| Noah930 |
12-17-2009 01:55 PM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by jluetjen
(Post 5072487)
3) Education is important, primarily because it leads to money, but also because it earns respect from people. Scholars are always respected in the Chinese culture.
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Pretty good understanding, for a gwai-lo. ;)
Education is important, because that's one of the fairly consistent ways you can earn a good living, in America. When you're immigrant Chinese (or most any other immigrant), you don't have a lot going for you. You don't have money. You don't have connections. You don't have parents that can get you cushy jobs.
So if you want to "make it," a fairly solid way of doing so is to become educated to allow you the opportunity to get a job that pays well. That's one reason why medicine is highly regarded in Chinese-American (and most Asian-American) culture. In the sciences, if you are smart enough and study hard, you can do fairly well. A lot of advancement is based upon knowledge and accomplishment, as opposed to connections or how slick you can sell yourself. And lacking English fluency is less of a hindrance in the sciences than in other fields.
Education is something that you, yourself, master--as opposed to something that gets determined by people and circumstances out of your control. (To a certain degree.)
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