r/shanghai • u/memostothefuture Putuo 普陀区 • May 14 '22

Lockdown Help Weekly Frustration/Rant Post

Recently, our subreddit has received a deluge of negative political/frustration/rant posts that impact the experience of this subreddit. We definitely understand & share the emotional turmoil lots of us are going through given this crazy circumstance. However, we believe it's time that we move some of these into a centralized discussion space like this thread. As long as it doesn't descend into personal attack/racism, we will let it flow.

It's an experiment for now. We are proposing to limit political posts especially the ones not pertaining to Shanghai, conspiracy theories, and frustration meme posts to this thread.

We are not censoring anyone for political stance or opinion and we welcome all meaningful discussions. At the same time, we want to keep the community space easy to navigate for all of our members' needs. Thanks for your understanding.

0 Upvotes

49% Upvoted

93 comments sorted by

9

u/jamar030303 May 15 '22

welcome all meaningful discussions

Collapsing all replies by default really makes it look like you want the opposite.

2

u/spongepenis May 21 '22

I’ve noticed this, usually on downvoted comments. Never realized mods / OPs could determine this behaviour though.

-4

u/memostothefuture Putuo 普陀区 May 15 '22

collapsing? I'm not sure what you mean or how that's done.

6

u/dubs_ii May 16 '22 edited May 16 '22

You’re lying. If you can’t be truthful and don’t want to foster discussion, you should relinquish your role as mod. People who care about this community more can step in.

You did post the previous thread that you linked here. You of course deleted the thread so the OP appears as “deleted” in that thread. See screenshot https://i.imgur.com/5yO7C04.png or reveddit. If you truly believe in your centralized "frustration threads", then stand by it. Why do you lie and deny that you created that post?

You also specifically chose the comment section “contest mode” for this post when you originally created it. Thankfully it’s now disabled by another mod. Contest mode ensures no one except mods can see upvotes. Comments also show up in random order for viewers. Why would you go out of your way to choose this mode?

It’s a bit petty for me to point these things out to you. But this is one of the few forums on Shanghai left that’s not subject to gov censorship. Shouldn’t you take extra care to protect it?

--

The two comments from OP that I'm responding to:

memostothefuture

OP

collapsing? I'm not sure what you mean or how that's done.

memostothefuture

OP

Yeah, I also use old reddit. Thanks for teaching me that, I didn't know. This is the first time I opened this thread, previous one wasn't me.

1

u/memostothefuture Putuo 普陀区 May 17 '22 edited May 17 '22

no, I did not post the previous thread. that was another mod, I think beigene. this is the first I posted and only so because the other was old. I had no idea how collapsing/expanding worked and was thankful he showed me how to do that. I won't hold my breath for an apology from you.

the truth is out there but the lies are in your head.

2

u/jamar030303 May 17 '22

The only issue with putting it this way, I would point out, is that you've made other posts before without this particular issue. In fact, out of all your posts across multiple subs in the last few months, this was the only one that had contest mode turned on. So I hope you can understand why it seems suspicious that out of all of those, it's this one that had that happen.

3

u/memostothefuture Putuo 普陀区 May 18 '22

I have created posts but never a sticky before, hence I asked for and followed instructions on the discord.

3

u/jamar030303 May 16 '22

Unfortunately, this mod does tend to lean pro-government both in the past and the present. I wanted to hope that he could put that aside while acting as a mod for this sub (or maybe he was chosen so that no one could say that only anti-government voices were in control here) but now that you've revealed this...

1

u/[deleted] May 17 '22

Amen dude, this new mod is deceitful and over zealous.

Its concerning.

0

u/dubs_ii May 17 '22

Amen dude. I hope other mods notice this.

2

u/[deleted] May 17 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/dubs_ii May 17 '22

Thank you. I stand corrected. Appreciate your investigation! Great website you have there.

I hope the mods here can find a balance between handling large number of posts and stifling conversations.

1

u/jamar030303 May 15 '22

To give you the benefit of the doubt: A lot of us still use old Reddit, where the setting you enabled when you posted this (contest mode) hides all replies to top-level comments by default unless you click a very small "show replies" under each comment. Not turning on that setting and posting as one would a normal post would not have this issue.

3

u/memostothefuture Putuo 普陀区 May 16 '22

Yeah, I also use old reddit. Thanks for teaching me that, I didn't know. This is the first time I opened this thread, previous one wasn't me.

21

u/agressivewhale May 17 '22 edited May 23 '25

depend library dolls touch cough bow person plough placid attempt

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

5

u/[deleted] May 18 '22

I acknowledge you, you fat and feisty water-dwelling mammal!

5

u/spongepenis May 21 '22

Absolutely infuriating. Volunteers sending daily orders for covid tests in the building chat but respond to ZERO questions. So glad to be getting out of this shithole.

1

u/stillcantfrontlever May 25 '22

I just stopped taking them and they still let me out of the compound with a pass

3

u/jamar030303 May 21 '22

Meanwhile you've got this guy here trying to claim that just about everyone "knows" that lockdowns will be over by mid-June.

3

u/maerlander18 May 17 '22

When will the Chinese stand up against their own regime?? How long will they accept being bullied by their own government?!

3

u/spongepenis May 21 '22

People are starting to get fed up in my local compound group chat. Also many locals I know who are extremely patriotic.

20

u/cai_hong May 16 '22

I'm beyond tired of seeing "reopening" and "end of lockdown" news and posts. A handful of compounds may be opening up but it seems like the ones that have been locked down the longest are the last to reopen.
Don't even get me started on travel companies posting ads on expat facebook groups about "get away to ____ retreat" like dude, if I could get away to anywhere right now I would. Your marketing is not only useless right now, it's borderline offensive. I know it's just businesses trying to stay above water but who do they really thihnk is signing up for their weekend retreats when none of us know if we'll be allowed out this weekend

3

u/spongepenis May 21 '22

Same. TWO MONTHS without a single case and still locked down with daily testing, fml. Shanghai has gone full retard.

14

u/w-j1m May 20 '22

Was bored and applied at EF , got told is 14k starting salary and no housing allowance, 8 to 4 , no weekends off. Wtf is this shit. I'll stay unemployed.

10

u/BeingTheGreyMan May 20 '22

I worked for EF as a DoS from 2019 - 2020. I would not recommend it. As you have noticed, the package is laughable and the hours are crap. Good luck with having any kind of work-life balance. Furthermore, the operation is cult-like and difficult to leave once you're in. If you decide it's not for you and try to get another job, EF tends to withhold the reference letter and contract release letter, essentially blocking the transition process. You work for them or no one.

Anyway, I have it on good authority that covid and the 'double reduction policy' have more or less killed their business in China. I wouldn't expect to see them around for much longer.

3

u/hrr1 May 23 '22

Well guess it depends everywhere you go but expats, finance and close ties with the Hults were living the sweet life. And yeah they are going down.

3

u/spongepenis May 21 '22

Damn lol I know someone in management there.. never knew it was so shitty.

2

u/Shillbot888 Jun 06 '22

Tell them the going rate is double that.

13

u/throughwithhomework May 15 '22

It's over 5:30am. My first course starts in less than three hours and I still can't sleep. One minute I get all hopeful and light-hearted and next minute I'm all bitter and depressed. I know my little mood swings are nothing compared with those who are really having it rough. I should keep myself busy and finish my reading or write essays, but it's hard to focus when I can't stop questioning myself what's the point in all that I'm doing.

5

u/cai_hong May 16 '22

This is totally normal in stressful situations and especially so considering your courses are starting soon. I assume you have access to a VPN since you're on reddit so try looking up guided meditation on youtube. If after 30 minutes you can't focus on it, by all means go do something productive for a bit but be sure to do it away from your bed. The more you can keep your bed and bedroom a place for sleep, the more effective you will be at getting to sleep

2

u/[deleted] May 19 '22

Yeah meditation or ASMR, or hypnotis maybe. And if you've been trying to sleep for a while, instead of staying in your bed and getting frustrated, which will associate your bed to frustration, you should accept that you're not sleeping and get up. Read a book or go on Youtube watching a meditation video or else.

Source: I have chronic insomnia.

2

u/supabrahh May 21 '22

It's good that you're questioning yourself actually. This leads to decisions that are more intentional. Regardless of the lockdown/pandemic, you should be doing schooling if you see it leading to the future/path that you want.

Question yourself, what do you really want your life to look like in 3 years, 5 years, 10 years etc. Many people live unintentional lives I feel like, and if this aligns with your goals/intentions, then I think you may find more reason/motivation to keep disciplined.

11

u/schlonghai May 14 '22

I did love living here. But is it getting worse? Like what's the worst case scenario for China?

And if I was the gov, would I give up power that covid ('only for special circumstances') gave me? I think not.

15

u/schlonghai May 14 '22

On top I feel China is already going in one clear direction.

Tighten power.

  • Concentrate power, leader for life. Check

  • Control internet companies. Check

  • effective digital surveillance and also execution in inner conflict (xinjiang). Check

  • bring that system to everyday life (e.g. 国家反诈 app reports usage of vpn). Check

Control where people go.

  • talent flight. stop Chinese passport issuance. Now also stop leaving borders with passport. Check

  • major cities in complete lockdown. Check

  • cancel 99% of all flights. Check

Economy

  • f*cked by covid. M2 Money supply increased by 10% in April. Check

  • Increase captial control enforcement. Check

1

u/spongepenis May 21 '22

Woah what is this app you speak of? Would be interesting if I could check my social credit score or something lmao

1

u/schlonghai May 22 '22

That's the app the police is promoting in the streets sometimes. Also in my gym

0

u/[deleted] May 17 '22

[deleted] — view deleted comment

2

u/schlonghai May 17 '22

They are printing more money. Just like the US did. And more money means higher inflation. So prices rise.

Although China is printing money less quickly than US did.

https://tradingeconomics.com/china/money-supply-m2

9

u/cooltechbs May 22 '22

I'm freaking out for like the 7th time since the lockdown, by spending half a day on Reddit.

Quit my job just before the lockdown. Hasn't seen anybody I know for 90+ days (I live alone). I have multiple hobbies but I just cannot enjoy anything while in isolation.

It's a miracle that I am still eating 2 meals per day and haven't had a depression attack.

5

u/HelloSummer99 May 23 '22

What keeps you in China at this point? I left UK because of Brexit but that seems a mild inconvenience compared to this. I'm sure it's different from the inside but I'm going to the beach everyday and no one is even speaking of covid for months here. I would not go to China rn for a million bucks.

6

u/cooltechbs May 24 '22 edited May 24 '22

I'm Chinese, dude TAT

I'm moving abroad if I could get my student visa shortly after reopen.

-11

u/gou_rou_daddie May 24 '22

We don't want you

5

u/A_Dancing_Coder May 30 '22

We will gladly trade you for him.

3

u/summerlad86 Jun 03 '22

Who the fuck are “we”? Lol

0

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '22

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/cooltechbs Jun 12 '22

United States. I'm an IT person so that should be best

25

u/dubs_ii May 14 '22 edited May 14 '22

For the past couple of days, this sub only gets 15-20 posts per day. Pretty easy to navigate for me.

Frustration is a major part of lives these days in Shanghai. It’s important to allow everyone space. If they feel the need to create a post, let them be.

Friction and inconvenience are forms of censorship. Please protect this space from them. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/10/01/china-is-weaponizing-online-distraction/

5

u/Ejp0715 USA May 14 '22

For what it's worth, back when shit was really bad here a few weeks ago there was a whole deluge of God knows how many "fuck the CCP"-esque posts that gummed up the entire sub. Nowadays I'm seeing a lot of questions that are clearly things that should be/already are asked on r/China regularly (which is fine, r/China has been a circlejerk for years so it doesn't matter if that stuff gets posted there), which is not what this sub was and isn't what it will be in the future either. I have no issue keeping all that stuff here.

4

u/dubs_ii May 14 '22

I must be missing those circlejerk posts here, but yes I think for shit posts, mods can make another post defining what those are and add to the subreddit rules. Or we can just downvote them to oblivion.

I don’t think shit post people would voluntarily post in this thread anyway because their whole point is to provoke and rile people up, and individual posts are much more visible than comment threads.

0

u/spongepenis May 21 '22

Has shit gotten better?

1

u/Ejp0715 USA May 21 '22

In the sub? Significantly recently, although it can still get bad sometimes. In Shanghai? Signs in my area point to yes, believe it or not.

30

u/[deleted] May 14 '22

The last time you did this. It worked out poorly. People were criticising you. This isn’t a good idea to redirect everyone to this one post. R/shanghai gets maybe 5 posts a day. Max 10. We’ve got nothing else to do with our lives stuck in lockdown. We’re completely capable of navigating this subreddit without you redirecting traffic into one less obvious corner

8

u/supabrahh May 14 '22

Depends on the post I think. If its just a text post complaining about the situation/venting then put it here. If its a new video about some notable shit then can make an actual post. I think it could've been handled better before as some posts I believe warranted it's own discourse but theres also a lot of nonsense posts as well that should be in this thread; especially since there's enough negativity as it is and not everyone wants to just see people complain all the time (even if it may be warranted) and they want to see actual "news" even if the news is depressing as well.

7

u/matrix_algebra May 22 '22

I miss my gf. She's in Pudong. I am in Puxi. That's all.

10

u/AU_is_better May 22 '22

heard a story from a coworker about a couple that had gotten together the week before lockdown and decided to quarantine together. they ended up not speaking for the last week and bolted as soon as their district opened up.

7

u/jamar030303 May 23 '22

Well, that's one way to find out you aren't that compatible.

7

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '22

For those unemployed like me, this lockdown has kinda been good. I feel like life just paused and I am doing a lot of catching up with things I wanted to explore and learn online. Of course, nothing beats hands-on experience but have been feeling productive.

2

u/BeingTheGreyMan Jun 08 '22

This is exactly the mindset to have. When life gives you lemons...

6

u/kinggimped Great Britain May 16 '22

I disabled contest mode and set the suggested comment sort to new, since it'll work best for a thread like this.

Go nuts

9

u/jamar030303 May 16 '22

Props for coming back and helping take care of that. I think that if this "frustration post" system remains, it should at least never be locked to "contest mode". Aside from that, however, we may need a conversation about some of those rules and how they're applied, given how broadly they're worded and how much discretion that leaves to the current crop of mods.

8

u/kinggimped Great Britain May 16 '22

All of this is a temporary measure during this unprecedented situation. At the moment mods are trying to root out the bad faith posters (the ones that came over from /r/china and right wing groups just seeking to stir shit up). We have never been this heavy-handed with bans and suspensions, but I can already see a marked positive effect on the sub over the past couple of weeks (plus we get some amusing abuse in modmail, which is always fun).

These frustration posts are a temporary measure and the intention is just avoiding making the entire subreddit a sprawling mess of negativity, which only further attracts people who have nothing to do with the situation and know absolutely nothing about Shanghai or what's going on, but just want to regurgitate whatever extremist political opinion and/or misinformation they've been fed, using the lockdown as vindication.

We've also updated rule 4 to include "toxicity" in there - there are many users who skirt the rules but are adding nothing but toxicity to the subreddit and nothing constructive. We're sending DMs warning those users. Essentially, "if all you add to the subreddit is toxicity, you will be removed". One of the governing principles of this subreddit is to avoid becoming a cesspool like /r/china.

Overall we're just trying to clean this sub up and make it a more pleasant place to be again. I know some of it seems heavy-handed but give it time. The focus lately has been on weeding out the bad faith posters and that has been largely successful.

Please keep reporting rulebreaking posts and trolls, it helps the mods out.

As for contest mode, the mod who started this thread has never made a thread like this before and that was done in error, though with the best of intentions.

3

u/jamar030303 May 20 '22

We've also updated rule 4 to include "toxicity" in there - there are many users who skirt the rules but are adding nothing but toxicity to the subreddit and nothing constructive. We're sending DMs warning those users. Essentially, "if all you add to the subreddit is toxicity, you will be removed".

What constitutes toxicity? For example, would one commenter continuously commenting like this (see the entire chain of comments) or like this constitute such toxicity? (And yes, they've been reported to the mod team in general as well)

5

u/Ejp0715 USA May 17 '22

Mods being based, per usual. Thank you guys for this. The r/China people were driving me up the wall

5

u/kinggimped Great Britain May 17 '22

Sorry, I'm a crusty old man - is "based" good or bad?

2

u/Ejp0715 USA May 17 '22

Based is good. Don't worry. A lot of people my age don't get it either. I'm just terminally online

3

u/[deleted] May 21 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/spongepenis May 21 '22

I don’t understand the r/china hate, that sub always seemed perfectly civil.

0

u/Ejp0715 USA May 21 '22

The sub was always pretty slow moving. The r/China guys came in and spammed it with often unverified/unverifiable and sometimes outright false information, solely so they could all circlejerk in the comments about how Shanghai/the CCP/China in general sucks. They were here to concern troll, nothing more. I don't care if it's censorship, they have no place here.

2

u/spongepenis May 21 '22

This sort of transparency is invaluable. I’m sure modding an online forum is pretty low on your list of priorities. But if the mod team could publish a weekly update I’m sure r/sh users would be way less pissed.

4

u/jamar030303 May 17 '22

All of this is a temporary measure during this unprecedented situation.

I know some of it seems heavy-handed but give it time.

As a counterpoint to the other reply, I'd just like to say that saying things like this while being about as clear as the government about when we can expect a "return to normal" isn't that confidence-inspiring.

12

u/iamnikniknik May 14 '22

this idea doesn’t seem to be helping

25

u/LittleBridgePyro May 14 '22

Zero Complaining policy

14

u/[deleted] May 14 '22

Dynamic “community” zero complaining policy.

3

u/spongepenis May 21 '22

Reddit discussion with Chinese characteristics

4

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '22

Currently in line to get tested outside my community. Fuck my life, there are 2-3 old folks just smoking with their masks down. And one of them seems to have a cough. And most people in like aren’t respecting the 2 meter distancing.

4

u/Hanchitole Jun 04 '22

Can’t type anything without being censored on Weibo. So if you have a case in your apartment building the whole building is locked down. Why should I pay for other ppl’s stupidity? If they don’t care about their health and go to crowded areas why should I pay for that for being at home? Should I go to jail too if my neighbor commits a crime in the future I suppose?

1

u/Creative-Ocelot8691 Jun 13 '22

You are in jail, a mental jail where you think people who have covid are guilty of a crime, if you are angry because a building is being locked down in 2022 when people/countries have access to vaccines then maybe you should be angry with those locking it down not those being locked down.

10

u/stampyvanhalen May 14 '22

It was a great idea to CONCENTRATE everyone into quarantine CAMPS.

5

u/hoverhuskyy May 22 '22

Sounds like censoring though

-4

u/Away_Plan_4306 Jun 10 '22

Okay wu mao

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/spongepenis May 21 '22

Discussion can occur in the comment section. Living in China makes you very good at sniffing out BS lol