Why is it said that none of China’s “four provinces along its rivers and mountains” has a complete trash can? The essence of the matter isn’t really about the trash can itself; it’s a structural problem of the country. In a social environment where there isn’t enough overall sense of security, the extreme differentiation in the public old-age pension system—treatment that should be provided by social systems—ends up flowing back into families, where it is then digested internally. Under this structure, the family becomes the main container that absorbs the burden. The elderly rely on relatively thin pensions, and as living costs keep rising, this coverage is often insufficient to meet real expenses. At the same time, children themselves face substantial pressures in both life and family, having to shoulder a dual burden: supporting themselves and providing care for their parents. As a result, resources within the family are continually squeezed and redistributed, and conflicts accumulate: on the one hand, a rigid rise in elder-care needs; on the other, mounting marginal strain on the family’s ability to carry those needs. So, the conflicts you see in many China’s grassroots families are not mainly disputes between a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, or conflicts between children.