12/03/23 - There’s no way she can get out of her filial duties. There’s no way to avoid it legally speaking.
“You really don’t need a high IQ to live life.
My senpai was an absolute genius, graduated from Zhejiang University for his undergrad, then did his postgrad doctorate degree in America, where he stayed to be a teacher. Now he’s an assistant professor at a 985 university [Ivy League equivalent] in China.
His wife is a genius too, bachelor’s at Zhejiang University, Master’s Degree from Qinghua [top 2 university], currently an assistant professor at a 211 university [one step below Ivy].
Both of then are only children in middle-class households in Hangzhou, grew up together, love each other, but fight very often too. They’re both talented people, they both have their own ambitions, they’re both very opinionated. When it comes to big decisions once they formed a family, they can never agree on anything, including which country they want to live in, which university they want to teach at, and which school they should send their kids to.
In the end, they got divorced when their kid was 3 years old. And it was a clean divorce too. The mother won custody, and she wanted to change the kid’s last name. The dad agreed, and promptly ignored the kid completely, no greetings, no checkups, no child support.
After their divorce, my senpai’s been throwing himself into research, completely disconnected from the outside world. His ex-wife’s been working herself to death supporting the kid. It’s been years, and neither of them have remarried, or even really dated. They’re like two enormous trees, standing so far from each other that not a single leaf touches.
Neither of them really made any kind of mistake. Their families are still close friends with each other. Two grandparents on both sides still help take care of the kid. They should’ve been a perfect family. With family to help out, such high degrees among them, they had exceptionally bright futures. They’re better off than probably 99% of families in China. It’s really a shame where they ended up.
And, like, I know three couples who have the same story as my senpai. Like, the plot points are 90% the same.
No matter whether a person is male or female, if they come from a well-off family and they’re highly educated, they’ll become exceptionally individualistic. They’re self-centred about everything, including family life. Their own feelings will win out over their sense of responsibility.
I think a family has to be managed, and as you compromise, you’re going to have to grind away at the more sharp and edgy parts of yourself. It’s normal for a couple to fight. You can’t bring up divorce every time there’s a problem, especially when there are kids in the picture. You can’t manage a marriage with IQ. Sometimes, life really is better if you choose to be a bit dumb.”
Comments say, “I mean, even if she changed their last names, it’s illegal for the dad to not pay child support.”
“Or rather, once you’re educated, no one is willing to be the slave who gives everything up in a marriage.”
“It’s not that big a deal if your marriage fails. It’s a pretty anti-human institution.”
A compilation of answers to the question, “Does a baby crying count as disturbing the public peace?”
The answers are, “Anyone who’s experienced it knows, sometimes babies will cry nonstop even if they’re freshly changed, not sick, well-fed, and everything. I guess their nervous system just isn’t developed yet. No one wants the baby to stop crying as much as the parents, but they can’t do anything about it either.”
“When I didn’t have kids, my neighbours had a baby, and every time it cried, they’d take it out to the corridor to soothe it. They’re walking back and forth right in front of my door, and I was like, what the fuck at the time. What is wrong with them? If your baby is crying, soothe them at home? Why the hell are you disturbing my peace? Then I had a baby, and I found out that some kids calm down right away if you take them outside, but they’ll keep crying forever if you stay home. Jesus.”
“I’ve got little babies above and below me. I can hear them crying, and I can hear the mother go from gently comforting to getting frustrated to starting to berate them. It’s pretty magical. When the kid’s crying, I want to laugh. When the mom gets mad, I want to laugh too.”
“Who’s never cried as a baby? So what, you’re allowed to disturb the peace when you’re a baby, but no one else is allowed to? We’ve all been through it, none of us have a right to accuse other people.”
“The sound of babies crying is the most lovely music in the world.”
“I go to sleep every night to the sound of my neighbour’s twins crying. Sometimes, when it goes on for long enough, even I get worried whether something’s wrong with them. I even want to offer to help with the kids.”
“There’s a baby on the floor above me who cries at night all the time. Sometimes, they quiet down right away. Sometimes, they’ll cry for almost an hour. And there’d be sound of stuff getting thrown, and footsteps, and sometimes loud arguing…I never felt like it was intolerable, because I could hear how close the mom is to breaking down too.”
“I’ll get annoyed at a baby crying, but I understand it. I’m not gonna make trouble for anyone. What I can’t stand are tween brats or pet dogs jumping and running around, screaming and barking, and the parents don’t do anything about it. And if you complain, they’ll immediately fire back with how you’re the asshole, that their kid or dog is perfectly behave.”
“Just watched a lawyer livestream talk about some of the cases he’s handled on tiktok. There was a girl born in 2001, whose parents never officially got married and got separated when she was in kindergarten. She called in to consult whether she could cut off relations with her mother, because she doesn’t want to pay for her mother in retirement.
It’s because her mother is a gambler, and never took care of her. She lived with her grandparents before 2nd-3rd grade. And then her father raised her until 17. She never even went to high school and started working right away, and now she’s married with a child of her own and living okay. (Her mother was born in 1981, and she has a four year old herself XD)
The lawyer replied that although it’s too early to say so right now, there’s no way she can get out of her filial duties. There’s no way to avoid it legally speaking. If her mother sues her for support money, the judge will give a ruling based on the local economy and her own income. That’s the best outcome.
What I wanted to say is just that families really do have lineages. Her mother had her when she was 20, and she had her own babies at 18-19. I just hope that her marriage works out a little better.”
Comments say, “She can sue her mom right back for her own child support.”
“It’s a little weird to call it lineage…she’s been working since middle school. She’s young and naive and doesn’t have any family looking out for her. Of course she would end up accidentally pregnant.”
“Marrying early and having kids early really is genetically passed down. My middle school class leader is the same way. Her sister married early, and she married early too, not even 20 years old, and had a kid. When her son got to 18, she had another daughter, and then later on, she ended up with another accidental son. That’s life. Look at other people more and think about your own life.”
A blogger posts screenshots of a “Chinese-style horror story”. It’s a post from a paediatrics doctor, which reads, “I had a coworker who went to the Wuhan Mental Hospital for a consult, and there were some kids with depression who are hospitalised there. One of the kids’ mom stopped him at the gate and asked him if she can send her kid’s homework in.”
Also screenshotted are two comments underneath, “In my third year of high school, I woke up with temporary amnesia one morning because of stress and lack of sleep. My family insisted I was just faking it because I didn’t want to go to school, but the hospital confirmed the problem. It was caused by low blood pressure. I’ve become very cold since.”
“In my local town, when covid lockdowns opened up, a middle school girl died. Supposedly, she had a high fever, but her family still forced her to go to school and do homework for several days, and then she died.”
Comments say, “How are kids these days so fragile?”
“The parents are the ones at fault for this level of involution.”
“It’s not so bad to just have a normal life. You’re lucky if you can just live to old age relatively healthy. I’m realising now that my son’s probably not cut out for studying, so I’m doing my best to save up money for him.”
A long article about how, in order to raise their birth rate, Korea’s tied a lot of government worker benefits and promotions to having kids first.
Comments say, “This policy looks like it was designed to fuck over female government workers. When their workplaces are already so involuted, if all the female government workers to go have kids, then they’re going to be left behind by their male coworkers when it comes to qualifications for getting a promotion. I don’t know if the “points” they get for having kids is going to make up for it or not. But male government workers don’t have these problems, because they don’t have to take any time off to have a kid. And if their wife has kids, that’ll help them get a promotion too.”
“…God, I hope China doesn’t steal this idea.”
“The problem in Korea is that women don’t want kids. Unless they invent male pregnancies, nothing is going to help.”
A tiktok video of Himalayas noodles in Shanghai for 138 RMB a bowl. The blogger reposting this says, “For 138 RMB, I can buy enough bean sprouts to make a stack as tall as me.”
Comments say, “Green bean sprouts aren’t good anyways.”
“Is this a scam? I was promised ramen noodles, but it’s just nothing but bean sprouts.”
“Did this bowl cost even 8 RMB to make? They’re seriously selling it for 138 RMB??”
A precious video of a human discovering they have hands for the first time:
Comments say, “After countless reincarnations, I’ve finally become a hominid!!”
“If my hands were that cute, I’d stare at them all the time too.”
“Those aren’t hands. Those are tiny meat buns.”
Both of then -> Both of them