Chinese-Philippine Couple Xiao Wei Hospitalized — Still in Tears for the Motherland the Day Before!? This Harvesting Is Just a Light Drizzle, the Real One Is About to Begin! 77 Baba TALK Episode 989 20261004

This episode mainly discusses the consumption dilemma and economic depression faced by ordinary people during the 2026 National Day holiday. Through video submissions and personal accounts from multiple netizens, the program reflects the social reality of soaring gasoline prices, rising high-speed rail ticket prices with restricted refund policies, deserted tourist attractions, arbitrary hotel price hikes, and low-desire consumption. At the same time, it provides a comparative analysis of the underlying reasons for the lack of checks on power and the daily exploitation of the public in Chinese society.

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Full Transcript:

Hello everyone, welcome to Qiqi Baba. Uh, Zhongpei Xiaowei, I don't know if you all have forgotten about her? Her experiences over the past two days have been quite turbulent. Just the day before, she was still worrying about the two sides of the strait and celebrating the motherland's birthday, the National Day.

[Video Clip] Tonight. It is destined to be a night of blindness for me. On National Day, every family is reunited, but I am separated by mountains and seas, missing my three children far away in Taiwan. Some say we married into Taiwan for high salaries, but that's not true. We rushed for true love, gave birth and raised children in Taiwan, and managed our family with care. Ah, now I can make money with my skills in a village in Guizhou; I am not greedy for high salaries. I hope everyone does not misunderstand us, the "green-married" (married to Taiwan) who married for love. Tonight, longing makes it hard to sleep; I only wish for peace across the strait and hope for an early reunion.

Ah! As it turns out, the very next day, she encountered a driver who caused an accident. Now she is lying in a hospital bed, paying for medical expenses out of her own pocket, and then she posted a video to defend her rights.

[Video Clip] I got into a car accident, at Dejiang Hospital. I went through the whole CT scan process, and after finishing, they said wait half an hour, leaving people hanging here. I have a headache now, my waist hurts too, and I'm just left here, lying here, with no one caring. I went to get the results of that CT scan, they said pick it up in half an hour, but they said the name wasn't found, there's no one.

Honestly, when I look at Xiaowei like this, I genuinely wonder from the bottom of my heart: is she really doing this for money, so she ignores everything else, or does she really just not understand?

[Video Clip] As soon as I picked up the fuel nozzle, it deducted 50 cents, and I hadn't even added any gas yet, 50 cents were gone.

[Video Clip] Are you really that unwilling to let us have a good holiday? It was like this during the Mid-Autumn Festival, and it's like this during the National Day.

[Video Clip] Now this gas price is like a woman wearing a spaghetti strap top; it looks like it's about to fall off, but then they pull it back up. 95 octane is now over 9 yuan. I put 100 yuan in, and the fuel gauge doesn't even move. It's gotten to the point where I don't even dare to drive my car. You two countries are fighting, why is it my fuel tank that gets smashed?

[Video Clip] Fellow classmates who drive gas cars, how are you doing now? Can you still afford your gas bills? My wallet is already hurting a bit. Before, if I filled up this tank, it would be about 240 or 250 yuan. Now filling up a tank costs over 300, and I have to fill up four times a month, which is almost over 1,200.

[Video Clip] Got 840.

[Video Clip] Hey, four-six. I never thought that one day I would have to sell it because I couldn't afford the gas. When I bought it, I tell you, even if you broke my head, I never thought about it, because, because I have no money for gas to sell it.

[Video Clip] Brother, I can't take it anymore! 100 yuan, not even a single liter, fuck it!

[Video Clip] I drive a fuel car, I'm covered in debt, just barely surviving like this, and they're still eyeing that meager income in my pocket. At the same time, I also wish those big shots who can control the gas prices: may you have eight children in ten years, always eating but never full, and starving three times a year.

[Video Clip] Who told you to fill it up? I said add two hundred bucks. Who told you to fill it up?

[Video Clip] Didn't you say you wanted me to work overtime?

[Video Clip] The car next to us said fill it up, I said add two hundred.

[Video Clip] Right now, the whole internet is calling on everyone to fight back against oil prices, advocating that people don't drive, walk, bike, or take public transit, and work together to drive oil prices down.

[Video Clip] Day in and day out, they rack their brains trying to squeeze money out of ordinary people. Back when they were a bit more restrained, they would at least talk about stimulating consumption. Later, they realized that didn't work, so they threw away all shame and just took it directly from us.

[Video Clip] Ordinary people barely have any money in their pockets to begin with.

[Video Clip] During the National Day holiday, there were still so many officials out here inspecting electric bikes. You yourselves keep driving in reverse, and now you want us to accelerate forward—just how far do you have to push people before you are satisfied? It's too expensive; normally it's two hundred.

[Video Clip] Tonight's hotel. During National Day, the price directly doubles to five or six hundred. I just want to ask one question: are we celebrating a holiday or are we being held up at gunpoint? I checked hotel prices for the National Day period ahead of time, and they were skyrocketing like crazy. Next to scenic spots, it's even more outrageous; you can't even get a room for over a thousand a night. The state waived highway tolls for you, and you thought you scored a bargain? The bit of toll money saved isn't even enough for one night at a hotel. All that saved money—on the one hand they waived the highway toll for you, and on the other hand they took it back twofold.

[Video Clip] You know why grain prices don't go up, right? That's because ordinary people actually have grain in their hands. If Sinopec and PetroChina produced grain, rest assured, they would definitely have ten thousand reasons to raise prices for you. But if ordinary people grew petroleum in their fields, rest assured, they would control it right around one yuan for thirty years just like they control grain prices, believe it or not?

[Video Clip] This is simply outrageous! When they were promoting new energy vehicles, they kept going on about how cheap charging is, and now electricity prices are almost catching up to oil prices. Do you guys still dare to buy them? When they first started promoting it, fifty bucks could fully charge it. Now I've put one hundred bucks in, and it's only at seventy percent. At this rate, to fully charge it will take at least one hundred and fifty bucks. Oh my god, seriously, these electric cars won't be affordable to drive anymore either.

[Video Clip] High-speed rail tickets for the Eleventh holiday are outrageously expensive, with a single ticket costing nearly one hundred bucks more than usual. Some people buying sleeper tickets saw prices jump by one hundred and ninety straight away, and two people traveling together meant spending three hundred and eighty extra. 12306 responded saying ticket prices are meant to fluctuate, and holiday price swings are completely normal. The cheap tickets bought during regular times were just discounted fares, and holidays are merely a return to standard pricing, not considered price hikes. Turns out the tickets I bought before were just me taking advantage of a bargain. No wonder slow green trains are making a comeback in the high-speed rail era, and even long-distance buses have been revived. High-speed rail is fast, but costing over one hundred extra for two hours—you might not even earn one hundred bucks in two hours of going out to work.

[Video Clip] I was planning to take the bus home for the holiday, which is a very happy thing. Then, just one minute late—simply because the traffic jam on the road was too severe—I missed getting in by a single minute. What's even more irritating is, missing the high-speed rail wasn't enough, you actually can't get a refund! When did this policy change? You actually can't refund tickets after departure? How do I remember you used to be able to refund them before? Fine, this money is thrown down the drain, time was wasted, and I didn't even make it home.

[Video Clip] Have they already become this shameless? Or am I just that ignorant? Yesterday I went back to Hunan, returning from Guangzhou to Hunan, and I planned to buy a high-speed rail ticket. Checking on my phone, it was two hundred and seventy-four yuan. At two hundred and seventy-four yuan, it's hard to actually get one; you have to pay an extra hundred-plus yuan just to secure it. So then I went straight to the railway station to buy it, and at the station, you could buy it for two hundred and seventy. Two hundred and seventy yuan a ticket. Then as soon as I got on the train, seriously, there were empty seats everywhere. I really don't understand why the platform showed there were no tickets and even required you to pay extra. Yet from Guangzhou to Hunan, that carriage was practically empty. These past few years, ordinary people have suffered enough; making a living is already so hard, why do they keep demanding more?

[Video Clip] For us ordinary people, everyone, we are about to launch self-protection measures right now! In response to the high-speed rail price hikes, gasoline price hikes, scenic spot price hikes, accommodation price hikes, and catering price hikes during the National Day holiday, we are starting to implement self-protection measures. We are initiating a low-desire consumption mode: no driving, no traveling, no shopping, no dining out, and suspending all non-essential consumption except for absolute necessities like firewood, rice, oil, and salt.

[Video Clip] This is Zhangjiajie during peak tourist season! So many tour buses are parked and idled with no customers. Here too, and over here too, and right here too, and over here as well.

[Video Clip] Today is October 1, 2026, and I have come to Wangxiangu in Shangrao, Jiangxi. Everyone take a look at the crowds, oh—there are no people at all, what's going on? Such a famous internet-famous scenic spot, look at this. Ah! Where did everybody go?

[Video Clip] Where could people possibly go?

[Video Clip] Where on earth did everyone go? How can there be nobody here? This, uh... right now it's already past eleven o'clock.

[Video Clip] It is truly too hard. Nobody during regular times, nobody during holidays. Anyway, for us right now, it feels like apart from the off-season, it's just more off-season; don't expect any peak seasons versus off-seasons anymore.

[Video Clip] After National Day, a huge wave of restaurants is going to go out of business, because you can already infer that based on the Mid-Autumn Festival. During this Mid-Autumn Festival, not to say it wasn't as good as last year, but a massive portion of shops basically saw booming business.

[Video Clip] Tonight I am going to Minzu Square to sell these small violins. There are 500 of them, and the cost is 93 yuan. I plan to sell them for 2 yuan each. And these small stickers, I'll give them away for free when someone buys a violin. 500 stickers at 2 yuan each, that will be 1,000 yuan in revenue, with a profit of 900 yuan. What do you think, is it doable? I plan to set off at 1:00 AM and finish selling before 7:00 AM if possible.

[Video Clip] This year, it's just impossible to sell this stuff. It's already past now, and I've made less than 10 yuan. It's morning now, 7:00 AM, and I'm reporting the battle results to everyone. I've only sold a dozen or twenty yuan worth, so it's clearly not as easy to sell as we imagined.

[Video Clip] You can clearly feel that this summer, tourist cities haven't reached the peak season level at all; it's a case of a sluggish peak season. Usually, hotels and guesthouses in tourist cities rely entirely on the two months of the peak season to make enough money to cover the losses of the whole year. But this year the peak season is sluggish, which means that, uh, they didn't make enough money in the summer to cover the whole year's losses.

[Video Clip] Look, how depressed the economy is. I remember when I came last year, it was packed with people. Performers, people singing on the water, people performing on the water—there were more than you could count. There was food, drinks, and entertainment; a children's paradise. Look how depressed it is now, you can't even see a person anywhere.

[Video Clip] The most terrible tourist spot, Luoyang Longmen Grottoes. Everyone, be sure to avoid it during the National Day holiday; do not come here. Where on earth is the entrance to the scenic area? Even after graduating from college, I couldn't find it. Before even entering the scenic area, I had already walked through the commercial street for half a day, just unable to find where the entrance was. The parking lot is built very, very far away, way over there, over the clouds. Walking from the parking lot to the scenic area, I have already spent at least three hours walking down the street. Just look at how long this one section of the street is, and there's still a long way to go ahead, with no end in sight at all.

[Video Clip] I want to know, is really no one going to manage the hotels in Qingdao? As soon as peak season arrives, whether they are good hotels or bad ones, they raise prices bizarrely. This is a hotel I bought for over 300 yuan, and there are stains like this on the bedside, and something I don't know what it is on the sofa, including peeling wallpaper, there is also handwashing here.

[Video Clip] The ceiling of the room is like this, and the desk is still like this.

[Video Clip] I really, really want to know how they price things? During the peak season, everything goes up. They don't look at your quality, they don't look at your hotel environment, they just increase the price.

[Video Clip] When on earth is this economy going to recover? I feel like back in 2019 and 2020, everywhere was thriving and prosperous. Over here it's all a bloody mess, where are the people? How come things feel so different from before? This change is way too fast! Qingming over here, everything is empty, and it's even a holiday! Not even a ghost is in sight. Is this a holiday? Is this really a holiday? Not even a ghost is in sight. The ordinary people really—who knows where everyone went.

[Video Clip] Making very little money, losing everything. Ah! If future generations learn about our generation, they won't just utter polite clichés like "born in a prosperous era"; I guess they will straight up point fingers at our spines. Look, this is the generation in thousands of years of Chinese history that is best at playing dumb and best at keeping its mouth shut. We live in an era where housing prices crush people and prices keep rising, yet we live our lives like cowards who just pretend not to see anything as long as it doesn't hit us personally. Our most practiced skill in this lifetime is playing dumb, swallowing our anger, trimming our sails, and shutting our mouths. We long ago mastered the skill of keeping our distance and minding our own business.

[Video Clip] Gas is way too expensive now! In the past, filling up a tank of gas—filling up a tank for my car—300 yuan was enough for me. Now it's up to 450 yuan. Why won't they let me drive? I'm shooting a video, they won't let me shoot.

[Video Clip] Not allowed to shoot TV, no, I can't shoot right? We never do that.

[Video Clip] Fine, I—I am shooting because gas is too expensive, what does this person's propaganda have to do with anything?

[Video Clip] No, we're not, not, not, not, not.

[Video Clip] Ten thousand people are me, I am the customer, and I have set the bar this high, I cannot, cannot do ten thousand.

[Video Clip] Then public privacy, you want to shoot one, you're shooting yourself, right? Me.

[Video Clip] I'm shooting, there's money involved, all this, it's just me pumping gas, why can't I shoot?

[Video Clip] Oh! Look, did you—did you shoot our TV?

Cases like the harvest during National Day like this don't even count for much anymore, in my opinion. Friends who haven't watched the previous episode can go check it out first. It reaches that state where the Chinese Communist Party wants to grab everything, and they grab it openly, grabbing it according to the law. So the law being under power is just like this; it becomes the most useful weapon in the hands of power. Everything is handled according to my law, I arrest you according to the law, and I grab your things according to the law. This is also why, in a democratic and free country, as people fought with their lives for in the past, power must be under the law, and power must be caged. Nothing can be above the law, otherwise it turns into what it is now. Alright, that is all for this episode. If you want to support me, please join the membership channel. I also really hope to chat with you in real-time during the member livestream. That's it for this episode, see you next time.