“Why do so many kids in China refuse to consider their parent’s feelings?
When I hung out with my sister-in-law, this 15-year-old girl was a classic rebellious, moody, unreasonable, impossible teenager. Using my MIL’s own words, “I can’t say two sentences to her without her getting mad and yelling at me. It makes me so bad.”
Due to her schooling, she had to live with us in the same city, and I thought that aside from being very quiet and not very opinionated, she was a really good kid.
I thought maybe it’s because she doesn’t know me, so she doesn’t feel entitled to throwing tantrums yet, until the late stages of my pregnancy. My MIL came over to take care of me, and I got to see first-hand just how “rebellious” and “moody” my SIL was.
Example one: It’s cold in the winter, and when I went to the bathroom, I turned on the AC in the living room to heat, and went back to my bedroom. I overheard the following conversation:
MIL: “Did you turn on the AC?”
SIL: “No.”
MIL: “Then who did?”
SIL: “I don’t know either.”
Just as I was about to speak up, my MIL went, “Then your SIL probably turned it on.”
SIL: “Oh.”
A minute later, my MIL: “You really didn’t turn it on?”
SIL: “Yes!”
MIL: “Then did you see your SIL turn it on?”
SIL: “No!”
MIL: “Then who turned it on? Was it you?”
SIL completely freaked out: “I DON’T KNOW I DON’T KNOW I DON’T KNOW!!!” She really was screaming hysterically.
My MIL got sad in an instant, “I was just asking you a question. Why are you yelling at me? What is wrong with you? Can’t you be a little more understanding? Your SIL is trying to rest and you’re screaming out here!”
SIL: “……”
Second example: she needed to buy some textbooks and told my MIL.
MIL: “Have you asked your classmates whether they’re paying too?”
SIL: “They’re textbooks. Everyone needs them, so of course everyone’s paying for them.”
MIL: “You still need to ask though. Ask how they’re paying it.”
SIL: “The teacher left clear instructions in the group chat. Just get to it.”
MIL: “Just go ask around.”
SIL: “……”
MIL: “Go ask around!”
SIL: “I did. This is how everyone’s paying it. Just pay for it.”
MIL: “You really asked around? Who did you ask? How many people did you ask? Speak up! Was it the girls in your dorm? Did you ask anyone at all?”
My SIL suddenly explodes: “YES I ASKED! FUCK IT, FORGET IT, YOU DON’T HAVE TO PAY FOR SHIT OKAY? JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!” (Also hysterically screaming.)
MIL: “Why are you freaking out like that? What happened to your temper? Why can’t you be a little more understanding? Why are you such a rude kid?”
SIL: “…….” (I ended up getting the payment code from her and paying for her, and my MIL chased me down to pay me back, while fussing about how inconsiderate my SIL was the whole time.)
Example three: my SIL goes into the kitchen to ask my MIL, “What are we having for dinner?”
MIL: “You hungry? I told you to eat more for lunch. Not eating when you’re supposed to…serves you right for being hungry. You should go starve to death.”
SIL: “So what are we having for dinner?”
MIL: “Food, food, food! Do you not know anything other than food?”
SIL: “I just want to know what we’re having!”
MIL: “Why the hell are you still asking? You’ve asked me a million times already! If you keep carrying on like this, I’ll kick you to death!”
SIL, her voice up an octave now, “I JUST WANT TO KNOW. WHAT ARE WE HAVING. HUH!?”
MIL: “Are you fucking blind? We’re eating buns!”
Example four: …
There is no example four, because I flipped out.
Before my MIL could start telling my SIL off again, I exploded before my SIL could, “Are you listening to her at all? Is this how you’ve communicated with her growing up? Completely ignoring everything she said, like she might as well have been mute, and only shutting up once you’ve driven her to the point of yelling at you? How the hell is she going to go about communicating with you then? Doesn’t it save her a lot of trouble if she just starts in with yelling at you? She asked politely what we’re going to eat, and all you had to fucking do is reply “buns.” Why the hell are you telling her to go starve or that you’re going to kick her? You’re mad that she’s yelling at you, but you’re not exactly gentle with her either. Her personality is going to mirror her environment. She’s always been sweet and good with me. Maybe you need to reflect on yourself!”
My husband with stars in his eyes backs me up, “My wife is right!”
My SIL had her head down, tears in her eyes.
My in-laws: “……”
A lot of times, it’s not that kids don’t consider their parents’ feelings. It’s that parents never considered their kids’ feelings either.”
Comments say, “Have you considered that maybe this MIL has anxiety?”
“Talking with my parents like this really feels suffocating.”
“I’ve seen parents like this. In the best case scenario, their kids end up with depression.”
A long article going into how Americans are good at DIY and home repairs because human labour is very expensive in America, and people have been forced to learn how to switch out lightbulbs and deal with minor clogs or learn how to fix basic car issues because getting a professional to deal with them is exorbitantly expensive. Including a story of a friend who wrecked a BMW in the states and the repairs added up to 4-5000 USD, whereas the same repairs would’ve only cost 10K RMB in China.
And it used to be that this wasn’t a thing in China, because people culturally looked down on manual labour. But now, as labour costs in China rises too, more and more of the middle-class are starting to pick up home repairs as well. He includes a story of a friend who needed a broken light fixed, and looked it up on the internet where the repairman promised to do it for 30 RMB, but then ended up selling him on a bunch of additional repairs that added up to 180 RMB.
Comments say, “There’s an old saying, “Talent only shines in moments of crisis.” If you don’t force yourself, you have no idea what you can accomplish.”
“If you’re a carpenter or painter overseas, you get paid a lot of money.”
“180 RMB is a joke. Repairmen don’t even bother showing up at your door unless they plan to get 4-500 out of you. They’ll charge 1-2K RMB just to plunge a toilet.”
A compilation of how much deliverymen know about your lives:
“One time, the delivery guy called me and said, “Your package is here. And we’ve got a package for your husband too.” I told him I’d go over there in a little bit, but I was confused how he knew who my husband was. What’s even more mindblowing is that he called me later and was like, “Don’t worry about it, your MIL picked the packages up.””
“A friend in Beijing’s husband was keeping a mistress, and rented a unit in the same development as his mistress. Later on, my friend got divorced and bought a house to move into, and mailed her stuff through the mail. And the delivery guy was like, “So you ended up getting divorced after all.” He not only knew that her husband had a mistress, who the mistress was, and where she lived, he even told my friend that the mistress didn’t look like the kind of woman who’s settle down for the quiet life.”
“I used to be unemployed at home, and my local post office knew to only call me in the afternoon because I don’t get up in the mornings. The first line they say to me on every call is, “Are you awake yet?””
“My delivery guy from Jingdong [high end online shopping site] asks me that too. Occasionally, I’d pick up his call at noon, and he’d joke that I was up pretty early today.”
“Me: “There’s no one at home, just leave it with the security guard.” Delivery man: “Your mom just walked by me. Hey, auntie! Auntie!””
“One time, I bought some stuff to send back to my home town (rural village), and the delivery guy called me and was like, “Your parents aren’t home, and their car isn’t here either. How about I leave it with your grandma?” And I was like: “??? You recognise my dad’s car? You know where my grandma lives?” And he was like, “The house opposite the supermarket, right?” I was totally shocked. I hardly ever mail packages back home.”
“My delivery guy told me that my son and his nanny went over to Unit 302 to play.”
“The delivery service near my office is like this. Because we leave the landline number for our business-related packages, they often can’t reach us by phone. So they’ve gotten to know all of our private personal phone numbers, and they know which floor you might be at.”
“During covid, deliverymen couldn’t come into our development, so we had to pick up our packages at the gate. I rode over on my bike, full helmet, doubt my own mother would recognise me. But as soon as I stopped my bike, the delivery guy handed me my box.”
“Since I was looking to switch to a bigger place, I’ve been asking my apartment managers, security guard, real estate agents for recommendations and never found anything. My delivery guy solved the problem in two days.”
“I got myself a way fancier car but was too embarrassed to drive it to work, worried that my coworkers would gossip about me being a showoff. So every time, I park super far from my office and walk over to work. One day, my coworker suddenly asked me if I’d bought a new car, and I was shocked and asked how he knew. And he told me the delivery guy shared the gossip with him.”
“”It’s true. The delivery guy in our development knows the owner of the supermarket, the aunties and uncles are the farmer’s market, all the janitors and security cards in the development, and even knows who’s whose wife, who’s whose parents.”
“The delivery guy for my last company learned through countless packages every single person in my office’s actual name, English name, and internet handle. I was so impressed.”
Another long Chinese Medicine PSA. I’m not sure if people are still interested in hearing all the details, so for this time, I’ll just pick out the most amazing lines contained within. Let me know if you still want me to go into detail every time, so you can form some kind of consistent logic about it or something!
“Humans can’t produce blood all day long. The human body only produces blood during certain hours. This was determined by God and can’t be changed artificially.”
“Knocking on the outside of your thighs 100 times per day will help you produce bile, which is an important material for producing blood.”
“Shortsightedness is caused by weak kidneys.”
“Ear infections indicate an infection in your small intestines.”
“Horizontal grooves on your fingernails means your immune system is working correctly.”
“Diabetes isn’t a real disease. Given time, the human body will discharge all the extra sugar on its own, and it’ll stop being a problem eventually.”
“Any disease that western doctors can cure, Chinese Medicine Doctors can cure.”
“Chinese people have a supplement called “ejiao” which helps blood to coagulate. It’s made from donkey skin.”
“Business wars.
Back in the day, I was defeated by a little Taobao (Chinese Amazon) store. The reason was because of price. Some crazy fucker wanted to go into the purple diamonds business, and started selling my merchandise at cost. This caused myself and other offline stores to rapidly break down. That year, I lost 20 million total. It was a fatal blow, and there was no solution available to me.
After thinking about it long and hard, I closed down the store, and only focused on square footage from that point on. Never thought it would be the best decision I ever made in my life.
Now, livestreaming is defeating little Taobao stores. This is inevitable too. Individual small stores don’t have an advantage on price. The biggest loser is the platform. If they get rid of their biggest livestreamers, they get picked up by competing platforms. If they let their biggest livestreamers continue, then the whole platform will become nothing more than an accessory to these big streamers.
To put it bluntly, a platform can be cloned no problem, but big streamers can’t. By the time big streamers can negotiate on equal terms with their platform, that platform is done.”
Comments say, “Honest question, if I start investing in square footage with the market as it is, can I still increase my wealth by an order of magnitude like you did?”
“First time I’ve heard about you losing 20 mil. I thought you were only making money this whole time.”
“So what’s going to defeating livestreamers, then?”
“My qinjia [what you call the parents of your child’s spouse] called me last night to do some fearmongering, saying that her classmate’s daughter might have a crush on her son. The little girl often comes over to her house to clean and cook. She says that if my kiddo keeps lazing around like this, her son is going to fall in love with someone else. After all, the competition is very strong. Not like Apple vs Huawei, more like Apple versus Xiaomi.
I calmly told her, “It’s fine. Let them date and get a bit of practice in. Men only learn how to empathise with women by dating them. It’s the only way they learn how to take care of girls. Once he’s gotten enough practice under his belt, he can come take care of my daughter.” Look at all the rich male celebrities who’ve died at the hands of impressive women. It’s clear to see that the timing of your debut matters a lot. People who show up early in their dating life are clearly just there for practice. And going up against a rookie is always less than satisfying.”
Comments say, “Never raise your daughter to only know how to cook and clean.”
“Hahahahaha I laughed so hard I snorted like a pig. I want to know how your qinjia reacted.”
“Bookmarking this, sounds like the sort of drama that I can follow for the next decade.”
“There’s a place near my house that sells pork hock rice. Me and Mister Mao uses it like our personal cafeteria. Whenever we have trouble making a decision on what to eat, we’ll go over there and get pork hock rice plus a plate of barbecue pork.
It tastes fantastic. The owners are super caring too. At least in a 5km radius, no other restaurant matches up to them.
The owner emphasised multiple times that they do everything in-house. They don’t serve any prepackaged food. And it’s true too—even their sour plum sauce is homemade.
All of this deliciousness ended during lunchtime about two weeks ago. Our barbecue hasn’t been served yet. We were munching on our pork hock rice with chili sauce to sate our hunger, when Mr. Mao dug out a black bug from his dish.
The bug sat straight up in the sauce-covered rice, right in the middle of a puddle of red chili sauce. Its body was pin-straight, its antenna limply drooping, looking very perceaful.
Mr. Mao vomited right away.
“Is it a cockroach?” I observed closely. It was much smaller than any cockroach I’d ever seen, so I wasn’t very sure.
The sun was very bright that day, and the owner’s mother was basking in the warmth behind Mr. Mao. She was startled for a moment by our commotion, but her cunning as a businessman immediately took over.
“This just flew over right now,” She argued.
The look on my face must have declared too loudly, “Do we look like idiots?”
So the old lady studied the plate of food carefully. The way the bug was rammed right into the rice made it a little plausible that it was this bowl in the way of its flight and decided to commit suicide to get back at us.
So clearly, it didn’t fly over just now. So the old lady tried to cover up by saying, “I’ll bring you out a replacement dish!” And she dashed forward to try to snatch the plate from us.
Mr. Mao was just pulling out his phone to take a picture, and for a moment, they fought over the plate. Finally, Mr. Mao came out on top, and took a photo of our disaster this lunch.
The owner’s mom is falling all over herself apologising now, but we’ve lost all appetite.
But we’ve eaten so often at this place, and been conquered by its deliciousness so many times, that we decided not to pursue.
Afterwards, I looked back on the photo of that bug several times, and still can’t quite believe it, and yet I couldn’t help my curiosity. So I made a social media post asking people, and the comment section was filled with people confirming that it was, in fact, a cockroach.
I don’t think I’ll go back to that restaurant for at least half a year.
We were both very sad over this last night. “What a shame. We’ve lost our pork hock rice. We’re like lions hunting hyenas on the grassy plains. We just don’t know which one of them to go after.”
What a shame.”
Comments say, “There’s a rice noodle place near my house that I’d go to every time I didn’t want to think about food. And one time, I pulled a curly hair out of my rice noodles T_T”
“Think about recovery liquid [Chinese Medicine made from cockroaches], and maybe you’ll feel better?”
I'm confused by the part with livestreamers putting online stores out of business. how does that work?