An End to the Chinese Dream? | Newsweek World

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Posted By: wes.de.long @ 02/12/2009 7:09:17 AM

Hutou? What's that? If you mean the residence permit system, it's called a 'Hukou'. If they didn't have these, the cities would be literally overrun with 'out-of-towners' and it would be impossible for the local government to manage the city properly. I love when the holidays come around because all the country 'bumpkins' go back to their hometowns and we can actually use the buses and subways without having to be smashed up against some laborer who reeks of booze and hasn't bathed in a week.
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  Posted By: hommewang @ 02/12/2009 11:51:09 PM
  
  yeah, that's the same as saying things should maintain that way simply because it's convenient for you... I'm glad that Obama was elected. Suddenly nobody would say African Americans are doomed to be poor because they don't want to live a better life and work hard to lift themselves out of the slums.

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Posted By: lmy53108 @ 02/12/2009 9:56:15 PM

LOVE CHINA??????????????????
LOVE CHIINESE???????????????????????????????????????

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Posted By: lmy53108 @ 02/12/2009 9:54:38 PM

LOVE CHINA!!!!!!!!!!!
LOVE CHINESE!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted By: IesuAiwo @ 02/12/2009 4:35:32 AM
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it is very good that Chinese university grads can pay off their college loans by going to teach schoolkids in villages. It benefits both the teachers and the students. It's like China's Americorps. Whoever came up with that idea really deserves praise.
I think $15000 (one hundred fifty thousand in Chinese currency) is way too high for a college education. Are tuition prices deliberately set very high to limit the number of university grads (so that a university degree is worth something) ? There is no way a peasant family can afford that much, unless they sell all that they have, or they get into heavy debt.

Creating more average-well-paid jobs (better paid than manual labor, but not so well paid as to get rich unless you save money) in developing the country would be an idea.

And hommewang, I observed discrimination against peasants in some Chinese, but I didn't know it was a widespread phenomenon, nor did I know of such terrible social pressure about being from the villages vs being from the cities. Thanks for the info.
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  Posted By: hommewang @ 02/12/2009 5:04:31 AM
  
  Believe me, the divide is there! One topic pertinent to my point is discussions about Hutou system. It's a system designed against peasants. So when they come to live in the cities, they're discriminated against by it. It's not true though people from the city hate peasants.
  I agree with you on tuition being too high. But I think the lack of a more comprehensive loaning system is to blame.

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Posted By: Tan Boon Tee @ 02/10/2009 12:25:17 AM

Do Chinese have dreams? They may have, but very different from the Americans.

Instead, Chinese nurture hope, hope for a better future for members of the family. Moreover, they don???t just talk, but act on what they hope for -- relentlessly and diligently pursuing their goal. Those who are successful, the majority earn it in a hard and honest manner; nevertheless some would achieve their ambition in rather unscrupulous and unacceptable ways.

Traditionally, whenever and wherever possible, higher education would be a must for most Chinese. Little wonder millions of tertiary graduates are pouring into the job market. Coupled by the many more millions of unemployed migrant workers, massive unemployment has turned out to be a threatening nightmare for the Chinese authority in this time of bad economy.

It is of utmost importance that Beijing tackles the burning issue to find a workable solution quickly. Otherwise, the consequences can be catastrophic to the stability and growth of the nation.
(Tan Boon Tee)
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  Posted By: motorherz @ 02/10/2009 6:22:05 AM
  
  Yes, yes, China has no corruption, no academic cronyism, no useless educational programs. Chinese students don't cheat, don't suck up and don't try to get ahead at all costs - they are just honest and hard-working. Yes, and Chinese businesses are all honest, they confirm to the strict environmental and labour standards, intellectual property and trademark rights, and produce 100% safe products. I think you understand that there is no need to sugar-coat the problems that are really there.
  
  In general, the big program with this "higher education is a must" attitude is that it creates a lot of young people who don't know what they want to do with their lives, don't really possess much employable skills, have a lot of disrespect for the rest, but are, on one hand, expected everything to just come down, and, on the other, try to replicate the ways of the academia in the workplace.
  
  I'm not saying that Chinese are bad students. I'd say that the number of good grads are the same among different cultures and that it represent a more or less stable percentage of people who actually want to do what they did in school. However, as far as producing people unfit for the industry but with the great paper credentials, I think Chinese are way ahead of the rest of the world. It will be actually pretty funny to see how it unwinds, though, because it may represent a push towards more meaningful relationships between business, education and the actual students.
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    Posted By: hommewang @ 02/12/2009 12:48:52 AM
    
    it's unfair for you to judge without full knowledge of what it's like to Be a Chinese in a poor family. See my postings above.

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Posted By: hommewang @ 02/12/2009 12:42:36 AM

I think while chinese students should be partially responsible for the lack of skills and seeking an ideological asylum in universities thus wasting lots of hard-earned money and opportunistic capital, it's unfair for motorherz to put blame on the students or the inadequate and outdated educational system without realizing the harsh reality behind the sliver of hope represented by academic achievements for ordinary Chinese families.

In cities like Beijing, Shanghai or Shenzhen, many young people start chasing their dreams at fairly young ages. 13 year old novelist, 17 year old A1 racing car driver, genius programmers, and tens of thousands of high schools students taking SAT and aiming for Harvard and Yale, are evidence that chinese students are able to diversify and succeed provided with sufficient financial support and information. Yet for the vast population, kids from families as described in the article, study hard and go to a good school might be the easiest and cheapest way to get the family out of the plight.

It's an ironic situation when a 16 year-old hair-dresser earns more than a college grads, considering the latter's family has paid much more and supported their kid at least 3 years longer. But when the parents are making the decision to pour out their lifetime savings and push their kids to chase the Chinese dreams, they're gambling not only for financial rewards but also higher social status.

Once a peasant, always a peasant. The manual divide and potential societal benefits gap between citi-zen and peasant-izen in China are huge. Motorherz might not have been in China, so I'm telling you that the discrimination held by Chinese citi-zens are unbearable for peasants' families. To get rid of the label, they are willing to offer anything they could afford. Many times the whole village would help pay the tuition to send one kid off to big cities. Go to college and don't come back!!! The slogan is yelled out with tears in their eyes.

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Posted By: estfor1984 @ 02/10/2009 9:29:33 AM

As a Chinese grad, I feel myself so pathetic.
Hard, hard study, but no job, no future in the end.
The government never fundamentally solves the problem, just let the promblem drag on, every sort of big social problem

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Posted By: thosfiore @ 02/09/2009 9:15:34 PM

The world economic system is based on wealthy countries exporting more than they import with the notable exception of the US which had been in the position of importing more than we exported and saving less than nothing. Somehow we had built a system that relied on faith that we could keep consuming and they could keep selling and the bottom would never fall out. Well it couldn't go on forever and it didn't. The question now is can the world economy be restructured so that it isn't dependent, or as dependent, on American consumption, because it appears that our line of credit with everybody has started to run thin. Well you know the old saying, if I owe you a $1,000 and I can't pay I'm in trouble if I owe you $1,000 billion then you've in trouble.

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Posted By: martialguy @ 02/07/2009 10:39:01 PM

China's rise and prosperity are inevitable if all the right steps are taken.
It is time to encourage government spending, domestic investment, domestic consumption to increase GDP.
Doing so also helps stablizing the world income and economy by helping other nations' export; which in turns will ultimately raise export from China . United we prosper; divided we falter.
China has 2000 billions of dollars of foreign reserve ( compared with 70 billions for the US) to do that.
Most importantly, China and Japan are still in advantageous economic positions. Proof is below:

Economists use purchase-power-parity adjusted GDP ( Not exchange-rated GDP or nominal GDP) as one realistic indicator to compare national economies. It is simply because a Big Mac (or cost of living for that matter) could cost, for instance, 3 times in NY compared with that in Beijing in a specific currency.

To truly compare three current (2008) largest national GDP, we need to look at several indicators:

Current 2008 Purchase-power-parity adjusted GDP (top 3 countries; in trillions of dollars): US 14 / China 8 / Japan 4.5
(https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html)

PPP GDP 2013 projection (in trillions of dollars): US 17 / China 14 / Japan 5
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_future_GDP_estimates_(PPP)

Current export (in billions): US 1377 / China 1465 / Japan 777
Current external debt ( in billions): US 12300 / China 400 / Japan 1500
Current foreign reserve ( in billions): US 70/ China 2033/ Japan 954
Stock of money ( in billions): US 1374 / China 2300 / Japan 4370
Current deficit (-) or surplus (+) (in billions): US -568 / China +368 / Japan +188

If we divide by a factor of billion; a more useful comparison goes like this:

The US currently earns $14,000 (projected $17,000 in 2013) and shortfalls $568 a year; owes $12,300; and has $1,374 in the bank
China earns $8,000 (projected $14,000 in 2013) and surpluses $368 a year; owes $400; and has $2,300 in bank
Japan earns $4,500 (projected $5,000 in 2013) and surpluses $188 a year; owes $1,500; and has $4,370 in the bank