Does anyone else think this reads almost like propaganda?
Any legitimate grievance can sound like "propaganda placed by hostile foreign agents to undermine domestic morale" to the right ears.
The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter
191–200 of 310 posts
Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m all for frugality. But you wouldn’t pay $2 for the freedom to use those 45 minutes in some other way?
It is habit even if it isn’t the best choice.
"Habit" isn't even a strong enough word, as that implies it has a chance of changing. It's more like an outlook/heuristic that was formed in one environment, and now that environment has changed but there's no acceptance/reasoning about that change.
Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.…
Woah, I've encountered me 4 years ago online. You sound just like I did.
To past me, I highly recommend audiobooking "Millionaire Fastlane". Do not let the awkward title turn you off. It'll put you in a much more productive mindset than Mr. Mustache.
Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t think total ‘power’ is a useful metric for comparing countries leadership. An incompetent farmer with 10x the land will likely grow more food than a competent one. That says little about who you should seek advice from.
> An incompetent farmer with 10x the land will likely grow more food than a competent one. Would they? An incompetent farmer could very easily produce nothing even with 10x the land too.
In this analogy growing food like GDP is the easy part. A successful harvest aka what people actually care about is harder.
I don't want to sound like I am dumping on China. The US/etc housing boom was a boost to GDP largely due to low interest rates, but because the assets where poorly allocated the long term value creation was well below what the economic activity suggested. Building something is a critical first step, building something useful that's worth the maintenance and replacement costs is vastly more difficult.
Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> It doesn’t matter how much I make: at the core I’m still a poor kid in a rich world. Does this tend to bring destructive tendencies? I earn well over median income and have investments etc. I still live cheap enough to be self-sufficient on less than $12K a year (inclusive of rent). I am so scared of what's going to happen when it all ends that it keeps me up at night. Edited -> $12K/year not month!
"I still live cheap enough to be self-sufficient on less than $12K a month "
Yea, well, I am so thrifty that my car costs less than a 2 million USD.
Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter
#196The 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…
Interesting you would call Taiwan developing world, it is one of the most developed countries in the world--21st out of 188 according to the UN.
Source: http://focustaiwan.tw/news/asoc/201409180039.aspx
As others have said you are actually describing class and cultural differences which don't depend on country. I moved from the Midwest to LA and am still in shock and awe at the displays of wealth here. I grew up with a much more frugal mindset and in a place with much more modest homes. Keep in mind even in the US, the fraction of people living in Bel-Aire mansions, or anything even close to that wealth, is very, very small.
Also, I suspect that there are plenty of very wealthy people and luxurious residences in Taiwan that would be equally jarring to you. My point is it's not the country, it's class and culture.
Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter
#197I came to US about 10 years ago. Finished my PhD and spent about 4 years in Software Industry. Saved some money. US has taught me a lot about entrepreneurship and software. Now moving to India for good to work on my own startup, spend more time with my hobbies and to stay close with my parents who are in their 60's. It took me more than an year to convince my parents (hardest to convince was my Mom) and my Wife. Look…
Good luck! You taking in any tiny amounts of seed funding? (10K or less?)
Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
You speak so eloquently of Chinese diasporic issues. Being Chinese American myself, I would literally sign up to read more, since you hit the nail on the head so well. Would it be possible to get your contact info? - if just to buy you a coffee if I'm ever in your area.
Likewise here! It's rather comforting sometimes to have one's inner thoughts and worries laid bare in the public by someone else. One of the many benefits of the arts and writers -- especially those who shared a common experience with you.
Likewise here too. How do people exchange contacts here?
Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
#2 is kind of meaningless when they are the #1 largest country by population and most countries are tiny by comparison. It’s like comparing the value of houses when one has as much land as Texas and you include that in the ‘house’ price. In nominal terms they are 72 per person adjust for PPP and they are #79 which which not bad. It’s the next 30 years when things get interesting. http://statisticstimes.com/economy/co…
> #2 is kind of meaningless when they are the #1 largest country by population and most countries are tiny by comparison. That would be meaningless if having a citizen was an asset of more or less standard economic worth regardless of country. But countries can have 10x or 100x as many citizens as others without having the 10x or 100x the same GDP -- in fact they could do much much worse than the other country. Compa…
I can see that argument for a new country, but the PRC has had ~70 years to shape it's citizens into productive members of society. AKA people retiring year old today where completely educated under communist rule. So, what it has today is an outgrowth of what it was teaching people 60+ years ago down to today. Look at how quickly Japan or Taiwan etc industrialized and the farmers to factory workers to researchers transition can be very quick.
The direct comparison between Nigeria and Japan or Ireland is relevant simply because of how incompetent past Nigerian governments have been.
Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
What you both describe is large cultural division between survival values and self-expression values between two generations. In quickly developing countries some people already live modern life but their parents come from very traditional valued society. What in the west is cultural division between grandparents and grandchildren can be division between parents and children. Political scientist Ronald Inglehart (kno…
"Survival values" is just right, and key. I've lived this divide (1st gen Russian), and as a teenager could not comprehend why my parents constantly pressured me to study physics and maths, which did not come naturally to me, and why they did not see any value in my achievements in the humanities, or even recognise them as work at all. As a young adult I understood that from their perspective, physics and maths was t…
Except that math background still gets you work in the US. There is a reason why a lot of Russian immigrants that were born in the 60s are directors of departments in the US. You gotta give the USSR its due - it had the best education in the world for a bit.