Puma Shen's “Yang Current” Sweeps Taipei! Is the Zhongnanhai Restless? What Is Xi Jinping Afraid of About Him? Taiwan Daily Life, Measured Against “the Chinese People's Beast-of-Burden Moments,” No-Profit Busyness Goes Viral! Hong Kong's Tofu-Dreg Era Arrives! (Old Beijing Teahouse / Episode 1770 / 2026 / 10/11)
This episode mainly introduces Taiwan's political rising star Puma Shen, the political attention and social democratic defense work he sparked in Taipei, compares the daily life experiences and miserable moments of ordinary people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, analyzes the widespread phenomenon of "profitless busyness" in China's food delivery industry, and focuses on the tofu-dreg engineering scandals and systemic collapse where serious discrepancies in rebar quantities have been continuously exposed in recent luxury housing and property purchase plans in Hong Kong.
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Over the past couple of days, as Taiwanese celebrity Kevin Tsai—who has nearly 40 million followers on Weibo—was frantically attacked and trampled to the ground by the CCP with the momentum of overthrowing Liu Shaoqi, many mainland netizens suddenly noticed another name: Puma Shen, a supporting figure in the Kevin Tsai incident. As they searched and learned more about him, many people's jaws dropped: it turns out that this "Taiwan independence politician" in the eyes of the party is stirring up a massive "ocean current" on the island of Taiwan, giving a Taipei mayoral election, which should have been a local choice, the heat and spectacle of a general election. Alright, today let's introduce you to this anti-communist political rising star of Taiwan, Democratic Progressive Party legislator Puma Shen, whom the Xi-led CCP regards as a thorn in its side and a flesh in its eye. With a very unique background, having long studied criminology, law, and Chinese political influence, he is a genuine, authentic scholar. He is frequently active on social media and is often verbally abused by the CCP's Taiwan Affairs Office and Little Pinks, simply because he is a soul figure in Taiwan's social discussions on CCP infiltration, cognitive warfare, united front activities, and the field of democratic defense.
Speaking of Puma Shen, the most prominent label many people give him is anti-communist. How much pain does his anti-communist stance cause the CCP? They once made a big fuss and issued a so-called "global arrest warrant" against Puma Shen, claiming that as long as Puma Shen took half a step out of Taiwan, he would be immediately arrested. As a result, a few days later, Puma Shen appeared in front of the German parliamentary building with a head of curly hair, even greeting the Taiwan Affairs Office: I have truly left the border, yet it seems I haven't seen the shadow of CCP police; look over here, lifting a rock only to drop it on one's own feet, handing a knife to Puma Shen. The outside world's understanding of Puma Shen largely comes from the foil provided by the CCP's Taiwan Affairs Office. Puma Shen believes that the CCP's threat to Taiwan is not just a military issue; while military planes circling Taiwan and military exercises are certainly worth attention, information dissemination, network public opinion, political organizations, social relations, and economic interests can even more become tools to influence Taiwan's internal political choices, and the latter is more likely to boil a frog in warm water and go unnoticed. Puma Shen's insights into "how the CCP utilizes united front information operations and legal means" can be described as top-tier, expert-level, and Puma Shen is skilled in expression, able to explain very complex, dry, and professional infiltration operations to ordinary Taiwanese people using vivid examples. In a rally, Puma Shen exposed an incident where the CCP sent internet trolls to impersonate DPP supporters to lurk on the internet, waiting for the right moment to turn around and bite the DPP; look right here, the CCP's [role-playing black trolls] were directly exposed by Puma Shen, a must-like.
Shen Po-yang emphasizes that simple emotional anti-communism cannot solve fundamental problems. It is necessary to establish institutional defensive capabilities, let the public understand the operational methods of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and improve society's ability to identify disinformation to prevent loopholes. He founded the Kuma Academy and serves as the Chairman of the Taiwan Democracy Laboratory and Dean of the Kuma Academy, making solid efforts to popularize national education regarding national security and preventing infiltration. In fact, since its inception in 2021, the Kuma Academy has conducted over 40 workshops and more than 500 physical courses, achieving an educational impact of over 100,000 person-times. This is Shen Po-yang's prominent characteristic: he not only engages in academic research but also actively participates in promoting democratic defense at the social level. Shen Po-yang uses every opportunity to popularize how to identify the deceptive tactics of CCP infiltration. In one interview, Shen Po-yang used the CCP's smear campaign against Falun Gong to demonstrate in detail how the CCP uses the operation of [undercover agents acting as opposition] to confuse the public and attack the Falun Gong group. Look here, netizens also sighed after watching the video that the CCP's three magic weapons—intelligence, united front, and propaganda—are truly cunning. Shen Po-yang has seen through the CCP completely.
Shen Po-yang, who has performed brilliantly on national security issues, also has unique insights and solutions for Taipei's municipal issues. In today's era of highly developed AI technology, while other politicians have not yet reacted, Shen Po-yang has already utilized AI's powerful data processing capabilities to launch a "Citizen's Hammer" AI big data workflow. He collected 3 million records of petitions and requests for help from Taipei citizens to identify the two problems that citizens are most distressed about: traffic and garbage/noise, thereby pinpointing the direction for serving the citizens. Facing his competitor Chiang Wan-an, Shen Po-yang does not attack his opponent like traditional politicians. Even when induced by the media to attack each other, he always states that it is necessary to return to the discussion of municipal issues themselves and refuses to focus on mutual attacks. Many supporters comment that Shen Po-yang is sincere, rational, down-to-earth, and humanistic, representing the beautiful posture of Taiwan's democracy. Let's take a look at a clip of Shen Po-yang's public speech. After watching his speech, one cannot help but sigh that in this world, there is only this one piece of land where Chinese is the mother tongue and one can express oneself freely and speak one's mind; it is truly wonderful. The brothers want to tell the Taiwanese people that no matter who is eventually elected as your mayor of Taipei, please remember that Hong Kong only demonstrated once. Tea friends, let's do a predictive poll: who do you think will win the Taipei mayoral election, Chiang Wan-an or Shen Po-yang? The options are 1. Chiang Wan-an, 2. Shen Po-yang, 3. Don't know, let's wait and see. Hurry up and type the number in the comment section. Alright, laughter keeps you young. New tea friends, hurry up and click [Subscribe] and the little bell. Welcome to join the happy journey of the Tea House and let the brothers help you look at the world from a different angle and improve your mood. Note that subscribing is free; pressing the subscribe button can bring you a continuous stream of laughter.
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After talking about Shen Po-yang, let's strike while the iron is hot and provide you with a compilation of the life experiences of people on both sides of the strait. Recently, a video leaked on the X social platform. A Taiwanese female blogger was chatting with friends while eating and talked about her views on Taiwan. She said that the daily life of Taiwanese people is only realized to be luxurious after leaving. Look here. Finally, this blogger's words are the most realistic. She said, "We can still scold, change, and vote. I would rather live in an imperfect Taiwan than hand over freedom to a place where people are not allowed to speak." I will make a small correction: it is not that people are not allowed to speak, but that they are only allowed to say what the Party wants to hear. Isn't the recent siege of Kevin Tsai by Little Pinks proof that you can speak freely, but shouting for killing is fine? If you say something the Party doesn't like to hear, even if it's a homophone or metaphor, you can be deleted and banned in minutes.
On October 5, a TikTok creator uploaded a number-meme video titled "68 and Its Two Little Goblin Neighbors." Soon, comments suspected of hinting at June Fourth (Tiananmen) appeared under the video. Before long, the comments section was blocked, and both the video and the creator's account became unsearchable. However, netizens who have accumulated plenty of experience in battles of wits against the Party-state's Ministry of Truth had taken screenshots in advance. One of the top-upvoted comments read something like: "Actually, there's another one with a 4 that wasn't mentioned." Even an overseas joke video like this can be deleted without mercy—tell me, are you not amazed? But we're straying off-topic. Let's get back to the "anthologies." What is making a grand debut on the mainland side? It's actually quite tragic: inviting everyone to talk about the moments they felt "lowly and worthless" in China. Such a mainland-version compilation was released on October 2 by the YouTube channel "Bumingbai Podcast" in an episode titled "Moments of Feeling 'Lowly' in China: Letters from Eleven Listeners." The show originated from a post on Threads: "Name 100 Moments of Feeling Lowly and Worthless While Living in China." So far, the post has garnered over 27,000 replies. Someone said their hourly wage couldn't even match the rental fee of a shared power bank; another said they even have to circumvent the Great Firewall just to play video games; and someone else said their lowliest moment was typing out a long passage of text only to delete all of it out of fear.
The eleven submissions ultimately selected by "Bumingbai Podcast" came from Jinan, Wuhan, Chengdu, Weifang, Zhangjiajie, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, and the Northeast, as well as listeners living in Europe. Due to "reasons you all know," some audio submissions had their voices modified upon request; others noted they didn't dare record audio and could only submit via text. Their experiences were diverse, but the feeling of being "lowly and worthless" was unanimous. A college student went to great lengths searching for ways to circumvent the Great Firewall and make payments just to subscribe to ChatGPT. A young job seeker discovered that taking nearly a year off became an indelible "stain" on their resume, subjected during interviews to interrogation like a "criminal" regarding marriage, housing, and their parents' jobs. A hospital postdoctoral fellow recounted working continuously for nearly 30 hours, earning only 50 yuan in night-shift pay, while no one thought anything was wrong with that. Do you see? In the Party-state, apart from the Zhao family elites, everyone has inescapable moments of feeling worthless. The host also noted that these submissions all pointed to the same plight: the individual's lack of protection, lack of bargaining power, and inability to exit in the face of power and the system.
Of course, what was brilliant wasn't just the episode's content, but also the comment section. One netizen said: "When the state demands in-home surveys of every kind, I feel intense resentment, anger, and worthlessness inside. When I see Chinese children wearing ugly school uniforms unchanged for decades, forced to open their mouths for PCR testing, and required by their school teachers to answer quizzes on cyber safety platforms. When I know that trafficking women only gets three years while catching a parrot brings a ten-year sentence." Others said: "Holding a red Chinese passport through customs in various countries makes me feel utterly degraded; delivering takeout over an 8-kilometer round trip and successfully getting paid 1.8 yuan brings tears of irony to my eyes." One comment hit the nail on the head: all suffering originates from the CCP. That's right—only without the Communist Party can there be a new China. Just a couple of days ago, we mentioned that the workhorses and beasts of burden were discussing the "slave labor theory" tailor-made for them by the CCP. It posits that no matter how sophisticated and advanced a system appears, as long as any link adopts low-wage exploitative management or layered outsourcing in a "slave labor model," the barrel effect dictates that the entire system's output of products or services will inevitably degenerate to a low-quality "slave labor level." Now, the spokesperson of this "slave labor theory"—China's food delivery industry—has provided a powerful footnote to it: what is it? It's called "profitless busyness." The Party would say: isn't that obvious? You already know you're slaves; working yourself to death is only natural, so why would you expect profits? That's purely a misjudgment of your own standing. Did you really think you were the masters? Constantly indulging in Pig-Chairman Xi's Chinese Dream truly harms people.
On the 9th, a Weibo user named "Crazy Youth Li Taibai" with 3.327 million followers posted a video whose title was built to attract traffic: 160,000 in Revenue, Profit Only 3,750 Yuan. In the video, a takeout restaurant owner shared that last month his shop sold 2,484 orders on food delivery platforms, totaling over 162,000 yuan in gross revenue. The owner broke down the numbers: ingredients accounted for 30% of total revenue at 48,600 yuan; monthly rent and utilities were 8,000 yuan; labor costs for 5 employees totaled 20,000 yuan, averaging 4,000 yuan per person. After deducting these expenses, 85,000 yuan remained. Then came the biggest expenditure: the platform commission of 17% came to 27,500 yuan, plus various platform-apportioned fees of 25,000 yuan. In other words, platform-related costs reached a staggering 52,500 yuan, accounting for 32.4% of total revenue—2.4 percentage points higher than the cost of ingredients, making it the single largest expense. And that wasn't all; the remaining money still had to cover delivery fees, rider courier fees, and promotion costs. So, after subtracting all the aforementioned expenses, the net profit was a mere 3,750 yuan. The most bitter part was that the owner still had to repay a monthly loan of 4,000 yuan, leaving a shortfall of 250 yuan. After running the math, the guy felt like the sky was falling down, experiencing that deja vu of 10,000 alpacas stampeding through his heart—turns out, he was the idiot all along.
Our math isn't bad either. Doing a quick calculation, this shop owner's monthly net profit margin is a mere 2%. Just how low is that? Put it this way: among the average net profit margins assessed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tax authorities across various industries, there simply isn't anything this low. When the CCP tax authorities calculate taxes owed, they always have reference standards comprehensively considered based on the average net profit of each industry. Generally speaking, the specified average net profit margins from lowest to highest go like this: wholesale and retail trade is about 4%; agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fisheries is about 5%; manufacturing is about 8%; the catering industry is about 8%; transportation and construction are about 10%. See that? Even scaled production and sales aren't below 4%—twice that of the takeout shop owner in the video—while the designated 8% margin for the catering industry is four times higher. Comparisons really are painful, aren't they? Saying more just brings tears. Moreover, among China's takeout shop owners, he is by no means the only unfortunate one. "Making turnover but no profit" has long been a widespread phenomenon. Especially since major platforms launched the "takeout price war" last year, days have become increasingly harder for merchants. Let's look at similar "loss balance sheets" made public by catering operators across the country. In Sichuan, a takeout shop run by a couple raked in 2.24 million yuan in turnover over the past year, but after deducting ingredients, rent, labor, and over a million yuan in platform commissions and traffic fees, the year-end net profit was actually zero. In Beijing, a restaurant with an annual turnover of 1.81 million yuan posted a net loss of 265,000 yuan upon settlement. In Nanjing, a small seafood joint funded with an investment of nearly 2 million yuan posted monthly revenues of 360,000 yuan but still ended up losing 12,000 yuan. A Chinese restaurant in Zhenjiang had a turnover of 280,000 yuan last December, yielding a final net profit of 3,000 yuan. A small family-run shop in Zhengzhou had a total annual income of 325,000 yuan, with an ending balance of 0 yuan after deducting all expenses. Thus, the new industry buzzword "profitless hustle" emerged in response to adversity in 2026. Bustling around endlessly only to end up empty-handed—no wonder people say they used to show off how much they made, but now they show off how much they lost. So who took all the money in the end? Many pointed fingers at the platforms, saying they took the lion's share. Meituan, Taobao Flash Sale, and JD.com refused to accept the blame. Having burned through hundreds of billions in subsidies in a brutal slugfest, they felt wronged as well, each pulling out their report cards to show who had it worse: Meituan posted a net loss of 23.4 billion yuan for the full year of 2025; JD.com's new businesses lost 46.6 billion yuan; and Alibaba's instant retail business recorded losses as high as 87 billion yuan. Meanwhile, the Party and the government stayed discreetly in the background, keeping a low profile while taking credit: GDP went up, tax revenues poured in, and officials secured their performance metrics. Crucially, the small business owners, food delivery couriers, and everyday commoners at the bottom are all worked to death, leaving them with neither money nor time to harbor dissenting thoughts. Consequently, the governing security of our Party is safeguarded as well. Count on your fingers and toes just how many times this counts as winning! We must keep carrying forward this "profitless hustle."
By the way, Hong Kong now even has its own first Five-Year Plan, meaning "One Country, Two Systems" exists in name only, marking another giant step toward Hong Kong's mainlandization. Naturally, the CCP's signature "tofu-dreg projects" must follow suit. Recently, a major scandal broke out involving ONE STANLEY, a luxury mansion project in Hong Kong worth over 100 million HKD, which was exposed for having steel reinforcement counts that fell severely short of blueprints. It was only a few days ago, after online media exposed the problem, that the Hong Kong government confirmed it was true. Unsurprisingly, the contractor, Hoi Yuet Construction of the CSCEC group, is backed by the central state-owned enterprise "China State Construction Engineering Corporation"—just like how mainland-made safety netting played a major role in the Wang Fuk Court fire last year, it's once again trouble brought on by Chinese state-backed enterprises. Hong Kong media outlet "Wu Chat Prop" recently reported that a homeowner spent over 100 million HKD in April 2024 to purchase a four-bedroom townhouse with a usable area of around 300 square meters in the "ONE STANLEY" project, taking possession in August of the same year. In August 2025, when workers removed the wooden flooring in the second-floor master bedroom and the marble at the elevator entrance, they discovered delamination in the plaster beneath the floor slab, and parts of the concrete surface were loose. They immediately halted construction and notified the management office and the developer, K&K Property. However, the developer denied any construction defects, countering that the owner's renovation work had damaged the floor slab. Refusing to accept this, the owner engaged an authorized structural engineer to inspect it, discovering that the number of primary reinforcing bars in certain areas had been drastically slashed by 41% to 75% compared to the blueprints originally approved by the Buildings Department, and the spacing of the rebar had severe deviations. Following a series of back-and-forth disputes, the owner rejected the developer's demands and reported the incident to the Hong Kong Buildings Department this January. After dragging on for 9 months as the incident blew up further, the Buildings Department finally issued a notification on October 4 stating that an on-site inspection revealed that a lower ground-floor beam's protective layer was not fitted with wire mesh according to the blueprints, and that the rebar layout of some floor slabs did not match the plans. They have requested meetings with the developer and relevant parties involved in the construction to undergo investigation.
The vast majority of the mainland public, who have long suffered from shoddy construction projects, have expressed that although it is no longer "One Country, Two Systems," the label is still being used to fool the world. Even if the "Two Systems" has been reduced to "1.1 Systems," ordinary people can at least find a place to seek justice and catch their breath; they should cherish what little they have. However, Hong Kong people, who have lived through better days, do not see it that way. They believe that the successive exposure of construction quality issues inevitably involves lax supervision and institutional failure, and they are deeply worried that Hong Kong's professional standards are constantly collapsing. It is true; even the quality of Li Ka-shing's properties has begun to sag. Upon closer inspection, it turns out to be a project under the "Starter Homes Pilot Scheme" developed by Li Ka-shing's CK Asset Holdings in collaboration with the Hong Kong government. The project was originally scheduled for completion by the end of September this year, providing about 3,000 residential units. However, in 2024, while the project was still under construction, it was revealed that one of the residential buildings had insufficient steel reinforcement. Subsequent investigations confirmed that six residential buildings had serious discrepancies in steel reinforcement compared to the approved blueprints. On October 8, the Buildings Department confirmed that remedial work would be carried out on three of the buildings, while the other three would need to be demolished and rebuilt. In addition to the two aforementioned shoddy projects, Hong Kong's inclination toward Beijing over the past two years has been quite strong, and construction scandals have erupted frequently, impossible to suppress. These include, but are not limited to, steel reinforcement seriously inconsistent with blueprints, bolts connecting core wall formwork being cut short without authorization, concrete blocks failing to meet strength standards, and corruption and bid-rigging involving the falsification of elevator calibration certificates. Various forms of corruption, fraud, and corner-cutting are emerging one after another. Veteran media personality Li Jinhong stated that the successive construction-related problems and scandals in Hong Kong reflect that the issues are not limited to the collapse of professional standards in the construction industry, but also involve the corruption of human nature and lax law enforcement. Ultimately, the institutional collapse is the bitter fruit of adopting the drawbacks of the Chinese model in their entirety. It seems that along with "One Country, Two Systems," Hong Kong's integrity, law-abiding nature, and professional construction standards have also been thrown into the dustbin of history by the CCP.
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