Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

americanaffairsjournal.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 232 posts

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#151

Post by edflsafoiewq »

k4ch0w wrote: post #112
paulpauper wrote: post #45

Eventually I was able to meet the chief financial officer of my favorite company, Costco. He told me that they don’t hire any MBAs. Everyone starts by pushing trolleys. (I have seriously thought about doing just that. But my wife is strongly against it.) Maybe, I thought, that is why the company is so successful—no MBAs! that's pretty amazing..is this really true? So if someone applied for marketing or accounting, th…

I did some consulting work at Costco. Their IT is all people that were once cashiers/trolley pushers. They pride themselves having staff loyal to the company and in turn take care of them. I would assume it's true pretty much everywhere else around the company.

Costco is infamously obsessed with seniority.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#152

Post by nojvek »

Iv wrote: post #140
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #13

"... randomness is not merely the noise but the dominant factor. And those reasons we assign to historical events are often just ex post rationalizations. As rising generations are taught the rationalizations, they conclude that things always happen for a reason. " I didn't realize it until contemplating this statement, but this applies to interpersonal relationships as well as nations. It is the root of tolerance an…

I see the world as a giant lake full of ships going into different directions and sometimes turning around randomly. As an individual, you can try to get to steer a ship or you can try to jump to ships you cross with that go in other directions. Both strategies have a random aspect but if you know where you want to go, and act accordingly on the opportunities presented to you, you can progress toward your goal in an…

But sometimes you don’t even know where to go or your direction might be wrong. Randomly jumping ships you discover a friend that shows you a secret direction. Alternatively you are born with a very fast ship from your parents and can cover more distance.

But you are right. Some people make the most of opportunities given to them, some just let it go thinking they have no influence over their life.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#153

Post by bagacrap »

stevenwoo wrote: post #12

Slightly off topic, but in the early 90's I had to help rewrite the resume of the Chinese friend of a Chinese friend and she was very proud of the fact he graduated from the number one university in China. He had very poor English writing skills so I just unmangled it, did not have difficulty conversing with him, but I was not aware of the admissions difficulty being so high there compared to the Stanford/elite US un…

When he asked himself if British people were just way stupider than Chinese, it made me realize that whatever the Chinese education system is measuring is probably way off base compared to actual aptitude or practical ability. Just because it's highly selective doesn't mean their education is relevant.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#154

Post by vadimberman »

mcguire wrote: post #22

Could someone explain the point of this article? All I'm getting are: * Everything is random. * A generic Chinese man, who did really well on one test is smarter than most people in Britain. * Americans, who are capitalists, don't seem to want to focus their lives on the supposed end goal of capitalism. * MBA programs are nuts, especially if you are on the spectrum. I'm probably wrong about most of those, but like th…

That's far better than what I managed to extract. I only got the first two points, after which it all became a meaningless word salad (plus, he read a book that impressed him). I was about to post a WTF-type comment, but then I found yours.

I also couldn't ignore the headline referring to the "West" (whatever it is) in general, while the author only had some limited experience working in the US and studying in the UK.

I live in Singapore now, and one thing that made me laugh once was an establishment called "Johnson's Western food". Like, that tiny stall encompasses the entire culinary wisdom of France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and more. In reality, they sell soggy pizza and pasta sourced from Mars (at least by the looks of it).

This article is the literary equivalent of the Johnson's Western food stall, although with better pictures.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#155

Post by alexasmyths »

zxcmx wrote: post #136
alexasmyths wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People wind up where they are largely through circumstance, not intention. " There may be a lot of randomness on the way to becoming, or almost becoming a doctor, but you don't get to be a doctor by randomness. See what I mean? You get to be a doctor only with quite a very long term intent and perseverance, by stacking the odds, and rolling the dice a lot. Though I get what you are saying - I also don't think that m…

Well if you really want to maximise your odds of becoming a doctor, the best thing you can do for yourself is choose your parents wisely. Don't choose to be born in a slum in a third world country, or a trailer park, thats gonna hurt your chances. Make sure you don't pick a family that will abuse you as you grow up. Try to make sure you at least get average genetics for general intelligence and memory (50% of people…

" the best thing you can do for yourself is choose your parents wisely."

Maybe.

I'd rather have a good worth ethnic than 'rich parents' on the road to becoming a doctor anywhere in the Western world.

There are innumerable lazy rich kids and they won't be getting into med school.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#156

Post by pcr0 »

walshemj wrote: post #61
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am the child of modest workers (my dad didn’t even have a bachelor degree) and have even experienced bankruptcy as a pre teen. I’m definitely not a western elite by background, but was able to experience Chinese society. Heck, there is a whole stereotype, not completely unjustified, of western losers coming to China to make a long term living as rockstar English teachers.

There used to be a British acronym FILTH Failed in London, Try Hong Kong :-)

Heard this a lot in investment banking. Definitely "used to be" as these days you're unlikely to make it in Hong Kong either.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#157

Post by brobdingnagians »

1. People who believe they can affect their own future and have control over there circumstances tend to have higher self-esteem and happiness. That tells you at least something about what you might _want_ to believe.

2. Montesquieu had a theory that people in history rode the wave of what was happening at the time, so Napoleon would not have become Napoleon if he was born in a different time, _but_ if Napoleon had not take control, someone else would have, since circumstances were ripe. Therefore, a person who knows how to read the events & choose a good strategy for the time in which they live will usually be at least moderately successful, and someone incapable of that will nearly always be mediocre. There are outliers and extremely fortunate or unfortunate events, but part of strategy is not becoming a negative outlier and optimizing for higher success. You may miss a specific opportunity, but if you are always looking for opportunity, you will find one of the ones that come along.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#158

Post by mazerackham »

bsaul wrote: post #91

I can't help but think that the conclusion being "whatever happens happens, and your actions have very little to do with what your life's going to be" is a very zen / taoism / asian philosophy cliché. Maybe the reason the west is successful lies in the belief that individuals matters. If that's the case, then i suppose the OP still has a long way to go.

But maybe not, and probably not.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#159

Post by mazerackham »

vadimberman wrote: post #154
mcguire wrote: post #22

Could someone explain the point of this article? All I'm getting are: * Everything is random. * A generic Chinese man, who did really well on one test is smarter than most people in Britain. * Americans, who are capitalists, don't seem to want to focus their lives on the supposed end goal of capitalism. * MBA programs are nuts, especially if you are on the spectrum. I'm probably wrong about most of those, but like th…

That's far better than what I managed to extract. I only got the first two points, after which it all became a meaningless word salad (plus, he read a book that impressed him). I was about to post a WTF-type comment, but then I found yours. I also couldn't ignore the headline referring to the "West" (whatever it is) in general, while the author only had some limited experience working in the US and studying in the UK…

Now you know how Chinese people feel when they read any articles written by white men about China, or when they go eat at one of those asian fusion abominations :)

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#160

Post by erikb »

alexasmyths wrote: post #118
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #13

"... randomness is not merely the noise but the dominant factor. And those reasons we assign to historical events are often just ex post rationalizations. As rising generations are taught the rationalizations, they conclude that things always happen for a reason. " I didn't realize it until contemplating this statement, but this applies to interpersonal relationships as well as nations. It is the root of tolerance an…

"People wind up where they are largely through circumstance, not intention. " There may be a lot of randomness on the way to becoming, or almost becoming a doctor, but you don't get to be a doctor by randomness. See what I mean? You get to be a doctor only with quite a very long term intent and perseverance, by stacking the odds, and rolling the dice a lot. Though I get what you are saying - I also don't think that m…

This is in fact one of the main points of the article. Chinese way of criticism. If you are unable to accept the criticism it is perfectly fine to read it as supportive of your point of view of the world. Actually the article says you need to work your ass off to succeed. Life just sucks because sometimes even with hard work you can't always get all you want.
Post reply on HN