The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter • Hacker News Board

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#301

Post by ptaipale » Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 6:46 AM UTC

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #273

_JamesA_ wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example know why not to wear "brown" shoes in town to an interview for a high paying job / internship. Why?

Because it shows that you don't know the rule not to wear "brown" shoes in town to an interview for a high paying job / internship and thus are not of the right class to get a high paying job / internship.

Though here perhaps the "class" is not exactly the right word. To know etiquette is not quite the same as belonging to a social class.

Question: do upper class Americans eat with fork in the left hand and knife in the right? Because I notice most everyone in America that I have met eats with the fork in the right hand, and I am almost unable to eat that way (except dessert).

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#302

Post by kaskavalci » Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 7:43 AM UTC

eiurafhlfie wrote: post #140

kaskavalci wrote: post #51

Earlier 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.…

I didn't know about MMM, thanks for that. I've learned about this phenomenon on a different website [1] and amazed by it. Small investments over a long period makes a huge difference but still, you need a long enough period or put huge amounts at the right time of the market. S&P 500 has worst performance of -3% over 10 year period. It gets better after 15 years and so on. Investing and hoping to retire early during this window is certainly not going to work.

I think everybody who works 9-5 should read the story about Grace Groner in [1]. It was a real eye opener for me.

[1] https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/the-psychology-of-mon...

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#303

Post by BrandoElFollito » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 7:40 AM UTC

sametmax wrote: post #86

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…

Your testimony reminds me of a kid I met in Mali. The guy was our guide, and he spoke 6 languages, including 4 local dialects, french and english. He had a cellphone and knew how to drive a 4x4. He drove us to the desert, in a place at the north of Bamako known as the Dogon's country. There, he asked us if we were ok to take a detour by his parents village, and we agreed. His parents were living with no electricity,…

I was brought up in a middle-class+ family in France. We read what we needed and my parents lived a simple life.

I am now much better than them, financially. I still live a simple but comfortable life and my children somehow get infused with it (they have everything they need to the point that I never know what to get them for xmas).

I was very surprised when the 12 yo one told me one day "rich people are rich because they live a life of less welthy ones, and the less wealthy want to live a life of rich". He was referring to his friend whose parents have a hard time making the month buying him the latest iphone because his friend insisted on having the latrst one (while my son has a mid level phone he is genuinly happy with)

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#304

Post by netsharc » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 8:47 AM UTC

eb48 wrote: post #271

netsharc wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Detriment to her career path? Did you read the right article? More like her lack of networking deterred her from getting the benefits of knowing people, benefits her peers can enjoy.

No, you should re-read the article. She states that if she lacks networking, then she'd need to get by with wealth -- which then she follows up in a significant part of the article with why she doesn't have wealth due to taking up a less privileged career path.

You're mixing success in career with success in life (wealth/status). She's doing fine in her career path, right? If I want to be an accomplished historian of e.g. Tibetan architecture, I can know everything in that field, but it's probably not going to pay well because society doesn't care.

Then again, googling what "career success" means, the results say it's a personal definition, so maybe we're both wrong.

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#305

Post by B1FF_PSUVM » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 4:26 PM UTC

wozniacki wrote: post #276

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at XIX century sources, you'll see there were groups whose idea of fostering human progress was to terrorize the ruling class, mostly by piecemeal killing of its members with guns and bombs.

Can you suggest a piece of writing that specifically delves into this? Even if not a whole book but a chapter somewhere?

I'd suggest giving a look to the Wikipedia articles on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narodnaya_Volya and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_terrorism.

Chesterton wrote The Man who was Thursday (1908) spoofing the policial mindset about anarchist plots that was pervasive at the turn of the century. If you search for "XIX century novels about terrorism" you'll find more material.

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#306

Post by zoomablemind » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 12:38 AM UTC

ptaipale wrote: post #301

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it shows that you don't know the rule not to wear "brown" shoes in town to an interview for a high paying job / internship and thus are not of the right class to get a high paying job / internship.

Though here perhaps the "class" is not exactly the right word. To know etiquette is not quite the same as belonging to a social class. Question: do upper class Americans eat with fork in the left hand and knife in the right? Because I notice most everyone in America that I have met eats with the fork in the right hand, and I am almost unable to eat that way (except dessert).

It's curious, as a lot of etiquette norms are grown out of simply practical considerations (in this case, dominant right hand considered safer for knife).

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#307

Post by ptaipale » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 7:48 AM UTC

walshemj wrote: post #228

ptaipale wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related: Rich Kids Study English "New data shows that students whose parents make less money pursue more “useful” subjects, such as math or physics." https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/college...

As opposed to doing a "soft" degree like a PPE which will lead to a much more financially rewarding /powerful job :-) Reading the article give me the impression that the authors just didn't understand the UK class system when looking at who does what degree.

The article was American and focused somewhat on the Americas, although much of it could be generalized on other countries.

But what aspect of the UK class system in particular do you see as not fitting what was written?

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

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Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 9:27 AM UTC

sturgill wrote: post #136

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,…

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…

[deleted]

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#309

Post by YinglingLight » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 4:36 PM UTC

sizzle wrote: post #289

YinglingLight wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What impact did this book have on you? What have you achieved since reading it that you otherwise would not have? Investments? What other books do you recommend?

I've adopted less of a scarcity mentality, and it reinforced the notion that I'll never get rich and achieve my goals by staying the course in my career. Not rich before age 65 at any rate.

Another book I recommend is "How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big". Adams has a great approach of using systems instead of goals.

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#310

Post by ptaipale » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 5:22 PM UTC

danielsmay1 wrote: post #162

ptaipale wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The joke's been around for a long time, I was not very old when first time hearing sarcastically "eat your plate empty, because if you don't, some kid in Biafra will starve".

You are the only person besides my mother (born in the late 1950s in the Southern USA) that I've seen/heard mention Biafra. Her knowledge of Biafra was due to her being told a similar thing as a child, "eat everything on your plate because there are Biafrans starving."

I was less than 4 years old when the Biafra war ended, but it lived in public consciousness here longer due to a church [1] being built at the time, and some students spraying big red letters BIAFRA to the rock wall to protest church construction when people were dying of famine over there. It's an iconic photograph of 1960's here.

Not that it would have been very easy to relieve that famine with whatever amount of money, without military intervention.

Biafra received also special attention from my country because they adopted "Finlandia" by Sibelius as national anthem of their short-lived nation (with different lyrics, but same theme about rising from oppression.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temppeliaukio_Church