A post complaining “My sister insisted on making her average-looking daughter be a child model, and got conned out of 6000 RMB. My cousin’s nephew is working as a child model. But his nephew is in fact seriously good looking, got a great personality, and he does really make you want to buy whatever he’s wearing. He’s got great potential as a little model. Last year, he signed onto a pretty famous company and makes about 400K a year. Honestly, I’m pretty jealous too. He makes way more money than me. But you know, not like I’ve got the face to make it in the industry.”
“Since my sister had a daughter, she’s been a full-time stay-at-home mom. And when she heard how much money this nephew makes, she got super excited. I don’t mean to say her kid is ugly or anything, but she just looks like a very average kid. But my sister immediately started looking into having her daughter be a child model. First it’s photo shoots. She’s got no experience, so they didn’t turn out great. So she started signing her up for classes. She got pulled into some kind of child model community, paid 3999 RMB in “tuition”, and got a bunch of photo shoots done and put up on various modelling platforms. But all they got was a bunch of job offers in return for free shirts, no money. As far as I know, they’ve made a total of 500 RMB out of this.”
“I don’t understand why my sister is so obsessed with this. Sometimes it’s a really tiring job, and when the photos don’t turn out well or her daughter isn’t cooperative that day, she’ll get really mad and yell at her daughter. I feel really sorry for her daughter—she’s just a little kid and she’s got no idea she’s doing. And all those pretty clothes are practical at all. They often leave these tight red marks in her skin. I feel bad just looking at it.”
Comments say, “She just wants to make easy money. She got sucked in by the quick profit, and she doesn’t give a shit how her kid is doing, whether she’s tired or not. I’ve seen interviews with child models, and they all talk about how tiring it is, and they’re all way mature beyond their age. It feels like they don’t have any of the joy of being a normal child.”
Some sort of celebrity I’ve never heard of (Jiang Guangtao) has been arrested for embezzling over 20 million RMB from the agency he is signed under. Comments say, “His fans are still insisting he’s innocent, but without concrete evidence, the police wouldn’t have arrested him.”
Woman in Sichuan is getting divorced because she hasn’t worked for two years since she had a baby. Her husband claims to be under too much stress with no income from his wife and brought up divorce. The woman claims that before she got pregnant, she worked in corporate consulting and made 12K RMB a month. After she got pregnant, her morning sickness was too severe and she quit her job. Her husband plays around with stocks, with a very unstable income. She’s divorced now and hopes she can give her one year old daughter a warm home.
Comments are confused why anyone would get married when they make 12K a month.
A recommendation to watch a TV show called A Moment of Romance, about a police officer going undercover in a mafia organisation. The mafia boss ends up with a crush on him, and got close to his girlfriend and killed her, then knocked him out and raped him.
After waking up, upset and seeking comfort, the police officer tries to sleep with a random woman, and was refused. Then, that random woman shows up at his dad’s death bed, and it turns out, she is his mom, who had left his dad when he was a baby.
He couldn’t accept this reality and ends up getting drunk and sleeping with the mafia boss again. But his brother and his mom find out about this and show up to beat up the mafia boss. And it’s discovered through the course of this beatdown, that the mafia boss is, in fact, also the police officer’s actual step-brother (same mother, different dad).
Of course, the mafia boss finds out his brother is an undercover cop too, but he lets him go. And later on, he is shot while pursued by the police, and dies in his brother’s embrace, looking at his mother walk away with her new boyfriend.
Comments say that this isn’t the first time they’ve read the summary of this show, but they are shocked and amazed every time.
A post talking about how OP’s mom doesn’t want to take care of his paralysed grandma. “When my mom was young, she was bullied to hell and back by my grandpa and grandma. She had to get surgery on her leg, and my maternal grandma couldn’t come over because she had a bad heart. My maternal aunt took care of my mom for a week, but harvest season came up for her field and she had to go tend to it, so she asked if my paternal grandma would come over and help for a bit. My grandma showed up and screamed at my mom for three days. In the end, my dad cried as he sent my grandma to my paternal aunt’s house and she lived there for a month.
From that moment on, I swore that I’d never let my mom be bullied by my dad’s side of the family again. I was in freshman year of college that year.
A couple of years later, my grandpa had a stroke. They want my mom to take care of him. I told my dad, if he wants to go, he can go. There’s no way my mom’s going.
My grandpa was paralysed on half of his body. My grandma took care of him. When he passed away, I stood at his wake alone and couldn’t cry. He felt so unfamiliar. I’ve been around him for less than 2 months of my life, added up together.
Recently, my grandma got hospitalised. My dad and aunt have been taking turns staying with her in the hospital. They’re both too embarrassed to ask my mom to go. My dad told me he was exhausted. I told him if he can’t handle it, I’ll pay for a nurse. But there’s no way my mom’s going. If anyone even suggests my mom go, I’ll bring her over to Shenzhen right away.
My dad asked me, “It’s been decades. Can’t you let it go?”
I told him, “No. Only the person who was actually hurt has a right to forgive the offender. You don’t have a right to forgive anyone on her behave. Now that the situation is turned around, they can’t handle it? Then why does your wife have to put up with them for decades?” Not that the situation is turned around, I’m not low enough to bully old people. I merely don’t care about them.
I’m in my thirties now, and the best thing I’ve done is that I’ve put all my effort into protecting my mom. I don’t care about whether other people think I’m a good granddaughter. And since I’ve been taking the part of the villain, people have been treating my family way better.
Finally, I have to say, there’s not that much credit in being a “good son” or “good grandson”. Whoever wants to be filially pious can do it themselves. Don’t take the honour of being a “good son” yourself, and push all the responsibility and work onto someone else. Don’t you have any shame?
Rather than hoping someone else will forget about the harm done to them, just go take care of the old people yourself. You don’t have any right to be annoyed at your mom. She’s always been good to you, so if you’re turn to take care of her now. But what are you doing? Trying to toss that responsibility onto someone who has no legal obligation to give a single fuck about her? You think it’s that easy to get praised as a “good son”?
Comments say, “That’s fucking brilliant—his wife gets sick and his parents take care of her. His parents get sick and his wife takes care of them. He gets all the praise and doesn’t have to do anything at all.”
A writer notes that, “You know how people’s brains change when they become mothers? There’s a scientific study proving that when a baby joins a family, the mother’s entire family will have their brains go into “protecting the baby” mode. That’s how humans made it as social creatures.”
“I’ve experienced it myself. It wasn’t until my sister’s kids got past the baby stage that my brain recovered and stopped feeling like I have to take care of every kid, and I stopped being alarmed by anything that could hurt a baby.”
“Maybe it’s because I’ve experienced this second-hand motherhood, I understand what people mean by the description “mother-like”—so long as you’ve had a kid, no matter how young you look or how well you take care of yourself, you’re different from head to toe. Your whole mindset has changed.”
Comments say, “Yeah, like, I hate my stepmom’s kids, but when I hear about her being bullied by someone else, I still get this automatic protective instinct. When we walk around outside, I’d still automatically hold her hand. Humans are so easily changed.”
A video of a parent-child event at a school, with one kid whose parent didn’t show up. He’s standing there by himself, while everyone else is cuddling with their parents, crying. Blogger says he has no idea what this school is trying to accomplish. Comments say, “This is probably an exercise for the kid to have a firmer heart. I’m sure the teacher thought this through. He’s feeling sad now, but after he’s done crying, he’ll come out of it stronger.”
3/17/23 - Why would anyone get married when they make 12K a month?
The celebrity is a famous, veteran voice actor - has dubbed a lot of movies etc. Thanks for translating these! So interesting to read
When you translate salary numbers, like the 400k for the model, do you use RMB unless otherwise stated?