11/18/23 - Even for a fight between two villages, they’d bring out the artillery.
“A lot of people have no concept of just how bad crime in the 90s were. Like, it’s probably unimaginable to most people that walking from one end of the train station to the other would be a difficult journey. When you pass by a stall, the owner will push a random object off the table and insist you knocked it over and demand you pay for it. That was commonplace. Most people didn’t dare to travel at all.
A lot of places, even state capitals, would have long lengths of roads that didn’t have any lights at all. It’s super common to get mugged on the street. Nothing you can do about it except blame it on bad luck.
My personal experience: 1. My brother was going to uni at the time and taking the bus home. A guy in the next seat to him didn’t cooperate when the highway bandit demanded money, and got stabbed. Back then, highway banditry was a real serious issue.
2. We had an old railway through my hometown. The train would slow down when it went up a slope or took a turn. And people from all the nearby villages would come and climb on the train then. Once, they hopped onto a military train and made off with a coffin. Supposedly, it was being transported back from the Indian border. Apparently a lot of soldiers were dying there for no reason, so they were transporting the bodies back to do examinations, and it got stolen. A lot of people got executed in that village, and half the population got thrown in jail.”
A compilation of comments underneath: “Schools were just as bad too, lots of bullying, lots of fighting, even students stabbing each other.”
“There’s three main reasons: we’ve got cameras everywhere now, everyone’s better off economically, and there’s large amounts of low-skill and flexible jobs on the market like driving for uber.”
“It suddenly decreased a lot since 2005.”
“Back in 2007, I don’t know about murders or mugging, but there was a lot of thievery and extortion, and I live in a state capital! A couple of years earlier than that, you’d hear tons of stories of people getting the phone snatched out of their hands by motorbike riders, or getting their earrings pulled off violently along with their ear. I hear thieves on motorbikes was an especially bad problem in Guangdong.”
“Before the 90s, villages were all pretty violent. You’d get fights all the time.”
“I mean, why do you think previous generations were such badasses? Even for a fight between two villages, they’d bring out the artillery.”
“My dad hacked half the hand off of a mugger with a meat cleaver back when he was young.”
“I live in the centre of Chongqing, and I was walking with my mom at Shangqing Temple when I saw a guy get off of his bike, snatch a gold earring off of a passerby, and hop back on and run away. The woman’s ear was bleeding like crazy. It only took like a couple of seconds too.”
“Back then, getting mugged on the street was just as routine as eating and sleeping. I started going to high school in 1992, and got mugged by some thugs for 10 RMB, and didn’t dare to say anything. 10 RMB back then would’ve fed me for days.”
A tiktok video of a type of pea (or is it a bean?) I’ve never seen before, where the blogger writes, “Trinkets made from peace peas are often sold around tourist spots, I wonder if it’s made from this kind of pea?”
Comments say, “It looks so delicious!”
“It looks like the tumour that just got cut out of my friend’s back.”
“It’s my first time seeing this kind of pea, and I already want to rub it all day long.”
An askreddit question, “Is housing prices going to rise this year? What does everyone think?”
The reply is a big long essay that isn’t much different from what I’ve written about before, so I’ll only cover this answerer’s explanation for, “Why not just give out stimulus checks to fight the deflationary pressures?”
He says,“America gave out stimulus checks for covid, and everyone’s really envious. Why didn’t we get the same thing? Why is it that stimulus checks don’t work in China? Because American citizens can use the money that they just printed to buy stuff in China, to buy stuff anywhere in the world. When they give money to everyone, they’re giving goods to everyone.
Can you go to America and buy stuff with RMB? Do they recognise your money? You can only ever spend your money in China. You buy from me, I’ll buy from you. It’s just switching the money from your left hand to your right hand. So giving everyone money is just the same as giving no one money. Now do you see how important it is to make RMB global?”
Comments say, “With how bad the ageing population problem is, there’s no way it’ll rise again.”
“I mean, of course it’ll rise, the question is, how long is it going to take? It took three decades for Japan.”
“In every dynasty, average people have to reach on their tiptoes to buy a house. Even if housing prices are falling, the people who can’t afford it still can’t afford it.”
A tiktok video of a kiddo playing doctor with her doggie, a one-year-old corgi:
Comments say, “I’m just impressed by the parents here.”
“You need god-like parents to experience the highest level of joy as a child. My kids are still in the backyard playing with mud.”
“What a good doggie! What amazing parents! What a happy kid!”
“The doctor, the equipment, the patients, and the hospital founder and film director are all amazing! They need an award for props and acting!”
“Talked to my mom about her workplace gossip again. We’d talked about this story before, but every time we bring it up, I still think it’s remarkable.
An auntie got leukaemia, and managed to get a bone marrow type match, and got a transplant and got better.
In the meantime, her daughter got divorced and remarried.
And the guy she remarried was the bone marrow donor for the auntie.
This became one of the most famous pieces of gossip locally…everyone thought that the donor’s demand at the time was that the auntie’s daughter had to marry him.
Either way, what an amazing coincidence, the donor was childhood friends and classmates with the auntie’s daughter. He’d always had a crush on her, and he’s stayed unmarried for her.
I don’t know what is the truth. Not like they’re going to talk about this to other people. But her daughter had always gotten along with her ex-husband (at least, from an outsider’s point of view, they seemed really happy), and they got divorced out of nowhere, and she got remarried super fast.
But well, I don’t know if I can really call this forced anyways.
Her mom’s life was saved. The donor’s not a bad husband. He’s always loved her from childhood, so he’s really good to her and her son. They’re still a harmonious family. He doesn’t complain at all about helping take care of his MIL either. He seems just overjoyed that he got to marry his crush of 20 years.
And the ex-husband isn’t too bad off either. He doesn’t have to worry about his ex-wife’s mom anymore. He used to have to run to the hospital every day to help out, and now it’s none of his business. And he found a new wife too, since he’s not a bad guy.
Either way, it’s a lot of drama, but it seems like everyone turned out alright?
I think I’ve talked about this before, from a different point of view. I think about how while the auntie was sick, her cheating husband didn’t give a single shit about her. It was her daughters that did everything they could to save her. Her younger daughter got divorced and remarried during this period too, and her new husband also helped out a lot at the hospital. They’re all responsible people.
But from whatever angle you look at it, this whole thing is filled with drama.
But anyway, this auntie really has a pair of fantastic daughters! She had goddamn leukaemia, and when she got better, all her hair grew back as black as ever (not dyed black, you can see still a couple of white hairs in it). Now she’s happily babysitting her grandkids. She had to wait forever for a bone marrow match, like several years.
I guess the lesson here is that if a woman has a good job, she doesn’t have to worry about marriage at all. The older daughter has special circumstances, so we’ll leave her aside. But the younger daughter was divorced with a kid and a sick mom and a lot of burdens that would be a hassle to deal with, but she was still able to find a great husband…so long as you have a stable job at a good company, you don’t have to worry about finding a date at all.
And also, art comes from life, but it can never surpass life. If you wrote that plotline about bone marrow matching into a novel, everyone would call you out for being way too cliched.”
Comments say, “It could be entirely possible that when the auntie got sick, that caused conflict in her older daughter’s home, and so the guy brought it up knowing the circumstances weren’t great for her.”
“Or it’s possible that the older daughter married him because she was genuinely touched by what he did? Because my auntie was dating someone too, and after she got sick, the guy’s family all looked down on her. And that’s when my uncle appeared and took great care of my auntie’s every need. When she was at her worst, he stayed by her bedside 24/7 to look after her. My dad even said he’d never seen such a caring man. As soon as my auntie got better, she married my uncle.”
“He probably just bumped into his old crush and remembered his love for her again and went about dating her normally, and offered to test whether his bone marrow would work as a gesture of god faith. I’d rather believe he’s trying to get her to cheat with him, than to believe that he’s threatening her mother’s life to get her to marry him.”
The screenwriter for the movie “I Am A Mountain” [a biographical movie about Zhang Guimei, a woman who dedicated her life to founding schools in poverty-stricken areas for girls] responds to the controversy that the movie has generated by changing Zhang Guimei’s alcoholic father into her alcoholic mother instead by saying, “All the people accusing me of dividing women, you’re the true villains dirtying Ms. Zhang’s name. I’m never going to give in to the people who look down on me. I was born a mountain.”
Comments say, “Principle Zhang’s beliefs come from Communism, not men.”
“This crazy woman is the one dividing women, right? Alcoholic is a word that’s very gendered to describe men. Women in the mountains have suffered so much torture and injustice, and now they have to be the scapegoats for alcoholism too? What a fucking bitch.”
“I Am A Mountain changed an alcoholic man to an alcoholic women, changed Principle Zhang’s beliefs to be all about flashbacks to her dead husband. The movie goes out of its way to contrast a father who loves his daughter and an alcoholic and abusive mother. And a man who stayed to be a volunteer teacher long term, versus the girl who couldn’t take the hardship and went back to the city. And the reason “girls from the mountains” don’t go to school in this movie is because they’re “skipping class to go to internet cafes or to shop around.””
A tiktok video of handmade boba tea with…egg? in it? Blogger says, “The only thing I can complain about is that it comes in a bag.”
Comments say, “Why…why would you add eggs to boba tea!? Especially to sweet boba tea!? Save me!”
“What witchcraft is this? You don’t have to roll bobas out by hand anymore?
“What if he cracks an egg into the pot and can’t find it again?”
“I’ve been with my husband for a year now, and I suddenly got a text from his mom this morning, and I have literally no idea how to reply. My boyfriend’s dad’s always been unhealthy. I hear his mom even had a fight with his dad over this issue. I honestly like him a lot, but if his parents won’t support us, then we won’t be happy, right?”
The text from the mother reads:
“[OP], hello!
I’m sorry to interrupt your day. I had a talk with [boyfriend]s dad yesterday, which ended with his dad leaving in a fury. I thought I’d better come talk to you directly. I know we’re past the day and age of arranged marriages, but ever since his dad got sick, [boyfriend] hasn’t dared to disobey anything his dad says. The doctors told him that it’s bad for his dad to get angry, you see.
His dad and I are very traditional parents. We’ve always wanted him to get together with one of my coworker’s daughters. We watched her growing up, we know each other as a family, and her parents are interested in this arrangement too. We figured that they’d only just entered the workforce and we could wait a couple of years to bring it up, and that’s why we haven’t sent them on a date yet. And that’s what his dad and I had a fight about yesterday.
[Boyfriend] isn’t very ambitious, and is kind of a procrastinator. His dad and I want him to find a wife who can whip his gear into shape and make him improve as a person. [OP], you know that every parent wants the best for their kid. You’re the same way too. [Boyfriend] says you’re very pretty and smart. I’m sure you’ll find your own Mr Right someday.
Again, sorry for interrupting your day. [sun emoji] [sun emoji] [sun emoji]”
Comments say, “I would reply, “Hi, auntie, you’re right that your son is very average, but I still love him. But your attitude doesn’t deserve the level of love I’ve dedicated to him. Don’t worry, I would never marry into a family such as yours.”
“Then talk to your son about it? I’m not the one marrying your coworker’s kid after all?”
“I’d just reply “K”. They don’t deserve any more effort from me.”
“I’m sorry you had to go out of your way to text me too. Five million. Give me five million and I’ll leave your son.”
Man sold his ancestral home to a retired professor for 80K, and regretted it 11 years later and wants to take it back. The professor refused, and the man took the case to court, where a judge ruled that the initial purchasing contract is not legally binding, because city hukou is not allowed to purchase housing on rural ancestral land. The judge ordered the house to be returned to the man, and police climb over the wall to evict the professor by force.
Comments say, “I have no idea what to say. They were literally just encouraging retired people to start businesses in rural areas a couple of days ago.”
“We have no contractual spirit, or honour in our government.”
“The fuckiest laws in the universe.”
“I mean, they can’t allow this sort of thing though. As soon as they open it up, farmers wouldn’t be able to survive anymore.”