“What the result of dating a man younger than you? I’ll tell a pretty cool story.
Auntie Mao met her third husband when she was 50 years old. She lied to him and told him she was 12 years younger than she actually was. Same zodiac, same Chinese zodiac, so it’s an easy lie to maintain. She claimed to be 38 years old, same age as him. The guy was a civil servant in their small local town. Auntie Mao owned a little store.
Auntie Mao was a very…distinctive person. She’s completely grasped the core of how to get along wth men. Or to put it more simply, how to make men fall in love with her.
Forgive me for being blunt, but most women have no idea how to go about achieving this. Sure, you can scroll away if you already have mastered it.
Auntie Mao grew up in a wealthy family, living in a bedroom in a “carriage mansion”. This is a type of housing we have around eastern Sichuan, that’s exactly what it sounds like. A mansion so large, that you could drive a carriage through it. Due to one reason or another, her family eventually fell to ruins, but the habits and poise of a rich lady has ironed itself in her bones.
When Auntie Mao communicates, if she can use her eyes, she’ll never use her mouth. She has a pair of extremely beautiful, big eyes. Like, amazingly big eyes, all watery. “What are we gonna eat?” “Where are we gonna go?” She can ask all of that with her eyes.
She also has a head of thick, luscious hair. I remember Jin Chen [actress] once said that the key to being a beauty is that you have to make yourself all fuzzy—thick hair means healthy body and liveliness.
Auntie Mao also had big boobs. This is super important. Every woman I’ve seen with big boobs has the upper hand in their relationship. (Big boobs really make men lose all rationality!)
All of the above combined, was Auntie Mao beautiful?
Not really.
She’s short, her nose bridge is flat, her face is large…and she brings misfortune to her husbands.
Her first husband loved her very much. Back in the day and age where it was inappropriate to express love, her husband would still wash her hair in the streets, with water that he’d boiled in his teapot. He got sick and passed away super young.
Her second husband also loved her very much. I don’t have any specific examples, but basically, he was also super good and super kind and considerate towards her. But he also got sick and passed away when she was only middle-aged.
Her third husband is younger than her by 12 years, so she was determined from the start to hide the truth from him. She’d gone and had her fortune divined, and the divinationist said that she’ll never be able to keep any husband that was the same age as her. She had to marry someone who’s super different from her in age, whether older or younger by a lot, in order to have a marriage that lasted.
So she said, “Well, obviously I’d find a young one then. What do you even do with an old man?”
What was amazing was that her third husband truly, honestly believed she was 38. Does she look particularly young? Not really. As far as skin-care is concerned, no woman can really look 12 years younger than they are. Not even celebrities pull it off.
She just had a young “energy” about her—thick curls, short skirts, bright colours, bold makeup, a sweet way of talking, gentle manners. She fit what men think of as “young”.
But soon enough, she aged quickly. After all, the fall is pretty rapid after 50 years old. One day when I saw her on the street, I almost jumped out of my skin. Super thick makeup, smoky eye shadow that made it look like she was punched in the face, blood-red lips, deep wrinkles all over her skin, her hair all let down, still wearing a mini-skirt and stripper heels. She was heading out to eat some noodles.
That’s how much she dressed up for some noodles.
Her third husband ended up discovering her true age anyways, and he was absolutely furious. But he didn’t leave her. They still got married, and he still hands over all his money to her.
Hahaha, are you impressed or not?
Auntie Mao is 70 years old this year.”
The first comment is a pinned comment by OP: “Oh, and another detail to add, Auntie Mao got some kind of eye condition and cancer a few years back, and went to Chongqing to get surgery, and her husband was by her side the whole time. Now Auntie Mao is fully recovered and continuing to live her happy life. I’m gonna ask her next time I see her who she got her divination from. That suggest to marry a young husband was super accurate.”
“It’s like you wrote this specifically to hurt me. Thinning hair. A cup. Monolid…”
“Giving her all of his money? I guess that’s what you call a chump, huh? That’s a pretty impressive man, though. Not all men can do that. Most people would’ve left the second they found out how old she actually was.”
A blogger writes a review of a Chinese webnovel: “I have no idea what the author is even trying to express here. The main character and her best friend travel back to the past. They’re the daughter of a General and a daughter of the Chancellor respectively. The Emperor is sickly and almost always laid out in bed, and wanted to take both the main character and her best friend into his harem.
The best friend didn’t want to join the harem. She said that even if she was a woman, she could still forge her own path in this world. And from that point on, the best friend became the widely-known crazy lady in the capital city.
The main character chose to go into the harem and be Queen.
The best friend tried to stop her, “You’ve been educated in modern society. How could you stand sharing your husband with other people? Having kids on behalf of a used cock? You’re bringing shame to us modern people.”
And the main character is like, “But there’s actually a throne to inherit though.”
Like, this story was recommended to me because it was tagged with “strong female protagonist”, so I don’t even know how to review this.
The best friend ended up having her face ruined because she didn’t join the harem. Her reputation was ruined after she threw herself into society. The best friend never had any regrets, but the main character thought from beginning to end that she’s insane.
I didn’t read any more than that. I feel like no matter what happens from this point on, the main character is always going to be the sort of arrogant time-traveller who can never compete with the local natives at what they’ve been trained to do all their lives. I bet she lives happily ever afterwards fighting other concubines every day.”
Comments say, “I want the best friend to kill every character in this story I’m not even joking. How could the best friend ever become friends with such a mindless housewife like that?”
“The best friend has to find a way to travel back to the modern world and enjoy her life. The main character can work hard on that third son as far as I care.”
“If the main character joined the harem because she wanted power and she had ambitions or just because she had no choice and she did it to survive, then I would have some respect for her, since she’s in a society that’s so unfriendly to women. But if she just wanted to be married, have kids, and fight concubines, then…guess it’s just not my cup of tea.”
A tiktok video of a couple sleeping, when the daddy rolls all the blankets away. The mommy wakes up drowsily, cold, and instinctively reaches out to pat the baby in the crib, only to find it empty. She puts on her glasses and looks for the baby and can’t find her anywhere. So she kicks daddy awake, and he throws his blankets on top of the baby, and they begin searching all around the room for the baby.
Comments say, “Wouldn’t the baby get smothered by such thick blankies?”
“I once got stuck inside the wardrobe when I was little.”
“When I was little, we went over to my dad’s friend’s house. His son was only a couple of months old, and was sleeping in his crib in his room. After I was done eating, I went to visit the baby, and found he was missing. Everyone panicked and looked through the whole house and couldn’t find him. It took forever, until we found out that he was laying underneath the crib, covered up by the window curtains, completely quiet. Everyone thought it was amazing that he fell out of his crib and never even cried. Then, when he grew up later, we found out it was because he had brain damage.”
A tiktok video of how to make a tiny cake out of chalk:
Comments say, “Child, when you grow up and start working on a construction field, you’ll know that this process is called “mixing cement”.”
“It burnst my hand but it’s so fun.”
“Right now, a middle-school teacher just frowned.”
“How can you impress people when it comes to giving social gifts (to your clients, or acquaintances you don’t know very well, etc).
First, think about your budget (this is super important. If your budget is way too low or way too high, then just skip this post and save your time).
Second, think about their daily needs (this is more about elimination than anything else. For example, if they don’t smoke, then don’t gift them ash trays)
Third, get the most wasteful object you can. The more it’s not worth the price, the more impressive it’ll be.
Fourth, get a commonly used item. The more it’s used, the more they’ll think of it.
An example:
The scenario is you need to bring a housewarming gift for a work partner that you don’t know very well.
Let’s run the four steps: 500 RMB budget, girl, young, long hair, has her hair in a high ponytail in all her social media posts.
I immediately thought of hair ties recommended by Hannah Quinlivan [actress]. She loved the white version, and she’s often seen wearing it to all kinds of events. It’s about 300+ RMB, but it’s a lot more memorable than gifting a tube of lipstick.”
Comments say, “Yeah, I’ve understood this from a while ago. Like, if you gift your boss a 1000 RMB shirt, he might not even care to wear it. But if you gift him a 1000 RMB pen…”
“Yup. People look down on 3000 RMB bags, but they love 3000 RMB hairpins.”
“It makes sense. All my hair ties are from teleties, and I usually keep a couple of spares on me. I’ve given them to several female clients of mine who needed a hair tie urgently. I always tell them, “I didn’t buy this hair tie. It’s a gift from a high-end spa. Supposedly, they’re like 30 RMB each. Have fun with it.” And then, I’d see that they’d constantly use my hair tie XD”
“That’s how I’ve always given gifts—couple hundred RMB hair accessory, hundred RMB pens, couple hundred notebook with a cover with real embroidery…nobody ever remembers lipstick or hand lotion as gifts.”
“You can gift silk pillows too. Also, the last time I gave out a gift, it was around the middle of July on the lunar calendar (Chinese halloween), and I sent out evil-warding crystals, and she wrote back to say that it was exactly what she wanted (she was a superstitious type).”
“Gift something small but expensive. The assumption is that your budget is limited but you still want to impress, so the packaging has to be super impressive. I’ve bought a mug from Tiffany before, or a door mat from Hermes. They’re not super expensive, but the boxes and ribbons you get from those stores are super impressive.”
“I know someone who worked a a Tiffany’s, and she says that their fruit trays sell super well. I asked why, and she said it’s because it’s big enough that it looks impressive when given as a gift.”
“Lipsticks are the best gift though. I might not know what brand of hair tie this is, but I know exactly how much any tube of lipstick costs. And I need to know that for a return gift.”
“I’ve looked around the comment section and nobody brought up phone cases? We’ll ignore the big luxury brand who sell phone cases for thousands of RMB, but Casetify from Korea has phone cases for around 400 RMB (assuming that they like fashionable objects and you know what model of phone they have)”
[On reflection, maybe this last post was a bunch of advertisements. But at least it’s subtle enough that it’s worth translating? I kind of didn’t realise until I was done typing it up.]
Pertaining to that last post, I've heard this idea before while looking for a White Elephant gift. If the budget is $20, don't get a cheap crappy thing for $20, get a premium version of something that should costs $1 (like a pen) and people will fight over it. And it was pretty spot on, except I think the recepient lost my $17 pen within a couple of days so a pen might not be it.
My guess is that links make it advertising?