Shanghai Has Gone Crazy, Pretending to Be Japanese!? The Economy Is Completely Ruined — How Much Can a PhD Graduate in a Popular Major from Tsinghua and Peking University Earn in a Year Now? Qiqi Baba TALK Episode 1004 20261019

This episode is hosted by Qiqi, delving into the current status of China's economic downturn, high unemployment rates, and the immense survival pressure faced by all social classes. The program compiles submissions and on-site videos from numerous netizens and people across various regions, covering topics such as disparities in medical insurance coverage, pretending to be Japanese while traveling abroad, the extreme involution in the job market, the wave of closures among small and medium-sized enterprises and shops, and the employment difficulties faced by highly educated groups such as nurses and university graduates, sparking reflection on the overall state of society.

Video link:

Full text:

Hello everyone, welcome to Qiqi Baba, I am Qiqi.

The Communist Party is already very good; they helped you cover 210,000. My classmate is a doctor in the United States, and when I asked him, he said pacemakers are not covered by medical insurance there, and that's how American old ladies tremble. Let me tell you, you are lucky to be born in China and live in Shanghai.

Uh, first of all, pacemakers in the United States are definitely covered by medical insurance; there is no issue with that. Furthermore, shouldn't we compare how much the out-of-pocket expense is after the insurance reimbursement? Another crucial point to emphasize is that while everyone pays for medical insurance, people are divided into different tiers—rural household registration (hukou) and urban hukou are different, and the reimbursement benefits for those inside the system and those outside the system are also different. I really want to ask now: how much does a person with a rural hukou need to pay out-of-pocket to install a pacemaker? Also, if I cannot come up with the treatment costs for the time being, can I receive treatment first, get fully cured, and then pay the money? If I really cannot afford it, can you provide me with some interest-free payment plans or give me a discount at the end? Is that negotiable? On top of that, we also need to consider the level of medical care, the quality of medical equipment, and the overall medical service. In a place where you can be thrown out of the hospital regardless of how serious your illness is if you don't pay, what on earth are you talking about? What are you talking about? Have you never worked in the medical industry? Do you not know the situation? How can you tell such blatant lies with your eyes open? Regarding people's livelihoods, everything is embarrassing, but the most embarrassing thing is healthcare. Can you actually brag about this? I really feel like no matter how I lose, it's always a loss, right?

China, Japanese. How are you? You are. Didn't wear underwear. You are. Japan. Let's take an example, Yes, So, Yeah, Go, Why go? Go home, We're going home. Yes, Yeah, This one, this one. Yeah, What is that? Laozi, What is that? Lao ge, Laozi, Right, Yeah, Right.

It goes like this, completely like this. This was when a Chinese person was traveling to Canada, and I don't know what the deal was, but anyway, they pretended to be Japanese and managed to get through. When you're out and about, saying you're Japanese might get you better treatment, and your safety is also higher. Uh, this isn't to say, uh, that for a country, a nation, one or two people, you say, "I am extremely well-mannered," can that change things? It definitely requires the elevation of the overall quality and manners of the majority. In fact, even domestically, meaning in China, those who can afford to travel abroad are already, I think, the top 20 percent of all of China. Regardless of whether it's economically or in terms of awareness, they surely occupy this top 20 percent before they even consider going abroad. Because there are only about 100 million people with passports, and of those who got passports, half probably never use them. Then of the remaining ones who actually use them, you'd say they are at least in the top 20 percent, right? Either in awareness or economically, right? But look at why our international reputation is still a complete mess—it's because we leave others with the impression of lacking manners and being foolishly rich with money. Since that's the case, friends can think about what the rest of the majority left inside the Great Firewall are like. It's not that there are none at all, but there are just too few; there are too few people with good manners and quality to change the overall impression. And then, the majority of those people instead drag down these minority groups. Really.

Boss, please give me a job.

Please give me a job that includes room and board, boss, please give me a meal, please give me a job.

Don't spill it, don't spill it, dip it in sugar, use ink to dip in sugar. Money is hard to make these days, the economic situation is bad, the cooperative medical care has gone up to 400, and this corn cob is only 40 cents a jin, let's dip it in sugar. Let's dip it in sugar today, dip it in sugar tomorrow, the day after.

Someone asked me, when can China become a developed country, like the United States or Japan? Let me tell you the truth, this reality might exceed your imagination. Right now our per capita GDP is around 14,000 USD, which sounds like quite a lot, doesn't it? But you have to know that the U.S. is over 80,000, and Japan is over 40,000. If you want China's per capita to catch up with Japan's, it means the entire Chinese economic volume would have to triple. How can we possibly achieve that?

Have an ID card but no status, have a bank card but no money, have a driver's license but no car, have a mobile phone but no one to chat with, have a lighter but no cigarettes, what the fucking life is this!

Has everyone noticed? Nowadays looking for work, the salary is basically 4,000 to 5,000, if they're stingy they set it at 4,000, and after social security deductions it's just over 3,000 yuan. But then, a young couple has one person earning money to cover family expenses, and one person earning money to pay the mortgage, year after year after year, and you find that at the end of the year you haven't saved much money either. It seems like our lives are locked in place, meaning year after year it's always like this, salaries don't rise, and prices have gone up. It used to be that you could save a little money, but now you can't save a single penny.

Starting this year, everyone can actually see that the market conditions are really terrible, the economic downturn is severe, and the unemployment rate is very high. In fact, many people are living beyond their means, so getting into debt has also become a very common phenomenon.

Sigh!

Ah.

Alright, so we eat, let's go get a meal together.

Isn't that right? Yes.

Hm.

Hm.

Other people wouldn't even be willing to do 2 tons of cargo for 50 yuan, why are you willing to do one?

It's rotten.

Is it easy or hard for people to find work here?

People here earn 60,000 yuan a day.

Anyway, I heard that work is really hard to find this year. Don't cry, don't cry, when you cry it feels awful in your heart. Whose sister's child is this?

Where are they working?

Oh, then your pressure must be really huge.

Where's mom?

Their family has no business, their family has no business, their family has no business, none of them have business, and since those without business don't rise up, what the hell is there to be afraid of!

Teacher Wang, thank you. Oh my, friends, look at this, it's only half past five in the morning, oh my, big brother, big brother, how many people! Goodness me.

Big brother, I won't die either.

Are there really this many jobs? The weather cooled down, so everyone came out. Oh dear, it's really hard for ordinary folks to get by, really hard, it's not that there are no jobs, it's just for us ordinary folks.

He said: "If I didn't have internal organs, Japan, you wouldn't even have been able to invade." What, is there more? You say Chiang Kai-shek and the others didn't have bad weapons either, and even later they still pulled troops to help Korea, uh.

Five days and eight hours—once it comes, it will leave us working-class people with no work to do; this is not alarmist talk. Currently, an enterprise in Shenzhen has already started the five-day, eight-hour system, which is the kind of five days a week and only eight hours a day that you all called for. This method is just a trick to get employees to quit without paying severance. Think about it, under the current enterprise base salary system, the highest base salary for five days and eight hours is in Shanghai, which is around 2,690, minus deductions, leaving basically around 2,000 yuan a month. In this society, in this era today, 2,000 yuan a month, what can you do? Can you even survive? The five-day, eight-hour system is completely unsuited for us working people. If you want to make around 6,000-plus a month, without working 280 to over 300 work hours, you simply cannot make such a high salary. At 20 yuan an hour, your work hours are quite high. If it really becomes five days and eight hours, then we won't be able to survive. Two to three thousand yuan a month is simply not enough for anything, and it cannot possibly support a family.

Fuck, isn't it true that only by fighting hard can you win? I fight on Pinduoduo, I fight on Pinhaofan, I fight on carpooling, I fucking work this hard, when the fuck am I going to win?

Brothers, I got kicked out by the landlord, I have no money to pay rent, I really can't survive in Shenzhen anymore. I have so much luggage here, a backpack, another bag here, a bucket, and a suitcase, so heavy! Right now I'm at this passenger station in Shajing, sigh, I don't even know where to go, and I don't know where I'm going to sleep tonight.

Post-00s have no opportunities left now: no shifts to work when you go to work, no business to start, parents can't be relied upon, you can't get married because you have no money, you see through it all and don't even date, you don't have kids, no mortgage, no car loan, no next generation. The best news is that there is no bad news.

Ah, there aren't many tonight, seems to be four, four girls inside, let's go take a look in a moment.

Have you really not eaten for three days? Yeah, my stomach is empty. For real? Really, brother, then let me treat you to a meal.

Okay, next time for real.

Ah! How come you still haven't eaten for three days? I really only have one yuan left on my phone! One yuan left. Alright then, let me treat you to a meal, no worries. Then let me treat you to a meal. Haven't eaten for three days for real. Really, really. Then let me treat you to a meal. Haha, take care of yourselves. Okay, okay, okay, everyday is there. Oh, this one is for payment, let me print a new one for you, otherwise I'll give you this payment one instead? Okay, okay, then I'll give you a soup, okay.

Carrying the information inside my body. For the first time in twenty years, I'm seeing this sight, huh! It used to be hard to find a single empty shop, but now at least this 500-meter street has dozens of empty shops put up for rent, and nobody wants them.

I really can't help sharing my revenue from yesterday with you guys. Yesterday I opened the door a little after eight in the morning and closed it a little past nine in the evening, and I sold a total of 168 yuan. And for today, today I also opened the door a little after eight in the morning, and as of now past one o'clock, I've sold 11 yuan.

Let me show you the current state of Yuwanli. Completely nobody in sight, see? There's someone with a little kid over here, an old grandma sitting over here, absolutely nobody. I don't even know how much longer our shop can make a living, brothers.

Is business really this hard to run this year? A dumpling restaurant opened downstairs from me a few days ago, and then tonight I didn't want to cook, so I wanted to go over and eat a bowl of dumplings. When I walked to the door, hey, I looked up, the lights were on, and I saw a few characters pasted on the door: "Prime storefront for transfer."

Has the recession that certain experts talked about happened or not? Has it receded or not? Just look at whether people's GDP is currently growing or declining! Just look at whether people's stocks are going up or going down! Just look at whether the people going to the marketplace are getting fewer and fewer or more and more! Is going there getting easier or harder now? If you just analyze it logically with these few questions, won't you know the answer yourself?

Alright then.

So, it is better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish. If you analyze it a little bit yourself, you will know. We all say that the world economy is in recession now, but where is it in recession? Look at Japan, is it in recession? Is the United States in recession? Is India in recession? Is Southeast Asia in recession? Therefore, you must have multi-channel information sources. When your information sources are too singular, everyone, that is very troublesome, do you understand? So everyone should not bury their heads in the sand and deceive themselves, okay? Actually, burying your head in the sand and deceiving yourself is not scary; what is scary is that you still believe it.

I have stopped both of these machines behind me. There are no orders. I have been doing this for fifteen years, and I have never encountered such a bad market. For the remaining two months, I don't even know how to go on.

Is this place going out of business? It's like the fire has gone out! And look, it's past five o'clock, you can't even see people getting off work. Look, let alone people, you can't even see cars, you can't even see a ghost. Look at the North Gate, once the place with the most people and cars, it can't be that it's really shut down.

What is more terrifying than a pay cut is that hospitals have started laying off nurses. Some time ago, I was chatting with a friend, and he said that he only gets over 1,000 yuan in his hand a month now. I was surprised at that time. I said, are you kidding me? Over 1,000 yuan, why don't you quit? Are you teasing me? He sent me a screenshot of his salary, and only then did I believe that he really only gets over 1,000 yuan a month.

Of course, it's not good, I was fired. He said I was unqualified, I wasn't good enough.

Uh, how crazy is the current job market? I had a colleague who is now working in HR. He said that their company just opened a position this morning called Finance Assistant, with a monthly salary of 6,000, working six days a week, requiring one to two years of work experience. Not long after he posted it, just in the time it took to turn around and drink a glass of water, in less than ten minutes, it is no exaggeration to say that, bang, more than 200 resumes came in instantly. And among them, there is no lack of those who graduated from 985 and 211 finance majors. He simply couldn't finish reading them. This is why our resumes are basically unread, or read but not replied to, because they simply can't read them all, and they can't reply to them all. They are only recruiting for one position, where would they need so many people? Then you work for a day.

Five yuan to provide you with a meal? Can you not provide a meal? I, I will borrow someone to make a dish, a meal I made myself! Can you imagine? There are still jobs for five yuan a day without meals! Oh, it's impossible to pay! Impossible, impossible to pay. Carry the pole, carry 500? Carry. I'll give you five yuan for one trip. Okay. Do you know how many jin it is? You can do it.

How many jin? You, you, how many jin? If you carry more, you carry more, if it's worse, you carry less, isn't it the same if it's a bit lighter?

Go to the fourth floor? Ah, can you understand? Understood. Then let's go, then you stand with me. Let's go, go to the fourth floor to see the house, can we see it?

That.

I'll give you 50 yuan in the afternoon, okay, okay.

Um.

Then let's go, then you follow me, follow me, provide a meal? Oh, oh, I have a little, you don't want your money, can't do it, you don't want my money, right? Then okay, 50 yuan for an afternoon, provide, not provide, can you do it? Done. Is your figure okay? Okay. Uh, 2,000 jin.

Ah, bye.

Officer.

Officer.

How on earth can you make money? You can't die, and you can't afford to live, living like an ant being stepped on under people's feet. Money is too hard to earn, how can you earn enough? How can you make others look up to you?

So refreshing.

It's all enough.

New order coming! Brother, it's a green light! Holy shit. Did you fall asleep? Fuck! You are really awesome!

Oh my god! I, I'm looking at my order, fuck, is there any that I've received?

Fuck! You sleep, you sleep, mother, you've been sleeping for a long time! Fuck! When I just got the order, you were still here, this one is finished, and you are still here.

Do you know what the standard for a well-off family is?

Should I tell him? One, no debt, savings of over 100,000, monthly income of over 6,000, and at least one spouse has social security. Two, the couple are the original spouses, all offspring are biological, and the couple's life is harmonious. Three, have your own house to live in, and own a car for transportation. Four, good health, family safety, and parents are still alive. Forget it, I'd better not tell him. I don't know how many standards he can meet, so as not to discourage him.

Today I lost my job. There was no warning, no buffer time. One second I was still coordinating links and processes with my team, and the next second I was told I had been "optimized." I am walking on the street right now, and I don't dare to go home. I don't know where to go because my family will all find out. Oh my, at this time I should still be at work. How am I supposed to tell them? Tomorrow, starting tomorrow, I won't have to go to work anymore. It wasn't until today that I realized I could be this panicked; I feel like there is a stone pressing on my chest.

We simply can't turn things around. The issue of graduates from top universities not being able to find jobs might get more and more serious, right? Because from what I know so far, based on submissions and such, currently, even for graduates from popular majors at Tsinghua or Peking University, a Ph.D. graduate earning an annual salary of 500,000 to 600,000 yuan is already considered a top-tier income. And that's still for popular majors at Tsinghua or Peking University, and they still have to be Ph.D. graduates, and they still have to be the outstanding ones among those Ph.D.s. So, you can imagine what the situation is like for graduates from other schools. Alright, that is all for this episode. If you would like to support me, please join the membership channel. I really look forward to chatting with everyone in real-time during the member-only live streams. That's it for this episode, see you next time.