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, ...