11/13/24 - Despite such a severe reaction, Li Ziqi still persisted in completing her lacquerware.
A blogger reposts a story, “Just saw this story about Auntie H and it made me really upset.”
The story reads, “A healthy, athletic exercise spot, it becomes lively and crowded every night. Most of the people are retirees. On the weekends, students join in sometimes. The largest crowd, and the most organised, is the marching team [basically a little bit like speed walking, a little bit like marching band, but there’s no instruments, the music is played from a sound system]. My mom and her friends are in a marching team called “Beautiful Zhuhai”. Their team uniform if red and black. There’s around 250 people in their group chat. When it happened, they were in the dark. Now that I think about it, it must’ve been hell for them. The only good thing about this tragedy is that my mom didn’t go because she was too far away from home. But two of her best friends went, Auntie L and Auntie H.
The marching team has a specific formation. Three people in a row walking together. Since Auntie L is pretty tall, she stood on the outside row. When it happened at 7:40PM, the car rammed into the crowd from behind. Since their team was in the dark without any light, and the and the music to keep everyone in rhythm was really loud, a lot of people had no time to react and didn’t even know what happened before the car had moved on to run over even more people. The car only hit the two rows of people on the inside. The tragedy was that Auntie H died on the spot. The jeep missed Auntie L by mere inches and she immediately sent a wechat video to my mom where she was too scared to string her words together. The authorities announced that there were 35 deaths. It makes my heart break.
After we learned, we immediately drove to the scene. At that time, there were police sirens all up and down Renmin Street, Xianghua Street, and Meihua Street. Ambulances were coming and going. Since everything was locked down, we had to park our car outside and walk in.
The deceased Auntie H has been through a lot. She’s had a hard life. She was born in a small town in northern Hunan in 1962. In the great economic reform of the 90s, she went south to Guangdong to work. She’s been struggling at the bottom of society all her life. The winds of the economic reform didn’t bring any blessings into her life. It’s only made her more desperate. The dividends of economic progress didn’t impact her fate, except to bring her more tragedies. Since she had to leave home to work, it’s caused her to become divorced. Alone with her child, it was impossible for her to afford a house out of state on her meagre salary. She lives in the slum between Zhongshan and Zhuhai. It’s all workers struggling in poverty there. Cheap rent and cost of living meant she and her child lived in that cramped, dirty apartment for almost 30 years.
In 2016, the Taiwan shoe factory that she depended upon moved to Vietnam. After becoming unemployed, she mostly worked as a cleaning maid for middle-class families for 40 RMB an hour. It looks high, but the work is exceptionally hard. Zhuhai is a humid and hot area. She has to spend hours every day constantly bending over to wring her rag out, then standing up to wipe down furniture, walking back and forth through a house with no stop. Even in the winter, after a couple of hours, she is sore and drenched in sweat. She is either exposed to the hot sun in the summer or the winds and rain in the winter, always hurrying to her next client’s house, working day and night just for her child.
After years of selling her cheap labour and saving up, she was finally able to build a small house in her hometown of Human. She hasn’t been home for the holidays for many years and she’d planned to spend New Years this year in her new house. I never thought she’d finally return to her hometown in this form. She was as close as a sister to my mother. They’ve known each other since youth. My mom still can’t accept that she’s gone. I’m really upset too. I hate the culprit for his cruelty and cold-heartedness. But we should also ask the deeper reasons that caused this great tragedy, the societal causes. What kind of social soil and environment can raise this many shameless acts of attacking the weak and helpless? Sigh. In this day and age, questioning is becoming and more and more dangerous act. Even remembrance is. I hope there’s no cruelty in heaven.”
Comments say, “I’m upset too, and I get how the family and friends feel, but for natural bad seed like these, asking about the soil is no different from eating bloody bread [to make a profit from a tragedy], to be frank. It’s just signalling to the other bad seed. For this kind of extreme villain, even being nice to him would just make him think that you want something from him. His evil has nothing to do with the soil. It’s in his bones. Just like those underage murderers and rapists. If there’s anything we should reflect on, it’s how we didn’t filter him out earlier.”
“If she was struggling this much, she wouldn’t have joined a marching team. Don’t move along to the wrong rhythm when it comes to societal events like this.”
“This is so obviously made up to direct discussion. No soil is reason to kill 35 innocent lives.”
[A really big influencer, Li Ziqi, has returned to posting videos after a 5 year hiatus. She mostly does content where she recreates ancient artisan techniques like basketweaving from scratch, spinning silk from scratch, etc. The first video she posted after her hiatus is about making Lacquerware. I really lover her content.]
#Chengdu Lacquerware proves Li Ziqi made everything herself. #Li Ziji covered in rash from allergy. “In the process of learning and making lacquerware, Li Ziqi unfortunately had a severe allergic reaction. Her face was swollen “like a TV set” due to the allergy. Her whole body was covered with swollen rashes, itchy to the point that she can’t sleep. It’s so bad that she is covered in scabs that she would then scratch open again. Her allergy was severe enough that her team had to take her to the hospital to receive shots.
Chengdu’s lacquerware factory reveals that despite her severe allergy, Li Ziqi showed an amazing amount of determination and perseverance. She threw her whole body and mind into studying. Her allergic reactions include a rash all over her face, swollen lips, and obvious symptoms on her arms. Despite such a severe reaction, Li Ziqi still persisted in completing her lacquerware, displaying her respect towards traditional craftsmanship and cultural heritage.”
Comments say, “There are so many trolls in this comment section riling people up.”
“How much money does she make on each video? The allergy is totally worth it.”
“Most people are allergic to raw lacquer. People who can actually deal with lacquer are blessed by God.”
#Corporation hoards 2641 bitcoins. “Boya Interactive revealed on the 12th of November that as of that day, they hold 2641 bitcoins for a total cost of around 143 million USD. Lately, the crypto currency market is exploding, with bitcoin reaching a high of almost 90K USD yesterday. According to this calculation, Boya Interaction has made a profit of more than 100 million USD on their bitcoin and ether alone. Boya Interactive is a gaming company established in 2004, mostly making online chess and cardgames. Boya Interaction was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on the 12th of November, 2013.”
Comments say, “How come big companies are allowed to buy them but we’re not?”
“What’s the point of buying bitcoin in this day and age? You didn’t mine them for less than 100 bucks at the beginning. You’re gonna buy in at 60K, 80K now and hope that it doubles in value? Why not just buy stocks at that point? There’s more opportunities and they’re legal.”
“Confiscate them! This is illegal in China, right?”
A blogger reposts a news story about a high school in Henan Xinyang, where four members of the student council were exposed for accepting bribes from fellow students. They confiscate phones from students [their actual job] and demand 300 RMB from students to return their phones to them and not tell the teachers. They’ve been dismissed from the student council and further punishments may be issued based on police investigations. The blogger writes, “Remove student councils. Remove the Young Pioneers program. Remove the Department of Education. Remove government-funded corporations. Remove the party forming cliques and being corrupt. Remove all official organisations from schools. Let education return to being education. Let education be equal for all. Stop making it a tool for leaders to brainwash and fool the people.”
Comments say, “This is about education. What does it have to do with nationally-funded corporations?”
“Wow, how brave.”
“Thrilling.”
“Why not remove schools and just homeschool everyone?”
“This case in Zhuhai, I don’t think “he was crazy” is a right description. We see from all these patterns that the culprit is plenty calm and logical. They always go after the least threatening passers by, old people, or children as their victims. How is this “crazy”? They’re sure careful when they’re crazy.”
Comments say, “Imamura Shohei has a line in Vengeance is Mine that’s something like, “You only dare kill people you don’t actually hate.””
“It’s just like all those people who get drunk and beat their wives but never their bosses. They’re also very careful in their drunkenness.”
“Basically, crazy men are killing old people, women, and children. Crazy women are chained up and giving birth to 8 kids.”
#Bank of Communications responds to worker committing suicide after pay cuts. #Bank of Communications claim they are proactively communication with the worker in question. “Rumours spread that a worker at the Bank of Communications Credit Card Centre’s Chongqing Branch attempted to protect his rights in an extremist way after disputes over his wages. The Bank of Communications has responded to the recent rumours by claiming that, “Lately, certain media have been mentioning that there is layoffs and pay cuts going on at our centre, and there are mere rumours. As for certain employees using social media to complain about work conditions, we are currently in negotiations with them.””
Comments say, “Is this how banks are these days? Massive lay offs and pay cuts?”
“It’s a nationally-funded company. Of course they don’t have lay offs. They’re just optimising. [doge]”
“Who would dare have a child now.”