I once actually thought that when movies and shows were developing, I thought that they were being made within the year of their release date. I didn’t know that these projects were sometimes done in advance or took years to make.
That when ‘Commercial Breaks’ happened during shows, I thought they meant that the actors needed a break before resuming. Not realizing that episodes are already made and commercials just interrupt things to just sell you shit.
When I learned food and drinks were energy for your body, I actually thought that when I got sleepy or tired, I just needed to drink or eat something. Not realizing that it wouldn’t have mattered.
The exact term my mom said was 結紮 (link to Wiktionary) (I didn’t even know of this word before she used it)
(I think she was talking about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tubal_ligation)
My mom didn’t elaborate every tiny detail. Mom is weird af, she always tells me about One Child policy stuff as guilt-tripping, as in like “look how much I sacrificed for you, they would’ve stopped you from being born”, but then you press deeper and she doesn’t like to talk about it, must be uncomfortable to talk about the details or something like that.
I think you’re just told to go to an appointment and do the procedure. Or else government send people to take you there.
My mom told me she was supposed get a IUD after she has her first child (especially since her first one was a male so there’d be no exemptions, cuz in rural areas, if the first one was female, you could apply for an exemption.) She was told to go to some appointment in like 3-9 months after my older brother’s birth. But then she (and presumably also my father and older brother) just went from Taishan (rural) to Guangzhou (city), then she never went back to Taishan until she had me.
I honestly am still not sure what exactly happened. I think that whole ordeal was probably very traumatizing so I doubt mom even remembers all the details.
I think its a combination of jurisdictional issues, and government finding out about my existence a bit too late to enforce the policy. I think It was the people from her village in Taishan was responsible for enforcing the policy, so I think being in Guangzhou, I don’t think the Guangzhou authorities cared about enforcing policy on someone not under their Hukou. Like I don’t think the central government really do the law enforcement, they just delegate shit to someone else, then if something goes wrong, they have a perfect scapegoat. They blame the local authorities and shield the central government from criticism.
My mom also once told me that, on the course of wanting to give birth to me, she allegedly bribed government officials so they’d “look the other way”? And once she told me she forged a IUD certificate so they thought she already had an IUD? And she also said someone nearly found out about the 2nd pregnancy, but the person felt it wasn’t his reponsibility so he didn’t report it, and deferred the enforcement to someone else, as in the “not my job” attitude to it.
Honestly idk what even is real, not sure if my mom even remembers correctly, or if she might have exaggerated details as a part of a guilt-tripping thing to make me feel bad.
History is very blurry, sometimes things happens and afterwards we are like “okay what the hell happened?”, still trying to process the events…
I mean I wasn’t the only one, I think there are like tens of thousands of “‘illegal’ births”.
(Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heihaizi I think there are a total of like at least 10 million of these “‘illegal’ births”)
In a way, it’s sort of like parents having drunk sex and you were “accidentally” born, except in this case, my parents did wanted me, but the government didn’t cuz “overpopulation” or some BS. I think most people “born illegally” don’t really talk about it, but I’m just weird and I get obessed with everything and I have an existential crisis because of this fact. I often think about that alt-timeline where I never existed.