[I’m so sorry to miss yesterday’s post, and I don’t have a compensation plan either. I guess I can only say, I’m super sorry, and I will do my best to make sure it doesn’t happen again.]
“Middle class families need to beware of the study abroad trap.
I’ve got a distant relative who almost went bankrupt because his grandson wanted to study abroad. This is a true story. My mom was just lamenting about this to me yesterday, no joke.
My relative is well in his eighties, Shanghai native, should’ve been enjoying a very comfortable lifestyle in his old age, but his whole family is in chaos because they had a deeply-rooted “American dream.” He’s pretty successful himself. Got into the power company when he was young and got himself a managerial position, raised a good kid, and his kid became a civil servant with his advice too, and married a wife in the same class.
But when his grandson was born, everyone in the family had the same dream—the grandson had to study abroad, go to America, become an elite of society. It was a very fashionable thing to do in their circles. Every time people get together, it’s to brag about whose kid is in which country, like leaving the country meant a perfect life for these kids. Like even their ancestors would be glad this was happening.
About ten years ago, this relative met my mom and bragged about how his grandson had been admitted by some American high school. The tuition was outrageous, but a lot of famous people and celebrities have come out of that school. They plan to get their grandson overseas first, and in a couple of years, they’ll all move over and live in a big stand-alone house.
We didn’t see each other much again for ten years, and only kept in touch infrequently online. This year, my mom went to Shanghai for some business, and dropped in to visit this distant relative on the way. He refused to let my mom come over to his house, and only chatted with her in a small cafe nearby. The story for the last ten years is like this:
The grandson graduated from high school and university in America, and that depleted all of his and his son’s savings. After he graduated, he couldn’t find a job, so he couldn’t find a legal way to stay. His son and daughter-in-law started freaking out, and sold the only house they had in Shanghai to let their son continue with a postgrad degree in America. His daughter-in-law quit her job to go over to America to take care of him and make sure he’s focusing on his studies, and yet, she was turned down for her visa application twice. The grandson quickly blew through another house’s worth of money again, and still couldn’t find a way to stay. When he came back, the American diploma wasn’t worth shit in China, and he could only find a job with an average wage. He’ll never make back the tuition money they spent on him in his lifetime. Now, all three generations of his family are crammed into a relative’s old house. In the end, this eighty-year-old man sighed about how childish his whole family was in front of my mom:
First, they were in a state of denial. They just felt like China’s education and employment was bad, and everything was better overseas. But in the end, it was all the same. Talented people can be successful no matter what their environment.
Then, they fell into the gambler’s fallacy, and went all-in on a single bet. They were in too deep.
And last, there was egotism. People need to be more grounded.”
Comments say, “People will never make more money than they can comprehend. Their savings are only the result of Shanghai’s real estate prices and the power company, they didn’t make any of it on their own, so it’s normal they ended up losing it in the end. Shame they lost it to America though.”
“This proves our power system really is great, that this kind of idiot can still be wealthy for so long. In most countries in the world, like Eastern Europe and Russia, there are plenty of high IQ, awesome people who can’t put food on the table. Look how great our country is, that this retard could keep three generations alive.”
“Studying abroad cost the same as a whole house? Is it really that expensive?”
“Heard a story through my community.
There was this guy who liked beating his wife. His wife couldn’t take it anymore, and drank some pesticide and killed herself.
She’d married from far away, and her family was thousands of kilometres away. She hadn’t been married for three years yet, and they had a daughter together.
When her family heard about her death, they flipped out. Brought the whole extended family over, 40-50 people. Rented a bus to drive over to demand an answer from the guy. When they arrived, they beat the shit out of the guy first, and then locked him in the memorial room [a room in the house set up for a wake to take place] with no food, no water, for seven days.
His wife’s body was still in the memorial room, along with some offerings. The guy survived off of those offerings for seven days.
Supposedly, he even got thirsty enough to drink his own pee.
This was the middle of summer, and it was a room with no air conditioning. By the time seven days passed, the body had begun to decomposed, and the whole room was filled with disgusting rotting stench. Even just walking past, it was bad enough at 50 metres away to make people throw up.
This was well over a decade ago. Back then, there were tons of women beaten to the point of drinking pesticides. It’s the same everywhere. And the aftermath is all more or less the same. The woman’s family will go throw a fit at the man’s family, beat him up, cry a bit, and get some money out of it and be done with it.
Sometimes, they take the body away. Sometimes, they leave it with the man. I’ve seen big pay outs, I’ve seen small payouts. If the payout was big enough, then they’ll even bury the body with the man when he dies of old age, so they can be a loving ghost couple, I guess.
If the pay out is small, the woman’s family will take away the corpse, and marry her to another guy who died single, and get another bride price out of it. And they’ll think of it as marrying their daughter off to a better family.
After all, she’s dead. Her family gets to do whatever they want with her body. Dead people have no opinions.
In this case, the woman’s family took away the corpse, because the man set his jaw and insisted that he didn’t have a cent. Didn’t matter if they killed him, he wouldn’t fork anything over.
A decade or so passed, and the man got old, and he was still single.
After all, it was such a scandal back in the day that word spread all around the villages. Who would dare to marry their daughter to him?
The man got sick, cancer, and he needed money for treatment.
His daughter was grown now. He’d never let her go to school, and now, she was the perfect age to marry off for some bride price.
It was an insanely high bride price, and the daughter married somewhere very far away. But it was still not nearly enough to treat his cancer.
Not just that, but the man still had to eat and drink and whore and gamble. So the money vanished in the blink of an eye.
What to do? This man had a plan.
He took his 80-year-old mom with him and got a ticket to his ex-wife’s family, and laid down on their doorsteps to throw a fit.
He insisted that he only got sick because his ex-wife’s family cursed him. Because they forced him to live with a corpse for seven days and he caught something from it. Because they married his ex-wife to a ghost and she’s someone else’s wife now so she never looked after him from the afterlife.
He’d scream and curse and his mom would do the same, spitting on his ex-wife’s mother’s shiny floors.
When they’re done cursing and ran out of energy, they’d lie down on the couch and whine like they’re dying.
He was like a mangy dog, but the expression on his face was that of a venomous snake as it hissed at people. In his murky eyes was a cold and cruel light.
No one dared to lay a finger on him. He’d sue whoever dared to touch him.
He wanted his ex-wife’s family to pay him, because his ex-wife was his when she was alive and she would be his when she was dead. So the bride price she got from marrying a ghost should’ve been his too.
So he wanted the money, plus interest for all these years.
Because his ex-wife died, so he had to raise their daughter on his own, therefore, she didn’t fulfil her duties to her child or her family. As her family, they had to pay child support to him, and emotional damages.
And also, if it wasn’t for the fact that he married such a cursed, unlucky woman, he would’ve become successful a long time ago. A divinationist said that he had great fortune in his life. The only reason he’s here now is because his ex-wife fucked up his luck.
Of course, he needs compensation for that too.
The bride price that he paid to marry her, he wanted that back with interest too.
If they don’t agree? Then he’s just going to keep laying here until he dies right on the couch of this living room. He’s going to die soon anyways, what does it matter?
Or maybe he’ll go smash up his ex-wife’s grave, scatter her ashes, make sure she can never reincarnate.
What could they do? Nobody knew. They’d called the cops, but he was on death’s door anyways. The cops don’t even dare to be too forceful. They could only try to verbally persuade him.
They tried to talk him out of it for a whole month. The social worker went through two pairs of shoes running back and forth. His ex-wife’s family agreed to pay him 60K, and he couldn’t take it.
Yesterday evening, this man died. His mother died too. The two corpses were tied together and tossed in front of his ex-wife’s grave.
The case was solved quickly, because the suspect turned himself in first thing in the morning. It was the father of the ghost the ex-wife married. The guy was well in his 80s too, an honest farmer who’d worked the field all his life. He was plenty strong.
His only son was married to the ex-wife, and a couple of years ago, his wife died too. Now he was alone and unattached in the world.
He was old. He doesn’t want to live anymore. So he figured he’d do something nice on his way out, and solve a little problem for his qinjia [the parents of your son-in-law or daughter-in-law], and get some justice for his daughter-in-law.”
This story is tagged #the warmest story this winter
Comments say, “What a fucking ridiculous story. And yet, I’m sure there are stories hundreds of times more ridiculous than this happening on this land right now. Also, this sort of topic will never get past the censors. The closer it is to reality, the more it’ll get censored. Return to Dust got pulled off the shelves for this reason.”
“Pity it’s just a story. Reality is a lot more cruel.”
“So, how did they sentence the 80-year-old murderer at the end?” [Replies here say, “For humanitarian reasons, criminals past 70 don’t go to jail, they just are kept under indefinite house arrest.]
“It was a simple process, but a shocking conclusion. What’s the definition of “badass”? This probably is it.
A newly-married Shanghai couple went on a roadtrip to Tibet, and got in a car accident, where the girl was severely injured.
The rescue effort that took place could sincerely be called “legendary”.
A simple summary is this:
First, the husband got in contact with the Shanghai Health Commission through his aunt. The Shanghai Health Commission got in touch with relevant departments in the Ngari prefecture.
Ngari calls for all government workers in the area to go donate blood, including police and firefighters and soldiers.
And then, a private jet takes her back to Shanghai, with polite escort to ensure a straight drive to Huaxi Hospital.
After a successful surgery, she transfers again to Shanghai Xinhua Hospital.
Controlling the Shanghai Health Commission, controlling all the government workers in Ngari, renting a plane, getting a police escort. Without ever experiencing any of it myself, just reading these words, I can smell the “badass” pouring off of this. And faced with this, I can only say that, being a peasant has limited my imagination.
Of course, now that it’s become big news, every faction involved is denying it.
First, the husband says that the auntie is just a normal peasant.
Sure, I believe you. I believe your absolute bullshit.
I’m a normal peasant too. And I can’t even call the Shanghai Health Commission, not to mention make them do anything for me.
Who am I? I’m just a dirt peasant.
I just want to ask this auntie, exactly what she did to make Shanghai Health Commission service her?
Honestly, I need an auntie like this.
And then, Ngari comes out and says that all the government workers voluntarily gave blood. No one organised them.
I mean, sure, I believe it. Can’t really do anything other than believe it.
Government workers stationed on our far-reaching borders are just good people, I guess, willing to donate blood to some girl they’ve never met before.
But at the same time, I’m a little confused. If nobody sent out a notice, how did they know someone needed blood?
And most importantly, the husband said, “They gave you all the Type A blood in all of Ngari.” That’s something that’ll never happen for a peasant.
Okay, maybe he was just bragging.
But even if I wanted to brag, I would never be able to come up with something like this. Guess I just haven’t had my eyes opened yet.
Then, renting a plane, a Gulfstream G550, cost 1.2 million RMB.
Wow. I’ve only ever seen one on the internet. I’ve never rode one.
I mean, I understand and support renting a plane to transfer to a better hospital for the sake of saving lives.
But the girl’s father said that he had to borrow all of that money from kind people, from his boss.
I mean, in this day and age, you can borrow people’s wives easier than you can borrow their money. For peasants like us, forget 1.2 million. We’d have to fall on our knees and beg just to borrow 12K.
Otherwise, why are there so many people on Go Fund Me for a couple of grand?
The girl’s dad said that he was a normal peasant too, just a driver at a government office.
Oh wow. He was able to pull together 1.2 million in that short of a window! Teach me how. I want to be the type of normal peasant you are.
After the incident, the girl’s father flew from Shanghai to Lhasa, and at the time, there was a blizzard in Lhasa, and the plane was delayed.
And then, something even more badass happened.
The girl’s father said that the Lhasa police suggested that they could sent police cars to escort him to Ngari, a 20 hour drive.
Having a police escort for transporting injured people, that makes sense.
But this is just the injured’s family, not they themselves, and not any kind of doctor.
And yet the Lhasa police were willing to spend 20+ hours driving him in a police car.
Wow, Tibet police are nice. They’re willing to go so far for normal peasants.
Of course, the girl’s father thought it would take too long and refused and chose the plane instead.
It’s even worse in Ngari itself. Two policeman are on standby at all hours in the hospital, monitoring the girl’s condition.
I’ve only seen policemen on watch at hospitals in movies and TV shows. Usually, it’s either a crucial suspect inside, or it’s the President. Since when do they care so much about whether normal peasants live and die? I want to get this kind of treatment too.
What else can I say? I guess nothing. I can only add in a bit of a mean-spirit:
All hail the princess.”
Comments say, “If there’s a war, don’t send us to protect the high and mighty auntie.”
“It’s hard to just get a number at Chengdu’s Huaxi Hospital. A normal person would never be able to just transfer in and get a surgery done just like that.”
“It’s even worse—there’s not even a flight route between Ghari to Chengdu.”
“I mean, without special treatment, who would want to be a government worker? You don’t think it’s actually to serve the people right?”
Under the hashtag #Shanghai only daughter gets divorced after inheriting 200 million, a blogger writes, “A couple of months ago, I covered a similar case:
[OP attaches screenshot of the case in question, “A friend’s dad passed away and left a 9-figure inheritance to him with no will. My friend wants to sign an agreement to give up his inheritance to give everything to his mom. When his wife heard, she was absolutely furious and filed for divorced, demanding her share of my friend’s dad’s estate. I’m fucking astounded.”]
Right now, the case is still making its way through the courts. Don’t know how it’s gonna go.
From a legal angle, my friend is giving up his inheritance before it actually becomes his, so this money has nothing to do with his wife. If he inherits the money and then gives up on it, that could count as damaging his spouse’s interest, and she’d have a right to a share.
In the case of the Shanghai girl on the trending posts, there’s really nothing she can do, because she already has her parents’ inheritance. So her spouse has a legal right to it too.
I don’t know if she has grandparents in the picture, and whether they’re reasonable or like her or not. If all the grandparents are around, and they’re all very reasonable and decent people, then they could file for a lawsuit too, for a share of the estate. Split the 200 million into 5 portions, 40 million each. She gets to inherit only 40 million for her share, so her spouse can at most only claim 20 million of it.
Of course, this assumes that her grandparents are reasonable and love her and are willing to return the money to her after all is said and done. If not, she’s just out of the frying pan and into the fire.”
Comments say, “The guy in your screenshot played his hand too early. He should’ve played along until his wife got the money, then he’d be in the same scenario as the 200 million girl.”
“But his mother won’t ever betray him. There are stories of people who’ve given their whole inheritance to their dad when their mom passed away, and then their dad immediately married someone new and left all the money for his new wife. The best solution is still to write a will.”
“We really need to reform marriage laws in this country. Gifts and inheritances being marital property is just ridiculous. My guess is, it started out as an attempt to protect women, since only men had inheritances back in the day.”
“Everyone gets something different out of the same story.
Recently, in The Queen of News, there was a plot point that the main character never lets the guy stay around after she has a one night stand with them. They have to leave before 11pm.
I haven’t actually watched this show, but I see how people are celebrating this on weibo, being like, “This is what a strong female protagonist looks like!”
One day, I accidentally brought this plotpoint up with a male friend of mine, and he had a viewpoint that was completely unexpected for me.
He was like, “But she’s not young anymore, and she’s not that rich.”
And I was like, “???”
This friend of mine is a divorced man in his 40s, with a kid, with no intention of marrying again. He’s got a girlfriend about the same age as him, also divorced with a kid. Neither of them plan on marrying again, so they’re just dating long-term.
He’s a university professor, and she’s a business owner with a franchise [as in, she owns the whole franchise, not that she has a location in a franchise]. They’re both super busy, so they only meet up once every one or two months. Sometimes, it’s at his house. After they’re done, if she needs to stay over, she’ll go sleep in the side bedroom and not the master bedroom.
I’m sheltered and don’t get why, so I asked.
And he was like, “I can’t fall asleep with someone else in the room.”
And i was like, “Why not? Isn’t it nice to go to sleep cuddling?”
And he was like, “That’s something only young people do. We’re old now. I can’t afford to miss out on any sleep, because I need to work the next day.”
If it’s at her house, they still split up after they’re done, each to their own room. He even has a laptop at her house so he can work over there, so of course he can’t stay in the same room and risk waking her up.
But it’s a pain to sleep this way. For example, every time his girlfriend spends the night at his place, she changes the sheets beforehand.
It’s not that anyone else has slept on it. But there’s going to be dust after it hasn’t been slept on for a month or two. Even if you clean every day, there’ll be bedbugs.
The next day, when she leaves, she change the sheets she just slept on and wash them.
When he goes over to his girlfriend’s place, he’s not as careful and won’t change the sheets beforehand. But he knows that his girlfriend will wash the whole thing after he’s gone.
So, for convenience’s sake, they’ll go to a hotel sometimes, and avoid the whole issue of washing sheets.
So his interpretation of this story is, the people involved are just old. They don’t want to sleep together at night. And they’re not that wealthy, so they don’t have a second bedroom and don’t want to go to a hotel.
I haven’t watched the show, so I don’t know how old the character is. But when I heard this from him, I forgot all about “strong female protagonist” and “confident sexuality” and stuff. I was just like, “Man, being middle-aged sucks.””
Comments say, “Couples who sleep together in middle age don’t love each other. It’s just because they don’t have spare rooms.”
“Nah, they’re all just normal people. If you’re a famous person like in the show, then there’s another explanation: she’s worried about getting photographed after she falls asleep.”
“Anyone who thinks two people can sleep well under the same blankets either have exceptional quality sleep, or have bad sleep posture and is the one who hogs all the blankets, so they don’t experience any of the problems. But actually, the other person might have half their body hanging out of the blanket. Every time, it’s the person who sleeps deeper enjoying all the sleep, and no one asks how the other side feels.”
You are the most consistent poster I follow on substack. Don't worry about it. Your life has priority.
Inheritances being marital property is truly ridiculous.