By continuing you agree to eChinacities's Privacy Policy .
Sign up with Google
Sign up with Facebook
Q: Would you say that the younger generation has it easier here than back home?
Obviously this doesn't count for all Chinese, but in general, I would say the younger generation has it easier than kids back home. For example, most of these kids don't get a job until their internship, or for a lot of them, not even until after they graduate from college. When they're in school, their parents do everything for them, even sending them money in college, enough to go shopping. When they're in school, they don't get in trouble for copying, even for a paper. Something like that would get us expelled back home. Ok, so there is one thing that is worse for them, the gaokao. Even if we don't do so well on the SAT's (or their equivalent in other countries) we can still get into a decent college and it won't ruin our lives. But even so, our schools are much more expensive. What do you think? Who has it easier?
Yes, they have it easier in some ways. But don't forget that the ones you see in university and in the cities are the "wealthy" ones. There is still 70% of the country that can't even afford to send their kids beyond grade school.
And all the copying, coddling, etc that you see going on is what makes Chinese education just about useless outside of China. Most employers will look at a potential employee with a Chinese university degree as practically uneducated and far beneath a new grad from their own country.
Jnusb416:
Yes, I know the children of migrant workers have it hard. I was talking about the ones that do get to go to school, because there are quite a few of them. And I know that the older generations had it a lot harder than anyone. But I'm talking about comparing "middle class/rich" to middle class.
Dont forget the children of migrant workers. With no houku they cannot study in school. So, that coupled with their parents having to work long hours, they often times are exploited as beggars or worse.
I would disagree with it being "easier" for kids here. They go to school 14 hours a day, 7 days a week of studying non-stop. Even if they have breaks in studying for sports, it is never for fun. You should see my kids "training" for the sack race. It's ridiculous. There is no fun at all. You know why kids here are obsessed with Twilight and other crap shows/movies/books? It isn't the vampires or the romance, it's the high school life. They will never have a prom, they will never have a graduation ceremony/party, they don't have pep-rallys. All the things that make life enjoyable for kids in our home countries, they do not have. This is on top of their parents also working 14 hour-days or in a completely different city. They never see their families. Sure they don't have part-time jobs like our kids back home, but our kids have half the afternoon, their evenings, and their weekends free to do so.
Then, yeah, their degrees are crap. They are not taught any original thinking. They are only lectured at and given the answers to memorize and then regurgitate back on paper for the exams. But if they forget, who cares, they just copy from someone else.
Then there is the job market once they graduate. There are over 6 million students graduating this year, all looking for work along side the 3 million still unemployed from last year.
Then there is the shit pay. I have a Chinese friend with a master's degree in Chemical Engineering from Belfast University in Ireland and he is fluent in English. He is paid about 3,000 RMB per month. I know English teachers who in their first paying job (they had to do free internships first) are paid 1500 RMB per month for full-time teaching loads.
Then you have the one-child policy which means when a man gets married he will have to take care of not only his parents, but his wife's too. Somehow he will have to get a good enough job to support himself, his wife, 4 parents, and his own child (which is usually born within the first year of marriage) in an economy of surging housing prices.
Prospects in China are not good for today's graduates. They are scared and are under a lot of pressure. So don't fool yourself into thinking these kids are "coddled."
Jona:
Agree - besides being "breastfed" well into their 30's my Chinese friends didn't have much of a life before they got to college.
Nobody has it easier! Wherever you go it won't get much easier...there are still things that remain the same and some of those things include hard work and dedication!
Jnusb you need to compare apples to apples.
You're comparing the rich and upper middle class Chinese with the poor and lower middle class in America.
I think it would be better to compare across the same incomes.
tmestep8:
what is poor or lower-middle class about the life she described? I think that is the majority of American life.
No one should worry about the super rich in either country, they're doing just fine.
Tapwater:
The problem is she's comparing the life of rich Chinese to middle/lower class Americans.
A rich kid in America doesn't have to have a part time job while he goes to school or whatever. If he does, it will likely be a cushy internship that he got through the accumulation of the advantages of familial wealth. Of course, I've known rich kids who get part time jobs anyway, but that's because they are greedy, I won't pretend it makes them a better person.
A rich kid in China won't have a part time job because the culture is different, but if you consider how long the school day is and things like that, I think it works out all the same.
