the pressure to succeed

[clay dube]

Hi Everyone --
I don't know if anyone will return to the forum to check this out, but ....

The Christian Science Monitor published a series of articles "Love and Money Reshape the Chinese Family" last December. Sadly I just read them today. I think you'll find them interesting.

Click here to see the articles.

The LA Times on Monday had an article entitled "Driven to be Made" about the keeping up with the Wangs phenomenon in China. I've attached a copy of it.

Please feel free to discuss this here or in the "Asia on My Mind" forum.

[Anonymous]

Hi Everyone!

Seeing old classmates this week brought back memories & I decided to revisit the forum for kicks.

I enjoyed the two articles because of my conversations with friends from Taiwan and China. Also, because I go on xanga (an online community of blogs) and surf through interesting blogrings. One blogring was called "I Make Asians Look Good" and the only criteria to join was that you were: good looking, not entirely sheltered, and everything counter to the Asian stereotype. I noticed this one girl who was from Taiwan, a native, and she wrote in her xanga with TOO much slang and "short cuts" (e.g. "w/" for with, "cuz" for because, etc). I recently emailed my cousin from Taiwan & she wrote me back a similar manner. At first I thought it was just something that regular kids did, but my cousin goes to a prestigious university back in Taiwan. I'm thinking it's just a trend.

I've also talked to another cousin who moved to Shanghai for a year and a half to manage an Italian restaurant. She laughed, and described the city of Shanghai as a "city of pretenders" and added that "people like to bluff about their backgrounds; they would say something like "my mother is so-and-so-Mrs. Important' when they are really just day laborers". I asked about the fashion craze for international name brands, and my cousin said that "girls would starve themselves for 2 months just to buy a Burberry handbag and show it off as if they were wealthy".

I don't see much difference from China and the U.S. I remember people on campus and see these so-called "rich girls"; the ones who carry the same Louis Vuitton bag and Chanel sunglasses nearly everyday while strutting around campus as if they owned an entire collection.

The article describes how the Chinese young generation feels, as if "they're living in a one-of a-few centuries era where dynasties topple and individual fortunes are made- and that they're missing out".

This feeling is tragic and I'm extremely interested to see how China's generation turns out. There's also this antagonistic feeling between the Taiwanese and Chinese, even when both students go study in prestigious programs in US universities. My Taiwanese cousin was a little flustered, because she was describing how the "Chinese students studying in the same program at me would be so proud; they wouldn't even talk to me, or even like a decent person!".

Ok, thank you for the thought-provoking article!

-Ames

[Author]

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