2/19/23 - Smart women would sell themselves quickly
A restaurant asks for full price for adults over 1.4m, and half price for children under 1.4m. If you’re a waitress, and a kid who is 1.42m walks up and their parents ask you to just give them half price, what would you do?
Blogger’s son says, “Half price. It’s not like he can eat a whole lot more because he’s 2cm taller. But if I insist on full price, it might piss off the family and they might all leave. Or they’ll not come again in the future. I’ll lose way more money that way.”
Blogger’s daughter says, “No way, full price. It’s the principle of the matter. If you let him through with half price, what if a kid who’s 1.43m comes through tomorrow? What about 1.45? 1.48? Soon enough, you’ll be giving half price to all kids and you’ll lose way too much money.”
Blogger was surprised and tried to persuade her daughter that the service industry is different from the manufacturing industry. When you’re in manufacturing, you can’t be off in your measurements even a little, because that concerns quality and safety and the reputation of your factory. But in the service industry, you have to put yourself in the shoes of your customers and be flexible and reasonable. It’s important to have a good relationship with your customers.”
Her son stops her and says that, “Hey, mom, you remember when she stood in line for two hours at Disney to go on a ride, and she ended up being 2cm too short to do it? That’s why she’s so insistent when it comes to height. If she has to get rained on, no one else gets an umbrella either.”
Blogger has a friend working as a dating service in Beijing and was shocked by the statistics her friend told her. There are over a million left-over women in Beijing. About half of them are over 40 years old. Her friend was pretty direct in saying that these women will be single for the rest of their life. They’ve got pretty good quality of life (after all, most of them don’t have a house), but with no husband, no children, they’ll have to face loneliness on their own.
The reason they can’t find a husband, of course, is because even 50-year-old men still like 18-year-old girls. 30-year-old men are looking for women under 25, 40-year-old men are still looking for women under 25, so of course no one wants to date a woman who’s 40 and past her prime birthing years.
Men mature later in life, so before 32, they still tend to be pretty idealistic and believe in love. After 35, they start being more concerned about practical issues. And these 40-year-old left overs, back when they were 25-30, they couldn’t find a man who was as mature and accomplished as them. And the men who were were already married.
This is a pretty well known problem between men and women, so smart women would sell themselves quickly early on, not pay too much mind to the wealth of their partner, and learn how to build a future with your partner together.
A girl born in ’97 is getting pressure from her family to get married so she has some place to live when she’s old. After her brother gets married, she won’t be able to live at home anymore, and she can’t afford a house on her own, and no one rents to old people.
A man who had illegally emigrated to America in 2017 is posting to his Wechat wall that he wishes to return to China because he has bad health, his bad health is causing him to have trouble supporting himself in America, and he misses his family and children. He used to pursue freedom and democracy, but now he understands that only Chinese society is best suited for Chinese people. He apologises for his ignorance and arrogance, and wants to turn himself in for a second chance to contribute what he can to China.
A previous Olympic gold medalist married a Hong Kong billionaire, and someone asks, “She’s not even that pretty, why did he fall in love with her at first sight?” Answer points out that actually, the billionaire family had been losing a lot of money in business and aren’t nearly as wealthy as they might seem. The marriage was probably for political purposes, a signal that they are intending to put themselves in the same camp as mainland China. And thirdly, the billionaire family got just as much good publicity out of marrying the Olympic gold medalist as the other way around and it was a pretty fair and equal deal.
Video of a little boy crying and begging his cat to not shed anymore, because his family are wanting to give the cat away because of too much loose hair around the house.
Someone asks what people think about girls from Jiangxi (a region well-known for high bride price). The top voted answer says, “Honestly, I think they’re pretty cool. There’s a girl from Jiangxi in my office. She’s hard-working and friendly and honest. She grew up together with her husband as childhood friends, and eloped together to escape the high bride prices. Had two daughters and one son in a rented apartment, and only bought a house after ten years of being married. She’s always said that she hopes her son will continue the family tradition and marry a girl who doesn’t ask for any bride price.
We asked, ‘What about your two daughters then? Do they not want a bride price?’
She said, “Of course they do! They’ve got to get a lot of bride price. How else will my son buy a house?’”
Blogger asks is it worth it to spend 2.68 million RMB on studying overseas for 8 years, just to return to China and make 12K RMB a month? What actually is the value of studying overseas? The top comment points out that you can’t think of it that way, because a family who has the money to waste almost 3 million on studying overseas probably would’ve spent a similar amount if their kid had studied in China too. And a family who’s that wealthy doesn’t care what kind of job their child has.
Blogger sees the daily schedule of a kid in second grade, how it’s filled from morning to night with different extracurriculars—rollerblading, public speaking, swimming, painting—and says that 8-year-olds no longer have any joy in life. She notes that many art students are pointing out that kids who end up having accomplishments in arts usually aren’t signed up for classes since early childhood, because they need blank space in order to be creative. And there’s no point in signing up for radio broadcasting classes, because they’re so unbelievably expensive. The blogger says that she feels a lot of parents have no idea what they actually want their children to do—they just want to prevent them from playing. And that when you’re looking for tutoring for very young kids, avoid one-to-one, because no good teachers are doing one-to-one. Anyone with even a little bit of fame and reputation has more students than that. And cheap lessons are always going to be offered by new teachers still practicing on your kids.
People are complaining about the videos a tiktoker is uploading of their daily life of having 5 kids. It notably shows her hauling raw meat out of dirty water to feed directly to her kids. The water she washes her kids in are dirtier that what other people mop their floors with. A lot of people are saying, “What did these kids even do in a past life to get reincarnated into her family?”
Blogger gives advice that if you’re low-income, only 120K to 240K a year, just give all your money to your wife and let her worry about keeping up with daily bills. It’s less stressful to just take a little bit of spending money every month, and if you don’t have enough, quickly message your wife to send you 2000. Of course, his advice is that girls shouldn’t refuse to hand it over—men need their dignity after all.
If you’re middle income, 300K to a million a year, it’s okay if you don’t want to hand your pay check over. Just make sure all the daily bills are paid, including the expenses for a vacation every year and red pockets for the new years for both sides of the family. Let your wife spend her own pay check. if your wife ever sends you a receipt for what she bought, immediately reimburse her. Don’t ask questions, don’t complain about her spending too much. Just give her the money.
For high income people making over a million a year, you probably have better money-management skills than your wife. So, it should be the other way around, with the husband giving a little bit of spending money to his wife, a set amount every month. Plus extra gifts for the holidays.