Translated…
Last week I was invited to lecture at a corporation out of town, as the function was over, it was, already, late in the night, the sponsors called up a cab for me, and the driver was really kind, as he’d started chit-chatting, he’d started ranting on and on, and, in his ranting, I’d sensed, some of the stuffed up thoughts that he was feeling and carrying about him, “The younger generations in Taiwan really DO lack that competitive edge, as my son arrived home, all he did was, sliding on his cell phone, I’d heard, that the Japanese would read a book on the commute to and from work, but the Taiwanese population are only, focused on their cell phones on the public transportation systems.”
I think, this, may be, from a father, who was, longing for the company of his own children, sharing what he understood: most of the Japanese population would commute for one, two hours to work, and, they, reading on the ride over to work and home, had been a culture that started very long ago; and looking at the scenes on the MRT here, the commute is half an hour at the longest, and so, there would be, more who are sorting through the information on the cell phones. And, based off of my observations as I’d gone to Europe, there are, passengers from ALL the nations, who were, sliding on their cell phones, in other words, the number of people reading on their commute in Japan is a lot higher, compare to other countries.
“Then, is Europe really like the programs on television, as the night draws in, every single shop closes? Don’t they need to put in the overtime, to help out the family?”, the driver started asking me.
It’s a really good question, I’d told him that the cities I’d traveled to in Europe, many of them had shops that opened late, but, a lot of them are owned by Asians, or Indians. Then, we’d gotten to talk on the differences of family values east versus the west, I’d shared with him my understanding, “I think, that a lot of the European parents believed, that the way they show their love to their young is by spending more time with them. But, examining the goings-on here, the parents of our society seemed to believe, that loving children more, they’d needed to, put in more hours of work, to make the money, to provide the kids with better materialist wealth, and so, a lot of the parents are, kept by work, and failed to set up a strong basis of connection with their young, and once the parents and children became estranged, as the kids grow older, they’d rarely, thought about their parents.”
The driver fell silent for a bit, perhaps, he was, contemplating on how to balance between “giving his kids better materials” and “spending more time to accompany them as they age”.
Actually, not only in Europe, as I’d traveled to Salvador in Central America, I’d stayed at a local family’s place, their youngest daughter was turning fifteen, and the entire family told me with excitement, that turning fifteen for young girls is something major, that the three-generation family was looking forward to her quincenera very much. Not just her parents, her grandparents, even older brother were all, very enthusiastic about how to celebrate the occasion for the young girl, and the younger sister had that look of bliss that overcome her face. As the sales department manager, the man of the house told me proudly, “Although I get very busy at work, but my boss can only afford the time I’m at the office, and after work and the weekends are saved, for my families, so long as I make enough, for all of us to get by.”, this family had, left a deep impression on me, and I’d found, that there were, a differences of values, beliefs, and opinions on how to love one’s own young in various nations too.
Because the eastern cultures believed that providing the money for the kids’ education, sending them abroad for their studies, giving them a TON of materialistic CRAP is the way of showing love to their young, that, is why the society here is messed up, whereas in Salvador, that the writer visited, the culture there stressed more on the values of the family, so, the people there, would naturally, focus on spending MORE time with their families, and that, would be the BETTER value system that they have over there, compared to what we have here, in the Eastern side of the world!
Life, the Obstacle Course 