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Sign up with Google Sign up with FacebookQ: How much has living in China caused you to not care about various things i.e. work, life etc
You see people here in their swarms getting by by a thread and not seeming to really care what's going on. There's the whole idea that Chinese morality is at an all-time low, and people just have no motivation to try and achieve somthing in what is just a pure rat race.
How much has this rubbed off on you?
Are you sure they don't care? I would say the opposite is true but most of this goes on behind closed doors. People have no choice but to get on with their life and keep going to their unrewarding jobs day in and day out. Otherwise how will they make ends meet? I'm 100% sure the guy who lugs a 20L barrel of water up 7 flights of stairs numerous times a day in the sauna-like heat would much rather be drinking beer and playing Mahjong with his friends in an air-conditioned room, and I'm sure the house-cleaner would much rather be back in her hometown watching her kids grow up. But they have no choice. It's extremely tough for those people born into the bottom racks of the social order to become a big-shot millionairre. If you come from a poor family with no useful connections, you're pretty much screwed. I think about this often and it makes me depressed. I'm not a big-shot either and probably never will but at least I can live in some comfort. Seeing those 70 year old weather-worn men and women packed on the back of a lorry on the way to a building site always makes my heart sink. It makes me want to help society in someway but at the same time I feel useless.
While i am open to adopting the positive aspects of any culture, i try to maintain my personal integrity at all times. There are some things i will not do, even if everyone else around me is doing it (eg. spitting, cheating etc.). It is not about trying to be 'superior' in any way, it is about being who i am .
sam239:
The people I know who I consider smug would never consider themselves to be smug, actually they think the opposite. So clearly you're not being smug.