Self-care Saturday
Things I have learned on RedNote:
1. Apparently China tells its citizens that most Americans only work a few hours a day. I assume this is to make us look lazy, but the truth would be more effective propaganda: that most of us are working ourselves into early graves just to keep body and soul together.
2. They also tell them that we have to pay thousands of dollars for ambulance rides when we're too sick or injured to get ourselves to the hospital. Which a lot of users said they didn't actually believe and assumed it had to be propaganda, because it's barbaric.
If China is smart they won't interfere with the little cultural exchange going on, because they have more to gain than lose. I've already started to see people on other social media complain about American RedNote users being taken in by "Chinese propaganda" such as being told "once you pay off your house you own it forever and it can't be taken by a bank if you're unable to afford something called 'property taxes'."
Turns out when people feel victimized and scammed by their own government, they might be receptive to another country's propaganda.
Whenever I think of the American TikTok users mass migrating to RedNote, I picture us as the Kool Aid Man busting through a wall. (There's a "great wall" or "great firewall" joke somewhere but I'm too lazy to find it.) Oh yeahhhhhhh! We're enthusiastic, we mean well, sometimes we bring something worthwhile to the cookout, but we have zero chill and might unintentionally wreck the place.
Also, we're full of sugar.
Somewhat related, I gave in to the relentless TikTok ads and bought a pair of those translation earbuds. Maybe they'll help me with my Spanish, and maybe I can pick up a few Mandarin phrases while I'm at it? Right now I know "ni hao" and... that's pretty much it.
I found out sort of by accident that Asian Market in Lafayette opened a new location this weekend. It's closer than the old one, and it turned out to be about 5 times bigger. And they carry Casa, my preferred brand of milk tea! I haven't been able to find it since moving here. I bought a box each of Sapporo and Kyoto (all the flavors are named after Japanese cities).
I didn't go crazy, I just bought those, a compact mirror (I seem to have lost my old one), a bottle of white peach Calpico, and some furikake. The last item is why I needed to go there; I like it on my eggs and the jar of salmon furikake I've been using is nearly done.
I decided to try ebi fumi (shrimp), after staring at a jar of tamago (egg) furikake and wondering what kind of bizarre egg-inception dish it would create. Maybe I'll try that one next.
Oh, and I decided to give Bumble BFF another try with a month of paid subscription. I used it before, but the free version is not very functional. I figure at the end of the month I'll either decide it isn't worth it, or will have made a couple of friends that I can contact some other way to make plans. Right now I'm chatting with a lady in Baton Rouge who's from Los Angeles, so we have that in common.
1. Apparently China tells its citizens that most Americans only work a few hours a day. I assume this is to make us look lazy, but the truth would be more effective propaganda: that most of us are working ourselves into early graves just to keep body and soul together.
2. They also tell them that we have to pay thousands of dollars for ambulance rides when we're too sick or injured to get ourselves to the hospital. Which a lot of users said they didn't actually believe and assumed it had to be propaganda, because it's barbaric.
If China is smart they won't interfere with the little cultural exchange going on, because they have more to gain than lose. I've already started to see people on other social media complain about American RedNote users being taken in by "Chinese propaganda" such as being told "once you pay off your house you own it forever and it can't be taken by a bank if you're unable to afford something called 'property taxes'."
Turns out when people feel victimized and scammed by their own government, they might be receptive to another country's propaganda.
Whenever I think of the American TikTok users mass migrating to RedNote, I picture us as the Kool Aid Man busting through a wall. (There's a "great wall" or "great firewall" joke somewhere but I'm too lazy to find it.) Oh yeahhhhhhh! We're enthusiastic, we mean well, sometimes we bring something worthwhile to the cookout, but we have zero chill and might unintentionally wreck the place.
Also, we're full of sugar.
Somewhat related, I gave in to the relentless TikTok ads and bought a pair of those translation earbuds. Maybe they'll help me with my Spanish, and maybe I can pick up a few Mandarin phrases while I'm at it? Right now I know "ni hao" and... that's pretty much it.
I found out sort of by accident that Asian Market in Lafayette opened a new location this weekend. It's closer than the old one, and it turned out to be about 5 times bigger. And they carry Casa, my preferred brand of milk tea! I haven't been able to find it since moving here. I bought a box each of Sapporo and Kyoto (all the flavors are named after Japanese cities).
I didn't go crazy, I just bought those, a compact mirror (I seem to have lost my old one), a bottle of white peach Calpico, and some furikake. The last item is why I needed to go there; I like it on my eggs and the jar of salmon furikake I've been using is nearly done.
I decided to try ebi fumi (shrimp), after staring at a jar of tamago (egg) furikake and wondering what kind of bizarre egg-inception dish it would create. Maybe I'll try that one next.
Oh, and I decided to give Bumble BFF another try with a month of paid subscription. I used it before, but the free version is not very functional. I figure at the end of the month I'll either decide it isn't worth it, or will have made a couple of friends that I can contact some other way to make plans. Right now I'm chatting with a lady in Baton Rouge who's from Los Angeles, so we have that in common.