What China Does Right And We Do Wrong
Living in China is not as hard as you think. I am now living in China for already more than three months and enjoy every second.
China’s economy is sky-rocketing, even though exports went down in the last quarter and will still go down in the next years to come. It’s apparent that China’s population is more focused and educated than our ones’ in the West. Something drives the society to become better and to reach for success no matter what!
Running over people for success? In China, that’s nothing new. Students wake up at 5.00a.m. to study before class to be better than the other students, run to the cafeteria to get food before their classmates and in order to be back to the classroom or library sooner, get pushed by their parents every day to learn more and push themselves the same way as their parents do — Only to be successful in life.
No one on earth (except perhaps Japanese people) work harder and faster than Chinese people. So, do we even have a chance to beat those people in what they do? … No, definitely not. Chinese people work 14–16 hours a day, quicker than us, often better than us.
Here’s what we do wrong:
- We Do Not Value Our Childrens’ Education Anymore As High As We Did A Century Ago
- We Put Less Emphasis On Life-Long Learning
3. We Get Distracted Easily And Lose Focus // We Don’t Remind Ourselves What Our Focus Is // We Don’t Decide In The First Place
4. We Rather Fix Then Create New
5. We Believe We Are Ahead But Actually Aren’t Anymore
6. We Spend Too Much Time On Social Networks
Here’s what we do right:
- We Have A Healthier Work-Life Balance
2. We Value Our Free-Time More Than Chinese People
3. We Have A Happier Life
4. We Are More Creative Which Makes Each Individual More Important To The Society
5. We Are Allowed To Take Breaks And Reinvestigate
6. We Reflect What We Do
It’s not about competition in one specific field anymore. It’s about the broader network of emerging markets and invention of new technologies and concepts that counts for societies. For decades, Chinese people did not know anything else then working hard and fast; Rather making things with their hands than with their mind. Now, it’s the other way around. It’s still about ‘hard and fast’ but now about the mental strength. China currently refocusses; This time it’s not anymore about plastic goods (from condoms to kids toys), cheap electronics (like LEDs), and other ease-to-produce goods, but about complex technologies (high field laser industry), IT services (e.g. online education; software applications) and actually coming up with new technologies themselves.
Living in China shows me that there is momentum that our society does not have. Where the momentum comes from? … I can only guess. From my point of view, it comes from the insane competitve effort that people need in order to make it to one of the top universities in the country. It is not uncommon that 700 people apply for 1 place to study at a university. Most people in China believe that only a college education from a good university, a new western car, or smart children make the difference between rich and poor, achievement and failure.
At some point this is a bad development but at other points it moves the society forwards. We should stay more open-minded towards China. We still have a lot to learn from our former student…
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