Job Discussion Forums

Moon Over Parma · Joined: 20 May 2007 Posts: 819

Hansen has valid points. There are a LOT of jobs in China. Most of them suck, but they are there for the taking and do bring in some cash, even if it's a pittance. In the end it is money, and having some money is better than none. Working one job while looking for another is an alien concept to this one-child policy generation. This sense of entitlement is simultaneously hilarious as if it was some kind of Monty Python sketch rife with absurdism, while profoundly disturbing at the same time. Many of the kings and queens (rulers of their kingdoms of one) in my classes have incredible difficulty wrapping their heads around the job advice I give them; advice they sought out in the first place.

sharpe88 · Joined: 21 Oct 2008 Posts: 226

Young Chinese people today - epecially post 80's kids - are hardly as conformist as some of you make out. Perhaps in relative ethno-centric terms, yes. Though that's neither here nor there. So they don't all listen to oh-so-cool hipster music. But the degree that society has changed in a few decades is actually astonishing. Furthermore, the relative conformism of a society/organization is hardly an indicator of failure. See Japan and the other Asian countries that have gone from poverty to great success in a short span.

Yes Sir I Can Bogey · Joined: 23 Mar 2009 Posts: 201

Moon Over Parma · Joined: 20 May 2007 Posts: 819

Sharpe, there's some faulty logic in your argument. Japan benefited greatly from The Marshall Plan and thus funneled its literal rebuilding and dramatic social shift after World War II. South Korea had far less, but substantive support via its alliance with the U. S. Military. Taiwan as well, up until the seventies. Hong Kong, on the other hand: British colonization.

I agree that painting young Chinese with a definitive declaration that all of them are uninspired, unoriginal, etc. is wrong. I would only say that the majority of university students I've taught - from undergraduate to post graduate doctoral candidates - pretty much the majority of them are listless, possess a sense of entitlement by simply paying for their degrees, and about the only creativity and inspiration I've witnessed in Chinese academia seems to come at the doctoral level, because it's whittled away the wheat from the chaff.

Most of the inspired Chinese youth I've met simply possessed a high school diploma and their only short comings were being unable to afford university, or the inability to memorize all of the useless bullshit that makes up the brunt of the gaokao.

This is not to say that there is a complete absence of creativity in China's university students, but there is a complete absence of substantive creativity and self entitlement in a large percentage of university students here. They've had thirty years to hide behind the mother's apron of "we are a developing nation," for too long. When an astronomical number of Masters candidate knows more about the various policies of Chairman Mao than the basic science of washing one's hands after using the loo: I think the proof is in the pudding.

EDIT: I mistook the post war reconstruction the U. S. financed in Japan for the post war financing of The Marshall Plan, which covered mostly European countries. Same idea, but different government plan. I think my point still applies, regardless of the error in citing the wrong program.