Wednesday, March 05, 2008

the Next Generation in China

Just met J the other day who is a classmate of my wife in Bentley College. She just finished her undergraduate study in Shanghai a year ago and now is in Boston. She is quite a nice girl. But the most interesting things I find from her are some distinguish difference between her generation vs the other such as mine and the others that older than her:

1. She wants back to China as soon as finish study at Bentley. Why? Much easier to find a job and enjoy good friend and good friends are all around. The American dream may mean much less to her generation. It reminds me other Chinese immigrant in Canada who were used to be senior manager or has Ph.D/Master etc degree from China or Canada but choose to work as a labor worker so that they may stay in Canada and meet the requirement of joining Canadian citizenship asap. Will J change later once she has more social burden such as family and kids and feel regret about her decision not staying in the States? I dont know but my gut feeling is much less likely. Why? Because if you are a talent, China can offer you much more than ever before.

2. She just had attended the first event of CSSA (Chinese Student and Scholar Association) at Bentley. She told me she had sing a song and received very good feedback. Someone even took a video shot of it and uploaded to Tudou, the biggest video website in China. Is this expressionism? I guess so. One key thing about expressionism I believe is the self-confidence. No one, or very few, wants to demomonstrate their not-that-great part to the public, right? This also reminds me the KTV experience with my three cousin in my hometown upon my visit last Dec and two years ago in Beijing. My cousins are all in their highschool or university age. They love singing. They want to try the newest song. They don't care how terrible their voice is. They just want to have fun. [idea: KTV manufactures, when would you add feature such as real-time video recording=>automatically DVD burning=>Ringtone generation service in your KTV machine? I doubt if the decisoin-makers of KTV company is really in their 50s, 60s. How they can capture the new opportunity represented by the generation cultural shift?]

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So much fun to read this blog. A lovely girl and typical new generation-brave, confident, outspoken,hoping to live their own way of life.

Social burden is one aspect, but seems more depending on one's character:)