3/25/23 - The owner fluffed up every flower by mouth.
Beijing News reports that Honduras has declared they will end diplomatic relations with Taiwan, claiming there is only one China and the CCP is the only legal Chinese government, and Taiwan is a part of Chinese territory. Comments say, “Right after Honduras asked for 60 billion Taiwanese dollars worth of aid and got denied. Interesting timing. Wonder how long our money is going to last.”
“Apparently, the current president of Honduras sought refuge in a Taiwanese embassy when he was little and got kicked out.”
Another blogger comments on the Honduras news, “Taiwan is a part of China. The false government in Taiwan is losing international support. They are holding political power illegally. People in Taiwan suffer heavy taxes, stagnating economy, and a degenerate society, wandering aimlessly between empty egg shelves. This is all caused by the political mafia of Taiwan independence factions like Cai Yingwen. They work with overseas forces to embezzle public funds, transfer manufacturing jobs, and make a huge personal profit by buying large quantities of defunct military wares. They have fatally damaged Taiwan’s economy and brought endless problems to Taiwan people’s lives, and delayed the resurgence of the entire Chinese culture. They need to pay for this!”
Comments say, “Yeah, poor people in Taiwan. Their minimum wage is only 5000 RMB a month.”
A romance writer writes, “I don’t know who started the topic this afternoon, but my dad said that all of his unmarried friends, or divorced friends without kids, unanimously agree that if there’s no one to inherit your wealth after you die, then your life was meaningless. Doesn’t matter how much money you have—even a million RMB is pointless. I couldn’t help but argue back, that’s just 3 Hermes bags worth of money. If you’re soon going to die anyways, why not treat yourself?”
“That just riled him up, and he started going on a rant—how shameful it is to get a divorce, how much embarrassment you bring to your parents, how your line ends if you have no children, how it’s irresponsible, how you’re a failure if you don’t have a government job, you’ll never find a date, businessmen make a million today but can lose a million tomorrow so no matter how wealthy they are they’re basically the same as homeless people…”
“I was going to argue back but ended up holding my silence. There’s no point in conversation. He’s always been the kind of person to judge others and the world based solely on his imagination, projecting his internal values onto everyone he meets. I’ve fought with him god-knows how many times since high school. We’ve stopped fighting these last couple of years not because I’ve grown up and agree with him now, or that he’s gotten more reasonable. I’ve just seen that there’s no point.”
“There’s no point to argue with anyone. Nobody ever changes their mind because of external influences. And from my observation, there is such a generational gap between us and the last generation that there’s no point in trying to persuade them.”
“Maintaining a civil appearance has become like closing the lid to the sewage tank. Everyone has a right to their opinions (so long as it’s not illegal), but everyone thinks that they’re the only correct person and everyone else is wrong. Especially when it comes to our parents and/or children, there’s a need to persuade them. Parents really love forcing their perspectives on their kids, under some kind of excuse of, “I’ve lived longer, so I know better.””
An askreddit, “What did you find out after you went to Hong Kong?” The top answer is, “My aunt left the military and got a 120K resettlement fund. She didn’t find a job, but took all her money to Hong Kong. She’s pretty, competent, serious, and did very high-quality work.”
“At first, she did fast food, specialising in delivering to construction crews. She rented a small house, sweated to death as she made fried rice, hauled it all over the city to deliver it herself. After she made a little bit of money, she bought a secondhand car, rented a bigger house, and hired two people. She delivered and bought supplies. Those years, she was happy in her business, calculating her income every day and dreaming about owning her own place.”
“She met a guy in Hong Kong also in the fast food business. They partnered up and got some long-term contracts because my aunt was hardworking and smart. The man and my aunt both got a divorce so they could marry each other. My aunt got nothing out of her divorce.”
“My aunt became a Hong Kong citizen, but she was back to square one. She had to start renting and looking for a job again. This time, finding employment was easier since she had an ID, and she had experience in the food service industry. She started working as a manager at a western restaurant, living in a tiny rented apartment. It was a cramped little space with a single electric stove, and a tiny squatting toilet right next to her bed. She tried her best to do her business at work, saving her toilet at home for only emergencies.”
“My aunt was tall, very dedicated, and pretty gentle. Gentle women are loved a lot by their men. My aunt was finally starting to get somewhere in life. She had a 30 square metre house. But her husband was thin and short and always sick with something. My aunt made different kinds of soup for him every day. Soon, they had a child together, also a Hong Kong citizen.”
“That year, my aunt finally visited home with her husband in tow, carrying her baby. My cousin’s head was big, his body was tiny, and his round eyes looked all around at everyone. My grandpa was an old Chinese doctor. He felt the baby’s head, took the baby’s pulse, and didn’t say anything.”
“After dinner, he took my aunt aside and asked, “Did you not get any health check ups before getting married? Your husband’s got heart problems, doesn’t he?” My aunt was already worried about her son because he was so thin, but she never thought he’d have heart problems. But my grandpa said with certainty, “This kid has a genetic heart defect. There has to be something wrong with his dad.””
“My aunt’s husband passed away at 36. My aunt travelled all over the country with her son, seeking treatment. She’s went to the best doctors in the country in Beijing, Shanghai, even Dongbei. She quit her job and sold her house to afford this.”
“Thankfully, after two surgeries, her son is recovering well. He’s still thin, but he’s graduated from uni now and has a nice job working in hotel management in Hong Kong.”
“My aunt is renting a 12 square metre house for 6000 HKD a month. She’s getting older, only being able to find work doing inventory management for hotels. A third of her income goes towards rent. Thankfully, she can eat at work so she hardly ever has to cook. Whenever her son comes home, she makes him turnip dumplings. They have a pretty warm and happy home. There are always fresh flowers in her house, and always a book on her bed.”
“She sends money every year to my grandpa and grandma. After they passed away, she started sending money to her brother, my dad. It’s not as though she’s wealthy. My other aunt has commented on how she wears the cheapest of wholesale clothes. She makes barely five figures a month, and has to spend 6K on rent, plus medicine for her son, plus occasionally helping us out. I know that even though she lived in Hong Kong, she did not have a Hong Kong lifestyle.”
“I’ve been to Hong Kong once. They had super tall buildings, lots of gold shops, the counters are filled with gold like it’s not worth any money. I’ve seen the mansions in the richest districts. I’ve seen my aunt’s apartment building, and the alleyways barely wide enough for a man to walk through, and if someone is half way down, you have to wait at the end for them to finish before you can enter.”
“My aunt’s room is on the third floor. Fifty centimetres outside her window is a wall and someone else’s window, just barely offset so they’re not staring into each other’s rooms. Although her place is super tiny, she still has a small shrine to Guanyu at her entranceway, with an offering of fresh fruits and three sticks of incense. I made fun of her superstition, but she insists that it really works—it’s the only way she was able to make it through these last few years. She says she prays every day not to make money, but just to be able to spend less. She’s going to retire next year. There’s free healthcare. She can visit much more frequently then.”
“She’s visited us once since retirement. It was winter, in the middle of a blizzard. She fell sick as soon as she came and was bedridden for three days with heart problems. My dad asked if she’s ever checked into it, and she said that it’s just a bit of arrhythmia, nothing to worry about.”
“Because it’s free to go to the doctor in Hong Kong, she only stayed for 10 days before returning. But before she had time to go to the hospital, she passed away in her sleep. Her son called every day, and when she didn’t pick up that day, he knew something was wrong. He hurried from Guangzhou to Hong Kong, and when he found her, she was still warm.”
“My dad said, “I never expected your aunt to be the one with heart problems. She was always so active and healthy. This last meeting with her is really awful.” My cousin who opened a clinic said, “If only her free healthcare worked in China, she might’ve been saved.””
“It was simple enough when she went, but she couldn’t give up on a lot of stuff to come back, like face, like the social benefits of Hong Kong. People get so stingy when they’re old. If my aunt hadn’t went to Hong Kong, well, I don’t know what would’ve happened, but she surely would’ve done better than most people. Even normal people in China now can live in big, wide houses, eat fresh fruit every day, and live peaceful lives.”
“My aunt had a great foundation, she could’ve gotten a steady job, she had a good body, she was smart. I don’t know why she would go suffer like this, live in such cramped quarters, just for a Hong Kong citizenship. Why she would waste all her money like that, when she could’ve taken her money back to China and invested and gotten wealthy. She has a strong personality, I guess, and my grandpa was always pretty progressive. When he knew he couldn’t stop her from going, he just figured that she’ll come back when she wants to too.”
“But only her soul returned.”
“Everyone has their destiny, I suppose. Some people work their whole lives and never see any returns from their hard work. Some people don’t work a single day and wealth still flows to them like a fountain.”
Comments question, “This all sounds like it happened at least 20 years ago. Did you get that much money when you leave the military then?” Someone answers beneath, “Lol, the daily wage back then was just 20 RMB. 120K is completely ridiculous. My neighbour served back then too, and he got 3000 RMB when he left.”
Someone warns to not sniff flowers you bought at a flower shop. “Back around Valentine’s Day, I got a seasonal job at a flower shop, thinking I could maybe learn flower arrangement or something. My job was peeling flowers. That’s when I found out that apparently, for all their flowers, they first pick off the wilted looking petals around the outside, and then blow into the flower to fluff it up. Yes, with their mouth. They would blow into flowers. And all those pink roses, blue roses, black roses stuff? It’s all dyed. I’ll never sniff flowers again.”
Comments say, “Wow, I’d just found another girl saying that the flowers she bought at her local flower shop were always smelly. And later she found out that the owner fluffed up every flower by mouth, and she’d had bad breath.”
Blogger writes, “I was on the bus to go to the store to fix a broken bracelet, when my wife suddenly sends me a picture and tells me she’d just bought a big diamond ring. She even told me to guess how much it was.
She was vacationing in Hong Kong with her parents. I guessed, 7K? You wouldn’t buy anything more expensive than that.
She said, “You’ve got to add a zero.”
Me: “No way.”
My wife: “My dad bought it for me.”
I was shocked. “How could you take something like that?”
I called her right away and said, “Don’t you think you need to talk to me before spending that much money? Can you return it? Remember when your best friend linked you a picture of a yellow diamond that you really liked? That was just over six figures and looks way better than this ring. I didn’t want to buy it at the time because it’s too expensive, but if your dad is this generous, I can add a little bit of my own money and just get you that yellow diamond you wanted.”
And my wife said, “Lol, I’m just testing you, see how you reacted. That photo is my friend’s ring.”
I was all like, “??? So did I pass???””
What does "you'll never find a day" mean?