[Once again, I’m sorry for the delay, but I’m done unpacking now and settled back into my routine, and I feel up to an FAQ! If there’s anything you’ve always wondered about China, or any context you think you’re missing, feel free to submit your question here, and I’ll do my best to answer them all! And take a look here to let me know which essay you’d like to read! Just a warning though, since I had a bit of a late start this month due to my trip and the oncoming holiday season, I might be a late coming out with the essay. It might be delayed all the way into January.]
“My daughter is just like her dad—there’s something about her that draws rich people to her. Today, she just made another friend with a super badass background.
They met and immediately got on like old friends, chatted all day. After school, the other little girl insisted on taking her out to boba tea, and they went and sat at a cafe for a while.
I’ve figured out, that my younger daughter is really good at providing emotional support to friends. To be honest, all the girls at her school are from a pretty wealthy background, so they never really get along with each other. There’s a lot of competition over who’s richer and who’s prettier, and it causes conflict sometimes. But it never happens to my daughter. She’s never insecure or jealous. She’ll always just happily praise other people. If someone’s showing off their wealth, she’s just like wow, your family’s so rich! That’s amazing! And if someone’s showing off their prettiness, she’s like yeah, you are totally super cute! And if someone’s mean to her, she’ll snark right back at them and make it known that she’s not someone who can be bullied.
I fucking love my daughter. She’s so smart and chill!”
Comments say, “I can’t believe she can have this much EQ and practice at this age. I feel like that’s even more badass than most adults.”
“It’s because your family’s comfortable, and you’ve given her plenty of love, so she doesn’t feel pressured to kiss up to anyone. And she’s not an only child, so she knows how to share, so she doesn’t bully anyone else. Mostly, it’s all your hard work, giving her as much money and love as she needs.”
“It’s because she’s confident, so she can accept other people’s excellence too.”
“How do I refuse to bring lunch for my coworker? Help, I’m super embarrassed. I’m super introverted and almost never talk to anyone at work. But there’s this one coworker who keeps trying to chat to me. Every time, I just mumble some kind of polite reply. I don’t think we’re close at all. But today, she said that she noticed I was losing weight and wants to eat whatever I’m eating. And then she texted me and told me to start bringing lunch to work for her too starting tomorrow. I really, really don’t want to. It’s not anything super fancy or anything, but if I really started making lunch for her six days a week, it would still add up to way over 50 RMB.”
She shows texts from her coworker:
Coworker: “[sends 50 RMB transfer] Hey, bring me lunch for a week! Just whatever kind of diet lunch you’re having yourself! If there’s any money left over, buy yourself a coffee with it!”
She also attaches screenshots of her food as well as a breakdown of how much it cost to make a serving, with veggies costing 2 RMB, pumpkins costing 5 RMB, and shrimp costing 10 RMB.
Comments say, “Just reply to her that 50 RMB is too much for a day, it only costs you 30 RMB to make one of these meals.” [OP followed this advice and her coworker said, “Uh, I thought about it and I’d rather get takeout.”
“Jesus, where does she get the face? 50 RMB for a week? Does that even get one take out meal?”
“For 50 RMB a week? Sure, bring some boiled spinach for her.”
“Don’t doubt it, children’s talent get overlooked by their parents all the time. I’ve got a friend who has a son, who suddenly didn’t want to go to school anymore in 8th grade. His parents were furious, locked him at home and never let him go out. Then after a day, when they got home from work, they found that their son had cut up the bedsheets and sewn it into underpants, one for each member of his family. They felt it was ridiculous and also kind of funny, so they asked him where he’d learned to do it, and he said it was from some books at home. Then, they realised that since the kid doesn’t want to go to school, then he can pick up a craft. So they sent him to some kind of fashion design training academy in Zhengzhou, and soon enough, he was showing enough talent that even the teacher suggested they send him to further education on this. Then, he went to a technical college to study fashion design. And now he’s been graduated for 7-8 years. He worked at first at a fashion design company, and then he opened his own studio in Shanghai, making custom order clothing and getting quite a substantial income. He even planned to bring his parents over to Shanghai to live with him.
Now, every time he mentions his son, he’s always glad that he discovered his kid’s talent. Or else that talent might have been buried forever. I can only say that he really was lucky to have had reasonable parents. Imagine, if his parents had just insisted on sending him back to school instead of making the decision they did, would his talent ever have grown?”
Comments say, “What about people who don’t have talents?”
“So long as he has the talent, it can get discovered at any point. It’s just a societal construct the idea that you have to succeed young.”
“When I was little, I was really into paper-cutting for a while. I’d buy those thin, square pieces of origami paper from convenience stores. There were instructions and steps along with it, but I couldn’t really understand any of it, but I couldn’t hold myself back either. And I’d just cut away based on some ideas in my head. At first, I was really conservative, and would only cut the inside bits. But then I discovered I could fold it into a triangle and cut off the three corners, and that would make cool patterns too. And I’d glue it all over my walls and it was super pretty. All my designs were unique, and my mom praised me too. But that’s as far as I ever got. Then, she didn’t have time to take care of me anymore, and I started getting bad eyesight. And then they’d argue every day and threaten divorce. And now, I’ve got my own kids, and my parents are still together. But I was interested in everything as a kid and willing to try anything out and I thought I was really smart. But I never had money to go to all those extracurricular classes that all the other kids hated.”
A video of security camera footage, where a girl is having a lot of trouble with her scooter. The blogger posting this says, “I swear, my ilithiophobia is about to explode.”
Comments say, “Video proof that if your feet aren’t touching the ground, you’ll gain points in IQ.” [a meme from a comedy skit from an old Chinese New Year show.]
“It’s true. When I’m riding with my husband, every problem driver we run into is a female. Maybe men and women are just good at different things.”
“I’ve always been curious why the gas for scooters is on the handle. If you make any kind of move with your hand at all, it’ll speed up. Why can’t we have foot pedals, or at least make the gas on the handles a button you have to press? It’d be a lot safer.”
“Don’t laugh at her. Everyone has different things they’re good at. There might be things that she can do that you can never pull off.”
“This is obviously just a complete beginner at scooters, nothing to laugh at here.”
“A wife goes to shower, and she’d already taken all her clothes off when she realises that the gas isn’t turned on. She didn’t ask for her husband’s help, but instead got dressed again and went to turn the valve herself in the kitchen. After her husband discovered, he was surprised and asked her, “Are you mad at me or something?”
The wife replies coldly, “Isn’t it a good thing I’m not troubling you?”
The husband feels completely astounded by her behaviour and stared at her for a long time, and the wife just felt calm and dead within.
I saw this post by accident, and this detail is just so realistic. When a woman’s been disappointed and disappointed again in a marriage, they stop having any kind of expectations of their husband. And the husband is completely unaware the whole time, and only now is realising that something is wrong.
So a commenter asked a great question: “When men discover that their wife’s stopped relying on them, or wanting to trouble them, and is treating them like a stranger, would they have a change of heart?”
And every reply to this post was unanimously, “No.” That was surprising.
No, he’d think she’s finally learning how to behave.
No. At first, he’ll feel happy and chill. And then, he’ll feel suspicious and lost and a little annoyed: I’ve worked so hard for this family, how dare you ignore me?
No, he’ll keep chatting up girls on his phone, confessing his troubles to his crush, and maybe complain a bit about how his wife doesn’t care about him.
No, he’ll think it’s natural. That’s how she should’ve been to begin with.
No, he’ll even think you’re being a snowflake, you’re acting out.
No, he doesn’t care what you do at all.
No, unless he’s already experienced his family falling apart and doesn’t have his next relationship planned out yet, he won’t ever reflect on his actions. Some people don’t reflect even if their family’s fallen apart. They only know how to put all the blame on their ex-wife.
No, no, no.
When I saw these answers, I was floored. Are men really like this in a marriage? Can some men come and explain this?
It’s undeniable that women are more sensitive while men are more logical. Maybe their mindsets just aren’t on the same frequency?”
Comments say, “I mean, in this case with the gas, no husband in real life would ever even notice that you put on clothes and turned it on yourself XD”
“It’s got nothing to do with men being logical while women are emotional…it’s that men can only see calculations of profit and sex.”
“I can’t do it. If he doesn’t keep getting take out for me and giving his jacket to me and turning on the light for me and baking sweets for me and cutting fruit for me…then I’ll let him know what a demon he’s married. I’ll never “behave”. Isn’t marriage supposed to be two people barely keeping from murdering each other because of love?”
A blogger asks, “When girls get pregnant, why does the doctor ask if they want to keep it first thing?”
They show screenshots of someone’s post saying, “When I got pregnant with my daughter, my first checkup at the hospital, the doctor did an ultrasound, and as she’s staring at the machine, she asked coldly, “Are you keeping this little bugger?” I was so shocked I kind of went blank. I was nervous already, and when I heard her question, I started shaking uncontrollably. “What?” And the doctor repeated, “Are you keeping this little bugger or not?” And I was on the verge of tears, asking, “I want it. Is there something wrong with the baby? Can I not keep it?” And suddenly, her attitude turned 180 degrees around, and she told me super gently that there’s nothing wrong with the baby, and if I’m keeping it, I should get plenty of rest.
I clearly remember that after I got the ultrasound report, I put on my best pretense of calm and walked out the door. And when I was going down the stairs, my mom asked me what was wrong and why my foot was shaking hahahahaha.”
Comments say, “Because you’re supposed to see an obstetrician, but you accidentally got an appointment with a gynaecologist instead XD”
“I mean, of course. The kid isn’t born yet. It’s just a cell in the mother’s body. The mother’s the one at stake here. She has the right to choose whether she’s keeping it or not.”
“When I got pregnant, I was only 21. When I went for my checkup to see if I was pregnant, the doctor asked me super coldly whether I’ve given birth before or had an abortion before. I said no to both. The doctor kept asking icily whether I was keeping it. And I was like, yeah! And that’s when the doctor’s attitude softened, and told me what checkups I needed on what dates. And just as the doctor was questioning me, someone next to me calmly popped in to ask if this was the place to go for abortions. Maybe in Shanghai, most people who get pregnant at 21 don’t keep it.”
“Me too. The doctor asked me three times if I was sure I was keeping it.”
“I mean, this topic’s been discussed to death. You just have to add up all the people born in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s to see the big picture.
Average lifespan is 77 for women and 74 for men. I’ll assume that everyone lives to 80 for ease of calculation. That’s plenty of room for error right?
When everyone from the 60s and 70s pass away, we’ll lose 440 million population.
In 2050, our population is going to drop to just one billion.
And the 220 million people born in the 80s and 190 million people born in the 90s will die around 2070 too.
So in the next 50 years, we’re looking at about 848 million deaths.
So, how many people do you think are going to be born in the next 50 years?
If we take an optimistic 5 million a year, we’re looking at a mere 250 million new people. That’s a 600 million drop in total population.
If we don’t even make 5 million a year, then we’re easily looking at losing 700 million people.
See, it’s simple. Any primary school student could do these calculations.
So if we keep on our current trend, then all our adamant childfree 90’s kids are going to see the historical moment when China’s population drops in half. Sounds awesome, right?
So what’s 2070 going to look like? Almost all the 80’s kids are dead. Half of the 90’s kids are dead. All the 2000s’ kids are retired old people. 2010s kids are about to retire. Average age is over 50 years old.
All the labour force has is people born in the 2020s, 2030s, and 2040s.
In this 700 million population, 380 million of them will be older than 50. 250 million will be older than 60s.
The ratio of working labour force to old retired people is going to be smaller than 1. And our working labour force still has to provide for children too. Wow.
And the key here, keep in mind, all these projections are assuming that both men and women live to their 80s.
But the problem is, as retirement age gets delayed and we’re pushing old people to work more and more, do you have the confident that you can live into your 80s?
Teehee.
And another severe societal problem that’s looming is that, single people have no weak spots. Once their parents are dead, they’re invincible.
We’re not talking about a couple million single people. We’re talking about tens of millions, maybe even hundreds of millions of single people. So, the question is, just how much effort and money is it going to take to keep these people stable?
Most of these people never planned to live into their 60s or 70s. Since they have no family or spouse or children, they’re bound to spend their latter years in misery. So they’re going to be more frustrated the older they get.
Public safety is going to become a huge problem in the future. This is a societal problem. It’s going to impact everyone.
Let us see how history will play out.”
Comments say, “We still have too much population. Forget 500-600 million by 2070. We have plenty of people even if only 50-60 million are left. Then resources per capita is going to get great, and employment won’t be a problem either. And we’d still have double the population of Australia.”
“The point of this article is that what’s scary isn’t falling population, what’s scary is the demographic spread of that population. What’s scary is the severe ageing population problem. Not enough working youth means not enough production in society. Too much of society is old people with no ability to produce anything and no weak points. That’s scary to think about. By then, just to maintain societal order, the government might have to take actions to reduce the number of old people. And by that point, we’d be the generation that had to work the hardest in our youth and die like dogs in our old age.”
“This is all the great work of the one-child policy. Why isn’t anyone celebrating our success?”
A tiktok video of a very memorable moment at a wedding. Hashtag #That groom has to thank those khakis for the rest of his life. The officiant in this video is saying, “Let’s give the groom an applause of encouragement.”
Comments say, “Why are we encouraging him? Get him to strip another piece off!”
Someone writes a poem for this occasion: “新郎扶爱妻 恩爱又甜蜜 吉服一落地 顺心又如意”. A translation is, “The groom holds his wife, loving and sweet. His gown falls to the floor, smitten and full of glee.” Or something. I’m bad at translating poems.
“When I got married, I tripped on my dress climbing up the stairs and ended up in the hospital for two weeks for a broken bone XD”
“I read this trashy romance novel in middle school, where the female lead had A-cup boobs. [Here, boobs is written with a bear emoji, to avoid the censors, since “bear” and “boob” is pronounced the same.] After she had kids, she had no milk, and the baby was crying because it was starving. And the male lead was all like, “I knew you wouldn’t have much milk since your boobs are so small, so I bought plenty of formula before hand.” So for a while in there, I thought people with small boobs have no milk and can only feed their babies formula.
I just happened on a post by a mother that says she makes too much milk every day for the baby to finish, so she feeds it all to her dog. After a couple of months, her dog’s fur is super shiny and full. In the comments, a lot of people are talking about how their baby doesn’t go through all their milk so they feed it to their pets. That reminded me of how I was misdirected by that novel.
I mean, this is kind of useless knowledge to me, but back then, I was like, wow, this male lead is so sweet. He’s so caring and he thinks of everything.”
Comments say, “Giving to your pets is alright, they don’t know anything always. I’ve happened on people who say they give their milk to their in-laws and parents, and they’re super proud of it and everything. Almost made me throw up.”
“Hahahaha in all my romance novels, the male lead drinks it himself.”
“At first, I thought the female lead was an actual bear and was an Alpha, and I was like, “Wow, a furry romance with ABO elements? That’s pretty out there.””
A blogger posts screenshots of western media posting a listing of the “Safest Countries In The World 2023”:
Tokyo
Singapore
Osaka
Amsterdam
Sydney
Toronto
Washington DC
Coppenhagen
Seoul
Melbourne
Comments say, “This listing ranked Beijing 31, Shanghai 32. But it ranks Chicago 11 and New York 15. All western cities are ahead of ours. Here’s another statistic: there were 695 murders in Chicago in 2022, and the police confiscated 12,716 guns off the streets.”
“I mean, look at this and tell me whether they’re safe.” [This commenter attaches a screenshot of a tiktok video, where the caption reads, “French farmers protest laws and regulations by driving dozens of tractors up to their government building to spray it with faeces.”]
“Shinzo Abe: That’s what I thought right before I died too!”
A tiktok video of a “folklore treatment”, where a baby is too afraid to walk on his own, so his family cuts an imaginary rope in front of his feet with a knife, and he magically starts walking on his own.
Comments say, “The baby isn’t dumb. He knows if he keeps pretending he can’t walk, they’ll use that knife for real next time.”
“I mean, do your kids really not know how to walk if you don’t take out a knife?”
“How come our area cuts the rope behind their feet?”
I'm curious about the perception of Christianity. I have a friend from church who is from Wenzhou, and she told me her family has been Christian for like six generations, which made me do a double take... "Isn't Christianity lowkey not allowed in China?" (I know it's not illegal, but it seems like the CCP doesn't want it to proliferate.) She told me that in Wenzhou it's tacitly accepted just because so much of the city is already Christian (because that's where most of the early missionaries first landed).
I've learned some stuff from her already, but I think my level of curiosity is higher than would be polite to keep asking about lol. And because she's immersed in it, it might be difficult or sensitive for her to explain how it's perceived outside of Wenzhou.
So my question(s) are basically the following: How is Christianity generally perceived in China? Not only the way foreigners practice it, but also when local people practice it. What are the stereotypes? What's the amount that people generally know? What is their opinion of the overarching themes of it (ex. love one another, forgive/repent, "turn the other cheek," wealth is bad, etc... even just thinking about life in terms of "sin" and "forgiveness")? Back when I lived in Beijing, the vibe I sensed was that people mostly just think (but ofc did not say to me), "lol that's weird but whatever (slash aren't those the weird people who hand out goofy flyers?)"
I've been reading your blog for awhile (love your work, tysm <3), and from what I read, I would predict that people in China would probably consider anyone who actually sincerely follows Christianity to be kind of a chump, not only for seriously believing in any religion in the first place, but also because the religion generally calls for making yourself vulnerable even if it means you get taken advantage of. It just seems so counter to many Chinese cultural values and incentives/constraints. Like, it's easy for me as a privileged American to say that wealth is bad, because at the end of the day, I'll always be okay; someone in rural China with close to nothing will justifiably have a very different perception of wealth as it relates to virtue.
But even if someone thinks Christians are chumps, is there any amount of respect for that? Like is there any sentiment like, "They're foolish, but it's nice that they care about [serving the poor, forgiving unforgivable things, doing something for someone else even if it harms you, etc--anything might be described as a "Christian virtue"]."
Are there things people consider problematic in Christianity? It's difficult to separate "behavior of Christians" and "Christian theology" (ex. you're supposed to "love your neighbor" but historically Christians have been known for being racist), probably even more so in a place where it's rarely practiced, but if there's any amount where you see a distinction between the two, especially if they acknowledge that difference directly, I'd be so curious to hear about it!!
A potential case study: After the racially-motivated shooting at a Black church in Charleston in 2015, during the trial afterward, the families had the chance to speak to the shooter, and they used their time to tell him that they forgive him and that they pray for him. When my friends and family talked about that after, the vibe was like, "That is so admirable, that's the way we should live even if it's hard, we should try to be like them." But would the same story be received the same way in China?
Even though I'm Christian, I'm really just super curious about this in an academic way. Not fishing for any particular answer, just would love to know more. I asked a bunch here, so feel free to only address whatever amount you want.
(link to article about Charleston: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/20/us/charleston-shooting-dylann-storm-roof.html)
The safest "countries" one I'd be suspicious of for a few reasons, leaving aside that it sounds like it's referring more to "cities with over X population" (X probably being 1,000,000, which can also skew things a bit). Chicago, DC, and NYC don't exactly have stellar safety reputations here in the US either, though as I understand it the vast majority of the violence is culturally confined to distinct neighborhoods: avoid those neighborhoods (ask a local and/or the internet about them) and you're basically fine.
There's also a lot of cherrypicking statistics when it comes to anything related to gun control (or other "culture war" issues, but gun control is the relevant one here), so you frequently have to do some digging to figure out whether they were using a weird definition of "gun violence" or "defensive gun use" or whatever, but mostly people don't outright lie, they just neglect to mention relevant context.