Xuen Tey Week #7 - America’s Real Issue
My mom grew up in Singapore, a city-country in Southeast Asia.
As I grew up, I learned a lot of habits from her. I developed her love for video games, her crafting skills, a little bit of her enthusiasm. However, I never quite understood her decisions when it came to her work.
See, the way she taught me work ethics should be that you should put your all into every project. You should do your best on every assignment, and strive to excel. On the other hand, the media I grew up consuming taught me that putting all your effort into things for others endedbadly. The stories I consumed told of passionate artists who were taken advantage of, people who did their genuine best in their work and succeeded in making their own personal masterpieces, only for someone to swoop in and take their life’s work. Novels told of how it was easier to set expectations low then raise them slightly higher, rather than aim for the stars.
I tend to converse more with my mother nowadays, and that has provided me with intriguing insights into the difference between the Western culture of the United States and the Eastern culture of Singapore.
In the world that I grew up in, in America, children grow up on stories of exploitation. We are taught to not trust the government, to not trust others easily, and are warned about how people will expect more of you if you do more, how people will take advantage of your ability to do better to force you to do everything and shoulder the burden that is meant for many. We need to excel in schools and to outcompete all the others because college applications are competitive. The mere idea of being able to afford to buy a house is a laughable concept. Saving money for retirement is a fever dream when everything is horrendously expensive. Horror stories about how other families kick out their children the moment they turn eighteen and social shame about living with your parents past 20 is widespread.
In the world that my mother describes to me, in the Singapore of my mother’s childhood, children are taught to excel and to collaborate with others. They are taught to do their best, to figure out ways to do things better, to do things in an easier way. Efficiency and quality is prized, and they do not fear exploitation. They don’t feel the pressure of college applications the way we do. The government owns most buildings, and buying an apartment is a simple process. Their citizens even have a part of their pay automatically set aside for retirement. Children are raised with pride, and they can stay with their parents for a long time, for children are meant to care for their parents when they get old.
This dichotomy between the mindset of these nations seems to reveal to me just why America, in recent times, has been falling behind other countries, especially Asian nations. This widening gap has everything to do with the mindset the children of different countries and cultures have been raised with.
Xuen, I like the narrative you’ve written about your mom’s views and your own. This first section of your blog reminds me of the nature versus nurture debate and seeing that you disagree with your mom’s values based on the teachings you gained from your own experiences with media, rather than side with what your mom taught you as you grew up. While you possess the love your mom has for things like video games—the nature aspect—the stories that you yourself read told otherwise against what her work ethic was like and formed your idea of a work ethic—showcasing the effect of your experiences in play and influencing how you are as a person.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I’m a bit surprised by all the stories you’ve read about people’s hard work being exploited! I’ve always thought America spawned tales of rags to riches and that the hardworking American dream was baked into the foundation of this country, like the iconic stories which Horatio Alger wrote during the Gilded Age. Knowing how contemporary times have now exposed the evils of this country and all the corruption that goes on, though, I can see how all the horrors you describe contrast so deeply with Singapore’s ideals. But I wouldn’t go as far to generalize the east as displaying the systems of just the better off countries in Asia. Singapore is definitely a model nation with less corruption than in the West, but there are definitely countries like Vietnam which you can’t ignore when you say America has been falling behind Asian nations. My mother grew up in Vietnam and her childhood is starkly different from your mother’s as she was much, much less fortunate. Vietnam was a broken country and still is, it’s simply covered up a bit better today. And it’s just a bit disheartening to read that you see Singapore as representative of the East Asian experience. Asia itself is a unique, extremely diverse area and even from country to country there are massive disparities in people’s experiences; it’s wrong to simply lump mindsets together like this. But don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy the rawness of America’s own struggles which you’ve written here. It’s nice to see this honesty about the kind of country America welcomes younger generations into.
Xuen, I think this blog is such an important topic to speak about. The way you broached it from a narrative lens helped me understand why this is a topic that is relevant to you as a person. I can relate to you in that I too have observed so many differences in the advice I hear from my parents versus the advice that is considered common here in America. However, I never experienced hearing stories of exploitation when I was younger. I think it is something that is true about America but rather something I grew to learn as I got older; it was never explicitly told to me. It really is interesting to see that cultures can vary so vastly about something that should be universal; hard work in any part of the world should result in reward, not punishment. We hear more stories about successful people having deplorable morals than we do about people who worked their way up to deserve what they have. I think it is especially interesting that you mentioned the stigma around kids living with their parents past 18 because, as you mentioned, it is so heavily looked down upon despite it being a very smart solution for someone who cannot yet support themselves. Overall, I really appreciate you bringing this subject up to discussion and I loved the approachable way you presented it.
ReplyDeleteHi Xuen! I loved your approach on looking at America through comparing it to another country. This really highlighted how much distrust Americans have and how we are an individualist community compared to other countries. The idea of everyone for themselves that the media and society as a whole put into our minds at a very young age seems outrageously bad when compared to the way children are raised to help and support one another in Singapore. I loved the way you effortlessly flipped between how things are done in the US and in Singapore for each paragraph creating a direct comparison for each point. I loved the narrative style you took with this blog and I can’t wait to read your next one!
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