I’m Gen Z, was born in China after the CCP failed to terminate me under the One Child Policy, which resulted in my birth. Parent had to pay a massive fine for my existence. Even politics aside, economy was shit at the time, hard for my parents to find stable jobs. My mom told me that work was just brutal, I remember my maternal grandmother had to take care of us often times because both parents were either at work or looking for work from morning to late at night.
Government is so corrupt, they didn’t even enforce food safety regulations (not even sure if such regulations even existed). I remember my mom constantly warning us about food safety. Also you need to boil the water cuz its toxic. Steets were dirty, well at least the neighborhood I used to live in. Other areas might have it better.
Hukou system meant that since my parents were from rural areas, they didn’t have all the rights of someone living in the city. Even though me and my older brother were born in the city. So the city didn’t even allow us into their public schools.
And if we had stayed in the country, it’d be a struggle to get outside information. Like not just for political information and stuff (which honestly, probably doesn’t even matter when you’re struggling and you can’t change the system), but most importantly the entertainment would be limited, anything considered anti-government would be much harder to find, if not impossible, in mainland China. Unless you get lucky and somehow, as a local, manage to find a VPN if you never stepped foot outside the country. (Not sure if I’d even find out what a VPN is if I remained in the country)
Like imagine you’re under a “rat race” for money then you go home and can’t find anything interesting to watch, because its “too political” and blocked.
So yay, jumping from one boiling pot to another. Life is amazing! The universe do love its trolling.
(Tbf life did get better in the US, for us, at least from around 2014 to now. But I’m now more of fearing for the future, such as a Chinese Exclusion Act v2: Electric Boogaloo)
No need to imagine. I am that guy.
I’m Gen Z, was born in China after the CCP failed to terminate me under the One Child Policy, which resulted in my birth. Parent had to pay a massive fine for my existence. Even politics aside, economy was shit at the time, hard for my parents to find stable jobs. My mom told me that work was just brutal, I remember my maternal grandmother had to take care of us often times because both parents were either at work or looking for work from morning to late at night.
Government is so corrupt, they didn’t even enforce food safety regulations (not even sure if such regulations even existed). I remember my mom constantly warning us about food safety. Also you need to boil the water cuz its toxic. Steets were dirty, well at least the neighborhood I used to live in. Other areas might have it better.
Hukou system meant that since my parents were from rural areas, they didn’t have all the rights of someone living in the city. Even though me and my older brother were born in the city. So the city didn’t even allow us into their public schools.
And if we had stayed in the country, it’d be a struggle to get outside information. Like not just for political information and stuff (which honestly, probably doesn’t even matter when you’re struggling and you can’t change the system), but most importantly the entertainment would be limited, anything considered anti-government would be much harder to find, if not impossible, in mainland China. Unless you get lucky and somehow, as a local, manage to find a VPN if you never stepped foot outside the country. (Not sure if I’d even find out what a VPN is if I remained in the country)
Like imagine you’re under a “rat race” for money then you go home and can’t find anything interesting to watch, because its “too political” and blocked.
So yay, jumping from one boiling pot to another. Life is amazing! The universe do love its trolling.
(Tbf life did get better in the US, for us, at least from around 2014 to now. But I’m now more of fearing for the future, such as a Chinese Exclusion Act v2: Electric Boogaloo)
Thanks for your comment. I feel like I learned a lot from it. I didn’t know about the Hukou system, for example.
For what it’s worth, I’m glad you exist.