A Father Too Afraid to Ride in His Daughter's Car Wrote Her a Report Saying So
A Weibo user's post about her father declining her video calls and submitting a written report explaining why he will not ride in her car — gripping the wheel 'like driving a hearse', braking without warning — has become the week's most shared piece of Chinese parenting humour.
A Weibo user posted a screenshot of a chat with her father, under the caption "My dad wrote a report because he does not dare to ride in my car" (我爸因为不敢坐我的车写了篇报告). The post has been liked more than 4,500 times.
The report is a masterpiece of the Chinese parental complaint. The father, declining her video calls — "the other party declined", "no answer" appear in the log — first texts: "Daughter, Dad is packing clothes, please stop video-calling, grateful." Then at 6 p.m., he sends the report itself. His daughter, he writes, grips the wheel "like driving a hearse", sits quietly for ten seconds before starting the car "like praying to the car", never slows for speed bumps so his dentures fall out, and brakes without warning, so his head nods more than it does at the annual meetings.
The report is a complaint that is not a complaint, phrased with the mock-formality Chinese parents use for criticism, and it works because it is a complaint about a good thing: a child who can drive, who has a car, and who is offering her father a lift. The father is not being cruel — he is being funny, and careful, and the two are inseparable in the register.
The format has a long tail on Weibo. A second user posted her own video of driving anxieties — windows not fully closed, heart racing when a truck approaches, checking the mirrors repeatedly before changing lanes, parking as a "large-scale tribulation" (大型渡劫现场), a gaming term borrowed for the ordeal of reverse parking. Commenters on the topic recognised themselves: the licence held for a long time, the road still terrifying.
The report's appeal is the father's voice. A complaint delivered as a document, with the mock-formal register of a "report" — 报告 — and the affection of a parent who still wants the ride. The daughter is a new driver, and the report is a new-driver's report card, written by the passenger who loves her enough to write it down instead of shouting.
The screenshot is the story: a daughter who has just learned to drive, a father who wants to be driven, and the document that stands between them. Readers found it funny and tender at the same time — the joke of a parent's fear, and the love that produced it.