11/20/23 - He’s got 6 million in savings, but you can’t buy anything with that.
“How shitty can a shitty woman get?
If it wasn’t for her MIL going around everywhere pleading with her friends to talk her down, I’d have thought this was all made up.
This woman is 165cm. Not all that pretty, but super slutty. Like, she gives off vibes that she’s ready to go anytime. She graduated from an engineering major in a small town, and is currently in a super wealthy department as a supervisor.
First is marriage. When she married back in the day, it was purely for the guy’s money and connections. After marriage, once her in-laws retired and didn’t have money to give them anymore, she completely lost interest in the guy. And her useless cuck of a husband just stayed at home for years. Since he’s got nothing going for him, he’s worried he won’t find a wife again, so he just put up everything.
Second is, she spends money like crazy. Her husband and her have two tiny, old houses under their name, one with a mortgage on it and one fully paid off. And the fucking bitch sold the house they’d paid off, and got 4 million RMB. Her MIL talked to her about using the money to pay off the mortgage, or to buy a newer house. But the bitch wouldn’t. She took that 4 million and blew it all. Tens of thousands on bags, tens of thousands on spas, tens of thousands of fancy meals. My wife came back and said there was definitely something wrong with this woman, because her kid doesn’t have a single pretty outfit. And her husband doesn’t dare to say a word about it because he’s scared of divorce. The MIL couldn’t put up with it anymore, so she went and found this woman’s best friends, to ask if they could help persuade her. That’s how everyone found out about all this drama.
Three is she constantly cheats. Her MIL said that she frequently stays out overnight, puts on full makeup to go out drinking, sometimes not returning home for days on end. And her husband is still the same as always—doesn’t dare to question where she went.
Four is she’s always trying to climb up at work. I mean, you all know what’s going on. But it worked. In just a couple of years, she got made supervisor. God, she was so happy. And when her husband saw how well she was doing, he just got even more scared of her.
The whole thing has my jaw on the floor.”
Comments say, “I mean, what I can say about this? If her husband’s going along with it, then what are other people supposed to say? I once heard a woman say that her friend slept with some Japanese guy, and suddenly unlocked something, and got super interested in this sort of stuff. Got infamous all around before she even married. Her FIL is prideful and refused to let her marry in, but his son had his heart set on her. She bragged to people that she was really skilful at that sort of thing, to the point where her husband can’t do without her anymore. Like, I don’t even know what to say to that.”
“I can understand everything else, but I don’t get not even caring about her own child.”
“Women with no concept of family won’t end up with a happy ending. Once she’s old and useless, her husband and children won’t do shit for her, because they don’t have any familial love built up with her. She’ll probably die alone.”
An askreddit question, “Why do I feel like Shanghai isn’t as developed as people say it is?”
The top reply is, “Because Shanghai’s development is horrifically skewed. As a life-long Shanghai citizen, I’m on the edge of a mental breakdown because of Shanghai’s “prosperity”.
Shanghai’s problem has never been its development. It’s that it’s using one hand to carve flowers into rice, while using the other hand to strangle people by the throat. Every time anyone complains about not being able to breath, the mainstream will jump out and be like, “But look at this flower carved out of rice! Look how pretty it is!”
I was born in a quiet little street. There wasn’t much traffic when I was growing up, not any kind of fancy stores either. This is the sort of “undeveloped” that OP was probably referring to. There’d be “family restaurants” opened for local farmer workers [people who come into the city for temporary seasonal job while they’re not farming in their hometown, typically paid very little money to work manual labour], where they sell bento for 10 bucks, with no sign on the door even. A family selling buns out of their living room. Now, the bento store’s been closed for ages, but I can still remember how delicious those cheap, simple bentos were. The family selling buns too, that’s deliciousness that’s hard to find right now. It’s not pre-packaged buns out of a factory. Even handmade internet-famous buns today can’t match up to it. The bun’s skin was all wrinkly, and it wasn’t white at all, and the meat stuffing inside is sweet and with no soy sauce. But it doesn’t need to rely on heavy seasoning for deliciousness.
The “family restaurant”’s become a Shandong dumpling restaurant now. I’m not racist or anything, my ancestors were from Shandong and I like Shandong food. The restaurant isn’t bad, but I would never expect it to get internet famous! It’s recommended all over the place on instagram. I often think to myself that if that family meat bun business had stayed open, it might deserve all of this praise, but this Shandong dumpling restaurant? It just makes me feel bad for all the completely unknown and yet delicious dumpling restaurants in my hometown, completely ignored by capitalists. It doesn’t deserve it at all.
That’s just my bitching as a foodie. My childhood foodie street has become dominated by burger joints and noodle shops now. I’m honestly so mad I could faint. They pick the foods that require the least amount of skill in making, and throw on a bunch of fancy concepts and packaging, and get countless people to line up around the block to eat at a place where they don’t even have stoves in the kitchen. And then, my local area randomly became a tourist spot. Forget the weekend, even on a normal weekday, countless people come to visit. I mean, did it bring up real estate prices? It sure did. If you said you live here, your coworkers are all impressed. But I have to wear ear plugs to bed every night.
I’m a highly sensitive person. I can’t stand loud noise. But this place doesn’t quiet down even at 2AM in the morning. I don’t own the house either, my parents too. And I’m not young anymore. I guess I’m just a normal, average, middle-aged woman who’s lost all the sparkle from her eyes. I just go to work during the day for stability and lay flat at home when I’m off of work. Shanghai can’t satisfy any of my needs as a natural human being.
Maybe I’m just behind the times. I’ve been eliminated by the progress of time. I’m too old. I just want to say that Shanghai used to have a lot of delicious food at fair prices. It wasn’t very “developed” at all, and it was all very cheap. There used to be hole-in-the-walls making Liangmian Huang [some sort of fried dough dish?], and today, that recipe’s been lost because of how much of a pain in the ass it is to make.
When I vacationed in Zibo, I’ve honestly been touched by Zibo food. Don’t eat at barbecue places in Zibo, and don’t go to a proper restaurant. Go on Groupon and find a chicken restaurant that’ll serve you 5-6 dishes for 108 RMB, and you’ll enjoy the pure flavours of Chinese cuisine that hasn’t been stomped all over by rising rent and capitalism.
Like, “Shanghai dollars” doesn’t even cover it now. It’s all set brands in their set lanes, all doing the same thing. It’s like Shanghai’s fashion is to all crowd into the same competitive lane and enjoy low-oxygen, crushing crowds, with low quality and sky-high prices.
Go walk around Changning District, and you’ll be shocked how there’s a big bouquet of flowers in front of every store. An auntie comes by every two hours to freshen it up, spray water on it so it looks prettier. Then turn around, and you’ll find that a random roadside attraction is giving off dry ice, and there’s electronic fire special effects around it. It’s very pretty, all smoky from the dry ice. But it seems like this sort of luxurious decorations is what Shanghai really has over other cities that makes it feel “developed”. I don’t agree with everyone saying that Shanghai is only fancy for rich people. You can really experience it just walking down the road. Even if you’re stuck on the flyways in traffic, you can see the planters of flowers on the side of the street. This is the kind of thing you never see in other, less developed cities. Even the most blunt, slow woman can see the beauty in everything. And all these free sceneries, these little details, are what give us the impression of Shanghai being “developed”. It’s true that Shanghai’s the city that’s the friendliest to women.
But what use it is? I had to take off work to go to the hospital today, and none of these decorations helped alleviate any of my anxiety while I was stuck in traffic. I feel like there’s not enough room for me to stay alive anymore. Every time I go out the door, I’m terrified about whether there’s parking available, whether parking fees will give me sticker job. But when I really see a parking spot available, I completely forget how much parking cost. I have a spot to put my car! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! There’s so little space. Walk along the street in Shanghai and you’ll know what this sentence means. At that point, money is just a number.
Distance between yourself and other human beings is what you can’t buy with money.
I’ve seen a rat experiment before, that says when the nest becomes densely populated enough, they stop reproducing. All the females get aggressive and all the males become sissies. That’s basically a photograph of Shanghai right now. No one’s having kids in Shanghai. We rely on immigrants for population.
It’s just too dense here. As soon as you leave your door, you’re assumed to be a criminal. If you’re riding the subway, you have to let TSA dig through your bag. If you’re driving, there’s traffic cops and CCTV cameras on every corner. If you’re riding a bike, there’s a half dozen dudes squatting in bushes along the roads waiting to give you fines. You’re not even safe as a pedestrian. There are cop cars parked by intersections where people jaywalk a lot, and there’s facial recognition cameras on traffic lights.
The degree of control Shanghai has is something that they could honestly win a military medal for. But as a natural human being, what I support is just limited to catching people who drunk drive, not identify whether or not people in the backseat of a car have their seatbelts on.
Shanghai used to be interesting back in the day. Old men would sit around shirtless and drink beer by the side of the street. There would be 5 RMB chicken tenderloin being sold next to school. You can buy clothes around Qipu Street for 30-50 bucks. Everyone was down to earth. There was an insult back in the day, “Shanghai peasant”, but it was really comfortable being a Shanghai peasant.
OP, you said Shanghai isn’t that developed. I’m guessing you’re talking about the suburbs of Shanghai. The parts where it bleeds into the surrounding rural landscape isn’t that developed, yeah. But those are still invaluable parts of Shanghai to me. Maybe you think it’s all trashy, but to me, they’re the last few pockets of old Shanghai left. Here, you can spend a little over 100 RMB and have a decent home-cooked meal. No internet influencers, no prepackaged food. The only downside is the traffic you have to battle through to get there.
I went to a concert that was 10 RMB a ticket about 7-8 years ago. And that price included a free bottle of tea. Even now, thinking back, I’m not sure if I hadn’t imagined the whole thing. Especially since last year, some of my friends came to visit from Zibo, and took me out to a musical performance, and the tickets were 5-600 RMB. I couldn’t even last 20 minutes before I had to get out of there. I felt really bad for my friend, but I couldn’t stand being cramped into such a little space where I couldn’t even extend my legs, surrounded by people on every side. The railing in front of me blocked me off from the stage, and I felt like I was in prison. Just like how I have to squeeze myself onto the subway, and squeeze myself into my cubicle every day at work. The torture of having to put up with the next cubicle’s snoring every day at noon.
I’ve reflected on myself too. Is it really because I’m too old? I don’t know. I just feel like these shows don’t feel like anything except money. The more expensive the performance, the more snooty they are, the more they PUA their audience with a cold tone. If they can’t start on time, they don’t even apologise, and just make you wait. They sure sell a lot of merchandise though. The cafeteria inside sells pizza for 158 RMB, or 10 wings for 128 RMB, or beer for 48 RMB which isn’t really that for, since they’ll gift you a canvas bag with their logo on it. It’s just like all the beautiful flowers on the road to my hospital. It’s expensive and pretty, but I’m still just as trouble over a parking spot at the end of the day.
Our natural qualities have been oppressed to the extreme, and money and fame and prestige has been overblown to the extreme, and created the illusion of Shanghai’s prosperity despite how hellish it is behind the scenes.
Whoever wants this sort of prosperity can fucking take it.”
Comments say, “Went to Ennan Gongguan [a subdivision in Shanghai] and bought a dish of steamed vegetables for 79 RMB. I don’t get it. Shanghai prices are so overinflated.”
“Just 20 years ago, if you dared to park your bike or scooter outside, it would 100% get stolen. If you didn’t wear your backpack on your front, it would 100% get pickpocketed. Everyone just walk across the street whenever they feel like and steal whatever they want. You can’t compare now to the past. This is a sign of things improving.”
“Shanghai’s not prosperous at all. All the stores are dying. All the foreign investment is leaving.”
“Jesus, how much of a piece of shit are you? I’m not bragging, but so long as your parents aren’t drug or gambling addicts, you’re the owner of several million’s worth of assets…how can you not be grateful to societal development for that?”
“Going to Nanjing with my husband:
When I was already on the taxi to the station, I found that I’d forgotten my national ID at home. I went through the hassle of changing my train time while going back to get it, figuring I wouldn’t make it on time, only to find that I totally had enough time. Then I looked closer, and found that I’d accidentally changed my departure time to next Friday. After she was done laughing her ass off at me, she found out that her ticket was also for next Friday. The reason I changed my departure time to be next Friday was because I originally had tickets for next Friday.
Watched See You Again [reality TV show about married couples] with my husband and my husband’s boyfriend. She started getting all maniacal like she does watching Legend of Zhenhuan at home, and started cussing out Wang Qiuyu [director], and I had to remind her boyfriend to settle her down, in case she broke the hotel’s projector and we had to pay for it.
I love Nanjing. I love Suzhou. The closer we get to Shanghai, the more the air smells like work. But I still have to work in Shanghai.
The grass is really greener on the other side.”
Comments say, “How many rooms did the three of you get? >.>”
“>.> Who’s your husband’s boyfriend?”
“There are so many twists and turns in this post hahahahahaha”
“What’s filial piety? This is the most unique interpretation I’ve heard so far…A classmate of mine is going overseas, and right before he left, he told his dad and his mom that he might not be around to fulfil his filial piety duties, and he got told off by his dad.
“What’s the point of all your studies if you don’t even know what filial piety is!? Let me tell you! Filial piety is about looking forward , not looking back. I listened to everything your grandpa said and worked hard to live a better life than he did. I’ve made my accomplishments, so he thinks I was filially pious. You’re doing better than I ever did now, and you’re going to go explore the world and make your mark on it. That’s already you being filially pious. All you have to promise is that your children do even better than you, and you’ll have been the most filially pious to those who came before you.””
Comments say, “That’s been true from ancient days to now, just like how water flows down. Parents work hard their whole lives to raise their children so they can fly higher, not so they can pay them back.”
“This is my family rules too! Every generation does a little better than the one before it, and that’s how you have hope. And no gambling (not even among relatives).”
“The best way to be filially pious as a child is to live happily.”
“How do children from average families live? Stingily, frugally, timidly, because children from normal families can’t afford to make mistakes. Any single mistake could take a lifetime to make up for. But the more their personalities are overcautious, the more tragic their life becomes. Why? Because no one is naturally born with talent, it’s all honed with practice. The result of your cautiousness isn’t as good as you imagine it. It just means you miss opportunities.
I have a really close college roommate. When he graduated, he has no connections in his family, so he could only find a job in his small hometown for 1000 RMB per month. Since he graduated from a 985 university [Ivy League equivalent], he got a really great job at this small town, and his parents have a house. It’s not very big, but it’s liveable. So he lived like this for a year, and got sick and tired of how frugal he had to be. He quit his job, and took a train to Chaoyang District [Beijing] to work, and now he makes over a million a year. He’s one of the few people I know who make more than a million a year. Later, he got headhunted by one of the best companies and became manager of a small department, and helped that company get its IPO. Now, he can ride his boss’s plane out on business trips. It’s not his own plane, but he uses it frequently. That was probably the only impulsive decision he made in life, but it worked out.
But at the same time, he missed out on his house of 20 years. He only has a two-bedroom unit in Chaoyang District now, with no elevator. He’s got 6 million in savings, but you can’t buy anything with that. His son doesn’t have a hukou, so he can’t go to school in the big city, and he had to send his son overseas. That 6 million is barely enough to cover tuition for the next decade or so. And that’ll be it for his life. The only reason he was able to get to this place in life is because of one reason—fear. Back then, when houses went from 500K to a million, he got mad, because houses in his hometown only cost 100K. And now, it’s went from 1 million to 2 to 3, until it got to 9. The more he waited, the more pain he was in, until he just gave up on owning a house.
He’s an elite among elites, a super talented professional, but what about it? Just the other day, my kid asked me why Swiss people live so well, they don’t get paid much. I told him, it’s because Swiss people don’t have to buy a house, they can just live in their parents’ house. They only need to make enough money to buy food, and use the rest to have fun.
And I told my kid, that his dad has scrounged and scraped to get by in life, and put up with being beaten and yelled at by his bitchmom, just so he can live a happy life. He’s already got stacks and stacks of deeds to his name. When he grows up, he just needs to make 6K a month to cover his basic expenses. He can make his MIL pay for the rest.”
Comments say, “When kids grow up without any pressure, they have a totally different view on life and mindset.”
“Honestly, a lot of things just come down to whether you’re fated to have it or not.”
“Normal people have to work for 3 generations to settle down in the big city.”
“A couple of days ago, I got hit by a car. It was just as I was getting off of work, and I was looking at my phone while crossing the street. I just got bored waiting for the light to change, and went into my groupchat. It was a, you know, NSFW groupchat. And I accidentally opened a video.
And I started to cross the street when the light turned green, and got ran over by a scooter. My phone flew away from me. The video was still playing. A NSFW video. And the woman in it was being super loud. The camera was pointed right at her area, and it was clear as day.
I was laying on the ground, and my coworkers were hurrying over. And I was really using every ounce of my strength to crawl over and shut off my phone. But I was hurt and I wasn’t fast enough. And my coworkers saw I wanted my phone, so they all went to help me get it. And they were all girls.
They froze for several seconds before they picked it up.
At that moment, I had no idea what to say, and I ended up blurting out, “That’s not my phone.”
My ankle was fucked up. It should’ve hurt like hell. But the cringe in the atmosphere was so thick that it made me numb to the pain. And the woman in the video was still loudly ahh~ Ahh~ Ahh~ing.
I’m 23. I’m still single. I’m the youngest person in my company.
The scooter ran a red light, so the driver is going to pay for everything.
The law gave me justice.
But I’m still socially dead. I will never dare to look those coworkers in the eye again.
My innocence is gone.
I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I don’t even play mahjong for money. What do I do? What are they going to think of me?”
Comments say, “I mean, it’s pretty normal for young people to watch videos, but doing it in public while waiting on a red light? That’s pretty…weird.”
“What a sudden virus you got on your phone.”
“Hahahahaha oh my god, I was having a horrible day and just got scammed out of a bunch of money and now I’m too busy laughing to feel bad about myself.”
“Where is your sense of morality? Where is your decency? Where is the link?”