This Nanjing incident is huge, a full 30 million! The parasites in the Beijing central government can no longer get their hands on the fat meat! The real living environment for ordinary people in Shenzhen! Qiqi Baba TALK Episode 1023 20261107

This episode mainly discusses the controversy sparked by Nanjing University spending over 30 million yuan to install surveillance cameras in classrooms, along with criticisms of the reckless spending of public funds. It then analyzes the terminal social state under the current central power struggle and economic downturn. At the same time, the video shares the real-life experiences of an ordinary person who transitioned from being a teacher to working at an industrial company in Shenzhen, covering topics such as prices, rent, commuting, work intensity, the difficulty of social mobility, and the sense of loneliness and social dilemmas in big cities.

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Hello everyone, welcome to Qiqi Baba Talk. This action by Nanjing University, I think, reveals some of the behaviors of all universities in China.

It is said that the national Nanjing University has invested over 31 million yuan to install surveillance facilities in 103 classrooms. Of course, the reason given is quite "justified," claiming it is to increase students' "head-up rate." Speaking of which, to increase the students' head-up rate, you mainly need the teacher to lecture well. Just like me, sometimes when I go to give a lecture, I never blame a low head-up rate on the lack of surveillance; I blame it on my poor teaching. I constantly blame myself, feeling that wasting others' time is equivalent to "stealing money and killing lives." Of course, what I feel more distressed about in this matter is that these 30-plus million yuan have just gone down the drain. It is said that many universities are now installing these surveillance facilities, which are actually so useless! On one hand, it shows a lack of trust in teachers; on the other hand, it has no effect on students. Thirdly, it is mainly a waste of money. We know that the downward pressure on the economy is very high now, and all sectors are feeling the "winter." However, our desire to spend money still manifests in various ways. Today, I spoke with an old friend, and he said, "Oh, Brother Tang, you are so worried about the country and the people; you should change a bit, otherwise it's bad for your health." I just can't change. I know, what does Nanjing University spending 30 million have to do with me? Even if they don't spend it, it won't be saved for me. But I feel that as a national, as a citizen, we have an obligation to shout out against such things, against such shameless acts. Nanjing University is highly ranked and is a university with a long tradition. But I think this matter was handled very poorly. Of course, I also hope that each of us will supervise this, supervise the reckless spending of public power. They say there is a Canada abroad, and a "Big Canada" in China, where they spend money without feeling the pain because it is public finance. How can this be allowed?

Uh, there can be many reasons for installing surveillance cameras, but I really want to know just how many cameras were installed. Spending 30 million on surveillance cameras for a single school—that is the main point, isn't it? I think the central government in Beijing is actually a bit at a loss as to what to do right now. They might be experiencing quite fierce internal struggles, because the more the economy declines, the harder it is for these parasites to get fat off society. After all, the government itself can't get much to eat, so how can they? Therefore, where do they direct their scheming? They turn their scheming toward the government side. So, from this, we can actually see that the central power struggle hasn't really ended well yet. Otherwise, these parasites probably wouldn't—these petty, meddling maneuvers probably wouldn't be so easy to carry out, and they wouldn't strike so ruthlessly. The current state of China is almost identical to the late stages of some previous dynasties. The only difference might be that in the past, the people could still rise in revolt, whereas now, as long as heavy weapons and the military are held in the hands of that group of people at the center of power in Beijing, no matter how severely or harshly ordinary people are exploited, they genuinely have no opportunity to rebel.

As an ordinary person, I want to share some of my experiences living in Shenzhen. Friends who have watched my previous videos should know that I transitioned from being a teacher to working at an industrial company in Shenzhen. I transitioned away from teaching for three reasons: first, students are getting fewer and fewer; second, I majored in music, and teachers have very few classes; third, teachers are required to do a lot of odd jobs, administrative work, and even pull all-nighters, which I felt took too heavy a toll on my body, not to mention the low salary. So, the catalyst for changing careers from teaching went something like this: why did I come to an industrial company in Shenzhen? Because a relative's company was having their supervisor, an older sister figure, retire, and they wanted to call me over to do this job. Every slot has its person, and I just came along since I was between jobs at the time. Well, having introduced the premise, let me talk about some of my feelings living in Shenzhen. Take me, for example; I live in Shenzhen's Guangming District. I actually have a bunch of relatives in Shenzhen—a bunch in Nanshan District, and a bunch in Shenzhen's Guangming District. To be honest, the cost of living in Guangming District, where I stay for long periods, is very low, and the subway is also very convenient. As for Nanshan District, we don't even need to discuss those gathering places for the rich. What I want to say is that even though the Guangming District where I stay is a gathering place for outsiders—many of whom are migrant workers—and the cost of living is low, sometimes even lower than in a small county, it doesn't stop the rent from being quite expensive if you want to live comfortably. If you don't need to pursue any quality of life, renting a place for 600 or 800 is quite easy. My point is that if you constantly live in an environment with no sunlight, handshake buildings, crowded and densely packed housing, and poor ventilation, it makes you feel gloomy and damp. Then, if you want to rent a slightly better place, it actually isn't very cheap; 1,500 to 2,000 is normal. If you are a bit lucky and can rent one for 1,100 like me, it might be okay, but an 1,100 place actually has a very small room area. Therefore, sunlight is chargeable in Shenzhen—I completely agree with this view. I think Shenzhen is only suitable for people with high education or technical skills; they are suited to stay in a big city. Otherwise, as an ordinary person in a big city, you really won't break even. Just think, if you aren't like me in Guangming District, but in some better locations, rent of 3,000 to 5,000 is completely normal. If you are an ordinary person, do you have the ability to ensure that your salary steadily exceeds 10,000 every month? If you can't do that, your quality of life when you come here really isn't good; you are purely a wage-earning beast of burden. If you don't live in an area with a low cost of living like Guangming District, but instead live in those bustling areas while your salary is just that little bit, life will genuinely be very tight. After working hard all month, deducting rent, utilities, buying some things and eating some things, what do you have left? Truly nothing. But if you insist on staying in Shenzhen, there are ways, such as living near places like Guangming District where I live. My place is five minutes away from the subway station, and from my place to the company is five to seven minutes by electric scooter, so my commute and rent combined are still acceptable.

Well, after talking about the first point, let me talk about the second point. On the surface, my job actually seems quite good: social insurance and housing fund, a two-day weekend, and it's even a state-owned enterprise. But you shouldn't just look at the surface of everything. It sounds like my two-day weekend is great, and basically I won't lose my job at a state-owned enterprise. But you don't know how much work I have to do every day in this company. My two-day weekend is basically spent lying flat and recovering my health. There's a saying that ordinary people like us are basically trading time for money. You sell the best whole day of your life to the company, and the company can order you to do anything. Precisely because it's a state-owned enterprise, you have to do more work; the workload for three or four people is given to just one person to do. For example, I have to go to work at 8:00 every day, so my alarm clock basically starts ringing at 6:50. Then I dawdle and linger in bed a bit more, probably until around 7:20, and by 7:30 you have to wake up. But in this regard, I am indeed a bit better off than some workers in big cities, because my commute is only 5 to 7 minutes. Now think about those who travel long distances and have to take the subway to work; they have to get up even earlier, completely squeezing their sleep time. And for the kind of work we do, it is somewhat biased toward mental effort and attention to detail. If you are still sleepy and lack energy, you can easily miscalculate those data. So indeed, many people in big cities are trading their time and sleep for money. I am not very envious of that group of people who have been very outstanding since childhood, because it is still quite bitter, whether it is the hardship of studying, or the hardship of this kind of high-paying job, and even many don't have high pay—not to mention the hardships of ordinary people. Getting up early in the morning, working hard all day long, and then, although nominally the off-work time is 6:00, for the job I do, there is a lot of cleanup work to deal with every day, so I tidy up and leave work around 6:00 to 7:00. The only advantage for me is that my daily commute is relatively short. I really can't imagine what it would be like for those with long commutes if their wages are still low; how do they get through those days? If it's still a one-day weekend or alternating single-and-double-day weekends, oh my god, I can't imagine how hard it is. With high-paying busyness, you don't even have time to spend money, and you can save it. Then because of this money, you are still willing to keep doing it. If it's low pay, then this life really is no different from being a machine on an assembly line. Just think, my company now still has a normal working schedule, for example, starting at 8:00 in the morning and finishing at 6:00 in the afternoon, plus having a two-day weekend. This can still be considered normal, allowing you to catch your breath just a little bit. But there are still many units in Shenzhen with alternating single-and-double-day weekends or single-day weekends. If you still have to squeeze onto the subway every day at home, and have a super long commuting time, and many ordinary people just can't be like those at big tech giants where, although you are tired, the money is paid properly. That is, many ordinary people in Shenzhen not only have long working hours, but also lack holidays. If the places where you rent are far away and your commuting time is long, that can't be called life at all; it's just survival. You are just a component on an assembly line, not even looking like a human being. Big tech companies pay a lot of money, but the physical toll is also very heavy. I don't know why, but what I can feel is that all living beings suffer, and then you have to use a lot of effort to adjust your mindset, squeeze out just a little bit of sweetness, and comfort yourself to discover more happiness in life. However, compared with a single-day weekend and working more than ten hours every day, plus a long commute, my job is still considered a bit better. Although those eight hours every day can drain all my vital energy, at least there is a two-day weekend, and I don't have to squeeze onto the subway in the morning and evening. The pace of life in Shenzhen is very fast, and I think big cities must all be like this.

I really want to speak up for ordinary people. You work every day to earn just a little bit of money, and after paying for rent, utilities, and other expenses, you haven't really made any money—you're just exhausted. You might have a tiny bit left over, but it's useless, unless your company pays for the Tier 1 social insurance in Shenzhen, which might be a bit better. I do have Tier 1 social insurance, so I can at least comfort myself by saying, 'At least I have the insurance.' So, I feel that if you are a young person and you want to experience the insurmountable class divide and the gap between rich and poor, you should go to a big city and take a look. Just work there for a while, and you will feel it very deeply. Seriously, if you come here to work, just a few months is enough to feel it. I want to say, even if my working hours are 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM, by the time you finish work, handle some things, and get home, it's around 7:00 or 7:30 PM. If you're early, 6:30 PM is considered very early; it's hard to get home by 6:30 PM. If you want to cook for yourself after getting home, and then wash the pots and pans, where is your own time? If you also want to stay healthy and not stay up late, you have even less time. You give all your energy to the company for the whole day, and by the time you come back at night, cook, and clean up, it's already 9:00 or 10:00 PM. May I ask, where is your own time? There is no time for yourself. Sometimes at night, I keep telling myself not to stay up late, not to stay up late, but I still can't help but want to play on my phone. My phone has become the only thing that allows me to relax. Actually, I could exercise, but I just don't have that much energy. Maybe I'll sign up for a dance class or something when I have time later. Also, I am someone who absolutely loves to sleep. If it were a normal holiday, I could really sleep for more than ten hours, even ten to sixteen hours. But I don't have time to play on my phone during the day; I don't have my own personal time. I really want to play on my phone when I get home at night. If you eat, I don't cook myself; I order takeout, but the takeout I order is relatively healthy. I make sure the restaurant is healthy, and I like eating fitness meals—the kind without oil or salt—so I order from a few shops I'm familiar with to give myself more personal time. But really, after coming home in the evening, I find that my own time is simply not enough. I never get enough time on my phone. I keep telling myself not to stay up late, but I just can't put the phone down; I just want to play. Although the normal working hours are indeed eight hours, within those eight hours, I basically have no time for myself; at most, I have a tiny bit of time. A message. However, during these eight hours, the vast majority of my actual working time is at least seven and a half hours or more. I feel like I have no time to play on my phone at all. If I want more personal time, I have to sacrifice my sleep time. If I want more sleep time, I have to spend less time playing on my phone or doing my own things. Really, the deepest thing I feel is that we are trading time and sleep for money, using our most precious things to trade for that little bit of salary, and we can't even save much money. This should be the current situation for many ordinary people's lives. Unless you lower your quality of life, you can save more money; it depends on how you choose. So, what I feel very deeply is that it is really hard for ordinary people to cross class lines. If you want to achieve financial freedom through normal paths, by working for others, and then achieve time freedom, I think it's a fantasy. Even in big tech companies, it's the same. Even if you can earn 30,000 a month, if you are frugal and spend 4,500 a month, you can save about 300,000 a year, which is 3 million in ten years. If you are a boy, you have to support a family, get married, and have children; actually, that's not much money. If you want to live a little more comfortably, you spend about 10,000 a month, or if you are even more comfortable, you spend 20,000, and you can save about 120,000 to 240,000 a year, which is 1.2 million to 2.4 million in ten years. And you have to ensure that you won't be laid off. I'm just talking about those high-paying jobs, so many things look glamorous on the surface, but in reality, it's a feeling of being unable to cross class lines. And you also have to keep praying that you can keep grinding, that your body won't collapse, and your mental state won't collapse, so you can keep working. Big cities have a certain amount of life pressure. If you buy a house, it depends on what area you buy in. Like in Guangming or Pingshan, some houses can be bought for a million or so. If you want to buy a second-hand house, the price might be more flexible. As for those good houses in good locations, let's not even talk about them; there is no upper limit. The price of one of those houses could buy ten others.

The second point I really feel is that crossing class boundaries is a very difficult thing, and it is not easy to maintain a high salary consistently. Even if you are truly a high-tech or highly educated talent, can you guarantee that you will always maintain such a high salary level? What if you get laid off one day? For ordinary people, life would certainly be even harder. After finishing the second point, I will talk about the third point. I have always felt that, since I am in a big city now, the quality of men must be much better than in small places. When I posted a matchmaking ad before, I said I liked the tall, smart, and handsome type. That is certainly very difficult in a small place, but in a place like a big city where talent is concentrated, it depends on meeting them slowly. However, after coming here, I feel, to be honest, that no matter whether you are in a small place or a big city, the matter of wanting a guy to look decent is in extreme difficulty mode. I don't know why, but many guys just look strange; their appearance is just strange, or you don't have any physiological attraction to them, no feelings at all. I haven't fully started my social plan yet, but I have roughly used a dating app. I like that type, and there are quite a lot of high-quality ones, but if you want them to be handsome, I think I am still being wishful. I think this can really only be an ideal type; it's not very likely. It's not that it's impossible, but unless you have a lot of energy to look for such a person—you might not meet one in a hundred, you have to meet ten thousand, a hundred thousand people, and then look for one among ten thousand, or an even larger volume—maybe you will meet one. But I am exhausted every day after work; where would I have so much energy? If you really want to find your ideal type and also someone suitable, you have to spend a lot of energy; it's not something that can be solved just by a dating app. You also have to think about whether you have some reliable social circles offline, or don't set your dating criteria so high. Even if you just want to find a reliable person, you have to spend a lot of time and energy to find them; it's impossible to meet them so easily. Everyone at home has such great life pressure; wanting to find someone reliable to enter a relationship with also takes a certain amount of time. Another thing is, I don't know why, but in the few months I've been in Shenzhen, I have had a very big feeling: I feel like I am the only person in the world every day. Although my messages are ringing non-stop when I work, and I am replying to messages all the time, this does not prevent me from living alone all the time. There is a strong feeling that my world only has me, and there is no social life. Maybe I occasionally exchange pleasantries with old friends, but 80% to 90% of the time, I feel like I spend it alone. I am a person who likes living alone, but sometimes I can really deeply feel that my world only has me. I basically don't feel lonely, but since coming to Shenzhen, there really have been a few moments where I have, and I do hope that a partner will appear. But I also know that it won't be that quick to meet someone. I don't know why, but on the surface, with this two-day weekend, I always feel that my time is not enough. The two days of the holiday just flash by, and I feel I have so little time. I haven't had much time to myself since I came here for these few months, and when I use my own time, I just want to rest, or unless I am with someone and I can feel relaxed, only then do I have the energy to chat with them. Otherwise, I really don't have the time or energy to socialize anymore. Moreover, using a dating app, you basically can't chat for more than a sentence or two before there is no follow-up. Building a deep connection with someone is really so difficult. Even if I am willing to chat, the other party might not have anything to talk about; it feels like we can't even chat for ten minutes. Also, one must admit that the matter of having chemistry is extremely difficult no matter where you are. Big cities do have more excellent people and high-net-worth individuals, but really, whether in a big place or a small place, it is very difficult to meet someone you have chemistry with. You have to have enough energy to find such a person and also build a deep connection. Dating after starting work is not the same thing as in your student days at all. Building a deep connection is a very difficult thing; chatting with a stranger for a sentence or two and then not being able to continue is the norm. So really, I feel that my circle at this stage is basically always just me, always alone. Even if I don't set the goal so high, just finding someone I have chemistry with is also very difficult. At this stage, I am actually willing to socialize, but I haven't met that person I can talk to and have chemistry with, so now I can only face the loneliness, face the feeling of being the only one facing the world.

Moreover, my friends mostly have their own lives, and we basically just exchange pleasantries when I have free time. Actually, I am still very willing to socialize, and I really want to meet a suitable guy, but that person just hasn't appeared yet. If there are any guys interested in me, we can get to know each other. Of course, if I don't reply to you, it definitely means I am not interested. I hope there will be better social opportunities in the future; I really hope to meet the ideal partner in my life. My current job is considered quite stable, but I feel that people still need emotional and spiritual pillars. Although these things can be solved by myself alone, I do have to admit that having the companionship of a suitable partner would indeed be the icing on the cake. It would also be great if I can meet better friends or a partner around Shenzhen. I hope that my life in Shenzhen will get better and better moving forward.

I know, and many people might say, hey, young people, it's not easy for anyone starting out in any city—not just in China, but in other countries as well. But is the degree of difficulty the same? Right? We must understand and sort this issue out clearly. It's like in some countries, if your annual income is below 100,000 RMB, you're still considered poor; but in other countries, if your annual income might exceed 10,000 RMB, you're already doing well. Therefore, it's true that for young people who just graduated, there's nowhere that isn't difficult; it's the same in any country. Even I was the same way. Now, the question is, thinking about future development and what to do—actually, I already find it very difficult. But I still have to admit that the degree of difficulty is completely different. Honestly, if I were still inside the Great Firewall, I'm not sure if I could handle such huge survival pressure right after graduation. Someone might also say, well, you shouldn't blindly insist on going to those big cities where competition is so intense and there's so much involution; if you go to second- or third-tier cities more often, it might be even more relaxed. That's even more absurd. If there are no opportunities even in such fast-developing cities, do you think cities with severely lagging development will suddenly have plenty of opportunities? The difficulty right now is simply that the economy is about to collapse, with no other reasons at all. The big cities in the past were also difficult for newly graduated students, but it wasn't hopeless. But now, look at the employment environment and survival environment inside the Great Firewall—for ordinary people from completely ordinary families, it is hellish difficulty. Alright, that is all for this episode's content. If you want to support me, please join the membership channel. And I especially hope to chat with everyone in real time during the livestream. That's all for this episode, see you next time.