Little Emperors, Huge Country

A very good essay in Psychology Today about only children in China, and one that covers all of its bases, good and bad.

Just a few highlights:

"You must do this to live:" keeping up with the Joneses x 5. Though China seems more and more like a land of plenty, with 1.3 billion people, there's nowhere near enough to go around. Kids, from first grade, study every single day for hours. This is no exaggeration. Of course, what the article doesn't mention is that, out of the 1.6 million college level jobs for 4 million graduates, the majority go to someone not because of credentials, but because of connections. After all, with such limited space, it's natural that that would provide the crucial push.

Also note that one of the reasons parents push their kids so much is selfish: kids are expected to take care of their parents after they retire (55 for women, 60 for men, though the numbers are growing) and there's no other system in place to do so, nor is it customary for an individual to plan for his or her retirement. It's all on the kids' shoulders. "risky family," indeed.

This I particularly like:
"Back then, every mental problem was seen as anti-socialist," says Kaiping Peng, a University of California Berkeley professor who was among the first generation of Chinese psychologists to receive formal clinical training, in the late 1970s. "If you were depressed, they thought you were politically impure and sent you to a labor camp."

I think even the west is just now starting to understand in a mass way that mental problems don't mean there's something wrong with you as a person.

Also, the point I make to many of my students:
"On your resumé, you can't put, '1988 to 2001: studied 10 hours every day,' " laughs Howe, the Chengdu student. "You have to actually do stuff," though the way I say it is, "you need to have a life, too."

As a freedom lover myself, I find this truly pitiable, and believe it probably makes for a less healthy individual and society.

Anyway, see my post later this week called "Whose Century," for some more.

have fun today.