The Chinese Mentality | Coco
Appreciation
7
Importance
7
Date Added
3.26.26
TLDR
The aunt's response about Eileen Gu sums up the point: "That's for exceptional people, not ordinary folks like us," and she says it without bitterness. The deepest move is that Chinese parents don't abandon the hunger for exceptionalism, they just redirect it forward onto their children, which reframes acceptance not as passivity but as a generational bet.
2 Cents
As far as I can tell this actually captures the average Chinese culture pretty well? Which is really impressive.
Tags
Once I described my dreams and goals with my work—how I optimize for learning and impact, for both process and the end goal. My cousin remarked to her boyfriend:
“你看看人家受美国教育的就是不一样。See, someone with an American education really is different.”
The subtext is, this education is great, but we probably won’t be able to get that kind of education in our lifetime. The sub-subtext is, even though we didn’t have that kind of education ourselves, we can give our children that kind of education.
The top comment by Sustainable Views is incredibly interesting as a companion read.