A man messages a lawyer asking for legal advice, says his situation is a little complicated. He wants a divorce with his wife. There’s no big, bottom-line problems, but there’s a lot of little conflicts, like how his wife doesn’t respect his mom, just because his mom complained about her spending too much money a couple of times while she was sitting the month. They’ve been married for 7 years, their kid is 5. Both of his parents are rural farmers. Her parents are government employees in Shangchun. She doesn’t like to go to his village to visit his family, and she never buys his mom any gifts, so they argue almost every holiday.
They both work in Shangchun and were classmates back in university. He’s doing ordinary desk work, making 6K a month, while she had her own business from before she was married which just opened a second location, making about 300K a year. Her savings has always been in her own bank account, and now that they’re divorcing, he wants to split those saving evenly. She can have custody of the kid and he’ll pay child support.
But she doesn’t want to split those savings, because she said that they’re from before her marriage, and that he’s never made any money all these years. But no matter what his income is, her income is shared income once they’re married. With 300K a year, after so many years, she’s got to have tons of savings. The laws says marital assets should be split evenly, so he’s perfectly in his right to want half of it. But with her refusal, they can’t agree on a divorce plan, so he wants to sue for divorce and asks what the lawyer thinks.
Blogger says that if you take some comments about living overseas versus China and just change the words to living in big cities versus rural villages, the gross classism comes across perfectly. “But everyone in big cities wash their underwear in the washing machine.” “This is a lot better than pre-cooked food you buy in rural supermarkets, right?” “People just use credit cards in big cities, who even uses wechat pay anymore?” “We don’t do that in Shanghai.” etc, etc.
He attaches an images of someone saying, “Putting underwear into a public dryer just feels so gross.” With comments underneath saying, “In Australia, this just means that the underwear isn’t that dirty, don’t be oversensitive about it.”
A video of a 22 month old toddler getting up in the morning to go to daycare, because both of his parents work. He seems used to the routine and doesn’t fuss at all as he’s dropped off and his parents leave. Internet commenters are amazed there are daycares who take 22 month olds.
Someone responds to the claim that renting is easier and cheaper than buying, by saying, “As a landlord, I’ve got a couple of things to say:
If you’re in your twenties, just graduated, even if you don’t have employment yet, so long as you’re not covered in tattoos and aren’t too noisy, I’d be happy to rent to you.
If you’re in your thirties, so long as you have a stable income and don’t keep pets, whether you’re dating or single, I’d rent to you.
If you’re in your forties, so long as you have stable work and you look pretty neat and tidy and don’t keep pets, whether you have kids or not, I’d rent to you.
If you’re in your fifties, then I’d have to hesitate and ask more questions. If I have a younger potential renter, then sorry, you’ll have to look somewhere else.
If you’re over 55 and want to rent from me, sorry, I don’t have any availability anymore.
All landlords know why this is.”
A Chinese skier Kong Fanyu won bronze at the Freestyle Ski World Cup, with first and second place taken by Australia.
Clips of an interview with someone who had emigrated to America who says, “After I’ve been brainwashed, I broke up with my wife, didn’t take anything from the divorce, because I was so eager to hurry up and go to America that I just want it done quickly. Because I have no money, I can’t emigrate legally, but I found out a route from Ecuador. I flew there first, and crossed the Panama Rainforest, and came to the American/Mexico border. I was robbed twice. We had 9 men and 4 women in our group. Two of them were a family with a kid. One of the women was under 30, and was raped 4 times on the way. When we got to the border, we got shaken down one last time. Aside from the dozen Chinese people, all the rest were Latin Americans. We had way more money on us than them, and they didn’t understand why we’d come to America when we were so well off. They all couldn’t survive in their home country anymore and are trying their luck in America.”
“As soon as we made it in America, we got put in jail. Stayed there 5-6 months. Chinese bosses in the know will pick us up when we’re released, so we can work for them. I went with one of my friends to a restaurant opened by a guy from Fujian and washed dishes for him. He got room and board, but almost no money. And his boss is super patriotic. If we say anything bad about China, he yells at us, so we were on bad terms with him. Since he sees we’re constantly badmouthing China, he works us extra hard. I couldn’t take it anymore and went to a Mexican grocery to load stock.”
“Life was hard, but it was worth it for my American dream. I eventually started delivering takeout. Whenever I had some free time, I’ll make fun of pinkos on social media. Got to know a couple of Chinese people working at Microsoft and found out that none of them want American citizenship. They’re all planning on working for a few years, and then starting a business in China or finding a job there. I asked why, and they said they don’t like American society. They only came to make more money. I felt like I didn’t fit in with them then, and felt like they were pinkos too.”
“Now that I think about it, it feels super ironic. We’ve held demonstrations and protests outside the Chinese embassy before, saying that we were oppressed in China. It worked ten years ago, but now even the American government isn’t that dumb anymore.”
Someone is venting on Chinese instagram that they’ve been sponsoring a girl for 8 years, from middle school through high school to university. “For a lot of rural kids, middle school is a big bottleneck. A lot from poorer families will drop out then to start working. She’s got good grades and I thought it would be a waste, and honestly, I saw myself in her.”
“I did my best for 8 years. I only make 2-3K a month, and I’d give half of my income to her, just in the hopes that she’d carry on. We have almost no communication—I just get a text from her on Chinese New Years. All I know of her is her bank account and phone number. Last year, she graduated, and I stopped my sponsorship. This year, for Chinese New Year, I still got a text from her, so I thought to reply. Asked how her work is going, and she said she’s not working, she’s getting ready to be married.”
“I was shocked and didn’t know how to respond.”
“She could sense I didn’t react well. Next day, she added me on wechat and explained that she’s always had regrets because she didn’t come from a good family and had to go through a lot of hardships in life. She only went to a very ordinary university. Her biggest advantage is her youth and her good looks, and marriage is a second chance at life. The guy is from a very wealthy family and is independently wealthy himself. He’s eager to have kids, so she plans to get pregnant as soon as possible and have a bunch of kids.”
“The line that struck me the hardest from her was ‘I’m just grabbing a chance to change my life.’”
“I checked out her friend circle, and it’s full of travelling, buying luxury brands, wedding preparation, and trying for pregnancy. I couldn’t describe how I felt.”
“She said she was grateful and want to pay me back for all my help, but I refused.”
“I’ve lost sleep for several days, and I don’t know why. Because her life is different from how I imagined? But what right do I have to plan someone else’s life?”
“My mom sensed my mood was down and when I explained, she said that this girl was smarter than me.”
In response to people’s comments, she goes on to clarify that the reason she turned down repayment is that she doesn’t feel like the girl owes her anything for her help, it wasn’t as though she was planning on a return on her investment when she chose to sponsor her. Did she ask the girl to go on and sponsor someone else? No, because if she wanted to, then OP didn’t have to tell her. If she didn’t want to, there’s no need for OP to take her morality hostage.
Why did she feel so bad about this? She explains, “I was born in a rural village too. Back then, if your first kid was a daughter, you can have a second. If your first kid is a boy, you can only have one. So there was a lot of older sister, younger brother pairings in my village, and the fate of all those older sisters is the same. I don’t know why this is and asked my grandma, and she said it’s like this everywhere. Then, there was an election for the mayor, and all the candidates were men. I asked my grandma why only men can be mayors, and she again said that everywhere is the same.”
“I started watching the news, and all the national leaders are men. I couldn’t understand. Then I started going to school and learning that women were much worse off in history. The only reason women’s rights have improved so much in modern society is because women can receive education and have the same employment opportunities and make the same money as men, instead of being locked in to marriage as an only option. But even today, sexism is still an issue, and I don’t know how to solve this problem. I just know that if women get educated, they can have their own income and their own careers, and it’s not just good for them, it’s good for women over all.”
“Why did I want her to keep going to school? My friend is her middle school English teacher. She said that after 9th grade, half the class will empty out. The number of girls remaining will be down to just a handful. She’s teaching class one day, and a father comes in and pulls a girl up out of her seat and starts dragging her out. She’s struggling and holding onto the podium, and begging to be allowed to stay. She wanted to keep studying. When I heard about this, I was really moved. I thought she wanted to keep studying.”
“To be honest, yeah, some part of me was selfish when I started helping her. It was because she was a girl. If she had been a boy, I probably wouldn’t have sponsored her.”
Top voted comment says, “‘She knows her biggest advantage if her youth and good looks. This man can change her life.’ …Honestly, has she even thought about who’s actually changed her life? She takes the woman who’s actually turned her life around for granted, but takes the man who’s buying permanent use of her uterus with a couple of LV bags as her saviour.”
Love your translation. Thanks so much! Can you explain why landlords don't accept older people?