98 posts tagged with "Society"

After retiring, Old Wang's only joy was setting off fireworks during the New Year. This year, the policy loosened, with "many places changing from bans to limits," allowing the lighting of fireworks. Old Wang was as happy as a child, and he asked someone to bring him several boxes of "sky rockets" from the countryside. He neatly stacked the fireworks in the living room, touching them several times a day, as if caressing his precious treasures.

On New Year's Eve, Old Wang put on a brand-new Tang suit and excitedly rushed downstairs, ready to put on a show. In the open space downstairs, some people were already setting off fireworks here and there. Some lit "star clusters," and some lit "little bees," the crackling sounds sporadic, but it always felt like something was missing. Old Wang took out a "sky rocket," carefully placed it on the ground, and lit the fuse. With a "whoosh," the firework shot straight into the sky, exploding with a "bang," the colorful light illuminating the night sky and the wrinkles on Old Wang's face.

Old Wang was about to go downstairs to buy groceries when he received the letter. The envelope was a cheap white one, with a blurred red heart printed in the middle, along with some crooked cartoon words: "Thank you for your charitable donation!" He suspiciously opened the letter. Inside was a printed piece of paper with graceful Song typeface, which read: "Dear Mr. Wang, thank you for your generosity in donating a valuable ten yuan to the underprivileged students of our school. Your kindness is like a beacon, illuminating the path we tread. All teachers and students of our school hereby express our sincerest gratitude! To reciprocate your kindness, we are awarding you the following 'exclusive' honorary title: 'The Magnanimous, Yet Miserly Great Philanthropist'!"

Old Wang's hand trembled, and he almost dropped the letter. What was this? Subtle sarcasm? He stared at the bolded words "Magnanimous, Yet Miserly Great Philanthropist," feeling like his chest was constricted. He donated ten yuan to show his support for his daughter's school's "charity donation" event; he didn't actually intend to be a philanthropist. How did donating a small amount become a sin?

Old Chen sat in the monitoring room, staring at the scene of "The Brain" competition through the screen. The contestants were wearing special electroencephalogram monitors, expressionlessly solving a series of complex logic puzzles. The time on the LED screen ticked away, one second at a time, already at 198 minutes.

He took a deep breath and looked at the tablet in his hand, which displayed the real-time data of the contestants: heart rate, brainwave intensity, body temperature, and sweat secretion volume, all precisely recorded. These numbers determined who was the final winner. This competition, rather than being a contest of brainpower, was more like an extreme test of human endurance.

After retiring, Old Li's greatest pleasure was to play a couple of games at the park's chess stall every afternoon. He called himself a "chess fanatic" with fifty years of experience, proficient in various chess principles, and boasted that he could play chess with "flowing moves, containing profound mysteries." Old Li often said: Go is like life, basic moves, brilliant moves, and common moves are all choices.

There was a young chess player in the park, whom everyone called "Little Ma". Little Ma had a strange style of play, not following conventions, often making seemingly "common moves," but often winning unexpectedly. Old Li disliked Little Ma's style, feeling he was defiling the "elegance" of Go.

Little Fatty was holding the pocket money he had saved for half a year, ten yuan, wrinkled and sweaty, as if it was a treasure just dug out from under his pillow. He walked to the donation box, tiptoed, and carefully slipped the money in.

“Thank you, little friend, you’re such a loving and good child!” The staff member, a middle-aged woman in uniform, praised him with a professional smile on her face.

Old Li's company recently implemented a "dual-track" work system. The so-called dual-track means that everyone must hold two jobs simultaneously, a "main track" and a "secondary track."

The "main track" is your original job, while the "secondary track" is randomly assigned and could be any kind of profession you could not even imagine. For example, Old Li's main track was as a programmer, and his secondary track was assigned to "community sanitation worker."

The cold wind was like sandpaper, ruthlessly chafing Li Ming's cheeks. He tightened his old cotton coat and continued his arduous trek on the mountain path. With only three days left until the New Year, he had to get back to his hometown before New Year's Eve, no matter how difficult it was to buy train tickets, no matter how hard this mountain road was to traverse.

Li Ming was a junior at a regular university in Wuhan. This time, he hadn't been able to buy a direct train ticket home and had to transfer several times. The last part of his journey required him to hike through a mountain forest. He knew that there were wild boars in the area during the winter, and the villagers had set up some electric fences to hunt them, so he was extra careful.

Old Wang, in his forties, had been working at a company of moderate size for almost twenty years. He was like an old machine that had been running for years, following the routine day after day, a cog screwed tightly into his position. He considered himself to have seen through the tricks of the workplace, regarding promotions and pay raises as mere fleeting clouds. Only the year-end bonus was the real hope that could revitalize his old engine.

This year's year-end bonus was distributed in a rather special way. Not as cold, hard numbers, but as "surprises" packed in cardboard boxes. Old Wang received a heavy box, with a red paper label that read "Year-end welfare, wishing you a Happy New Year". He carefully carried the box, as if he was holding a box of gold.

Li Mingyuan took a deep breath, as if performing some solemn ritual, while staring at the photo of the high-speed rail seat on his phone screen. For three consecutive days, he had been using his four-hour daily commute to study these horns. What was the purpose of those two plastic protrusions that extended from the top of the seat, curved like ram's horns? It couldn't be a “useless” design; there had to be a deeper meaning!

He was a corporate slave in an internet company, "grinding" to the extreme. His cubicle was his battlefield, and these horns on the high-speed rail seat had become his mental refuge from reality. While his colleagues were discussing new project KPIs and his superiors were spouting rhetoric about “struggle culture,” Li Mingyuan was quietly observing these inconspicuous little things.

Old Wang's life after retirement was as bland as water. His only enjoyment was playing a few chess matches at the park entrance's chess stall every afternoon. Recently, Old Wang had something new to talk about: Apple phones, after national subsidies, had fallen below 3000, as cheap as street stall goods. Old Wang's five-year-old flip phone was long overdue for replacement, so he joined the buying frenzy.

That day, Old Wang got up early and squeezed into the crowded shopping mall. After much effort, he managed to grab a nationally subsidized iPhone 16. The phone was brand new, and the box had a strange QR code that prompted, "Scan to activate for first use and sign the User Experience Agreement." Old Wang didn't think much of it. He scanned, signed, and completed the process.