I don’t think I need to say that blogging hasn’t been a high priority for me recently. But I saw a piece this week that I need to share, even though it’s already been out there a couple of days and has received enormous interest. It’s by editor, author, friend and all-around genius (and I mean that) James Palmer. (I reviewed his most recent book here.)
His story that has gone viral is all about the balinghou, Chinese young people borne after 1980, and the many myths about them, namely that they are all spoiled brats with no social skills and infinite greed and a sense of entitlement. Not so fast, Palmer argues. In fact, those descriptors may apply more to their parents than to the balinghou. It is the parents, disoriented by China’s hyperbolic growth and relatively new focus on money, so different from their lives under Mao, who now see greed as the key to success, to survival.
[M]any of the post-1980 generation — contrary to their reputation for greedy materialism — want to help others. Levels of volunteering are higher than ever, though still significantly lower than in the West, and college students or young white-collar workers are the primary founders of NGOs. But to their parents, charity can be a dirty word. ‘One of my friends has a sick wife, and very little money,’ said Zhang, the PhD student. ‘I wanted to give him 500 yuan to help him, but while I was waiting to meet him, I could hear my mother’s voice in my head, telling me I was a fool. Every time I give money to someone, I feel like I’m being cheated somehow.’ Another person I interviewed said: ‘If I tell my mum I gave money, she berates me because I don’t even have an apartment of my own yet.’
…And for parents whose own dreams were frustrated by history, the temptation to force their children into the path they wanted for themselves is even stronger.
This article is so brilliant, so intriguing, so well argued and so beautifully written that it generated a discussion from a panel of China experts including the likes of Orville Schell that is as essential a read as the article itself.
I’d like to quote nearly every line of Palmer’s article. This is partly why I am so down on blogging at the moment. There are many others who can offer more insight into China than I can, and there is no sense in my trying to add to it: Palmer’s article is as perfect as they come.
Let me just add that the myth of the balinghou as social misfits who’ve been spoiled to death, like all myths, certainly has an element of truth to it, as Palmer acknowledges up front. In my own research on the topic more than a year ago I spoke to several Chinese young people who grew up with no siblings, and they felt they were cheated — with no siblings they didn’t learn how to interact with their peers (or so they told me) and they lacked the social skills their parents had learned in their larger families. But that doesn’t mean they think only of themselves and have no moral compass. Greed is not their sole driver.
After reading the article (which you have to do) you may well feel that the ones who we should feel most concerned about are the parents, not their children.
[T]he parents of China’s post-1980 generation (themselves born between 1950 and 1965) grew up in a rural, Maoist world utterly different from that of their children. In their adolescence, there was one phone per village, the universities were closed and jobs were assigned from above. If you imagine the disorientation and confusion of many parents in the West when it comes to the internet and its role in their children’s lives, and then add to that dating, university life and career choices, you come close to the generational dilemma. Parents who spent their own early twenties labouring on remote farms have to deal with children who measure their world in malls, iPhones and casual dates.
Older Chinese, especially those now in their fifties or sixties, often seem like immigrants in their own country. They have that same sense of disorientation, of struggling with societal norms and mores they don’t quite grasp….
The young people’s sense of materialism didn’t spring up in a vacuum, but was instilled in them by their parents, suddenly living in a world with values radically different than the ones they grew up with in rural China.
There is much more to this article, and it is no surprise to see the storm it has generated. I would say it is the single best piece on China I’ve seen in a very long time, maybe years. It is gripping, and it is shattering. (Sorry, I don’t mean to gush, but I’ve rarely been so mesmerized by an article on China.) Read it now if you haven’t already, and if you’ve read it already go and read it again. Just two words to James: Thank you.
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By Cathy Liu
As a post-80er (oops, I don’t know how to talk in any language these days) to 50s parents I can only say thank you to this author as well. I thought no one outside of our peer group would ever understand what we’re going through. Many thanks for recommending the article.
March 19, 2013 @ 12:20 pm | Comment
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By Chip
Excellent article, thanks for sharing.
March 19, 2013 @ 12:55 pm | Comment
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By Other Lisa
Loved Palmer’s piece. Just very impressive, all the way around.
March 19, 2013 @ 2:05 pm | Comment
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By justrecently
It’s a fair article – the parent-child relationships are pretty much the soy paste vat Bo Yang once described. Demanding commitment from the individual is part of Chinese tradition, and it encourages conformism.
The talk about the “spoiled brats” in China is similar to that of (soft/weak) “strawberries” in Taiwan. It seems that most people aged 40+ join in these grumpy chants, no matter the place – but maybe the majority doesn’t actually say anything, and this may distort my impression.
My first job in China was in a rural town. At hindsight, I’m grateful that I didn’t land a job in a big city right away – that would have led to a rather one-sided view of China. It was in that rural place where even kids could have a discussion with foreigners without asking questions like “how much do you earn”. Generally, there is a rugged self-confidence (in that place, and I can’t say that it is true for every rural place) that didn’t stagger between nationalistic hubris and servility – something I’ve often seen in Shanghai or in the South (but not that much in northeastern China).
I’m somewhat familiar with four countries – Britain, China, France, and Germany. I see striking similarities between China and Germany – my country. I may be biased, because I grew up in the countryside myself, but the older I get, the more I feel that people in the countryside are more reasonable – calm, but steady. They don’t change their minds – or values, for that matter – by decree from the government or from the press. Even the influence of television appears to be fairly limited.
No wonder that urbanization is the declared goal of the CCP. But Luo Yan’s fears – even if from a weirdo perspective – aren’t unfounded.
Urban China may be easier to manipulate than rural China, but if you can “win a war” with them, is a different question.
March 19, 2013 @ 4:33 pm | Comment
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By justrecently
One more note, I think it’s quite possible that the grandparents mentioned in the article find it easier to relate to their grandchildrens’ ideas than the parents can, for having been closer to the outside world (or its ideas). But generally, grandparents have it easier, anyway: they don’t feel the same pressure as parents – everywhere, not just in China – feel. They aren’t immediately “responsible” for their grandchildrens’ future, and experience of life is a factor, too. When people are sixty or older, there’s a much greater likelihood that they understand how limited influence over the younger actually is. Once you don’t feel that every “failure” in the kid’s performance is your fault, you tend to be more open about the kid’s own ideas. They may even take into account what went wrong when they squeezed their children – i. e. their grandchildrens’ parents.
March 19, 2013 @ 5:03 pm | Comment
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By Cathy Liu
JR – have to say that I cannot picture the countryside in such a positive light (though don’t know much about Germany). The countryside I’m familiar with is no stranger of all the wrongs city life is generally associate with – greed, power struggles & peer envy, an even more outright disregard of rule of law (local powerful hands can make or break anything). In other words, countryside life works for people in the circle of networks, but can easily be very negative for an outsider. Mang Shan （盲山） tells you something on the later regard.
March 19, 2013 @ 10:14 pm | Comment
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By justrecently
Personal experience may differ, Cathy, but just to avoid misunderstandings, I’m talking about the characters of people I’ve met, not about politics or corrupt links between business and politics. As far as that’s concerned, only the size of the fish and sharks differ, depending on the place.
March 19, 2013 @ 10:41 pm | Comment
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By Cathy Liu
Thanks for clarifying that, JR. Maybe in the question of Chinese countryside I’m too biased to ever evaluate it as it is (in the end I & my parents mainly my mother belong to the group who really want to get out of association with the countryside, especially people of my father’s family). If I have actually developed a sense of belonging with the countryside, like many of my friends do (and I like them as who they are, which says something about my own ambiguity about the countryside), I may be able to see these good characteristics in countryside people better.
I really like what you say about the rugged self-confidence which is neither nationalistic BS or outright servant style attitude. I wish I came across more of such Chinese individuals anywhere, but that confidence is certainly not limited to countryside people. The few I know in that category are people who have strong roots/identity within Chinese culture (as they perceived it), and relative freedom of choice (don’t have a strong preference to stay in the US/UK/Europe). Sadly for me, they tend to have well-connected circles and be quite conservative in their outlook of Chinese politics & society. I also possess an idea that purity/rugged confidence of the countryside is not able to maintain itself with outsiders coming in showing off (as during many of the teaching in the countryside activities Chinese students in the US initiate). Yes, the national propaganda may matter less, but talks about the material life in cities/abroad? That simply matters so much sometimes I wish I’m in a power position to stop them from doing such things to countryside kids.
March 20, 2013 @ 12:36 am | Comment
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By t_co
Wait, you want to keep them in a cocoon of ignorance and material deprivation to preserve their ‘purity/rugged confidence’? You sound like Mao.
March 20, 2013 @ 10:35 am | Comment
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By t_co
That’s some serious tinfoil hattery going on if you think the CCP wants to urbanize in order to better control its population. City dwellers, quite frankly, generate more economic growth using less land and resources than rural dwellers. Urbanization solves a whole host of environmental and developmental ills at the same time.
Also, your idyllic view of peasant China being ‘reasonable/calm/steady’ ignores the fact that the three most violent revolutions in China–the An Lushan Rebellion, the Taiping Rebellion, and the Chinese Civil War itself–arose out of, or were mainly made up of, mass peasant movements. And I am firmly of the belief that had China been more urbanized and more interconnected, the Cultural Revolution and GLF themselves would not have happened. Mao could only get away with the shit he did because rural China operates the way it does–inward-looking, provincial, superstitious. An urban, interconnected China with a vibrant and nationally unified civil society is an ideal we should all be striving for here…
March 20, 2013 @ 11:03 am | Comment
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By T E Low
@#4
“No wonder that urbanization is the declared goal of the CCP. But Luo Yan’s fears – even if from a weirdo perspective – aren’t unfounded.
Urban China may be easier to manipulate than rural China, but if you can “win a war” with them, is a different question.”
That’s some severe misconception there.
Urbanization is a big thing for ECONOMIC reasons, NOT BRAINWASHING reasons.
Moving rural folks to the cities is a key tenet behind China’s modernization, economic and raising standards of living drive. But of course, in your mind, there has to be some ulterior motive by the CCP there.
And if you think that today’s current China urban dwellers are really that agreeable to this policy, then I’ve got some land in the Gobi Desert to sell to you at RMB5,000 per square feet.
Talk to any Beijing-nese, Shanghai-nese, Guangzhou-nese (or Hangzhou-nese, Nanjing-nese, Wuhan-nese and any other big city-nese) and ask them whether they look forward to the population of their cities increasing by 25% to 50% over the next 10 years. Heck, ask them if they look forward to having EVEN MORE rural folk coming into their city. And ask them if they find people from the countryside more “reasonable, calm and steady”.
March 20, 2013 @ 5:10 pm | Comment
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By Cathy Liu
It’s good that I’m not Mao then, I guess?…Never mind Mao initiated (or at least didn’t object to) a lot of modernization efforts under his tenure (including moving to the heavy factories to the inland, one of the most ambitious of such plans), we’re just going to discount whatever he does that doesn’t fit our ideas…
My problem with such activities and programmes is not they give the countryside kids information, but rather more often than not false hope. I have high regards to Lu Anke etc., and some people in the overseas Chinese community setting up foundations & scholarships for residents in underdeveloped areas, because both are practical way forward – one is by admitting that their situation will not change soon, the other is letting them truly come out of their world, at least for a short amount of time. I’m also in general a fan of getting migrants the right to live in small cities, and let their children be educated in city schools, because they’ve been there for years. All these are different from the activities I talk of, which don’t provide a way out for the countryside kids, but a sense of good-feeling, an occasion of casual dating during the summer holiday, and a way of filling out a resume. Even programmes like teach for America have their fair share of critics, and being critical of such little adventures makes me Mao. Oh the fragile heart of some Chinese liberals……
March 20, 2013 @ 11:15 pm | Comment
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By barbara
Peking Duck offers information not easily found elsewhere. Your behavior explanation of the older generation parenting today’s young generation gave me a jolt. I had not thought that the parenting aspect would be at fault for the greedy young adults that are in reality — greedy young adults. Not all but many. And of course the culture of money surely has something to do with the problem. This behavior, as you have described, has grown widely among parents and the young adults in the West as well as in China. — barbara
March 20, 2013 @ 11:47 pm | Comment
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By t_co
Don’t get me wrong, Mao got a lot of things right, but his inability to understand developmental economics or take advice from those who did probably set China back decades and cost tens of millions of lives. Plus his Cultural Revolution in response to perceived criticism rendered Chinese socio-political discourse toxic for at least a generation, if not two. Next to these two stains, his good points fade in comparison.
It’s not your criticism of the program itself that is bothersome; it’s your logic. You expressly stated that you didn’t like those programs because they exposed Chinese peasants to a ‘material life in cities/abroad’. What’s wrong with exposing them to that?
Also, are you currently studying in the States?
March 21, 2013 @ 12:26 am | Comment
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By justrecently
That’s some serious tinfoil hattery going on if you think the CCP wants to urbanize in order to better control its population.
Let’s get the definitions straight, t_co. The place I remember had some 500,000 inhabitants, but it was essentially rural. It doesn’t matter that it would count as a big city in my country. It has continued to grow, but on a visit a few years ago, I haven’t seen much change in the people I know there.
I mentioned before that this was an impression from a particular place, and that it doesn’t need to apply everywhere, but looking up some past reading experience (beyond my limited personal experience), Wei Houkai, a researcher, told the Beijing Times in August 2012 that large numbers of farmers who lost their land in the urbanization process hadn’t really blended into the cities, their ways of life and consumption patterns remained retained the rural ways of life and characteristics, and their degree of urbanization was low. That would suggest that there’s some truth in my personal observeration of rather unelastic responses to urbanization (in former villages).
Urbanization up to now was the easy part. In future, jobs for the “newly urbanized” would need to depend much more heavily on domestic demand than in the past. It remains to be seen if China can switch from export-oriented growth to growth from domestic trade relations, with coastal provinces investing in hinterland provinces and consuming those provinces’ products. As long as that transformation isn’t successful, urbanization will slow sharply – as trendy as it may be among business and political elites.
Further urbanization is the CCP’s goal. It’s neither necessarily the goals who already hold residency in the megacities (for very personal reasons), nor that of every development expert who is looking on. Hu Xiaoping, Zhu Ying, and Te Dangqiao argued in 2011 that labor shortage in agriculture and an aging workforce were problems that went hand in hand in the countryside.
Also, your idyllic view of peasant China being ‘reasonable/calm/steady’ ignores the fact that the three most violent revolutions in China …
Preparedness for rebellion doesn’t mean that people aren’t steady. I doubt that character or folk customs are the main drivers of rebellion anyway. In fact, China, during the rebellions or revolutions you mention, was so rural that an overthrow merely from the city population was hardly conceivable. According to this World Bank notice, China had 69 cities by the end of the 1940s, and 670 in 2008. Even in 1970, the rural population apparently stood at some 82 per cent.
What is usually left out of the account is that the CCP didn’t switch from a “centrally-planned” economy to a “market economy” to create growth / to make people rich, but to avert it’s own fall from power. That’s still the main driver for CCP policies. From an overall perspective, the idea that an urban, interconnected China with a vibrant and nationally unified civil society is an ideal we should all be striving for (this sounds “idyllic” to me, btw) doesn’t make as much sense as propaganda suggests. Unless domestic interprovincial trade allows for that urbanization, and unless China would drop it’s food self-sufficiency (which is an unlikely intention), politics better pay some heed to people like Hu Xiaoping.
No craze is as vital as initially reported.
March 21, 2013 @ 1:53 am | Comment
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By justrecently
Maybe in the question of Chinese countryside I’m too biased to ever evaluate it as it is (in the end I & my parents mainly my mother belong to the group who really want to get out of association with the countryside
It may depend on age and perspective, Cathy. I’m not trying to predict what China will look like in thirty years, but the (rural) place in Germany where I live, many of those who were born here return there when they are 40+. There are a number of factors – looking after older relatives who stayed here, building a house (obviously, buying the square meters here is cheaper than in the city), or inheriting their parents’ or grandparents’ place are all factors.
But changing attitudes play a role, too. When I was young, I didn’t only want to “see the world” – I also wanted to live in a city. By now, that has changed. I do have friends in Bremen, but most friendships have never been as trusting as those with my (rural) classmates and neighbors.
Obviously, this means that I’m commuting. I haven’t reached retirement age yet – not even close.
March 21, 2013 @ 2:06 am | Comment
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By Cathy Liu
T_co,
I am a strong critic of Mao. The only reason why I have nothing about China on my college transcript is that the China hand in our school (a very small liberal arts college) is a huge fan of him and believes that Cultural Revolution is 90% correct. I cannot bear getting into the same classroom with such an individual. What I think is problematic with the Chinese liberal community is that many people fall for the trap set their by their nationalistic and conservative counterparts as to try to discredit Mao as much as they/we can. It doesn’t work. Whatever we have at the moment doesn’t reach a vast segment of the Chinese population, especially in un/underdeveloped areas. Bright kids there still depend on CCP’s scholarship for their education. I’ve been classmates with many of them.
What’s wrong with exposing someone to a life they have next to no hope of ever living? I think this question answers itself…I see similar, though comparative rather pale dynamics in Chinese students from lower-middle class in the US & the UK. Many of us want to stay because of the life here, but the labour market & immigration law is unfriendly enough to keep the vast majority of us out.
March 21, 2013 @ 4:03 am | Comment
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By Cathy Liu
And yes, I am studying in the US at the moment, though about to relocate to Poland rather soon after graduation to get my (first) masters.
JR,
I wasn’t born in the countryside. Rather, I was born & raised in a small city that had/has a some rural migrants coming in. The situation changed dramatically after the 5.12 earthquake, because many of such migrants and a lot of others who never migrated now have to settle here.
As my own personal identity, my mother’s effort of distancing me with the countryside clearly worked. I have quite a few countryside friends, but we all know we are from different backgrounds, and I’m in the Chinese sense a small city person. Probably a good suburb in one of the sea-side towns in England (like Brighton) will work for me, before the rising sea-levels destroy the beauty of it in the next couple hundred years for the unlucky descendents of my family (if I somehow get to have one, that is)…
March 21, 2013 @ 4:23 am | Comment
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By Cathy Liu
BTW, I hate to bring this up but I indeed see a clear gender gap in the migrant/immigrant community, with the women (if they made the decision to leave on their own, instead of simply following parents/boyfriend/husband) much more determined to make it in the outside world, and the men wanting to return. I also suspect that this tendency is stronger in places which gender stereotype & labour market sex discrimination are stronger. Though don’t know much about Germany, I guess it is better than China in both of these.
March 21, 2013 @ 4:33 am | Comment
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By t_co
lol there are still people like that? Oh well tenure wins I guess >.>
I don’t see any problem with that. I mean, if they don’t get exposure through people they meet, they’ll get exposure through the internet or TV or print, and I’d much rather they meet real people to figure that out rather than develop a sense of mute jealousy through one-way media.
Totally get you here, I dated people who got fucked by the visa regime in the US/UK, but I don’t think it engendered any sort of fucked-up sense of resentment. Things in China are good enough for them that they’re still making decent wages and enjoying life.
March 21, 2013 @ 12:39 pm | Comment
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By Mike Goldthorpe
“Many of us want to stay because of the life here, but the labour market & immigration law is unfriendly enough to keep the vast majority of us out.”
Governments have to tread a fine line here, especially when times are, apparently, difficult (especially for us middle class cash cows). Read the article below – and I can safely say it’s not a whitey hating Asian issue – many Chinese here think there’s too many Chinese coming over, it seems.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/education/news/article.cfm?c_id=35&objectid=10872597
March 22, 2013 @ 5:26 am | Comment
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By Cathy Liu
I personally have heard of almost all the arguments against immigration and more often outsourcing that I’ll pass reading the link. Never thought it as a race question, but in all honesty cannot say I liked it when Congressman saying in my face that “Chinese take our jobs” and work supervisor telling me that “our kids cannot compete with people like you”, looking intensely worrisome. Both times said silently, but I can be your ally, not competition, you are choosing to make me one.
My mother said similar things about countryside people coming in the cities when I was growing up, and such experience has turned around my opinion on that question a little (I used to agree with her wholeheartedly). Of course I’ve made a U-turn on my opinion towards foreigners in China because of my experience here (from mildly negative to much more acceptable), but that’s another thing altogether.
March 22, 2013 @ 8:52 am | Comment
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By justrecently
Though don’t know much about Germany, I guess it is better than China in both of these.
It probably is – but it is probably worse than in many other European countries. It’s still women who are mainly expected to “take a break” in their careers and to look after the children – as if there was a real way to return to a career after a number of years outside the classical working world.
For that reason, after separation or divorce, it’s also women who tend to be poorer than their former husbands. It would seem that the best way for them to avoid that trap would be to have no children at all.
Obviously, most employers wouldn’t encourage couples to take turns in looking after their children. And given that women usually earn less then men, women are more likely to drop out of the working world.
Gender stereotypes don’t necessarily go away as a country gets richer – and when salaries and wages are stagnating, as they have for most German families in the past decade, they may actually aggravate once again.
March 22, 2013 @ 2:08 pm | Comment
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By Clock
Note from Richard: Clock, due to your recent racist and vile comment I’ve put you in the moderation list and will post no comments from you that are at all offensive and/or derogatory. This is a warning: once more and you are completely banned.
Below is Clock’s comment:
As a Chinese living in America, I so admire China’s true democracy
I was watching the National People’s Congress on CCTV (carried through Roku box). Watching the representatives actively discuss issues of bread and butter, issues of education, issues of society – people sitting down together, face to face, shoulder to shoulder.
I suddenly realized: this is true participatory democracy, civil society. If I did not leave China in 1989 for freedamn, I would be able to partake in that democracy too, to enjoy and fufill my privilege and duty as a Chinese citizen. Sigh. Unfortunately I now live in a police state with illusion of democracy.
Now you may say, ‘Chinese national congress is simply a rubber stamp. Otherwise how can you explain the 99% affirmative votes on all passing rate of all legislation proposed?’
How naive a statement. That one makes such statement shows the utter narrow understand of democracy. It shows how limited his vision is, how deep a victim he is of the Western brainwashing.
In China’s political system, all people can raise opposing views, including the enemies of the state. No matter who you are, as long as what you said makes sense, what you proposed is good for the people, then the Chinese communist party will abide. This is not some grand statement made up by me, this is explicitly stated in Mao’s essay “Serving the People”.
However, ‘having a opposing view’ does not equal to ‘casting a NO vote’. Now I see many Western minds are confused.
The way of deciding on a proposing or a candidate can be classified as American style and Chinese style. The American style is to force a vote on a proposal or candidate as soon as one is proposed, without conducting the necessary academic (not academic, not political) discussions and studies. The inevitable result of this style is that there’ll always be many NO votes. But those NO voters usually have not done any serious analysis of the issue, but rather votes no because it hurts their interests, their benefits, even if deep down they know it’s good for the people. For example, a Congressman representing a distrait with massive gun ownership will always vote no to any gun control laws, regardless of what he thinks if such law will be good for the nation as a whole.
The Chinese style is not to rush into voting, but rather take the time to collate opinions from all walks of life, giving people time to conduct serious academic thinking and discussion, and over time evolve the proposal to include comments and opinions of the vast majority of people. So by the time a proposal is officialy put to a vote, that proposal has already included most people’s ideas, and therefore is the most ‘widely represented’ proposal. Of course votes will mostly be YES. All immature proposals who proposals that will hurt a large proportion of society will not be put to a vote.
Therefore, the 99% yes votes on most of China’s proposed legislature is strong evidence of the mass participation of Chinese society. It is evidence that proposing a legislature requires listening to opinions from all stratas of society and inclusive of different ideas. Without such broad inclusiveness and comprehensive discussions, a proposal is not deemed mature enough for voting.
Therefore we can say that all passed legislation, by virtue of the Chinese method, inevitably have gained the massive popular support of the citizenry.
As to American method? American fake democrazy? All you see is shouting matches on TV, of congressman doing political theater to earn ‘points’ at home and a ‘bump’ in the polls. No American politician ever thinks beyond his next election.
As a Chinese living in America, I admire Chinese democracy.
March 24, 2013 @ 11:10 pm | Comment
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By King Tubby
@ Clock. Drivel.
March 25, 2013 @ 4:07 am | Comment
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By Mike Goldthorpe
“My mother said similar things about countryside people coming in the cities when I was growing up…”
And that’s one of the nubs of the matter – it’s what we are told that shape our perceptions.
Regarding the influx of Chinese into the NZ, it is what the media portray that influences our thoughts. The paper article I linked to doesn’t mention anything about the South African influx (so much so that a suburb near me, Brown’s Bay, is commonly referred to as Brownsberg 🙂 ) or the influx of Britons here (like, ahem, me).
It’s a fine line for governments to tread, like I said. Here the government is elected and the press is free – sometimes the editor is in favour of the ruling party, sometimes not. What gets printed is a barometer of how much the government is in favour and unfortunately the scapegoats nowadays are…the Chinese.
Not sure who the whipping boys are back in the UK – Pakistanis, of course, but also Poles, Bulgarians and Romanians from what I read.
Going back to the line I highlighted – made me smile. That’s what my wife says about her hometown – all these foreigners coming in and “they can’t even speak the local language” 🙂 Feeling is high enough that she’ll only speak the local language to everyone. She then has to admit that her parents aren’t originally from there….they’re from a bit further inland…
Gotta love the “them and us” mentality, eh?
March 25, 2013 @ 5:48 am | Comment
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By ohwhatafeeling
@ clock
Are you into dungeons and dragons?
If so, I think you would be the most amazing dungeon master. Your imagination is seriously a force to be reckoned with. 🙂
March 25, 2013 @ 9:16 pm | Comment
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By narsfweasels
Clock gauges American political trends from conversations with homeless people. ’nuff said.
March 27, 2013 @ 9:11 am | Comment
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By Cathy Liu
@ Mike,
Poles, yes, and South Asians. One of the government documents relating to the “don’t bring in your spouse to the British Isles unless you make more than median wages” idea actually said that they want to prevent the inflow of brides from Pakistan, Bangladesh etc. to poor Brits. They also said that immigrants from Australia (not sure if NZ as well) is too low. (Sorry but I cannot see how this isn’t about race for some people). Currently living in a land that’s quite concerned with paying lip service to political correctness in government documents, I read that document three times to make sure they actually said that.
One of the ideas is that Labour was too far off when estimating the 2004 (Poles etc.) immigration to the UK, and now the Tories and Lib Dems simply refuse to publish any prediction about Bulgarians and Romanians at all…nice gesture…
I think maybe the media doesn’t talk about South Africans and Brits in NZ is influenced (almost subconsciously) by the whole Anglo-sphere idea but that’s just my guess. On the other end, Chinese as the target is not just a “western” thing though. South-eastern Asia isn’t that friendly towards the Chinese community either, and the accusations are not that different from the treatment Jewish people getting from Europeans for ages.
March 27, 2013 @ 11:19 pm | Comment
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By EM
One almost has to wonder if the hard fought advantages won for children of succeeding generations are poisoned gifts, for very few (in my generation – 1960s) truly understood the poverty of our parents (The Great Depression). It was only after the death of my father that I discovered his childhood photos: My father as a 5 year old, shoeless, in rags (but smiling), walking on a dirt road. He would have killed me for dressing like this. Perhaps it is the fault of the parents who feel that lecturing their children on their own deprivations is not fair to them and boring to themselves. How odd the human spirit is in its transfer of wisdom. EM / PARIS, FRANCE
April 9, 2013 @ 7:12 pm | Comment