2 posts tagged with "Distortion of Human Nature under Systems"

Old Wang won the lottery again, this time a third prize. The winnings weren't much, but enough to buy "Star" a week's worth of beef. Star is a Bengal tiger, Old Wang's most prized possession, because she's the most "voracious" eater in the zoo. The zoo is actually pitifully small, more like Old Wang's "private backyard" built with lottery winnings than an actual zoo.

Old Wang is eighty-one years old, with a hunched back and a face full of wrinkles. Yet, he always holds a lottery ticket in his hand, with a childlike gleam in his eyes. He doesn't buy lottery tickets to get rich, but for the sake of the dozen or so animals clamoring for food. The zoo's sign is rusty, with crooked words that read: "House of Hope." What is hope? Old Wang says, hope is watching these guys jumping around every day.

Old Wang opened a "Fortune Recycling Station" in a corner of a waste recycling center on the edge of the city. To put it nicely, it's recycling, but in reality, it's just reselling. Reselling what? Certainly not bottles and cans, but the "Five Blessings" that Alipay promotes every Spring Festival.

These days, who cares about those few yuan in red envelopes? Old Wang knows that people collect blessings for the sake of the excitement and the sense of ritual. But Old Wang doesn't think that way. He thinks it's a big business.