don’t understand how she ended up marrying such an ugly fucker.
If that happened in Dongbei, the first time he slapped her, she would’ve slapped back. If she really can’t beat him up, she would’ve went back to her family right away.
After that, either her brothers would show up and beat her husband up, or if she doesn’t have any brothers, then the next time they saw each other would be at the Civil Affairs Bureau [which processes divorces].
There’s no way she’d put up with any of that! And look at how naturally he slapped her too! There’s no way this is the first time he’s beat her!
Hakka women are beloved all around the nation. Do you think that has anything to do with how they just take beatings lying down? They’re good looking, hard working, and they let you beat then—I mean, how could women like that not be popular? And they’re free too.
As soon as women enter the dating market, you discover right away the omnipresent pressure placed on women by men: to be gentle, hardworking, obedient…
Men are very good at portraying themselves in a good light. Someone with a bad temper will call themselves “strong-willed”. Someone who beats people up would say they’re “physically fit”. Lol.
In this kind of environment, if you don’t stand up for yourself, and just keep relying on men to be chivalrous, you might as well hope that men can get pregnant and have kids too.
Dongbei women had to fight for everything themselves too. Men put pressure on women, and women have to put that pressure right back. In the 90s, there were a ton of family disputes in Dongbei: any man who was poor took it out on their wives.
And during that time, Dongbei’s divorce rate shot through the food. All these divorced women couldn’t find work locally, so they all went to work in Shenzhen. Have you noticed that there’s a ton of middle-aged Dongbei maids and nannies in Shenzhen? They almost all came over back in that era.
You’ve got legs. Trees die when they’re moved, people live when they’re moved. You’re just making enough money to feed yourself. So long as you’re not disabled, there’s a ton of work that pays that much everywhere.
And all those divorced Dongbei women married better for their second marriage, for the most part. Have you noticed how many of them have big gold chains and diamond rings? Those are all real.
Toads with three legs are fine, men with two legs are everywhere. Don’t forget, there’s seven billion men in the world. You’ve got plenty to choose from. Don’t hang yourself on a crooked tree.”
Comments say, “This is why we need to educate women, so that everyone who faces domestic violence has the bravery to pick up the kitchen knife and fight it out. Everyone who gets abducted has the courage to set that whole village on fire. Tame horses are ridden, tame people are bullied. If you don’t stand up for yourself, then there’s nothing that can be done for you.”
“You’re so right. Us Hakka women are all people-pleasers. We need to be good looking, we need to work, we need to do housework, we need to have a ton of babies, and we can’t spend any money. My auntie’s in her seventies, and she’s still getting yelled at by her husband every day. Whenever he gets drunk, he beats her. They still split the bill and each spend money they earned. But whenever her husband gets sick, she’s so worried. I’m just like ???”
“The misogyny in Dongbei’s getting worse and worse in our generation. In the last generation, my dad worked, my mom was a housewife, and all the girls in my family took our mom’s last name. My dad’s good looking and made a ton of money and never cheated either. But now, people show off their feminism by protecting their daughters really well and spoiling them and making sure they’re never exposed to any hardship. But the new generation of boys growing up are all really ambitious and good at acting and aiming to marry a rich lady and looks down on everyone around them.”
After attaching people’s IP location to their social media posts online, China’s considering attaching people’s full legal name to their social media posts online too. A blogger makes a compilation of all the reasons people gave online for why this is a bad idea:
“I mean, making names public is just a tool of intimidating. It’s meant to make people feel fear. It’s not as though you couldn’t look people’s names up from the backend right now anyways.”
“Before, if men wanted to harass women, at most they could send some dick pics. From now, they can call you by name while they’re sending you dick pics. They can look at your IP to see if you’re around them. They can come over to your house and call you by name. What a fucking horror story.”
“Don’t forget that after social media platforms’ algorithm updates, all of your activity across your social media will be promoted to people around you. And a lot of platforms deliberately push content created by women to men, so satisfy men’s voyeuristic urges. If someone with ill intentions or who’s just a pervert got a hold of your information to harass you and stalk you, there’s nowhere you can run.”
“IP + employment information + name, so long as you’re not named something like John Smith, anyone would nail down exactly who you are.”
“A lot of closeted gay uploaders would be forced out of the closet, and everyone would know exactly who they are in real life. “Oh fuck, you’re that famous influencer. You’re a guy and like guys? Or you’re a girl and like girls? What a sicko!”
“If we all have our names on the internet, not only do celebrity’s fans have to control their idol’s negative publicity, but we’d all have to learn how to control our own negative publicity.”
“This is a country where a girl can be internet bullied to suicide for dying her hair pink, and yet people are still insisting that if you don’t do anything bad then nothing will happen to you? Never forget that it’s never up to you whether or not you’ve done bad things.”
“They were just running promotions to never post your personal information on the internet to prevent internet scans, and now they’re trying to make it so that anyone can see your IP and your name? All the scammers be like, “Yo, thanks.””
“Doxxing is literally an internet bullying tactic, and now the website’s just telling you right off the bat?”
“Everyone was against making IP location public back in the day too. Now, there’s a lot of regional discrimination jokes based on IP location. Or even people who get bullied just for their IP location. It’s not hard to imagine that there would be real identity based jokes and bullying too. That’s how the internet is. “I can’t believe a fitness influencer would do such a thing,” blah blah blah.”
“It used to be that celebrities said whatever they wanted on platforms. Now they never post anything anymore. Now, it’s influencers who are going to shut up now. If you’re a nobody, maybe you’re not scared, but no one is ever going to say what they think again. Now, when we go on the internet, it’ll be peace and harmony everywhere. We’ll all be living inside a fake bubble, pretending like everything is going great.”
“Before, if there’s a case that people are trying to cover up, some influencers might still speak out if they get a request for help. Now, nobody will dare to.”
“Whenever anyone’s against this proposal, there are people all like, “If you’re not going to post anything problematic, then what’s the problem? Are you guilty about something?” I’m honestly sick and tired of this line of argument. Nobody ever talks about the potential dangers.”
“Don’t think that you’ll be okay. Once they’re done fucking over the influencers, who are they going to come for next? So long as you’ve retweeted something, or commented on something, or spoken out about anything, you could’ve spreading harmful information. A campaign could be organised against you.”
“Compared to influencers, the average internet citizen has a lot less to lose from breaking the law, and it’s a lot harder to monitor them too. So is the next step exposing the real identities of average internet citizens too, to protect the safety of the internet?”
“People become inured little by little. First it’s showing IP locations. Next it’s showing real names. And people get brainwashed at every step into thinking this is normal. What’s the next step them? I don’t know. But as someone who’s kind of dumb, I’m already feeling scared.”
“Either way, there’s way more downsides than upsides.”
“They don’t even publish the names of criminal suspects on the news, but now normal people just posting something on weibo has to have their name exposed.”
Comments say, “First, not everyone’s going to have their name exposed. Secondly, don’t pretend like you’re in the same camp as normal people when you make money from the internet.”
“Showing real names doesn’t mean showing your precise IP address. Right now, the IP location only says what state you’re in. How could anyone figure out your address and show up at your house? They only said they’d show real names and age and gender. Why are you extrapolating out to all this other stuff?”
“Don’t drag normal people into this. Us normal people love our country and love our family and we don’t got any fans. We’re not big influencers.”
“If I’m obeying laws and not saying anything problematic, why would I have a problem putting my name on it? I’d be happy to put my name to all my posts right now.”
On the 16th, in Chengdu, a four-year-old girl was bitten by a large dog. The girl’s mother has posted to social media claiming that the girl is currently still unconscious, and has been taken to Huaxi Hospital for further treatment. “I believe my baby is the bravest warrior in the world. Thank you to everyone who’s helped us.” Reporters contacted the girl’s mother, who explains that the child is still in the ICU right now and she hasn’t been allowed to see her daughter so far.
[There’s a video attached of the girl coming out of surgery, but it’s pretty gruesome and I have no idea if she’s going to survive this, so I won’t be posting it to youtube.]
Comments say, “I hope she gets better, and I hope that dog owner goes to jail.”
“A little girl got torn up by a big dog. Should it be illegal to walk your dog without a leash?”
“It should be illegal to keep dogs.”
“Let me see who’s trying to muddy the waters, who’s trying to bring down the heat, who’s trying to make this go away quietly, who’s still allowing aggressive breeds to be kept in big cities.”
What's the Chinese equivalent of "John Smith"?
“If I’m obeying laws and not saying anything problematic, why would I have a problem putting my name on it? I’d be happy to put my name to all my posts right now.”
Laws change.
But then, this *is* an argument that gets trotted out fairly regularly when it comes to justifying anonymity (or the destruction thereof). I imagine it's not a new one to you either.