Interview 2: The Chinese Mindset.

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One afternoon class, I was discussing the UK university system with one of my teachers and explaining how students can receive loans or grants if they come from poorer family backgrounds to help improve equal access to higher education. She was quite amazed by it, so I asked her what she was thinking...
                She said that she couldn’t believe that European governments grant money to families as she thinks it affects people’s mindsets and how they approach problems. She believes that the reason China has experienced, and is experiencing, such fast growth compared to European countries is due to the Chinese mindset: if you want something, it’s up to your hard work to get it. She thinks that granting money to citizens means they have less motivation to work hard and reduces their ability to solve problems on their own, as they rely on the government to help them. Because this kind of system doesn’t exist in China being a developing country, people have no option but to work hard to get what they want in life, which means working hard at school, having a part time job, helping parents out, borrowing money from family members if need be and learning how to essentially solve problems by yourself.
                This is the case for everybody in China, so every person as an individual therefore works hard and has a greater productivity. Because every single person has this mindset, the output of China as a whole is much greater according to her. She puts this hard-working Chinese mindset down as the main factor for China’s fast economic growth compared to European countries.
                I explained that this was the case for my grandparent’s generation when the UK was still ‘developing’, so asked if she thought that in 30 years’ time or so when China has become a ‘developed’ country and gone through the development cycle, this mindset would change too. She said that she could see changes in the younger Chinese generation’s mindset already as they spend money on expensive brands and labels that aren’t necessary and feels that the new generation doesn’t value money or hard work as much.
              I thought a lot about this conversation on the metro home and over the last few weeks. It was a conversation that made me reflect on my own ambitions and responsibility for achieving them. The whole concept also made me realise how much difference every single person could make to make a much larger change in the world.

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Interview 4: Perceptions on Beauty and Expression through Fashion.
 

Whilst standing on the side of the road fiddling about with my camera a couple of months ago, someone suddenly shouted out “you’re beautiful, I really like your eyes!” even though when I turned around I was about 10m away from them, so they had clearly never seen my eyes before. I saw a Chinese guy probably in his early 20’s with a white Mohican, wearing a black vest and with multiple piercings on his ears. I said “thank you, but I don’t think you’ve seen my eyes!” He, quite sadly, responded “yes, but your eyes aren’t Chinese brown eyes, so that makes them beautiful!” I argued that no it didn’t. Everyone always seems to want what they don’t have. A lot of Chinese people seem to be fascinated by those with pale skin, non-black hair and/or non-brown eyes, whereas Europeans tend to prefer having darker/tanned skin, like the Chinese have. How that works I will never understand.
                I was quite taken aback at how good his English was, so asked how he’d learnt and he responded quite simply - “Lady Gaga.” I thought I’d misheard and must have looked quite blank, so he continued to explain how he’s one of her biggest fans and follows a lot of what she does. He knew quite a lot about Lady Gaga, so I asked if he’d ever seen her perform live, at which point he looked quite sad and said that she can’t come to China. The government doesn’t agree with her way of thinking or meeting with the Dalai Lama, so she is currently banned from visiting. He continued to explain that he really liked what she represented, how she expresses herself through her image, fashion and her confidence. However, he felt like he couldn’t always be who he wanted to be in China because of certain elements of the Chinese mindset and the way that people looked at him and his unique image. He said that Lady Gaga helps him have more self-belief and helps him follow his goals.