12/31/24 - If you went to a lesser than 211 university, you should just say you went to a vocational school.
[Happy New Years, everyone!]
A compilation of employment realities for uni students:
“It’s not that bad. I’m a Master’s Degree graduate, basic wage is 5000, plus another 15000 from the Zhan Ya Peng Targeted Subsidy.” [An influencer who went viral for promising that any Master’s Degree graduate that doesn’t make 20K a month can find him and he’ll pay the difference, and then immediately withdrawing that promise when he got flooded with applications.]
“Got offered 6K a month after technical school and I didn’t take it. Completed a Bachelor’s and got 3500 a month, and I didn’t take it. Completed a Master’s, and now I’m unemployed, sitting at home, eating mandarin oranges and waiting for the new year.”
“My sister graduated from a 211 university and got an offer from a nationalised company for an office job for 5K a month. She felt like the pay was too low so she went onto a Master’s Degree. Three years later, she got the same job offer from the same company for 4500 a month. This is in Xi’an.”
“This is actually pretty disgusting. When you’re looking for work, you’ll find that despite working your ass off to get through the Gaokao and get into a 985 university, you have to compete with people from vocational school all because you chose a bad major, and the companies don’t want you because your diploma is too good and the company doesn’t think you’ll stay. People with votech diplomas get kept while you’re eliminated and you go onto a Master’s Degree thinking things will get better, but most companies have no use for a Master’s Degree, and you’re fighting for the same jobs as Bachelor’s graduates and votech people. Time goes on and things change and you’re still being tossed around like a cricket.”
“Before graduation: Fate is still up in the air. Any one of us could be a dark horse. After graduation: Fate has been set. We’re all workhorses.”
“I’m an actual fully-employed teacher, 3800 RMB a month, plus 1200RMB in social security, plus another 2K bonus at the end of the year. That’s all.”
“Before getting a government job: 5600 a month. After getting a government job: 1890 a month.”
“If you went to a lesser than 211 university, you should just say you went to a vocational school.”
“One of the purposes of university is to lessen the employment pressure in society.”
“Did uni students always feel this lost and lowly?”
“The reality is, 2000’s babies aren’t revolutionising the workplace. They can’t even get into the workplace.”
“The first lesson for uni graduates to learn is to accept their own ordinariness.”
“Don’t give up, young people, your suffering has only begun.”
“This is the 97%, 98%, or even 99% employment rate that unis are promising.”
“If you deduct insurance and social security payments and get two day weekends, getting 5800RMB a month as a Bachelor’s degree graduate is fucking awesome in this environment.”
“Bro. I’m an actual Master’s Degree graduate. I actually make 3200 a month. Please delete this.”
“Zhan Ya Peng still owes me 16778 a month.”
“If I was Ye Wenjie, I would’ve pushed the button too.” [A character from The Three Body Problem, a sci-fi story, who pushes a button that draws malicious aliens to Earth because she had lost all faith in humanity.]
“Diplomas have no bearing on how much you make.”
“If you go through enough suffering, your suffering will get increasingly ridiculous.”
“This is when I’m realising that Zhang Xuefeng is truly a great man.” [Incredibly practical career counsellor.]
“985 Master’s Degree graduate, and I only make 1800 a month T_T”
“Do not let them know you live really close to the company!!! (A lesson learned in blood and tears from a salaryman.)”
“Were you imagining that 5K a month jobs are all over the street while playing on your phone in the classroom?”
“I’m from a 211 university, civil engineering major, class of 2023, got into China Rail. Just as I got in, the company had a pay reform, and everyone’s pay was cut in half compared to previous years. Right now, I’m only getting paid 3K a month and work from 8AM to 11PM every day. I’m about to have a fucking breakdown.”
Another compilation of silly things people did as kids:
“Found my dad’s old phone today and remember how, when I was little, I’d grab his phone and send a text to every female coworker he had in his contact’s list saying, “I love you.” Really makes me scared thinking back to it.”
“When I was in daycare, I thought it was so cool that my mom got to wear a menstrual bad, so I copied her and wore one myself to bed one day and ended up peeing in it. When my mom changed me, she found it in my underpants and asked me if I thought it was a diaper and I was forced to nod and say yes to protect my pride.”
“I picked up someone’s used menstrual pad and stuck it on myself to pretend I was injured, and my dad kicked me through the air.”
“When I was little, there were a couple of guys in class who had a crush on me and secretly drank milk that I had drank. Other people found out and started teasing me that I’d get pregnant. I was terrified and too scared to tell my parents. My grandpa was really nice to me, so I begged my grandpa to say it was his baby and take me to a hospital to get an abortion.”
“When I was little, I pretended I was really into cleanliness. I really liked this picture book. The cover page was leather and I wanted to wash it, so I soaked the entire book in a basin and thought that if I kept the book closed, the pages inside wouldn’t get wet. I even wiped it down with a towel after I was done washing it and thought it smelled really nice. Then I opened the book and my world ended.”
“I thought Ultraman Tiga was super hot when I was a kid, so I’d deliberately eat a lot at lunch every day so my tummy would get really round, and then walk around stroking my tummy like I was pregnant pretending I had Tiga’s baby. I’d even turn on the TV to do prenatal learning and be all like, “Look how awesome your daddy is.””
“When I was little, I brought my parent’s sex toy to school and showed it off to all my classmates and offered to let them play with it. When my dad came to pick me up from school and saw what was in my hand, I’m sure his whole world collapsed.”
“I would go over to a relatively’s house to play as a kid and I thought they owned a snack store, so I faked chillness, and when everyone else went out to play, I’d open up a pack and snack on it, and I ended up having to go to the hospital to get my stomach pumped because his family actually sold rat poison.”
“When I was little, I’d put on my mom’s lipstick and make a kiss mark on my dad’s white t-shirt.”
“In comparison, it seems so trivial that in third grade, I used my mom’s phone to send a message to my teacher on Memorial Day telling her, “Happy Memorial Day”.”
“When I was little, I liked TF Boys [idol group where all three members started out as little kids and fans got to follow along as they grew up] and I wrote a bunch of “I love you” notes from the TF Boys and put it in my pocket, wanting my mom to think I was dating the TF Boys.”
“When I was little, I’d see menstrual pad ads on TV where everyone’s jumping and dancing and having a ton of fun. So while my mom wasn’t looking, I opened up several, slapped them on me, and danced along too.”
“When I was in primary school, my grades weren’t very good. One day, the teacher was lecturing when her spit flew on my hand. And what went through my head was, “If I eat the spit of someone smart, I’ll get smart too.” So I licked it off.”
“When I was little, I thought I had the hardest life ever, so I went to Baidu to search for who was the most pitiful person in the world, and naively thought my name would pop up. But the result was Chu Chu, because 楚楚可怜 [the term used to describe pitifulness in Chinese contains the words Chu Chu, which is also a somewhat typical girl’s name], and it infuriated me.”
“When I was little, my grandpa’s boss said he’d pay my grandpa’s wages, so I took my grandpa’s phone and took a video of myself where I knelt and kowtow’d and told him thanks, and the next day, not only did he pay back all the wages he owed my grandpa, he even sent a month extra T_T”
“When I was little, I thought TV shows were just secretly filming the actual lives of other people, so I behaved super well during that time in the hopes that I’ll look better on TV.”
“I had a crush on a guy in middle school, and he gave the girl he had a crush on a couple’s bracelet, and I cried my heart out. He couldn’t take it anymore so he bought another one for me.”
“When I was little, I was watching cartoons on my dad’s phone and some woman sent my dad a message asking when he was gonna go over to her house. In order to protect my happy family, I deleted and blocked every way he had to contact that woman. The next day, my dad asked everyone why he suddenly lost all of my aunt’s contact info.”
“When I was little, my maternal aunt lived with us. I wanted to sleep with my mom at night, so I suggested my aunt go sleep with my dad. After being refused multiple times, at dinner, I expressed my displeasure that my aunt was living in my house and told her to leave. One night, she said if I didn’t shut up, she was going to kill me and I begged her to not kill me.”
“My uncle’s always been super strict with me, so I was really scared of him, but I was also kind of a rebel at heart. One time, when my mom was sleeping, I decided to take my revenge so I stole my mom’s phone and sent him a text, “Go eat farts, brother.””
“When I was little, I took my grandma’s phone and texted a random number, “I love you, husband.” And that guy chewed my grandma out over text every day XD”
“When I was little, my dad kept complaining to my mom that random women try to add him on QQ [messaging app] all the time and he never gets any friend requests from men, so I secretly changed his username to “Lonely Woman” and made his avatar a hot woman, and my dad’s inbox exploded with friend requests. He really chewed me out while my mom died laughing.”
“When I was little, my brother watched Happy Sheep every day and thought Xi Yangyang [the titular happy sheep] was super smart, and in the middle of a test, he suddenly stood up in front of the whole class and started doing the dance that Xi Yangyang does when he’s thinking and yelled out loud, “Oh, I get it now!” And then sat down and wrote his answer while looking super confident. All the other students and the exam proctor were shocked.”
“When I was little, some guests came over to my house and were going to stay the night. I have no idea what was wrong with me, but I got a basin of water and brought it in front of them and started washing my butt in front of them. And they even praised me for being able to wash my own butt. And I really lost my sense of self in the midst of all that praise.”
“When I was little, I learned how to set a background image for phones, so I searched for “hot girls in bikinis” in my grandpa’s phone and saved that as his background. Then my grandma took us both out to the street and my grandpa’s phone was in my grandma’s pocket, and when she took it out to take a look, she pointed at my grandpa in the middle of the street and called him shameless.”
“When I was little, I was making milk tea with my niece and we used boiling water. Since I couldn’t wait to start drinking, I said I’d race her for whoever could make the milk tea cook down faster by blowing on it with only their nose. And I accidentally blew a booger into my milk tea. So I swapped milk teas with her. She ate one of my boogers and I’m still scared to tell her now.”
“When I was in primary school, I used Message in a Bottle [app for chatting to random strangers] to chat to a married lady, and my mom told me to come out for dinner, so I told her I had to go because my husband and kid are telling me to come to dinner, and she was super envious of me.”
“When I was little, while my dad was sleeping, I put my mom’s underwear on him. He didn’t react, so I started plucking his armpit hair. I guess I hurt him, because he woke up and started beating the shit out of me with the underwear.”
“In first or second grade, all the female classmates in my class said I was really handsome and lined up to kiss me. Whenever we had a PE lesson or free period, I’d kiss them one by one.”
“When I was little, I thought I could marry Wang Junkai [one of the member of TF Boys], and I constantly stood in front of a mirror and talked to myself, “Isn’t this Mrs. Wang?” My mom overheard and kicked me. I’m 18 years old now, and my mom still calls me Mrs. Wang all the time.”
“My mom’s old phone background was a fox. I thought she really loved foxes, so I changed her wechat avatar to a fox and changed her name to “Fox Stink” [the Chinese term for body odour], and she was furious.”
“When I was little, my mom brought home a stack of personal information for her coworkers, so I filled in everyone’s “political disposition” [The term for this in Chinese is “political appearance” as in “physical appearance”] as “Ugly”.”
“I really liked my cousin’s husband when I was little, because he was a hairdresser and I thought he was super hot and fashionable. Every year when I’d go back to my hometown, I’d ask him if he would be my husband. Now that I’m grown up, I can’t even talk to him and just keep my head down and walk past him. And he’s like, “Why are you so introverted now that you’re grown up?””
“When I was little, to keep me out of her makeup, my sister told me that contact liquid was poisonous and acidic. One day, I picked up her back and her coloured contacts fell out and spilled all over my face. I was crying and laughing in the mirror because I was scared the acid was going to eat away at my face until I only had a skull. I even wrote my will and everything and sat on my doorsteps waiting for death.”
“When I was little, I was playing ball with my grandpa and bumped into the door and got a lump on my head. I thought it was really ugly, so I banged my head into the door again so that I’d have two lumps. At lunchtime, I hid in the blankets hoping my parents would find that I’d turned into a demon. I stole my mom’s phone and sent a message to everyone, “Love…is a poison…that turns people into demons.” And my dad ended up rubbing a handful of salt all over my forehead. It hurt so bad that I was like, “I’m a demon! I’m a demon!””
“When I was little, I set my grandma’s phone alarm to a little girl laughing. And since I had no concept of time, I set a random time for it. And when it rang in the middle of the night, it scared the shit out of my grandma.”
“I really loved Wang Yuan [another member of the TF Boys] while I was in primary school. One day, in IT class, I saw that he had a girlfriend (it was fake), and it happened to be raining that day, so I didn’t bother with an umbrella after class and pretended like I was some abandoned, angsty romance protagonist in the corridors, and even imagined that if I sprained my ankle and fell down the stairs, Wang Yuan would appear and pick me up while crying over me.”
“When I was little, my dad brought the mattress out to the living room to sleep. At night, my mom worked the night shift, and he laid on the mattress and pretended to sleep and wouldn’t wake up no matter how much I yelled at him. So I called my grandpa and put the phone up to his ear and had my grandpa chew him out, but he still wouldn’t wake up. I had a brilliant idea and saw there was a big kettle of boiled water on the TV cabinet, so I splashed all the water on him. I’ve never seen a person seize up that hard.”
“This is the hardest comment section to leave in all of tiktok.”
“My mom passed away early, and then later on, my uncle [the mom’s sister’s husband] passed away too. My aunt was really nice to me, so I insisted that my aunt had to marry my dad and threw a giant fit about it.”
“When I was little, because I didn’t know that normal women can have a bulgy lower stomach, I found my lower stomach bulged out a little while going to the bathroom, and my period wasn’t very stable, so I thought I was pregnant. I got super scared and beat on my stomach in the bathroom thinking I would miscarry the baby. And then I kept beating my stomach in bed until I got too exhausted and fell asleep. The next day, my period happened to come and I thought it was a miscarriage and I was too scared to ever tell my parents. Now that I think back on it, it’s hilarious.”
“When I was little, I saw older kids kiss, so once, when my sister fell asleep, I crawled up on her and kissed her for like 10 minutes. The next day, my sister’s mouth was all swollen and I said that a giant mosquito had bitten her.”