I understand 100%. I feel that way about a lot of things I try in life =)
How are you doing now?
By the way, I just watched a documentary about this kind of thing happening in China [1]. One American version of that story is a documentary named College, Inc [2]
Good Sharing. I come from a tier 1 city in China. The struggle people in [1] have seems very distant to me. I think they are good people, but they are just too naive to think they could get decent office jobs with such low grades. (At 5:37, it mentioned the girl only got 388 points for National Entrance Exam. It was terrible.) They might be better suited for a blue collar job or a service sector job (waiter/waitress etc). Those jobs might just pay much better.
And yes, I probably have better resources than those unfortunate. But guess who had paid the price? My great grandparents. They came to tier 1 city in 1900s, lived a hard life and did low skilled work like ironing cloth so that my grandparents could settle in city. The kid at 45:47 whining about how things were unfair to him was just making me sick.
Your story reminds me of how Americans view international students who enter American schools with minimal ability to speak English. We wonder what they are doing there.
I have an idea about why you did not find a job in America.. consider,
Many international students cheat on the SAT to either (a) get into good schools or (b) get good grades at those schools [1]. Employers filter resume/CV's based on good schools and good grades.
When an employer identifies that he/she has interviewed or hired someone who is not as good as their resume/CV indicates, the employer looks for a pattern. In short, H-1B's become risky hires for smaller businesses who don't have the time to sift through many CV's.
The rampant cheating in [1] hurts your chances of landing an interview, and it may also have an impact on the number of H-1B's set by the government. If existing H-1B holders are not measurably adding enough value to the American GDP, then there's no reason to increase the number given out.
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> And yes, I probably have better resources than those unfortunate.
Right, exactly. There's nobody to tell the mother that this new school is probably not worth the money they're paying for it
> But guess who had paid the price? My great grandparents.
No doubt your ancestors worked hard. That was 100 years ago. Times have changed and we are better off focusing on today.
I suggest the following is always true:
Society is about more than helping just your family. Society is protection and support for a larger group so you can enjoy friends and relationships outside your family in relative safety. Some tax money goes to military and police who maintain order and prevent crime. Some taxes go towards educating the poor.
When a society focuses more on police and less on education, the poor stay poor. If the poor stay poor for too long, they believe less in themselves and become less productive members of society.
Education and police are more efficient when in balance. The poor manufacture everything. People need each other, and the rich need the poor as much as the poor need the rich.
> I have an idea about why you did not find a job in America.. consider,
I worked as a programmer in States for 2 years. I decided to go back on my own will.
> If existing H-1B holders are not measurably adding enough value to the American GDP, then there's no reason to increase the number given out.
And I am not complaining the number of H1-B visa. In fact, I think the current policy works okay.
What I was suggesting was that people cheated their way out of U.S. colleges would most likely spend zero effort looking for jobs in States. Their goal was to get the degree so that their parents could have reasons to put them in some position back in home.
All in all, both group (kids in [1] and kids in the article) were doing very poorly academically in China. And all their struggles wouldn't be such a big deal if they just learn their places in the society.
> I worked as a programmer in States for 2 years. I decided to go back on my own will.
> And I am not complaining the number of H1-B visa. In fact, I think the current policy works okay.
Oh okay, I understand now.
> What I was suggesting was that people cheated their way out of U.S. colleges would most likely spend zero effort looking for jobs in States. Their goal was to get the degree so that their parents could have reasons to put them in some position back in home.
Perhaps. You have better insight into what might be going through minds of Chinese students than I do.
> All in all, both group (kids in [1] and kids in the article) were doing very poorly academically in China. And all their struggles wouldn't be such a big deal if they just learn their places in the society.
You already noted you had better resources and therefore have an advantage at learning something that lands you an office job.
Assigning people to be poor forever is not a society in which I would like to live. This breeds more unproductive members of society. The rich pretend to ignore the poor, and vice versa. They don't communicate well. I support bettering communications between people, not worsening them. Countries like Germany, Finland, Norway and Sweden accept and support the poor.
So does China, for that matter. I have to believe some poor Chinese students do find success through public schools when given the right support. If the CPC believed the poor were only worth manual labor, they wouldn't provide education through high school. You don't need that much classroom training to move objects. Nor would they introduce programs like social workers who focus on poverty.
The question is, how much support do you want to provide to the poor, and what kind of future do you envision for China? Is it the same as it is today? Then fine, make no changes. But, if you wish for something better, I wonder if you're open to the idea that supporting the poor can bring about further economic growth. Building giant unoccupied buildings in China isn't helping you produce more GDP. Supporting and educating the poor would enable them to add more to GDP.
You could visit Europe, which has more social welfare programs, and ask yourself whether you would like to see any of those programs implemented in China. Perhaps you like China just the way it is in 2016. Or maybe you have another idea for how to improve your community or society.
