Burned my papaya because of B [part 1]

I deleted the location on my Feeld profile, so whenever the account is logged in from a different geo-location, people there would think we are local. Well, consider it my social media experiment. I have absolutely no interest in knowing new people whatsoever, but it has been hella fun seeing the crowd respond to my account, around the globe.

London and Bristol. London was obviously much more metropolitan, with 50 to 60 pings within hours. Bristol wasn't far behind, though; the population there was pretty vibrant and open-minded too.

China was completely dark; the government banned the app, so not a single soul was there, except maybe four foreigners who used VPNs. Two of them sent me pings. It made me think: what if the Chinese were allowed to use this app? What would happen? In fact, I discussed it with my cousin during our whole-night gossip catch-up session. I learned the dating scene in China was extremely disappointing due to men's thousand-year-old patriarchal mindset - they are looking for wives to take care of them while be satisfied with a lower social status which is under them. If I had stayed in China, I most probably would be divorced with or without children by now. I would be incredibly rich as always, with or without men; the luck with money has come from me since my birth, not from any men.

Feeld would be the next-level app for hooking up (约炮神器), a level up (or down) from Momo (陌陌 not my unique 墨沫), filled with men looking for "dirty" women to hook up with and then loathe. In extreme patriarchal settings, kink is naturally demonized; it gets a pass when men have it, but it becomes a tool to dehumanize and persecute women. Therefore, within a month, only filthy men and girls who sell sex for money would still remain on this app. For goddesses' sake, "lifestyle" is called "wife exchange" in China, I think in Japan, Korea, India too, wives are commodities up for exchange. "Good girls" would be terrified to have anything to do with such an app or such a setting in general. "People would slowly get to know, and they would start to talk behind my back and discredit me as a person, even affecting my work," my divorced lawyer cousin, a mother of two, sighed. 

China has progressed into accepting divorce as common as dining out. Almost all the gossip updates I got this round from my friends and family were about divorcing and having affairs. At least half of my peers are divorced and remarried, and most of the younger generations haven't married, even reaching their 30s. Two of my 28-y/o baby cousins are as single as a person can get. As Chinese women become more and more financially independent, they stop settling for men but build themselves up instead.

But to maintain a normal life without societal oppression in China, you have to be on the side of "good girls". Divorced women are now accepted as "good girls" - they're simply unlucky in finding a match for marriage. If they can make their own life, they are even secretly envied and looked up to. Girls who become mistresses of rich, married men are also not necessarily considered "bad girls" if they can stay away from drama and quietly receive their monetary rewards. But women who have sex for pleasure? Damn, you're as bad and rotten as any human being could get! You wouldn't even qualify to be a mistress to any man because you won't stay faithful to the married men! Unless you're old and rich, then you can do whatever you want. Before hitting 50, if a woman is considered horny and "opens her legs easily", she would have absolutely no future in finding a partner or receiving respect from society. 

Imagine what a "good girl" I would be living in China, divorced or still married, closely watched and appreciated by all the people from family circles, friend circles, work circles, and random online shark-watching circles - an example of chastity and virtue, having absolutely no freaking clue or experience about different cock sizes and functions. Or imagine what a happy world we'd be living in when all Chinese women are liberated from such toxic and inhumane doctrines! Horniness isn't always innate; it's often an acquired taste. Out of all Asian women, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Cambodians have the highest potential to be wild and free compared to Japanese, Koreans, Taiwanese, Thais, or Filipinos. This is because we used to be so screwed up by communism, having entirely lost our connection to the past, in a way.

One night in Delhi, I couldn't even count the pings. The app doesn't show stats, so you have to scroll down to collect the data according to geo-distance. I couldn't continue counting beyond 100 new pings; my eyes were hurting. Age range was 20s and 30s. Most of them sent a sentence or a paragraph with the ping, and the most consistent expression was: "This is the most interesting/amazing/well-written bio/profile I've ever come across on this app, and I am in awe/disbelief."

"Gangbangs," "threesomes," "orgasms," and "orgies"- you never saw women so openly decorate their verified profiles with such words like achievements in life, together with their butt shots, did you? But most of you consider women disposable and believe "bad girls" like me are only for hooking up with and talking down to with your friends, don't you? That's why I am "the only profile" you'll ever see for decades living here! I came from an entirely different world, didn't I? I didn't come from your world, and I don't belong in your world. You did, for a second there, believe I exist in your world, didn't you? But yes, it's my pleasure to let you see what I look like, perhaps your world for the future? And you can screenshot the heck out of my profile and share it anywhere you want. That wouldn't bother me a bit!

Then we reached Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand, which is one of India's poorest states and among the poorest places on the entire planet. Its poverty is man-made, a result of exploitation by the British because the land here is rich with rare minerals and metals. It was the mining center of British colonization; not only were the lands brutally dug up and resources ruthlessly exploited, but the societal order was also utterly disturbed and destroyed. Therefore, almost 80 years after the end of British colonization, which squeezed every last drop of resource from the land, people today still live in extreme chaos and poverty.

My profile got around 10 pings from the Ranchi area, a big city of sorts. Not bad at all. However, my husband's hometown is Bokaro Steel City, a planned steel plant built in the 1960s when India was experimenting with socialism while rejecting capitalism, with the help of the USSR. According to Raj and his family, Bokaro had its glory because the steel plant used to employ 30,000 workers. Though still one of the biggest steel plants in the world today, it now employs only 8,000 workers due to industrialization.

Bokaro used to be an oasis in the whole region with paved roads, clean streets, and planned living quarters. The company used to manage trash, electricity, and water. Engineers lived in the city, so the schools were the best in the entire state; some schools easily sent 50 kids to IIT each year. The roads and schools are still not bad in Bokaro today, but many poor Biharis and Jharkhandis have come to settle around here, grabbing illegal land to create slums, and so on. Hence, overall, except for a few main streets in the very center that are still clean, the entire area is now filled with slums and trash. The lake in the main temple was quite clean when Raj was growing up, and they used to come and picnic there, but yesterday, when I visited, a massive amount of visible plastic trash was floating on it. Our new house, built in 2022, sits on a section of legal land amidst illegal settlements. Day in and day out, all I see is trash everywhere, narrow and muddy roads, and a river filled with trash. Right now, during monsoon season, there's water in the river, washing millions of plastic bags into the Ganges and then the Indian Ocean. In dry seasons, the river stinks with black water, and meters-high trash walls line its banks. Coming from South China, where water is in our blood - where we grew up playing in rivers and streams and can still play in those same clean rivers and streams today, and where people are actively cleaning up trash and the government is effectively managing trash, electricity, and water - the Bokaro we live in today is centuries behind. And don't even bring up women's rights!

That's why I found it so absolutely interesting to experiment with Feeld; it always matches the nature of the city or country! Zero likes and pings from Bokaro - people here have no clue about Feeld or the concepts behind it!

The lake in the temple, I had to blur it out,

 the white things are plastic foams.

Thinking about it makes me sick, 

and I don't have the courage to take a photo of the river