When I am abroad, I am deeply shocked by the huge difference in living standard between different countries. Westerns think the life expenditure here is low, so they enjoy their lives as much as they like. However, we Chinese can’t do. The high expenditure always forces me to care too much about everything only in order to save my little money.
What’s the reason of such a disparity? This may be due to the difference in countries’ productivity. It is common that people from developed countries usually enjoy high standard lives because these countries have high abilities to produce goods and services. There is also a wonder about Korea since it now becomes so modern and rich that even Korean people could not expect just a few years ago. To see why this great change happens, the answer is quite simple. It only spends 10 years for Korea’s productivity to double itself, and as a result, Korean people’s income consequently improves a lot at a high rate.
It is said that China also has a big potential to improve its economy since its GDP increases very fast and more and more foreign companies are taking more attention to this once ever poor country. Some just impute their unrichness on the huge population of China. However, this may not be true. In my opinion, China’s growing up, in most proportions, does depend on its huge population and therefore the huge market it makes. It does not rely on the improvement of productivity, which it may never lead to the essential high standard of life. Suppose if there is not a big population in China one day, what else can attract these foreign countries to invest and why should they continue to make so many efforts to enter this market?
Everyday we just think tall of ourselves without realizing how big gap there is between modern countries and ours, even though we perform low before others. Only when there is a chance for us to see the real world, can we find that there are really a lot of things we should do. Among them, to improve the productivity may be one of the most important and that is also why we talk so much about innovation today.
需要我们给你寄水么？只要8块人民币一桶哦~~
large population IS an overwhelming barrier in the process of china’s development today and will be the biggest soon enough. what u said is partly right about the huge market this factor brings about. havin’ said that, the positive facet currently in a relatively predominant position is because we are still in the initial developing status right now. when it reaches the state of saturation, this problem will surely become so conspicuous that china’s economy will be reduced to a coma.
it’s an inevitable contradiction. and we have to deal with it.
Not really, the so-called saturation is, to some extent, due to the productivity one limited by the contemporary technology, but not population. Note that productivity is the amount of goods and services produced from each hour of a worker’s time, adequate labor will lead to a high productivity. However, in China the fact is we have adequate labor but low productivity, which is the main barrier for China’s economy.
u missed my point. the saturation I referred to results from the unbalance of population and resources. just like u got a large quantity of water, u also need a container big enough to hold it. true that we have vast productivity and tremendous labor and I believe without a doubt it will bring us a great fortune to consolidate our economic system. however, the oil we got is limited, the place we live in is limited, the water we drink is limited. at the end of the day, it’s all about the resources, which will definately control the economy. this problem has already started to emerge through the rapid development these days.
and that’s just one little aspect of the problem. the instantaneous success brought by the material development after the deployment of the reform and open-up policy has obscured the importance of the ideological development. with the world’s largest number of population, we literally at a low level when it comes to the qualities, not to mention the skyhigh rate of illiteracies and one of the worst educational systems on the planet.
we just have too much issues to cope with. and they can’t be done in a short term. some cannot even in this century.
非常认真的阅读了您的文章,其实很简单的一个道理:
你有十万块,你可以分给2个人,每人伍万块,然后他们可以用伍块来做基础,买一个小厂房..
但是你分给一百个人,每人只有一千,他们的吃住还未能搞定,还要你去供养,打点小散工做起….
同时一个新国家和一个旧国家的明显区别在于旧国家还有许多历史残留下来的问题,这里也有一个比喻:
我们公司有一台打印机,是五年前最新款,快伍仟买回来现在经常卡纸,经常没炭粉,一分钟几十张,但是还是要凑合着用.
但是旁边新开的部门用最新款的全自动四合一,两千多块,又快又清晰…..
儿子看到一辆很时髦的车，随口说了一句，开这车的肯定是没有文化的
父亲听到以后说，说这话的肯定是没有志向的
其实我们都在不经意间流露出对人世间的不满
但是更重要的不是去指正，而是去改造
To Steven:
I know what you meant, but it’s not the point I want to talk about. Actually,it is LOW productivity (not VAST as you said) that becomes one of the main barriers for China’s economy. Huge population doesn’t lead to high productivity, that’s my real point. What’s more, low productivity will also cause a worthless waste of resources. As you mentioned, it must be a big problem in the near future.
Moreover, I cannot totally agree with you about our education. Although Yang Zhenning’s compliment on Chinese education sounds ridiculous, our education doesn’t seems to be as bad as you said. When compared to others’ education systems carefully, you will find there ARE really some advantages in ours. But one big problem is that our education emphasizes too much on impartment but is lacking in innovation. It is not just the one of education, but a warp of value in our whole society. As mentioned, I just think innovation as a key to the conflict between huge population and low productivity.
To 风筝,
我很同意你的关于新旧国家的观点，其实这就好像是对原本破旧的房子修修补补，还是将一切推倒重来。虽然大多数人会认同推倒重来，毕竟这才是彻底改造的最行之有效的方法，不过如果认真考虑的话，我认为这种方式的可行性其实是微乎其微的。在我看来，这就是当前中国面临的问题。有时候我在想，古代中国如此强盛，用现在的观点来看也许未必是一件好事，毕竟真是当时西方世界脆弱的社会体系才使得现代文明更容易生根发芽。
innovation, u said it! I couldn’t agree more it’s the key. that’s why I said it’s one of the worst educational systems. it makes us take everything for granted. no creativity, no innovation. thanx to this system we can astonish the americans by getting even higher scores than they do in GRE test. so what? it won’t change the fact we are nowhere to see when it comes to something practical. pathetic… just take a look at our university and u tell me should we happily comply with this system?
Believe or not, our education system is not as bad as you think. No innovation, no creativity, they are the serious problems of ours, but they are not all. See that there are also many advantages in our education, such as we can deal with mathmatics problems much better than westerns. Don’t try to tell me that is useless, even the western people won’t agree. Also, you may think our mathmatics skills are based on doing a lot of problems but cannot be put into practice. This is true, but I don’t think it’s only the problem of education. Only God no can promise us everything, but not education. When we gain the skills from learning, it is our business to put them into practice. Please ask yourselves, have you ever tried it before you begin to complain about our education system? If you have time, do you even think about practising your learning to solve real problems or just spend these spare time playing games? No active learning by students, how can we achieve innovation!?
What’s more, you refered to the education in SJTU, then let’s take a look at it. Not all the professors are good, right? Some of them never pay attaintion to their teaching services. But please see something on the other side, most of us complain about the learning too much, as some of them may be not related to our majors. But have these complainers ever think even a little more? How can they promise these knowledges never be useful when they go to work? Also, even though they weren’t familiar with what they learnt and got low marks, they would also found execuse that it was education’s fault, not theirs. Do you think all of these problems should only be imputed to education system? Today’s education problem cannot be simply come down to simple one or anothor, but does result from every aspects—students, teachers, education system and society as well.
“This is true, but I don’t think it’s only the problem of education.”
did I blame all on our educational system? I don’t think I did. my point is this system’s the main reason for our lack of creativity, innovation, flexibility. like u said about the mathematics thing, that’s because of the fierce competition we have to go through from the society. and again, what’s the reason for this? it’s the huge population. so it’s simply a vicious cycle. more disputes on it can only culminate in vain.
“Please ask yourselves, have you ever tried it before you begin to complain about our education system?”
u just proved my point. ok. I have no problem if u count me in those students who are just cynical and make ourselves incapable on our own. but the truth of the matter is, it’s not just me or a few people. it’s a common problem the whole country’s people have right now. according to ur theory, that means the major portion of the chinese people make themselves lack of innovation on their own. if that’s the case, then could u tell me what caused this common phenomenon?
“Today’s education problem cannot be simply come down to simple one or anothor, but does result from every aspects—students, teachers, education system and society as well.”
totally right. many different kinds of factors have impacts on the system. but that doesn’t contradict my point cuz ultimately it’s by the educational system that these so-called the other factors influence us.
last but certainly not least, let me clear one thing up for myself. all my remarks here seemingly make me a mere complainer. but actually I’m not. I just wanna make it what it really is. I admit our educational system is not purely trashy, there’s something which deserves to be commended but unfortunately, we can’t be optimistic.
I am sorry maybe you misunderstood me. When I used the word “you”, it didn’t refer to anyone, including you. What I talked about is a phenomenon, not any individual. It was just used as a pronoun. Anyway, I am agree with most of you said, and what we all hope is China’s rise, which is most important!
u don’t need to apologize, dude. cuz in fact I do fit the category u mentioned.
and yes just like I said initially china has a lot of problems to cope with. and these tasks cannot be accomplished by other than us.