An askreddit question, “How is having black international students in China helpful to our development?”
The top reply is, “There’s a country in Africa called Namibia. The largest, most advanced overseas aerospace measurement and control station is in Namibia. The third largest Uranium mine in the world is in Namibia, and was purchased by China General Nuclear Power Group in 2012, and is currently managed and ran by them. Namibia’s largest harbour, Whale Harbour, was built by China.
What’s this got to do with black international students?
Namibia’s founder, Nujoma, was an international student at Nanjing Army Command Academy. Three of his grandchildren studied in China. Nujoma’s 90th birthday party was held at the Chinese Namibian embassy.
That’s all.”
Comments say, “So, are they all like that then?”
“Anyone who supports black people should send their sisters and their mother to go sleep with them, and their dad can go work on construction fields and save up 100K to gift to international students to spend. That’s all.”
“All of our aid to Africa is basically nothing more than a mirage. Africa is completely dependent on Chinese manufacturing right now, and that’s going to stop any possibility of a new superpower appearing in Africa (Africa is the only place that can try to copy China’s success). Next, we just have to get rid of their talent, and control their leadership’s connections (and get dirt on them), and nothing is more suitable to that than accepting all their students. America did the same to all the elites in South America and all.”
An askreddit question, “What’s the truth of the world?”
The top reply is, “I bought covid insurance. They promised that if I became positive, I’ll get a 50K payout.
And then, the whole nation got positive, and I called and they refused to pay. They said that the contract said “Covid virus-induced pneumonia.” I didn’t get pneumonia. The most they can offer is to refund me what money I paid them.”
I asked my family and some internet friends who bought the same insurance, and everyone told me to give up, I wasn’t going to win this fight. They have a professional lawyer team, and I haven’t ever been to court in my life.
But I couldn’t take it lying down. Why should I give up on something that’s rightfully mine?
In the middle of the freezing winter, I went to the Bank and Insurance Regulation Commission to report it, and I thought it would work. I thought government departments could give me justice. I mean, it’s what all the advice on the internet says.
After I reported them, the insurance company called and offered to pay me 200 RMB. And I was like, lol. Guess 200 RMB is what the CBIRC is worth then.
The insurance company was like, “It’s all we’ve got man. Don’t like it, then sue us.”
Okay, fine. As soon as the holidays were over, I found help and sued them. Mailed all my documents to Shanghai, and before the court even received them, before I even paid any of the fees involved, I got a call from the insurance company.
They offered me 20K right off the bat, and promised that if I take this to court, they can drag the case out for years on end. And I was like, “Go ahead and drag it out then. As soon as I’ve paid the fees, I’m going to go through with it to the end. If I lose the first round, I’ll appeal. Even if I lose, I’m going to tie you guys up in this for as long as I can.”
The customer service said they’d talk to their manager.
Morning, the next day, they offered me 40K. I told them I was going to get every cent that was owed to me.
In the afternoon, they offered me 50K, but I had to sign an NDA.
Fuck NDAs.
I refused. I told them I wasn’t going to accept any kind of conditions. I want all my money, and if they want to attach any strings to that, then we can see each other in court.
The next day, customer service agreed. Gave me all my money, no strings attached.
Both my wife and I bought the insurance, so that’s 100K between the two of us. And we won the money.
Everyone who bought the same insurance as me, some gave up right away on getting any money as soon as they realised how many people had gotten positive. They just assumed there wouldn’t be a payout, and never even called the insurance company.
Some people asked the insurance company, and then they got turned down, they just gave up.
Some people fought a little, also through government departments, and as soon as they get some spare change, they’re satisfied.
So what’s the truth of the world?
You’ll never get what you deserve if you don’t fight for it.
Even if you think it’s impossible, if you fight to the end, you’ll get everything you’re owed. Or even if you don’t, your fight will mean that a ray of light will shine on everyone else.
If you rely on people, they’ll leave. If you rely on mountains, they’ll fall.
If you fight for peace, then peace will remain. If you compromise for peace, then peace will die.
Keep carrying on, comrades.”
Comments say, “If you fight for peace, then peace will remain.” If more people fought for covid lockdowns with the same energy as they used to fight their insurance claims, then we would have public health right now. Isn’t your health worth more than 50K?”
“This is why no one believes in insurance companies in China.”
“Who has the time and energy to fight with them like this though? Everyone’s working 996. We’re all already exhausted.”
A tiktok video of a bride hiking a mountain in her wedding dress to arrive at her wedding. The caption reads, “When I saw her hiking along the mountain path, I was outraged on her behalf. But once I saw her marital house…sorry, I was being too shallow.”
Comments say, “She only need a day or two to walk out of there, but her children are going to need their whole lifetimes to escape.”
“What a tiny groom! Is he even of age yet?”
“Some people fight tooth and nail to escape the mountains, and some people walk happily into them.”
“I’ve seen with my own eyes how a trash girl is made. My relative’s daughter is shockingly lazy. She likes makeup, likes eating and drinking and playing, and hates studying. Went to a diploma mill, and used her parents connections after graduation to find a job that pays 5K a month. Supposedly, that’s not bad income for where they live.
Then she worked some overtime at the end of the month and swore up and down how exhausting it was and how she was done. She lives in her parents’ house and don’t do any housework or ever cook. If her parents don’t come home in time to make dinner, then she’ll order take out. She doesn’t pay them a cent either.
If she has to pay for her necessities herself, then she’ll pick the cheapest brand, but 90% of the time, she’s making her parents pay for it. And she’s never shy about spending their money. She only uses the best, most expensive brands.
Her parents are only normal people too. They’re not well off. They’ll complain about how their daughter’s leeching off of them, but also act all proud of her at the same time. She’s 24 years old, and they’re still taking care of her like a baby, and act proud of it too. She’s got a boyfriend of 2-3 years, and he’s got a super ordinary job too. Her parents don’t seem interested at all in her boyfriend’s situation, and don’t want to get to know him, like they don’t care about her future marriage at all.
Looking at parents like this, I was like, they’re machines for producing trash.
A lot of good girls and boys have been ruined this way.
What do you think?”
Comments say, “It used to be, to qualify as trash back in the day, you had to do drugs, pick fights, or get pregnant before marriage, or drop out of school or owe high interest loans. Now, to qualify as trash, you just have to have a normal job that you complain about sometimes while living in your parents home and have a boyfriend. Are normal people not allowed to exist in our society anymore?”
“How is she trash? She hasn’t broken any laws or hurt anyone or violated any morals or became a burden on society.”
“I was wondering how much of a trashfire she is, like did she murder someone or what, and this is all? Are you mad because your parents don’t love you? She’s living in her own home, why does she need to pay for it? Her parents probably aren’t even complaining, they’re just humblebragging about their daughter. They’re being smart.”
Two screenshots of two [relatively famous] webnovel authors talking about the changes to their mentality as they wrote over the years.
The first: “People are strange. Ten years ago, when I’m writing tragedies, there’s great conflict and hatred between the male and female leads that’s beyond the point of reconciliation. To get revenge on the male lead, the female lead drink a bottle of poison, and leaves the male lead to be alone for the rest of his life and mourn her. Ten years later, when I’m writing tragedies, there’s great conflict and hatred between the male and female leads that’s beyond the point of reconciliation. To get revenge on the male lead, the female lead forces a bottle of poison down his throat, and organises his funeral while she’s seizing power and realising her ambitions. Then, she drinks a bottle of wine alone in front of the male lead’s grave and feels a little sad. A reader commented that, “Yidu Junhua [OP] doesn’t believe in the love stories she used to write anymore.” And I really do feel that way.”
The second: “To all my reader friends:
Updates have been infrequent these last couple of months, and I’m very sorry. I feel bad for all my friends out there who have kept on waiting for me. I’m just going to ramble here a bit.
The Making of a Scumbag is the hardest, most painful to write story I’ve ever written. The reason is that it’s the story of a man, from a man’s point of view. The more I wrote it, the more anxious I got, the more I wanted to end it. I’ve already deleted large portions of the main storyline, and went from a planned 99 chapters to 39, trying to finish it as fast as possible without disappointing any of the readers. But I promise that the only thing missing is sidelines, the main storyline hasn’t been affected at all, and I’m going to deliver a satisfying conclusion.
I have a lot of influence from Taiwanese romance novels, but the first author to really surprise me was someone named Jiqiu. In one of her novels, I read a female protagonist who wasn’t a virgin for the first time. At the time, I was still a minor, and all I felt was that it was “weird” and “uncomfortable”. But I never felt same way about a non-virginal male protagonist.
Then, when I started writing myself, I was influenced by the same Prodigal Son narrative. That it’s not important who his first woman is, it’s important who his last woman is. This kind of subconscious ideas got put in my stories, and I never even noticed my own misogyny. For a long time afterwards, everything I wrote was full of intense male gaze and misogyny.
From about the beginning of 2021, with all the endless current event news, and a bunch of new friends, and a book name Misogyny, my mindset started to change. So you can see even with the novel The Making of a Scumbag, at first, the main character gets together with a lot of different women in different worlds. But as time passed, I started to feel uncomfortable, turned off. I felt like it wasn’t fair to all these women, so Xie Yin started staying single, started to feel self-hated and self-sacrifice.
Then later, I realised that almost all of my novels are about praising love. Praising virginity and beauty and softness and lovability and chastity. I don’t understand what all these words mean when they’re heaped on woman. I started asking myself, if certain words are almost exclusively used on women, but the same qualities aren’t praised in men, then are they something worth pursuing?
At first, then my readers accused me of man-loving and misogyny, I felt angry. I thought I loved the female protagonists I wrote. How could I possibly hate them? Not to mention, I’m a woman myself. How can I hate myself?
But the most I thought about it, the more I realised that misogyny pervades everything I write. Why would I heap so much suffering on Qing Huan? Why would I make Meng Ning marry an obsessive maniac? Why would I make Xue Xiaopin spend the rest of her life with a mental patient? Why would I make Wen Liman fall in love with an old man 20 years her senior with a ton of sons? Do any of this suffering mean anything? Is this the type of love that should be praised? Those are all questions I never thought about before. Now, I think everything I put my female protagonists through was pointless, because after they got through their hardship, they were merely rewarded with the love of a man. They didn’t grow, they didn’t get stronger. They’re just puppets I could dress up however I want with my pen. I love them, but it’s a shallow, ignorant love. Not any different from, “I’m doing this for your own good.”
It’s just as laughable and wrong as the logic in early Taiwanese romances of, “Hurting yourself to punish him.” I don’t want to keep misdirecting my readers, making them think that, “He’s controlling me and hurting me and forcing me and commanding me because he loves me.” I can’t imagine how many of my readers over the years have been minors, or have just entered society, and how many would idealise violence and controlling behaviour as a result of me. I feel deep regret and shame because of this, like the only reason I ever put my female protagonists through shit is to turn them into someone who “deserved to be loved”. That they needed to please a man with their suffering. And I was telling my readers that they have to be fair-skinned and youthful and sweet and soft and compromising in order to be loved by a man.”
When I was writing Loveless Like Me, what I wanted to write was the male protagonist killing his own son. But I stopped at the time because in order to kill his own son, he couldn’t possibly be a virgin anymore. But why not? I could’ve changed it to his nephew, or an adopted son. Why didn’t I? The pen was in my hands, right? The only explanation is that the thought never occurred to me in my subconscious.
I thought that since I’d written virginal man/nonvirginal woman pairings, that entitles me to writing virginal woman/nonvirginal man pairings. I’ve proven that I’m not a misogynist. But now I think this type of “fairness” is laughable. I never let Chen Yaosi sleep with pretty virginal boys when she was ten years old, and I didn’t give her a pack of children, and I never gave her the same power or status as my male protagonists. My idea of “fair” was just like people who talk all day about “equality between men and women” but still subconsciously put the word “man” before woman. When I write about forced love stories, in reality, the female protagonist would never get love out of this, there would be no happy ending. The only realistic part is that in reality, a man really could imprison, rape, and force pregnancies on you without ever being arrested. He might even collect government checks the whole time.
Because my thoughts have been so disordered, angry, confused, and anxious, I had a really hard time writing Xie Yin. From the beginning, I never wanted to portray him as a reckless and free main character like Ling Long. But the more I write him to be a moral, upstanding person, the more I get confused—why am I idealising him this way? Why am I spending so much effort perfecting a man who doesn’t even exist? Am I actually writing a man? Why do I try to make him perfect by giving him feminine values? Would people who are reading this compare him to Ling Long, and think that he was more likeable than her? Would they think to themselves, “I need to find a man like Xie Yin?” Would this make them fall in love with male POV novels and stop reading female POV ones?
So, from today on, I won’t write any more male POV novels, and I’m going to address and do my best to correct my misogyny, and I’m going to keep learning and improving. I hope all my reader friends can be brave and independent and free, and I’m thankful to all your years of companionship.
This is basically a mess of midnight ramblings, and I’m very grateful to everyone who read to this part.
My current webnovel is ending now, and my new story, Liao Liao, will start on the 8th. Thanks again.”
“I remember there’s a really great analogy in eugenics, that the bottom class breed like insects. Since the parents themselves work in unskilled menial labour, once they have kid, and their kids are done with mandatory education, if they can keep going to school, then they’ll keep doing it. Basic education is dirty cheap thanks to government subsidies anyways. It doesn’t demand anything of the parents. If they can’t keep going, then they can find themselves some sweatshop work. Either way, they won’t end up much worse off than their parents. So bottom class people like to have tons of kids, like they’re playing a gacha game. If they draw one SSR (Ivy League, top university elite), they can leech off of that kid and improve their lives.
Middle class people breed like divine beings. Since the parents are usually educated academics working in skilled desk jobs, they have to worry about maintaining their socioeconomic class. So they lean more towards slamming all their resources on an average kid (whose natural talent can only carry them to a Bachelor’s Degree), and push him to the highest position he can get to. Since they don’t have enough resources to blow on a subpar kid. They’re not worried about having an average kid, and they don’t really expect to have a genius in their family. They’ve been through the education system, and they know how hard it is, and how rare true geniuses are. Their goal is to make an average person become an average person who’s suited to doing middle-class jobs (civil servant, teacher, etc). Even if it’s just a random state college, they’ll throw whatever resources they can at helping their kid maintain their socioeconomic class.
The capitalists once again breed like bugs, but it’s a sort of GMO’d bugs. The elites aren’t worried about their kids wasting resources. They’re worried that an average but arrogant kid will take control of the family business, or go into entrepreneurship. So they want to have a ton of kids, and give all of their kids the maximum educational investment, and pick out the best performing kid to control the family resources, and everyone else can just wait for dividend payouts.
So have you discovered? For each class, for different qualities of kids, there are the following outcomes:
Bottom class average person:
Goal: They don’t need to study. If they’re literate and they have all four limbs, then no other education really matters to them (a lot of people say as soon as they get into college, they forget everything they learned in highschool, so how much education do you expect these people to remember, when they never even went to high school?)
Attitude: Studying is a scam and just a waste of their youth and freedom. It just prevents them from making money a couple of years earlier.
2. Bottom class genius:
Goal: 1. A small change to change their destiny (after all, they still have the influence of their terrible birth family, who is going to try to leech off of them. It’s so hard to make anything of yourself. Check out Lip in Shameless). 2. Most likely though, they can only get into a decent state college, and get blown out of the water by kids from better families. 3. Vanishingly small change to completely change their destiny (mostly through having a high degree and a pretty face and marrying a higher status girl and leeching off of her family’s resources. (The reason it has to be a girl is because only a girl’s family will ever consider passing their resources down to a husband. If you marry a man, then your husband is going to control all of the family’s resources and you’ll only ever get bits and pieces. You’ll always only play a supporting role.)
3. Middle class average person:
Goal: After working hard and opening up a path with your parent’s resources, barely manage to get a job that maintains your current socioeconomic class.
4. Middle class genius:
Goal: Can achieve a small increase in income through education, maybe transition from light labour to pure brain labour. But faced with extreme studying pressures and complete loss of freedom in their youth, when the economy’s going through a regression as it is, most likely, they’ll involute themselves to death and still face falling income and losing socioeconomic class.
PS: The biggest different between middle class and bottom class geniuses is that middle class children tend to have more romanticism, and lack some realism. Specifically, they’ll be more resentful of standardised tests and high-stress school environments designed to pass those tests. So they tend to do worse on standardise tests than bottom class children.
Attitude: Standardise tests and education tailored to them is pointless. At the end, you’re just gonna work a job that doesn’t require any of this knowledge anyways, and you’ll still have wasted your best years on them. It’s just a 12-16 year prison experience larp.
5. Elite average person:
Goal: The purpose of education is so they can somewhat communicate with and understand whichever one of their sibling is going to control everything, and hold down some necessary positions for the family (The most typical is the Sima family during the Western Jin period. It doesn’t matter if you’re an incompetent piece of shit, so long as you can hold down an important position while the family genius is doing Important Things. Help him control parliament while he’s performing a coup.)
Attitude: None (they don’t participate in teaching to the test education)
6. Elite genius:
Goal: The purpose of education is to inherit wealth and expand it.
Attitude: None (they don’t participate in teaching to the test education)
In summary, only bottom class and middle class people ever experience teaching to the test education, or rather, only they would take it serious as something they need to be good at (after all, the children of business owners can always still take over the family business even if they fail out of school). And only bottom class and middle class geniuses can benefit from standardise tests (and even so, they’re a small minority in standardised tests).
And among these geniuses, the bottom class ones don’t have any choice in life at all, and can just keep on down their path until the end. And a lot of the most talented geniuses among middle class people will notice the inefficiency of standardised tests right away, and how much of it is aimed at ordinary people, and all this repeated pointless labour does a poor job of selecting out natural geniuses and made geniuses. Actual geniuses feel oppressed, especially in their last year of high school. They know they already grasp all the content in the textbooks, and they can understand the material they’re working with, but they can’t get the same practised ease that other people get from doing these questions thousands of times over and over.
They feel like they’re not learning anything anymore, and is just filling out endless exam papers, trying to find a question they haven’t encountered yet. That feeling is very painful.”
Comments say, “What a lot of assumptions. You’ve read too many novels or TV shows.”
“This all assumes that education can actually create geniuses.”
”I think you’re just fearmongering.”
The bottom class genius stuff, omg. I mean, the whole damn post - trash girl, bride, everything. Gets me where I live.
I try to control myself, don't spam people all the time. But for important articles, I forward them to my older daughter and a high school friend I still have.
Moly, my brain is just so grateful for it all, 感激不尽!
Good luck to the second webnovel author. Writing strong and interesting female characters is very hard as proven by the last few years of awful Hollywood heroines.