3/31/23 - They have, like, thousands of cows.
The deputy minister of the National Sports Ministry is under investigation for corruption. Comments are celebrating this and hoping that it’ll actually get Chinese soccer onto the right track again.
A food blogger writes an article, “I find that raising a child with a female relative often causes a lot of conflict over competing for the ‘mother’ role. Especially for our generation, most of our mothers have a sort of obsession with fulfilling their motherly duties. This is normally not a bad thing, but this instinct will often make them seek to become the parent to the baby, because they get a sense of fulfilment out of being needed and relied on. And this gives them more power to order around the other family members. This emotional fulfilment and satisfaction is more rewarding than the fatigue of the body or mind.”
“A lot of older female relatives will exaggerate how hard it is to care for a baby in order to achieve this fulfilment, to scare others away from the job. They’ll often get a sense of resentment for the actual mother of the baby, and try to instinctively compete with her. At the same time, they’ll subconsciously try to limit the growth and independence of the baby, to ensure they’re continually needed.”
“I’m sure that at this point, lots of people are remembering the things that their mothers or their MILs would do. I’ve seen a lot of people break down because they don’t understand why even though they approached the relationship with sincerity and friendship, even with a lot of ass kissing, their mother or MIL still only have criticism and resentment for them.”
“This sort of competition or bullying is often quite subtle, to the point where if you try to argue about it, your husband would only say that his mother has it hard enough already, what else do you want? If you try to argue about it with your own mother, your dad and her relatives are sure to jump out and accuse you of being ungrateful. If you try to complain about it to your friends, they can bring out a dozen examples of much worse, more abusive or neglectful mothers or MILs, and tell you to be happy with what you have and don’t overthink things.”
“Over time, new mothers will fall into self-doubt, and really start to think that they are the problem, and become isolated and pushed to the side in their own family. Some mothers just end up cutting off relations with their older female relatives, and cause their little family to be without help or support, and their child will lose the love and care they were supposed to get.”
“In order to get out of this situation, you have to turn the competition into cooperation, into recognition. The most important step is for mothers to get into the right mindset and set boundaries. For example, older relatives can feed the kid, but they can’t discipline the kid. If there’s an uncertainty, whose opinion gets priority. And you need a way to enforce those boundaries. Not all parents can accept that their children are now the rightful leaders of their own family. They often approach conflict within the small family from the position of a guardian and supervisor. They don’t understand that while they are family, they are also merely guests.”
Comments say, “If it’s so easy to establish and enforce boundaries, there wouldn’t be so many women dealing with this. Every time you even bring up boundaries, they act like you’re wounding them.”
An askreddit question, “How do you feel about people who are still working hard at their positions for their last day at work, and the very next day, they sue the company or report them to the Department of Labour?” Comments reply, “I don’t see anything wrong with this.”
A writer posts, “I saw an internet commenter say that they want to quit their jobs to look after their parents, and just get paid in their parents’ social security checks. I said that they’ll lose touch with society that way, and they said that they’ll come into contact with society plenty while helping out old people and raising kids.”
“I thought of an article I read a while ago, talking about “full time family”. A girl graduated from uni and couldn’t find a job. But her parents and all four of her grandparents all have pensions and social security. So she didn’t bother with work and was just full-time family to them. I don’t know if that article was real or made up, but if it’s real, that family is a solid three generations of retards.”
“Are her grandparents going to die at some point? Each of them that dies, that’s one less source of income for the family. Are her parents not going to get sick? Once they come down with any illness, their social security isn’t going to be enough to cover it. What is she going to do once her whole family is dead? Don’t just say she can put away money into a 401K on her own and be fine. People need life experience. Where is someone who’s never had a job going to go to find friends or a date? Is she going to rely on her friendships from high school for the rest of her life?”
“At that point, even if she has plenty of assets in her hands, she’ll be naive and inexperienced and completely unable to separate what is good and bad. Any random conman can con her into the ground.”
“This isn’t some kind of malicious curse. I have a lot of female friends around me who quit their jobs to care for their parents full time. I can see them de-evolve in real-time. The first thing is that they lose all their friends. Once they quit, all their work connections disappear, and no one ever calls or messages them. And no one ever wants to be called or messaged by them. A full-time housewife has nothing to offer anybody. Any contact from her is only an annoyance to others. Every time she calls relatives, it’s for a favour. Every time she calls friends, it’s for a favour. Who wants to stick around and endlessly help her?”
“Secondly, they have no reason to keep up with the times. They’ve given up on themselves, so society will move on without them. There was one lady who had gotten to the end of her rope because of covid and contact me, and that’s when I found out that although she was just a few years younger than me, she didn’t know how to use wechat at all. She felt like she had a phone number—anyone who wanted to get in touch with her can just call her. She never thought she’d be in a position that she needed to get in touch with other people. Her father got covid and needed her to call the local quarantine office, and she had no idea how. I told her to get in touch with her dad’s work, and she still had no idea how. Her entire life is just grocery-shopping, cooking, playing with her cat, and taking a walk with her folks. She’s so isolated from society that she can’t even get her neighbours to help. She doesn’t have wechat, so she’s obviously not in any wechat groups.”
“Thirdly, they will fall for cons. I have a friend who left work to care for her family. At first, she was anxious. Her own social security isn’t gonna be high, and she’s economically dependent on people in their 80s. She wants work—she wants to work. But she’s been out of work for a couple of years and no longer have any friends who have a job. She just has to send resumes out over the internet. She got an offer, and I warned her that it didn’t sound legit. She didn’t listen to me. She got another offer, again, obviously not legit. I warned her again, and she again didn’t listen. So then I stopped talking to her.”
“I understand that she has emotional needs. She’s only human. She has a need for social interaction, for recognition and empathy, not just chit-chatting with old people every day. She has her anxieties and her vulnerabilities. I’m honestly her friend. But all of those conmen, she also thought were her friends. They were just as important to her as me. She needed an authority figure to come and tell her that she was being conned—like a spouse, a teacher, a parent. But what kind of advice can a couple of 80-year-olds provide?”
“So, if you get married, I don’t suggest you become a full-time housewife. Maybe if you live in a country that actually protects full-time housewives, it’s a real option. And if you’re single, I certainly don’t recommend you become a full-time family—parents are even less dependable than spouses. A spouse has a 50% chance to divorce you. Your parents have a 90% chance to die significantly before you. You think about which one you want to deal with.”
A thread discussing the richest students studying overseas you’ve seen. “All the wealthiest kids I’ve seen aren’t even from major cities. They’re all from just random state capitals. It’s a mystery where their money comes from.”
“Each watch he owned was equal to a house in Shanghai. He had over fifty of them.”
“I’ve had a classmate whose family is on the Forbes list of rich people. He was so low key—he doesn’t have any branded bags or jewellery. But he was super chill and generous. We used to be super good friends, but we drifted apart after we both ended up back in China. I only found out not that long ago on the news that they were on the Forbes billionaires list. I was shocked! He’s got a super low-key social media too, only posts occasionally. But it’s not like him being rich has anything to do with me. I don’t got any connections there. I just want to be a normal classmate.”
“I know someone with Bipolar disorder who’d smash up their house all the time. He’s destroyed a subway station too, and a Louis Vuitton shop. His brother just stood by while he went apeshit, and then wrote a check for however much damages he’d done afterwards.”
“I know someone who held a Halloween party at some kind of famous haunted town. Rented an entire hotel built in the 1800s and got a professional team to decorate it for one night of partying. It’s completely outside of my realm of imagination.”
“Drove an ancient Honda, worked at a pizza shop. Not until his dad passed away and he had go to attend the funeral back in China that I found out his dad was Li Zhaohui.”
“Bought a company to get American citizenship. For her birthday, her dad bought her an entire Hermes store.”
“I’m in Toronto. His dad is the founder of some corporation, and owns big portions of multiple other corporations. His mom is third-generation CCP member. I’ve known this person for over a decade, and his life is just one line between two points. No fancy mansion, no fancy cars, just works super hard on whatever he’s focusing on. Only problem is he loves prostitutes. Says he’ll start getting withdrawal if he doesn’t go two, three times a week. Day or not. All the local pimps know to call him first thing when they get new blood. It’s ridiculous. He’ll sleep with $3000 a night students, and he’ll sleep with 40+ year old aunties. He’ll take anything.”
“He got Jay Chou, JJ Lin, and Mayday to come to his birthday party.”
”I don’t know if they’re wealthy or not, but one of my classmates is the great-grandson of Ye Jianying.”
“I knew a super-rich kid in high school. Found out he was gay, and he bought me lots of gifts for a while. I kinda laughed it off, but now that I think about it, I honestly wouldn’t have minded just closing my eyes and thinking of England.”
“Had a good friend back when I went to Stanford. His dad once ordered him to spend at least $100K a month. For a whole month, I didn’t spend a cent on anything, he picked up the tab because he had no idea what to buy. He told me his family was in the dye business and made hundreds of millions a year, and want him to spend more money to experience more of the world. He was a total genius too.”
“Met a trustfund brat through work—he had gotten bored and started a business. He’s the richest person I’ve ever met. His dad is some kind of real estate developer. His company is in a development that was totally owned by his dad. Our tiny business of a dozen people got a whole floor to ourselves. Gave out great bonuses every holiday. Our entire work day was just watching TV and playing games. I was fucking speechless. He gave us a budget of 4-5 million a year just to do SEO for his weibo.”
“Before covid, I knew someone who would fly back to China once a week first class.”
“I know someone from Dubai. He had a whole team of maids and cooks. Because he lived pretty far from the school, he bought a train to commute with.”
“I glanced over at my classmate’s phone one day after class and happened to see his bank account balance of 22 million.”
“My roommate is from Qinghai. Her family ranched cows. They have, like, thousands of cows. It’s mindblowing.”
Comments ask, “Are literally any of these stories real?” And someone replies, “I totally believe someone has thousands of cows.”