{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "counterintuitive to me that, even with the high rates of immigration and the quality of translation technology, I\u2019m so insulated...", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/710003907382870016/", "html": "

etirabys:

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etirabys:

counterintuitive to me that, even with the high rates of immigration and the quality of translation technology, I\u2019m so insulated from the Chinese internet. I don\u2019t know what discourse they have. I read about crazy intense doxxing and harassment incidents in books about China (like Age of Ambition) but that\u2019s like being a Chinese person who kinda knows what Twitter is like from the Justine Sacco incident. I want to\u2026 oh, get their jokes, be in some actually good Discord servers, know whatever arbitrary sexual acts or dynamics are taboo in their culture. (There was a really good tumblr thread on Chinese fandom is totally okay with\u2026 was it incest? Something that US fandom feels weird about? but is not okay with poly or even multi-shipping? I loved that thread.)

Would be so amazing if there was a blog run by a normal Terminally Online person in China who just happened to speak very good English and was willing to post 1 screenshot a day of something that was on their feed, translating and explaining everything to me. God, I\u2019d fund that Patreon

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My wishes are answered! The spouse of someone I share a Discord server with is running weibo.substack.com

Premise: just faithfully translate the first 1500 words of whatever shows up in the Weibo trending posts today. No cherry picking articles, no punditry or commentary. Come experience the Chinese internet!

I\u2019ve enjoyed every single post. Just picking a random one:

A lot of parents are asking a blogger for advice about going to high school overseas, because Chinese high school is too stressful. But they\u2019re concerned about their children not being patriotic anymore after leaving China. The blogger admits that this is a very valid concern, especially since lately, there\u2019s been many incidents of very patriotic Chinese students going overseas and getting into violent physical conflicts with their classmates over political differences, and that this is illegal in a lot of countries. So therefore, his advice is to send their kids to Russia. There are a lot of great schools in Russia. Russia\u2019s leading the world in tech, and is pretty good in the arts too, and their food is great. A lot of modern Chinese processed food actually comes from Russia, so it\u2019s very easy to find things like cream popsicles and sausages that were a hallmark of Chinese people\u2019s childhoods. And you don\u2019t have to worry about war in Russia, because it\u2019s such a big country that no invader can win. Also, lots of hot chicks in Russia. But if your child is a girl, you have to be a little careful going to Russia, because their food is high in calories so it\u2019s very easy to get fat. And Russian men like to drink a lot, so it might be a little scary for girls.

Two recurring themes that make me go \u201coh wow, huh\u201d are bride prices (major driver of social drama and economic action) and treatment of children.

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