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The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

nytimes.com

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Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#131

Post by pavlov »

ptaipale wrote: post #122
spyckie2 wrote: post #47

The harsh reality of 1st or 2nd generation Chinese is that while many of us went to the top universities and grew up with a modern, 1st world mindset, we can't escape the fact that our financial and family background is from the developing world, and we live in both worlds at once - our mindset is modern, but the issues and problems of the developing world are still very much things we have to deal with. I first enco…

That experience is not restricted to "3rd world". I think what you describe could be simply called "class differences". Even what we now call 1st world countries had incredible poverty some 60 years back and it's not so long back, even if the face of poverty has recently changed from lack of opportunity to lack of achievement. Up to 1980's, in the Finnish welfare state where I grew up, you would see men who slept in…

I’m Finnish too. My entirely anecdotal experience of both Finland and USA is that America is about 40 years behind in responding to poverty.

To see men sleeping in trash boxes in freezing weather, you only need to walk a few blocks around midtown Manhattan in the winter.

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#132

Post by vinceguidry »

mindentropy wrote: post #126
kamaal wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term you are looking for is called Abundance . A few days back I was discussing this with my friend who immigrated to the US and settled there. I'm an Indian. We were discussing how his wife and kids, who are Americans just do not understand his perspective of things from a living standards stand point. The thing is sometimes its impossible to erase the effect poverty has on you. When you go through tough times,…

In your opinion what do you think of the abundance? In my opinion this abundance is nice to be kept aside for tough days but should not be used/exposed on a day to day basis. I too am an Indian and I see not only the well off but even the middle to lower middle class who look at the well off and set the standards based on them. So many of them buy so many useless stuff and waste a lot be it food or some other materia…

My earliest childhood memories are of the varied households we bounced around in because my mom couldn't keep the rent paid reliably after she threw my alcoholic father out. She remarried a Marine and that experience of poverty, along with the constant familial abusiveness, never directed at me but rather my mom, went away overnight, to be relived once a year when we took summer trips back.

Abundance to me is something you need to fight for in order to keep in your life. I'm the first one to notice and complain at my job when the team lunches start to go away under the pressure of meetings, the first one to start playing ping pong again when time pressures keep us from going.

The little abundances we have in life are to be managed, never vilified. There's an amazing soul food restaurant that's a little ways away, the portions are huge and the taste is so decadent. I'd go there every day almost if it was closer. I'd take half the food home or get less carb-heavy sides. But when I suggest going as a team there's just so much pushback.

Every time I find a new form of abundance I need to also find a way to integrate it into daily life, otherwise it goes away.

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#133

Post by k__ »

ptaipale wrote: post #121
k__ wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here in Germany. My grandparents were born end of the 1930s. They grew up in the second world war and lived through the rebuild. The mother side in the west the father side in the east, so they even lived through socialism. Their views on life were so removed from what I encountered in the world...

Even a smaller generational gap here: my father was born in 1920, my uncle in 1918, at time of civil war in my country (Finland). The family was not the poorest but getting food on the table was a concern. Boys went to work in the forest at the age of 12. Uncle went through prisoner of waonr camps in Russian in 1940, father spent 1941-1944 the front, looking for bread crumbs in the pockets of any Russian KIA he'd fin…

My grandparents always forced us children to eat up. I had to sit hours on the table.

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#134

Post by netsec_burn »

zbentley wrote: post #119
netsec_burn wrote: post #115

Does anyone else think this reads almost like propaganda?

Not at all. Propaganda for what?

The whole thing read like it was painting a picture of US society being utopia while Chinese society is restrictive where only a few make it.

I believe both to a limited extent, but it's hard not to get the feeling this article doesn't have a spin. I knew I would be outspoken on this but I felt I should mention it anyway.

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#135

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

ak39 wrote: post #77

I am not familiar with nuances of Chinese culture, but I was so intrigued by the "guanxi" phenomenon that I immediately and gladly spent half an hour reading about it and watching Youtube videos of the "guanxi" culture in China.[1] "Guanxi" is nothing other than socially institutionalised networks of non-monetary favours and counter-favours. It happens in every culture actually but the thing that makes "quanxi" uniqu…

Though there's no word for it here, this is also how the poor in the US get things done. Where the middle class become insular, and simply buys someone's time to do things they don't want to do, the poor trade favors with a large network of contacts to do the things that they need to get done.

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#136

Post by sturgill »

kamaal wrote: post #101
spyckie2 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Asian parents says, don't get a literature degree, become a doctor, they have a good reason to say it. It's not necessarily this bad in terms of standard of living (the above description would be subsistence levels, maybe less than 200$ a year), but the median household income in China is about $12-15k US a year compared to $56k in the US. And it's not that in China everything is cheaper so 12-15k goes a long wa…

The term you are looking for is called Abundance . A few days back I was discussing this with my friend who immigrated to the US and settled there. I'm an Indian. We were discussing how his wife and kids, who are Americans just do not understand his perspective of things from a living standards stand point. The thing is sometimes its impossible to erase the effect poverty has on you. When you go through tough times,…

Both my wife and I grew up quite poor (for US standards). We didn’t quite fit in at university and had a hard time relating to our peers who grew up with money (my wife’s parents encouraged her to not go to school but just stay and marry local).

We’re doing well for ourselves, but still don’t really fit in among our peers. We’ve coined a phrase for it: “your poverty is showing.”

It doesn’t matter how much I make: at the core I’m still a poor kid in a rich world. Which I’m fine with; it’s what gives me drive. But I do worry about my kids who are growing up like the rich kids I never liked...

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#137

Post by User23 »

Majestic121 wrote: post #103
User23 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all know that diversity drives positive economic outcomes. India is by far the most diverse large country on the planet. That combined with her diaspora to the west and the consequent knowledge transfer, in addition to not being a major strategic rival to the USA, adds up to an extremely positive medium to long term outlook. Yes there are major problems with corruption, it's true, but there are major problems with…

Do you have sources about diversity driving positive economic income ? It seems to go without saying for you, but it's not that natural for me. There are several examples of very homogeneous countries, such as Japan or Korea, doing economical prowess.

http://news.mit.edu/2014/workplace-diversity-can-help-bottom...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/ruchikatul...

There are many many other studies, all easily queried. There’s also the largest and richest country in the world as a case study.

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#138

Post by ljj1122 »

netsec_burn wrote: post #134
zbentley wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. Propaganda for what?

The whole thing read like it was painting a picture of US society being utopia while Chinese society is restrictive where only a few make it. I believe both to a limited extent, but it's hard not to get the feeling this article doesn't have a spin. I knew I would be outspoken on this but I felt I should mention it anyway.

you're looking at this from a strictly Western perspective, this story was fairly similar something my mother went through when my grandfather in Shanghai had a heart attack, and anybody with a similar background can tell you this is something they've either personally felt or seen in a close family member.

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#139

Post by dang »

fivecents wrote: post #66

I can't help but think... wouldn't the average Chinese be much better off if the current Taiwanese gov. still ruled China? I mean, look at Taiwan... it has nothing (no land, no diplomatic ties, etc). Yet it has a lot (decent economy for avg. joe, democracy, etc). Compare this to the current PRC: - cultural revolution wiped out most of the smart people - centries of wrong economic policy (until pretty recent radical c…

We've banned this account for using HN for nationalistic flamewar. That's not allowed here, regardless of nation. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17833301 and marked it off-topic.

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#140

Post by eiurafhlfie »

kaskavalci wrote: post #51
cbhl wrote: post #33

One of the least useful pieces of start-up advice I received in college was, "if your startup fails, don't worry, you can go live in your parents' basement." Well, fine, if your parents owned their home, the worst you have to deal with is the shame of failing. If I did a start-up and it failed, it's probable that my parents wouldn't even have a basement for me to return home to.

Hence you don't have a safety net and can't be an entrepreneur. If you can take the chance of getting rich or becoming homeless, good luck with that. Otherwise, 9-5 jobs are the only option.

If you are middle class (~$30k-$70k per annum) you can be wealthy* by focusing your spending on freedom, aka capital investments. I did not understand this was an option before reading the blog of Mr. Money Mustache[0]. Reading that and the Living a FI blog[1] may hopefully be as life-changing to you reading this comment as it was for me.

* Wealthy in time to spend with those you love

[0] https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/

[1] https://livingafi.com/

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