moneymoneymoney
“We all have the same dream.”
“No, we all have the same job.”
I laughed. I was having coffee with some fellow foreigners
and our Chinese friends, the Idealist and the Realist. Later that same evening,
I asked, “What’s the most important thing to a Chinese person?”
“Making money.”
On a different coffee date with a different Chinese friend,
I heard a similar statement: “Money controls my life.”
Making money is important to us Americans, too. The U.S. is
pretty much the capital of materialism. But the way my Chinese friends say it,
it’s different. And the more I hear their stories, the more I understand what
they mean.
China has a collectivist culture, where the group is more
important than the individual, and the family is the most important of all.
Which is really beautiful to see. Each of my students have their two parents
and four grandparents all looking out for them, investing in them, concerned
about their wellbeing. There’s only one child, one grandchild, and that kid
means the world. Parents will support and provide for their child not only till
the kid turns 18, but until the kid is married. In turn, the child will support
his/her parents when they are older. Generations take care of each other.
The importance of family isn’t just “I love my parents so I’m
going to stick around,” but “I need my family.” It’s financially impossible for
most people to move out. There’s no my-friends-and-I-are-gonna-get-an-apartment-together,
as-long-as-I’m-working-I-can-afford-rent. Jobs pay too little, and even a
closet-size apartment is too expensive. You live with your parents. Forever.
“Making money is the most important thing…”
I feel that Americans love money in it’s immediate pleasure –
I can buy the latest clothes, electronics, etc, right now. My experience
so far with Chinese is that the love of money is also in its long-term pleasure
– I have responsibility to my family to provide financially and I want better
housing, nicer things, etc, for us in the future. Americans my age worry about
paying off their student loans and buying themselves a new pair of shoes.
Chinese my age worry about having enough money to support a spouse, a kid, and
their parents.
In this way, they Chinese seem noble to me. They’re worried
about others, not only themselves. Responsibility to family, and not just the
individual. Yet I’m starting to see the weight of that responsibility…
“Money controls my life.”
Parents work full time in a different city and their child
grows up alone. Students pick majors that result in a job (not necessarily out
of interest or passion). A long-term dating relationship ends because he’s from
a poor family. Someone is interested in a different field, but can’t go back to
school to pursue it.
High school is for studying. Get good grades, do well on the
college entrance exam, get into a prestigious university.
College is for dating. Get a degree, too, even if it means
studying something you don’t like for four years. If you don’t want to study,
you can pay off the professor. Just be sure to have a significant other.
Post-college is for marrying. Being single is not okay.
Parents will flip if you hit 28 and still aren’t married. The guy’s family is
responsible for the wedding and the newlyweds’ housing (!!!). Having a boy just
got really expensive.
After marriage, it’s time for your one kid. Mom and Dad are
dying for a grandbaby. Your child will go to school all day, and then
participate in extracurricular activities all night (and weekends). English
class, dance class, piano class, tae kwon do class, calligraphy class… You only
get one child, and he/she deserves the best. You will financially provide for
this child until he/she gets married.
It all costs money. Financial security solves the stress.
My life seems so optimistic by comparison. With discipline
and hard work, I can do anything. I went to an expensive university. I will
eventually pay it off. I majored in something I love, and I travelled around
the world to do it. I decide whether I get married and money isn’t a big factor
in that decision. I pay my own bills and no one else’s. I want, I can, I do.
Nothing is impossible.
“Making money is the most important thing… Money controls my
life…”
I’ve heard these statements before, but now I’m grasping
what they mean. I sit across the coffee table from my new friends and I see the
weight of it in their brown eyes, I hear it in their indirect sentences, I read
it in their wechat texts… An American-like materialism and need to have nice
things, and a deeper responsibility and pressure to provide for the family.
East meets West.
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