3/3/23 - There has been a steep drop off in writing quality between the 30s-40s and the 80s-90s.
In response to the trending topic #children born after 2024 should have all tuition costs subsidised, an internet blogger says, “Imagine strangling someone every day, until their eyes are rolling back and they’re going purple, and getting a committee together to figure out how to fix the situation. Some suggest medicine, others suggest surgery, but no one thinks to maybe stop strangling them.”
A Chinese school removes their uniform policy and lets students wear whatever they want. The Chinese internet is marvelling at a video of students going to school wearing a pikachu hat, or a red cape, or a fluffy pink princess dress.
A full-time housewife gets 50,000RMB settlement in divorce. Internet commenters say that being a housewife in China should count as a high-risk industry.
An askreddit question, “If your daughter marries someone super poor, would you still love her?” The top reply, “A story from my real life. One of my friends is a real heiress, lives in the richest neighbourhood in Shanghai. Her husband lived in a studio apartment in the slums when she met him. Her parents wouldn’t agree to it, but she insisted on marrying him. After they married, because he has no money for a house, she went home to ask her dad for money. Her dad won’t give it to her, so they ended up living with her parents. They sleep in the bedroom, her parents slept on the couch in the living room. After a year, they had a son together, and bring up buying a house again. They bought a house in the slums, total price 3 million. Just look at average Shanghai housing prices to get a sense of how tiny and old a 3 million dollar house must be. Guy was still too poor to pay for it though, so the girl had to ask her dad for it again. Her dad is a real stubborn one, and still refused to give a cent. So the girl went through her whole friend circle to borrow money. No idea if she bought the house in the end or not.
Some girls can go up a social class with marriage, some girls go down a social class with marriage. She used to have a great banking job that she quit too, and now she’s just passing time at a tiny company. Girls should avoid love-brain and focus on themselves..”
A Chinese translator complains that they’ve been reading a lot of Wuxia novels in preparation for some work, and honestly, there has been a steep, 90 degree drop off in writing quality between the 30-40s and the 80-90s. Like people have completely forgotten how to write literature. Most works written in Federalist China and light years ahead of what’s being produced in webnovel circles today. Someone commented, “Yeah, I wonder what happened in the 60s and 70s that would’ve caused that?”
With Genshin releasing its latest video focusing on its newest character Dehya, it told a story of how Dehya wants to put all of her money towards making a charitable fund for helping children born in the desert. In inspiration, over 90,000 Genshin players have donated a collective 2.4 million RMB to the Hope Fund in China, towards building schools, labs, and music lessons in rural China.
A dog owner has been sued over her border collie biting an influencer. She explains that the dog was leashed and tied to his car, and the influencer did not ask permission before petting her dog. She has already accompanied the influencer to the hospital and paid for treatment and a rabies vaccine, but they couldn’t come to an agreement about paying reparations, so she’s going to have to go to court over this.
The CEO and founder of Chinese company Country Garden real estate developers has quit due to old age, and his daughter is now the new CEO. Seems like her approval is pretty high, as their stock prices have risen 8.3% today.
Man submits question to relationship blogger, asking, “I’m 27, my girlfriend is 25, both fully-employed in Changchun. Neither of us owns a car or a house, we’re both renting with roommates. We’ve been together for a year. I come from a rural village and my parents are quite poor, so I’ll only have myself to count on for buying a house or car. My girlfriend’s family is comfortable—at least, they can help her pay a down payment. We’re discussing marriage right now. I don’t want to buy a house. I want her parents to buy a house. Because I don’t have money, and her parents do have money. I’ll pay a bride price, and she’ll bring a dowry. But her parents say that men have to provide a house for marriage. I just want to know which law says that men have to provide the house and women can’t do it? Does she really have to be so calculating over who buys the house? Our relationship is really shaky now because of this argument. I don’t think I’m wrong, and she doesn’t think she’s wrong. What do people on the internet say?” Internet commenters recommend they break up immediately, so she never gets to experience the joy of marrying someone so poor.
Someone posts an internet poll asking whether people agree with the proposal that China should have free healthcare. Top voted comment is a warning that he should stop trying to stir trouble.
A divorce lawyer talks about their experience of a husband who was agitated the whole time, kept standing up and yelling at their side, or even talking off to the judge. The guy’s lawyer’s practically pulling him back down to try to get him to shut up, and he’s not strong enough to do it. At this point, the guy’s completely lost control and is half crawling on the table to come over and beat us up.
Man: “What’s wrong with beating you!? You deserve it! What woman doesn’t serve their in-laws? You talk back to my mom, who would I beat but you? I’m telling you all—“ he draws a big circle that includes everyone in the courtroom, “Women have to be beat when they don’t listen! It’s the only way they’ll learn!”
Man’s lawyer is pale as a ghost and yanking on him like crazy.
Man points at me, “You’re just as bad. I’m telling you right here, sure, I beat her, what about it? She was asking for it. Wasn’t she, judge? What, are there no laws anymore? You’ve gotta be on my side.”
Man’s lawyer is standing up, trying to haul his client back.
The man gets angrier and shoves his lawyer, who goes flying back and flips over his seat, crashing to the ground.
The only thing in my head is, “Wow, is this what it’s like when enemies self-destroy and drop loot?”
The man’s lawyer asks for an adjournment and starts to leave, and the guy won’t let him go, says he paid money. The judge is like, “Find, none of you go. Let’s call the cops and have them deal with this. See how you deal with contempt of court, or maybe assault charges.”
He is texting the opposing lawyer to comfort him as he listens to his client laugh her ass off. In all his years, this is the first time he’s seen anyone beat their own lawyer.
Tech blogger notes that China gives very pleasant names to western countries, like we’re trying to kiss up to them. A lot of people say it’s just a transliteration, but there are lots of words pronounced the same way, and China always chooses the best one. Like America (beautiful), English (elite), France (law), Germany (moral), all of these are some of the best titles you can give actual Emperors in China, the sort of words that stand for some of our most fundamental values of what is good. And we use it for naming other countries.
It’s unavoidable then that it would make people instinctively feel like people from those countries are better. For someone who isn’t particularly educated, just based on the name alone, it sounds like something you need to kiss up to.
We should be promoting China as a country of beauty, of elites, of law, of morality. That way, we can improve our own pride and patriotism. That’s far more important to a country than something like economic growth.
Someone complains that when they read an agriculture novel, what they want to read about is someone getting up in the morning, eating eight eggs with jujube syrup, and then go out shirtless to haul shit to fertilise their field. They don’t want to get half way through and find out the protagonist is some lost noble with amnesia. Or for the protag to suddenly go to school, study, and join the national exams. Or randomly marry some princess. The fun of agriculture novels is to read about an illiterate farmer.
China News is reporting that experts are petitioning for the government to provide free cemetery lots and ash urns, and investigate the pricing of the funeral industry and put more regulations in place, due to overly inflated funeral costs. Commenters are amazed that experts are actually saying something sensible.
Man complains that his girlfriend is kinda ugly and fat, 163cm, 55kg, but he still intends to marry her. She’s very good to him, maybe because she’s getting a teaching degree so her major is full of only girls, and she’s not pretty, so this is the first male attention she’s got. So she’s got a severe case of love-brain and is super devoted to this relationship. He’s not into her at all and is only marrying for asset transfer purposes. She’s got three houses in a major city and her parents are both professors, and he’s from a poor rural village. Aside from having good looks and 180cm height and a decent job, he has no other assets and has to depend on himself. He gave up on his ex-girlfriend who’s also from a rural village for her, even though he knows his ex is hotter.
He needs a woman who can help with his career and support his lifestyle, so he knows he needs someone from a comfortable family. His girlfriend has already said that she doesn’t mind a low bride price—she’ll be returning it to him after the ceremony
anyways. And as for the house, obviously, he doesn’t have one of his own, so she’s talked her parents into giving them a small three-bedroom. All she wants is for him to love her back, but love is worthless. He can love anyone if he needed to.
As far as material assets go, he’s definitely won—he’s less than 30 and already got a house and a car in a major city, and he can use her parent’s connections to advance at work. But spiritually, he’s very empty, because he doesn’t actually love her. He’s just using her to advance his career. Once he’s a successful middle-aged man, it shouldn’t be too hard to find someone who’s poor but beautiful. He’ll be ten years behind his peers, but that’s just life for you.
He knows that some people will think he’s scum, but everyone needs to prioritise themselves. Everyone makes sacrifices.
okay but there's also a country whose chinese name is "grape teeth"
What are agriculture novels?