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The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

americanaffairsjournal.org

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Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#71

Post by garmaine »

egor598 wrote: post #36
usaar333 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet I had to do it every day. At the end-of-year exam, I scored second from the bottom of the class—the same place where I began in first grade. But this time it was much harder to accept, after the glory I had enjoyed just one year earlier and the huge amount of effort I had put into studying this year. Finally, I threw in the towel, and asked my parents to send me abroad. Anywhere else on this earth would surely…

He doesn't say his parents were poor or blue-collar workers, he compares himself to a child of aristocrat. Context is everything. > He was a child of aristocrats; I am the child of modest workers. When a one-digit millionaire compares himself to a billionaire like Bill Gates, using "modest" to describe one's wealth would be appropriate in this context.

Child of “modest workers” in a communist country can have different meaning. Maybe they’re party elites? We don’t know. Something just doesn’t add up though.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#72

Post by paganel »

hodgesrm wrote: post #30
appleflaxen wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my takeaway: the western stereotype of chinese education is that there is herd mentality and groupthink, but the same thing exists on the western side, just with a different herd. edit: this is highlighted by the conclusion, in which he points out the irony of the lesson from his western education (everything is luck) when the traditional message is "if you work hard you will succeed". i thought it was a great read.

The sly sense of humor helped the presentation. Whatever his other qualities the author is a good writer, in a second language no less.

He reminded me of the "The Good Soldier Švejk" stories, especially the MBA part, the one with the professors telling him he can see that the author was feeling stuff, the brand thing and the part where he just told them that he wants to earn money (i.e. he was as honest as soldier Švejk was).

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#73

Post by pessimizer »

ordu wrote: post #28
kunimu wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure what is meant by it. Adherents of Marxism-Leninism utilise the method of dialectical materialism to analyse the past and to provide a model for the structure of the future based on the resolution of dialectical contradictions. The contradictions of feudalism led to capitalism, and the contradictions of capitalism (the value-form in particular, class antagonism) lead to Communism.

It is simple. In the future the Communism will be built, and all the people will be happy. It is absolutely certain. Every current event proves this statement, if you think otherwise, you should educate youself better by consuming mass media. But the past is not so certain, because the past is under control of the government, and the past undego changes sometimes. The past has its blank spots, there are some unmentio…

> But the past is not so certain, because the past is under control of the government, and the past undego changes sometimes. The past has its blank spots, there are some unmentionable events in the past that do not make communists proud. So no one really knows what happened.

Communists don't have anything resembling a monopoly on this.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#75

Post by rsync »

walshemj wrote: post #58
rdtsc wrote: post #5

> My parents by then had reached the conclusion that I was not going anywhere promising in China and were ready to send me abroad for high school. Maybe the title should be "The Western Elite from a Chinese Elite Perspective". Surely sending kids to school to UK as plan B is not in the average Chinese family's abilities. Doesn't mean we should discount the article or its ideas but it's useful to keep the author's bac…

From what I hear its now plan A to send your kids to British public and American private Schools as well as for the Russian elites. Its what I have been told happens in my home towns Public schools - one of Barack Obamas roomies at Harvard came from one of them. As suggested a in the UK Public School is what an American would call a private one ie one where rich people send there kids

If you are from the UK, you should probably clarify what you mean by a "Public school" since a reader from the US probably interprets that differently than what you mean.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#76

Post by pessimizer »

binarysolo wrote: post #31

Looks like the author also arrived at a similar conclusion: “It's not about the cards you're dealt, but how you play the hand.”

It seems to me like the author arrived at nearly the exact opposite conclusion: "I learned that success comes through good luck, the right slogans, and monitoring your own—and others’—emotions."

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#77

Post by rsync »

t3rseCode wrote: post #74

I'm curious for other immigrants with kids, how difficult is it to break from the more deterministic "study hardest for success" vs relaxing a bit to optimize for happiness and embracing the impact of luck.

"... break from the more deterministic "study hardest for success" vs relaxing a bit to optimize for happiness and embracing the impact of luck."

Ahh, yes - the third generation ...

"We are an immigrant nation. The first generation works their fingers to the bone making things; the next generation goes to college and innovates new ideas. The third generation snowboards and takes improv classes."[1]

[1] http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-10-11/business/ct-bi...

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#78

Post by pessimizer »

analog31 wrote: post #68
fahayekwasright wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you really so sure? It’s not an easy thing to maintain awareness of the workings of one’s emotions, especially for someone raised in a repressive, collectivist culture that doesn’t value the internal life of the individual, and especially if that individual is on the spectrum, in which case the emotions are “buried” even deeper.

I'm willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt, that he knows his own emotions. I simply assume that I know the inner workings of my own mind better than anybody else can. If somebody tells me that they have a magic window into my mind, I assume that they're trying to manipulate or bullshit me. It's not just repressed Communists. I work with scientists and engineers, and they also roll their eyes at corporat…

> I simply assume that I know the inner workings of my own mind better than anybody else can.

I think this is a very bad assumption; Eric Schwitzgebel has spent a lot of his career making the case that it is a bad assumption: http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/

a good example paper: Knowing Your Own Beliefs (2011), http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/KnowOwnBel.h...

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#80

Post by SadWebDeveloper »

rsync wrote: post #77
t3rseCode wrote: post #74

I'm curious for other immigrants with kids, how difficult is it to break from the more deterministic "study hardest for success" vs relaxing a bit to optimize for happiness and embracing the impact of luck.

"... break from the more deterministic "study hardest for success" vs relaxing a bit to optimize for happiness and embracing the impact of luck." Ahh, yes - the third generation ... "We are an immigrant nation. The first generation works their fingers to the bone making things; the next generation goes to college and innovates new ideas. The third generation snowboards and takes improv classes."[1] [1] http://article…

The fourth generation lives from the third and two well, the fifth generation again works their fingers to the bone making things.
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