[Note: I’ve got two kiddos who are very excited for trick-or-treating, so I think I’m going to take the 31st of October off and there won’t be any posts that day. I’ll call for FAQ questions on the 1st of November and answer on the 3rd of November instead, if people don’t mind. I’m sorry for any inconvenience.]
“A guy immigrated to Africa because he didn’t have enough money to get a wife. He married a wife locally over there, or maybe more than one, and have a couple of kids.
Later, he saved up some money, came back, and found a not-so-great Chinese woman and had a son. And oh my god, you wouldn’t believe it, this youngest son was his very life. He was the equivalent of a Crown Prince. Before, every time Memorial Day rolled around, he’d come back by himself, and if people ask about his wife and kids over there, he’d change the topic or mumble something or other. Now that he has a Crown Prince of a pure bloodline, it’s all different. He takes the kid wherever he goes, like he’s terrified people don’t know he has a son. One time, while chatting, he casually said that he only has one son so something or other, and the other guy asked what about his litter of kids in Africa? And he just waved his hands, like he didn’t want to talk about it.
One time, I watched a video, where his son was obviously bullying a darker-skinned girl. The girl wanted to fight back, and he yelled at her to stop. Like, I feel like his previous kids have it really hard, being despised so much by their own dad.
He was 28-29 back in the day and still didn’t have a kid. He’s from a rural village. His parents just farmed and did some part time work. With the way his family is, if he didn’t get married in his early twenties, then he wasn’t going to get married in his early thirties. Not unless he won the lottery.
So he figured out a way to leave, and used half a year to find a woman who was smaller than him by over a decade and was a virgin. His foreign girlfriend’s whole family used to starve on a regular basis, to the point that they’d all huddle and cry together. He told a virgin merchant (you can take out some money and tell a local to introduce you to a virgin and they can have the money, and plenty of people will go on the hunt for you. I call these people virgin merchants). He fell for her when she was introduced to him, and from that point on, her family didn’t have to worry about food anymore.
During that time, he really lived like an Emperor. He’d post pictures of him being waited on hand and foot all the time. And during that time, he’d criticise Chinese women for being materialistic and whatever all the time, that for their bride price, he could have a dozen brides over here.
Until his first African kid was born, and he shut up…never bragged anymore. It’s like he suddenly got all depressed. He didn’t even tell his other relatives about the good news, like he was afraid he’d be made fun of?
Then another couple of years passed, and when he went back to his hometown, he met his Crown Prince’s mom. She was pretty old by then, and had two sons from a previous marriage, and was living a really hard life. But she successfully got pregnant with the Crown Prince, and used the baby in her tummy to find herself shelter for the rest of her life. And there’s a hidden bonus here too: if her previous two sons have trouble finding wives, she can ask their step-dad or help.
The Crown Prince’s two older step-brothers act like Africa is a paradise whenever they go. They don’t miss China at all.”
Comments say, “What a scumbag!”
“So what nationality are his African kids?”
A tiktok video of what it’s like to get art tutoring lessons to get into a performing arts college:
In the first part, the girl comes in and offers a bag of sweet potatoes and pumpkins that her dad grew himself, and the teacher comments, “Ohhhh, organic food~ Please don’t put it on the floor. Auntie~ [referring to a maid], auntie, take this to the kitchen. And put on some shoe covers please.” The girl barely figures out how to get the shoe covers on while not putting anything down, as the teacher says, “Wait a moment for me while I brew some tea. Just go over there and start playing for now.”
The teacher gets ready to start and asks her to tune her Zheng first, then asks to hear the basic chords, offers a line or two of advice, and then excuses herself to take a phone call. She tells the girl to keep playing while she talks very politely to whoever is on the other end, and then turns and tells the girl to stop because it’s too loud and she can’t hear.
After being on the phone for 20 minutes, she tells the girl to continue, and then immediately asks, “Hey, how many points can you get on the college entrance exam?” The girl responds, “I can get maybe 500, 520.” And she lets out a visible sigh of relief as she says, “That’s not bad, So you…well, there are colleges you can get into then. So…you don’t have to try for our college, right? Right. Oh, I’ve got some stuff to get to, I just got a call, so I guess we’ll end our lesson here?”
The girl helplessly packs up to go and hands over a fat envelope of tuition money before she goes. She thanks the teacher before she leaves and asks, “So my shoe covers…” The teacher hesitates, and she immediately says, “I’ll help you take these shoe covers out to the trash.” The teacher thanks her for her dad’s pumpkins and sweet potatoes again.
In the second part, a guy shows up to a piano teacher’s place, and is immediately given shoe covers. He hands over his gift, Moutai-flavoured chocolate. The teacher thanks him and sits down to wait for him to start. He very carefully sets the piano bench down, puts his bag down, and nervously begins playing.
She calls a stop to it and asks, “The first double-note, is it supposed to be the melody or the harmony? Why did you start out so loud? Do you understand what “piano” means? You have to be soft. Start over again.”
He hesitantly starts a second time and can’t continue. And she complains, “Why don’t you keep going? What are you stopping for? Keep going!”
He starts a third time, and the teacher calls for a stop again. “I just told you to play softer, did you not hear? Not only do your ears not work, your brain doesn’t either? I don’t think you’re suitable for studying music. That’s the end of our lessons.”
He says, “But I just got here.”
She takes a big breath and brushes away her hair and says, “You don’t have to come next lesson either.”
He leaves his tuition on the piano and thanks the teacher, and asks, “I’m a repeat student. Could you give me another chance?”
The teacher responds, “You can’t force some things. Music requires talent too.”
He turns and leaves and looks at the gift he took a long time to pick out on the way.
Comments say, “It’s not just art students. I’m super familiar with this, “polite, but distant, distant, but strangely meaningful” feeling, where their eyes and their tone seems to be judging you the whole time. Their fake politeness is mixed in with visible impatience. In an already unequal relationship, it gives them a sense of power to give the other person psychological pressure.”
“Yeah, if you want to get into a music college, you have to find a teacher in the college to tutor you (this is common knowledge among all music students). Whether you can get in or not is entirely up to these teachers, so everyone fights the hardest they can to get into these lessons, and tuition is always ridiculously high. The teachers at a music college are all super rich, so they’re very unfriendly towards students from average families and of average talent. If you want to get in, you have to kiss up to the teachers.”
“It’s not even the performing arts exam. Even just learning music as a little kid, I can feel the teachers have a lot of privilege.”
The Department of Education responds to a 7-year-old girl being bullied by multiple people at school. On the 28th, in Hunan, a parent posts on an internet forum that their 7-year-old daughter is getting bullied and sexually abused by over a dozen female classmates during nap time. The case is being dealt with now, and the Department of Education will come out with further details in future announcements.
There are 2000 comments under this, and I can’t look at any of them.
“After I have kids, my heart’s gotten especially soft. I can’t see any kids suffer, especially not girls.
So whenever there’s news of girls being abused, or die, I’ll ramble on and on for ages. I feel like Children Protection Laws in the west are really complete and I’m really envious of them. When can our country be the same? That way, less kids are going to get abused. And less kids are going to die so pointlessly.
Like the latest news where an 11-year-old girl jumped into a river, if it was in a capitalist developed country, the parents would go to jail for sure. Because 11-year-old kids can’t be without adult supervision. They would never allow an 11-year-old kid to drive an 8-year-old kid to school on a scooter. These parents put both their kids in extremely dangerous situation, and they would get custody removed for sure.”
Comments say, “They can’t make it illegal, because we don’t have that many spots in prison. And we don’t have that many spots in orphanages either.”
“The parents who abandoned their kid at the beach didn’t get any punishment either.”
“The core of our culture is still the same as it was thousands of years ago. We’re too far away from modern civilisation.”
A blogger writes, “This is the first time I’ve seen such an astounding mom. She’s teaching her third-grade kid 9th-grade material. Her kid doesn’t need to know how to identify plants, because it won’t be on the test. Jesus, involuting at third grade. It’s so shocking.”
They post screenshots of posts by this mom, asking, “It is okay for a 9-year-old kid to stay out until 11:30pm with her dad? I live in a state that doesn’t have a top university at all, so it’s at peak involution. I’m about to explode, but her dad thinks it’s no big deal. Who’s right?”
In the comments, someone asks, “If it’s just occasionally, so what? What does it matter if she gets into a top university? Can she get into a top company? What if she gets into a top company, can she not get laid off at 35? What if she doesn’t get laid off at 35? You can’t buy a house in a good school district in a first line city without 10 million. So what if she buys a good school district house? Her kid will just have to involute as much as she did to also get into a top university. Life is hard.”
OP asks, “But wouldn’t life be harder if she can’t get into a top university?”
The commenter replies, “If she can get into a top university, then she won’t fail because she went out for one day and played. If she can’t get into a top university, then she won’t suddenly be able to just because she studied for this one day. But your severe anxiety is going to influence her a lot worse than just a day’s outing.”
Another commenter says, “When the kiddo’s a baby, and you’re taking care of her, have you ever had a moment where you just needed a break? I think kids have those moments too. And letting daddy be more involved in the kiddo’s life is going to give her more of a sense of security, and give the dad more of a sense of responsibility to his family. Plus, they’re going camping, which is super healthy. You don’t want your kids to just know Chinese, English, and Maths, and not know wheat from grass, right? I’ll give you some more comfort—this kind of activity is exactly the sort of thing that can become inspiration for essays later, right?”
OP responds, “I agree with everything else, but right now, I just know that she needs to study Chinese, English and Maths. They don’t test wheat or grass on the exams.”
The blogger’s commenters say, “I know literally speaking, knowing wheat from grass is kind of useless, but everyone knows this is just a saying, referring to common sense and life experience. If you don’t have these, you can’t actually go into society to find work at all. Do you want the kid to learn all of that from the beginning once they’re in a top university? Then it’s not a problem of not being able to find work. It’s a problem whether your kid can survive to the day that they get to college.”
“If she’s in Hebei, then she really has no choice. The involution is there from primary to middle to high school. There’s a reason Hengzhong [famously strict and abusive school] is in Hebei. It is because Hebei people just enjoy suffering? If there was any other way in life, who would drive themselves crazy like this?”
“Instead of involuting your kids, start involuting yourself. Having rich parents is a lot more effective than a kiddo working hard by themselves. If you can’t climb up a social class yourself, what makes you think your kid can? My husband is the same way as you, and I told him in front of his parents, dragons beget dragons, phoenixes beget phoenixes, and the descendants of rats know how to dig tunnels. Do you think you’re a dragon or a phoenix?”
“If you’re thinking about getting kids, you can research right now. It’s not a matter of just feeding your kids these days. It’s a very stressful process.
One is taking them to and from school. This is so hard. You have to do it every day, twice a day, and if you forget their lunchbox or schoolbook, you have to return to the school again. Even if you have a short commute, it’s a huge hassle.
Two is homework. Teachers these days don’t even look at homework anymore. Some teachers will mark a portion of it. The rest if all up to the parents. My bitchwife has to spend half an hour every day on marking my kid’s homework.
Three is grades. Holy shit, grades. Who is crying. My bitchwife works until 9:30 pm every night on this. The maid does all the housework.
Four is money. Even daily necessities for kids are crazy. A single burger is 20, 30 RMB. If they’re starving after school, are you gonna get them a burger or not?
Five is vacations. Ming from school is going to Switzerland over summer break. Should we at least go to Lujiazui or Shujiajiao?
Six is clothing. It’s also super expensive.
Seven is art classes. One lesson is 400 RMB.
Eight is other interest classes. And by that I mean, just something to work their energy out at, that they’re not going to learn much from. Like badminton, or basketball. 200 RMB per lesson.
Nine is allowance. If they want to buy toys, we’re talking about least 5-40 RMB.
Ten is cuisine. A steak meal for three is 1200 RMB. Should you at least get steak once a month? And 600RMB/person seafood buffets. Or 800 RMB a person Japanese food.
Eleven is rewards. Your kid just got 95 on their math test. Do they deserve a reward?
Twelve, birthdays. All the other kids throw birthday parties. Are your kids gonna get one?
Thirteen, getting along with teachers. Not more to say on that.
Fourteen, when they’re sick, you have to rush them to a hospital in the middle of the night. Just imagine.
Fifteen, proper housing. That could get as expensive as you want.
Some poor bastards might say, “I can cut all these costs, and just live my small village, and my kid will still grow up.” Yeah, sure, tech schools need students too. You can save a lot more by just sending them to the local sweatshop to work as soon as they turn 18 too. They can marry whatever fat black village girl they meet. Lol.”
Comments say, “You’re kid’s still little, and you’re not worrying about tutoring yet. Mine’s in highschool, and his physics and chemistry tutoring is 800 RMB each per lesson. The kid doesn’t want to live in school dorms, so we had to rent a close-by apartment for him to live at, and it’s several thousand a month. I spend a good six-figures on him every year.”
“All this effort could raise five kids. You might as well just free-range five kids. There’s a greater likelihood you’ll get one genius out of it than putting all of this focus on one kid.”
“Don’t forget getting them braces. It’s easily five figures T_T”
Have fun trick-or-treating, Moly & family!
Get the kiddos their sugar overdose and don't worry about us.