Chongqing Street Stabbing, Collective Bystanding, Who Knows Inside the Wall!? Must Be Vigilant Against CCP Information Blockades, They Are Coming for Us! The Food Delivery Industry Is Collapsing, Unemployed People Have Nowhere Left to Go! Qiqi Baba TALK 'Refreshing 829' 20261114
This episode features host Qi Qi discussing the frequent random violent incidents in Chinese society and the plight of fallback industries such as food delivery and ride-hailing. The program points out that following the random attacks from the previous two days, another street knife attack occurred in Chongqing on November 13, reflecting a high level of societal hostility and severe psychological tension among the public. At the same time, as a massive wave of unemployed people floods into the food delivery industry, it faces plummeting unit prices, high platform commissions, and severe involution, making these former fallback industries unsustainable.
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Hello everyone, welcome to 78857 Qi Qi. It has only been less than three days since the random attack that happened a couple of days ago. And then shortly after, another incident took place in Chongqing, happening on the evening of November 13. Furthermore, this perpetrator was extremely brazen, committing the crime right in front of everyone with absolute fearlessness. After injuring the person, he just stood right next to them and watched, surrounded by a crowd of onlookers, showing no signs of fear or panic whatsoever—none of that was present.
[Video Clip] Ah! Murder! They have a knife, that person is still moving. He hacked him dozens of times, look, that person is still crawling, still crawling.
[Video Clip] That, that, this is afraid he can't get back.
[Video Clip] That work, there's still someone, you can't even lift your arm anymore.
[Video Clip] That kind of thing, holy shit! Useless, you genius! Holy shit! Again.
[Video Clip] Ice bar.
[Video Clip] You are all there, you are all there, where did you come from? Yo, Changsha has it.
Following the random incident from a couple of days ago, I actually told everyone something. It was essentially a reminder: for those friends whose physical bodies are still inside the Great Firewall, I think you must try your best to avoid getting into conflicts with others. If you encounter issues, let's try to be as calm-tempered as possible and avoid getting into disputes with others. Because the current social state inside the Great Firewall is really, really unstable; it is simply—to describe it—in a state of being ready to explode at the slightest touch, which is the state of most people. Because society is merely a fictional concept, when we talk about society as a whole, we are actually describing every single person living within it. When I say that the pressure in this society is very high, I am actually referring to the fact that the vast majority of people living here are under immense pressure and are on the verge of a psychological breakdown.
Therefore, any slight pressure or emotion added to them might cause them to explode instantly, because they are already at their absolute limit, hanging by a thread. This incident in Chongqing seems very much like a targeted attack, and in all probability, it wasn't due to a massive hatred or conflict, because what he held was a kitchen knife—used for chopping vegetables. So it looks very much like a sudden, random conflict between a restaurant customer and the restaurant owner, as we can see quite a few small restaurants behind that street. It looks very much like these kinds of sudden, spontaneous conflict events. I think such things will happen more and more in the future inside the Great Firewall. This is not to say that I hope for it to happen, but rather it is a fact that will happen—a prediction, so to speak, that friends can understand. Moreover, the information we know might become even scarcer. The information we are able to access inside the Great Firewall may decrease because after such incidents happen frequently, the Chinese Communist Party notices and begins to suppress it.
When such things are spread, the amount we can access is drastically reduced because platforms censor them very strictly. Therefore, unless someone happens to be at the scene, films a video, and manages to send it out to the overseas internet or submit it, we have no way of knowing about it. Furthermore, because it might become impossible to upload within the country at all—not even lasting a single second—this heavily suppresses its spread. However, friends, we must remember that this does not change the fact that such incidents occur frequently.
To give a very simple example, everyone should still remember unfinished buildings. For a long time, they were suddenly exposed everywhere, and then the things we saw of that nature started to decrease. So, did the number of unfinished buildings decrease? Not at all. It is just that the authorities have consciously suppressed the spread of such information. This includes school bullying incidents, which we were bombarded with intensively for a long period—basically two or three cases happening every couple of days. But after the Chinese Communist Party began suppressing the dissemination of information about such events, you can see that we now know much less about them. Can you say that school bullying only happened during that period and has completely stopped now? Certainly not. It is simply because they are suppressing the spread of such information.
This also includes the incident involving Wangwang, the little dog. The harm done to small animals was heavily exposed many times in the first half of 2026—well, not quite the first half, about two-thirds of the year, before August or September—but now those too have become taboo topics. Therefore, discussing related topics now—such as protecting small animals, not abusing them, and not harming them—is very easily removed and deleted within the country. There is nothing that can be done about it! Consequently, for everyone—not just Chinese citizens inside the country whose information is completely blocked, but also us outside the firewall—it is actually the same. Because they prevent the dissemination of information so that we cannot learn about it, we might also become targets of their concealment. What we can do is simply not to forget. Even if we do not see reports of such incidents, based on the high-frequency pattern, we should know what the reality is. The overall societal hostility has not diminished; it may even be increasing. Therefore, the probability of dangerous incidents happening due to people reaching an emotional breaking point is bound to be higher. Thus, we must not forget these things, nor should we be influenced by the information suppression of the Chinese Communist Party. That is the most important thing.
[Video Clip - Food Delivery Rider] Boss Wang from Meituan, I worked for nine hours today and completed 58 orders. How are you expecting us to make a living?
[Video Clip - Food Delivery Rider] Brother Dong, it seems this crowdsourced delivery is really impossible to do anymore. I worked for three hours, got two orders, and made 15 yuan. Do you think we can keep going in a situation like this? Can crowdsourced delivery still be done?
[Video Clip - Food Delivery Rider] The delivery industry is completely ruined now. Sigh, making 100 yuan is a pipe dream. In Beijing, for example, during peak hours today I only managed one trip, made 30 yuan, and then there were no more orders. Brothers, time to change careers.
[Video Clip - Food Delivery Rider] Do you know why the delivery market is bad now? Because those stay-at-home moms who used to order delivery have now all come to do delivery work. I am part of that main force. Wherever the system tells me to go, I go, come rain or shine. It is cold today, so I am wearing my down jacket, and I have to ride my tricycle out to work.
[Video Clip] Chinese food delivery riders have already exceeded 10 million, and the number is still growing. Why are more and more people delivering food? First, jobs in factories and the construction industry are decreasing. Manufacturing automation is becoming higher and higher, and many simple, repetitive tasks are being replaced by machines. The construction industry is also contracting, and labor demand is not as high as before. Second, the threshold for delivering food is low; it requires no educational background, no experience, and all you need is an electric bike.
[Video Clip - Food Delivery Rider] I do not want to deliver food anymore. Delivering food nowadays is really too difficult. It is 12:30 now, and I have been running orders for nearly an hour and a half, but I have only made 28 yuan. Really, I have never had such a terrible record.
[Video Clip - Food Delivery Rider] It is 23:38 now! I am about to finish my shift. I have been delivering food for two years, but I really find that it is getting harder and harder to make a living at it. Many people say, "Oh, if all else fails, I can just go deliver food." But actually, delivering food is really not a fallback option for you, because right now there are simply no delivery orders to be had. As for delivering food, they say there is no threshold, and anyone who knows how to ride an electric bike can do it. So you will find that everyone and their dog is delivering food now. I remember when I first started doing crowdsourced delivery, the unit price was over 4 yuan—3.8 or 3.9 yuan—and now it is just over 2 yuan. Anyway, there are genuinely more riders than there are food orders.
[Video Clip - Food Delivery Rider] Honestly, I am kind of losing it, you know? That one order was two minutes overdue, and then every single order after that was overdue.
[Video Clip] Exactly.
[Video Clip - Food Delivery Rider] Exactly, maybe right now my... well... emotions are a bit unstable, but... but... I really... I am just... I am really kind of losing it, you know?
[Video Clip · Food Delivery Rider] Ah, brothers, there are really no orders left. If you haven't come to do food delivery, if you haven't joined this industry, really, don't come! My son said the food delivery industry, or the ride-hailing industry, or the taxi industry, none of them are easy to handle. This year, look, everyone is just idling around, there are no orders! My son said there are more people than orders, look, over there, more people than orders. My son said that this year, the food delivery industry is really coming to an end. Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou are the same! I asked the brothers over there, it's not just us running in Chongqing, my son said places like Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou are the same, no orders, just idling around. I don't know what's going on this year, look, over there.
[Video Clip · Food Delivery Rider] This afternoon, from ten to three, I only got this one order. In one hour, I only ran one or two orders.
[Video Clip · Food Delivery Rider] It's so worrying. To what extent is food delivery involuted now? Some people are scrambling to deliver orders for two yuan. Even orders for three, four, eight, or nine floors, people are scrambling to take them. In the future, the off-season for food delivery will be the norm all year round; there is no such thing as a peak season anymore. This industry has reached a dead end. If you can avoid delivering food, don't do it. If you can save money, save it. From now on, the food delivery industry won't be able to provide a safety net for you.
[Video Clip · Food Delivery Rider] No, I want to ask, does food delivery have a hibernation period? Ah, now that the weather is cold, I can't get any orders. Are you all not ordering anymore? Are you not hungry? Are you all cooking at home? Ah, I remember before, when it was cold, although nobody ordered food, when it was cold and raining, people would order food. Now, even spicy hot pot, nobody orders it. Potato claypot noodles, nobody orders them either. What should I do? Are you all tired of eating it? Don't you like it anymore? Order quickly, order quickly, be good. It's raining, I'm telling you, um, mwah, order quickly, be good, otherwise I really can't hold on, I really can't hold on. Come here.
[Video Clip] Beautiful.
[Video Clip · Food Delivery Rider] Three yuan.
[Video Clip] Take the record, you want this too? Nephew, aren't you being too involuted? So what? Hit him! So what else? It's because of people like you with no bottom line that the market is like this. If you don't involute, how can you make money? Are you stupid? Do you know what our ultimate goal is? What is it? I'd rather run orders to strengthen my body. Worthy of being the king of involution.
[Video Clip · Food Delivery Rider] Today is the first day of my period, and I'm still delivering food. My stomach hurts so much I can't even stand up, I don't want to move at all. The weather is cold, and I have no strength in my whole body. I climbed two sixth floors today, and now I'm squatting on the side of the road to rest. Stranger, can you say 'come on' to me?
[Video Clip · Food Delivery Rider] Everyone, when delivering food at night, never trust the navigation. I walked in a place like this and fell! My arm is bleeding, um, most importantly, my cake is crushed. What should I do?
[Video Clip · Food Delivery Rider] Look at this collection of orders, it's all fucking delivery bikes! Holy shit, ah, I am surrounded by delivery bikes, this is the peak hour, it's twelve o'clock.
[Video Clip] A mature adult will keep 3,100 yuan in their pocket, ready to make a comeback at any time. Spend 3,000 yuan to buy an electric bike, spend 100 yuan to get a health certificate, and you can go deliver food immediately, at least you'll have something to eat. At first, I thought it was funny, but when you think about it carefully, it's particularly realistic. It is undeniable that food delivery is the industry with the lowest threshold for a safety net in this society. It doesn't require a degree or experience. As long as you are willing to run, you can earn enough for a meal. When many people are at their wit's end, their first reaction is, 'at worst, I'll go deliver food.' But I've been thinking recently, what if one day even food delivery can't provide a safety net? Take the local situation in Nanning, the current delivery price is less than 0.9 yuan per kilometer. Even at this price, many difficult orders or orders in remote locations are snapped up in seconds as soon as they are released. What does this mean? Supply exceeds demand; there are too many people delivering food. In the coming years, there will be more and more college graduates, more and more middle-aged people losing their jobs, and factories are cutting back on hiring. Offices are laying people off. When everyone has nowhere to go, they all go to deliver food. The more people there are, the lower the unit price will be pushed. People used to say, 'If things get really bad, I'll go deliver food, I won't starve to death.' Now it seems that even this last resort is slowly failing. When the day comes that food delivery can no longer accommodate so many people, where will these ordinary people with nowhere to go turn to?
[Video Clip] It's not noon yet.
[Video Clip · Food Delivery Rider] This Golden Street actually has more people than orders, brothers. It's November and it's still like this? Look, another group of people over here. This food delivery job can't be done anymore.
[Video Clip] Is it dedicated delivery or crowd-sourced?
[Video Clip] Zhang Xiu.
[Video Clip] This is the first time I've seen such a beautiful delivery rider. How many orders did you run today?
[Video Clip] Off work. Hey.
[Video Clip · Food Delivery Rider] Why are you ignoring me?
Qiqi Baba TALK 'Refreshing 829' 20261114
[Video Clip · Food Delivery Rider] I am penniless right now, so I am doing food delivery, and he has no money either. I am eating two meals a day for three days, sigh, it is really hard. It is truly, absolutely, just for delivery; it is really not a job for humans. Damn it, it is not suitable for someone like me. I have only been doing it for a whole month, let alone getting paid. From the time I started delivering until now, I have not spent a single cent. I have to wait until the 5th of next month to get paid. I can eat a meal at noon, and then that is it. Ah, by the time my salary reaches my hands, there is not much money left. I have to pay for the bike rental, pay for the battery, then pay for housing, pay for electricity, and by the time it gets to my hands, there might only be a few hundred yuan left! A few hundred yuan. I have to go find another job, and then I will need money again, which means I have no money, no money again. I have no plan for the future; now, I just need to survive.
[Video Clip · Food Delivery Rider] Delivering food is the most lowly profession I have ever done; there is no social status at all. Even that security guard at the gate can boss you, a delivery rider, around. If your bike is not parked properly, he will make you move it. You have to move it; if you don't, he won't open the gate for you. So this job is only suitable for those aged 35 or 36 and up, or even 40 and up, those who are burdened with families, those middle-aged people with no other skills and under great economic pressure. Young people, do not come to do this; there is no social status and no future.
[Video Clip · Food Delivery Rider] Can anyone tell me what the market for food delivery is like now? Before I started, they all said you could earn five or six thousand a month. Now that I am doing it, I have been at it for an hour and a half, completed three orders, and earned 6.8 yuan, and 2.5 yuan was deducted for insurance. Look at those delivery guys. Look, hmm, see? They are all there scrolling on their phones. Those who haven't started, don't start; those who haven't come out, don't come out, just stay home and scroll on your phones. Coming out is just scrolling on your phones, and you get tanned pitch black. I am just curious, once I start delivering, do you all have no money? Why don't those people who order food do it?
[Video Clip · Veteran] This is my preferential treatment certificate, and this is my eight-year discharge certificate. Recently, many people have said that since I am doing food delivery, I should stop mentioning that I was a soldier. Others say, since you are delivering food, don't bring up these things. We who have been soldiers are not born to risk our lives; we are just ordinary people who also need to support our families. Perhaps many people find these words uncomfortable, but I still said them. The glory of a soldier will not fade because I deliver food; having been a soldier is never something to be ashamed of. Do you all think that after being discharged, we deserve to be respected?
[Video Clip · Veteran Xiao Zhou] Hello everyone, I am veteran Xiao Zhou, and I am currently delivering food. I went to a job fair for retired soldiers this afternoon, walked around, but still didn't find a job suitable for me. I often ask myself, am I unable to keep up with the current pace? I used to think there would be many choices after discharge, but only after truly stepping into society did I realize there are too many helpless realities.
[Video Clip · Food Delivery Rider] There are thousands of riders in the Northeast; if they don't deliver food, what can they do? Many Southerners say you can go to a factory, but perhaps you have never been to the Northeast; there are simply no factories in the Northeast. In recent years, life for people in the Northeast has become increasingly difficult, especially for us born in the 80s. Currently, we have elderly parents above and young children below. If we want to go to the South, even if the family allows it, our energy and health do not. But now, although we are having a hard time, what other choice do we have? We can only struggle to hold on in the food delivery industry until the day we really can't hold on anymore.
[Video Clip · Food Delivery Rider] How do you all manage to walk out the door to deliver food? It is 10:30 now, and I am lying on the bed scrolling through Douyin, not wanting to go out. I think, one order is 2.3 yuan, ten orders are 23 yuan, 4 times 4 is 16, I have to run 20 orders to get 46 yuan. To run 20 orders, I have to work for seven or eight hours. I think about it, there is no motivation, I can't walk out the door, my whole body is weak.
[Video Clip] I advise everyone, never do food delivery again. I... I fell down, it is not a good job.
[Video Clip · Food Delivery Rider] Do you know how hard it is to deliver food now? I just received an order to climb to the fifth floor, my god! The bonus is only 5 mao, 1 mao per floor. You say, to what extent has human labor been squeezed now? This unit price is really too low; the average unit price is only about 3 yuan, and in some cities, it has already reached 2 yuan. When I was delivering last year, 30 orders could get me over 200 yuan; now it takes 60 orders to get over 200 yuan. I guess in the future, the food delivery industry will become harder and harder, and the unit price will become lower and lower. So brothers, if you can find a job, go find a better job and go to work. Food delivery is no longer an industry that can serve as a safety net. Did it go bankrupt? I said, why haven't I received his orders lately? Did it go bankrupt or did they stop doing it? I said, why haven't I received his orders lately? It turns out business is hard to do, brother. Such a big place went bankrupt, you tell me, right?
[Video Clip] Is there a situation? What is wrong? Arrived. If you are stunned, just be stunned, don't cry, okay? Is it that all of them are overdue? Is that it? All overdue. It doesn't matter, they aren't answering your calls, right? Don't cry, don't cry, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay.
[Video Clip] It's not Long Ziyingjun, these two, one is not good, he has an A hole and a B hole, they are separated, he is not good. That woman, and then it was wet again, I climbed on again, and had to fuck the tongue, and then the back was all fucked wet.
[Video Clip] Oh, you should explain the situation clearly to them. This is a special circumstance, and it was their fault they didn't answer your call. No need to cry, no need to cry, you had everything covered at that time. Oh, don't cry anymore, don't cry anymore.
[Video Clip] Come on, don't cry, don't cry, come on.
[Video Clip] In at most a year, all undergraduate students will realize that delivering food is actually really hard to make a living on. I just ordered takeout, 5.6 kilometers away, the delivery fee was 9 yuan, and the estimated time was 42 minutes. Right when he arrived, there's a flight of stairs here, and I heard him running up with a thumping sound, then out of breath, he said, "Enjoy your meal." When we usually pick up takeout, we basically just grab it and leave. But he said, "Enjoy your meal," and I instantly felt that he was very polite. He looked to be in his early twenties, and I suddenly asked him, saying, "Young man, are you a college student?" He adjusted his glasses a bit sheepishly and said.
[Video Clip] Why not go find a job? He was about to leave, probably to grab another order or race against time. I said, "Wait a minute, I'll scan a hundred yuan for you. I make short videos, and I need some material." He froze for a moment and said no. When he first started delivering food, the hourly rate wasn't low, and it was very flexible. Back then, you could finish work whenever you wanted, without any extra time wasting. You parked the electric scooter right there and started studying quietly. I said, "You still like to study?" He said, "Right, who wouldn't want to find a good job? But now there's no time to study." I asked why. He said that previously, one order paid 20 to 30 yuan, and rainy or snowy days paid 25. Now, a single order only gives you a few yuan. There's no other way—just those three words. When he said them, I could clearly feel how disappointed he was. I asked, "Why has the pay dropped so drastically now?" He said there are too many people delivering. Sometimes you only make a hundred a day, and making two hundred depends entirely on luck; in Xi'an, it's simply impossible to save money. Perhaps to avoid embarrassment, he mentioned that among his eight good college friends, three of them are currently delivering food. I suddenly realized the severity of the problem, and then I grabbed his phone and said, "I'll scan a hundred yuan for you." He said no, no need, and turned around and ran off. I watched as he skillfully hopped onto his electric scooter, put up the kickstand, and rushed off without looking back to the next customer. I couldn't help thinking: if college students making 4,000 to 5,000 yuan a month in big cities are still unwilling to deliver food, if they don't do delivery work, where else can they go? Doesn't a lack of income mean more and more single people? He probably has no family, no children, no assets, and no debts. They can live anywhere, wander all over, and make everywhere their home, except for being unable to return to their hometown. Because they've been educated, the long gown of Kong Yiji tells them that going home will definitely make relatives accuse them of living off their parents. That phrase "living off parents"—I don't know which fucking asshole invented it; it feels like a vocabulary specifically designed for the poor. Otherwise, so many rich people give their children large piles of cash, cars, houses, assets, and connections, and everyone thinks it's completely reasonable. When applied to the children of ordinary people, staying at home even for a bit is labeled as living off their parents. Generally, those who live off their parents have no parents to live off of; those who actually have parents to live off of are usually called inheriting the family business. Such prejudice.
It has always been said that there are two industries providing a safety net for the unemployed population in China: food delivery and ride-hailing. Now it seems they are also facing heavy difficulties. First, as we all know, food delivery workers face all kinds of fines due to safety issues with electric scooters. The sheer number of penalty items is simply too detailed to count. Moreover, for instance, things like wearing helmets—once everyone had helmets, they found they couldn't fine much money anymore, so they would add new penalty items. It's like entering a fine cycle where they keep adding and adding, purely to sustain continuous fining. In addition, there's ride-hailing. Because of the economic downturn, the number of people taking public transport across China has actually increased, which means the number of ride-hailing orders has dropped overall nationwide. Everyone can check our vehicle statistics—the number of orders is declining. It's just that I feel very few people are paying attention to ride-hailing drivers nowadays.
There are two other points that are problems for both ride-hailing drivers and food delivery workers. One is the platform's commission. As everyone knows, the platforms are basically in a state of monopoly in China, meaning there is no competition at all. In China, whether it is ride-hailing or food delivery, the commission is hidden from both sides because the platform acts as a middleman. Right? So, the customer might pay 40 yuan to the ride-hailing driver, but the driver might only receive 15 yuan. The deduction is so exaggerated that the customer gets very upset, thinking, 'I paid 40 yuan, why is your service so poor?' The ride-hailing driver thinks, 'I drove so far and you only give me 15 yuan; if I don't give you attitude, who will?' In reality, it is all because the platform deducts a huge amount of money. This also applies to food delivery workers. Why is the unit price for delivery workers so low? It is also because the platform takes away the majority of the actual fees paid by the customers. So, both merchants and delivery workers are being robbed by the platform—I think this is the right word to describe it. Additionally, another problem they both face is that the unit price has decreased, because more and more people are flooding into these industries, while the demand has decreased. Under these circumstances, the decrease in unit price is actually a normal market rule, and this point is consistent with that. However, for the large number of middle-aged people who are unemployed, including ordinary Chinese people who cannot find work or do not have any skills that can be immediately put into production, I think it is really, really difficult. For them, this is an unmerited disaster. I think it is also a strange side effect caused by overpopulation, and then the society—the CCP—chose to detach from other countries and the world market, attempting to be self-sufficient. How should I put it? It was developing quite well, and this population was an advantage, but you see, it is always a double-edged sword. It can be an advantage, but look, an incompetent leader can turn this advantage into the greatest disadvantage.
Alright, that is all for this episode. If you would like to support me, please join the membership channel. I also really look forward to chatting with everyone in real-time during live streams and answering some of the insightful questions you raise. That is all for this episode, see you next time.