I love Chinese people. I've lived in China for about two years, and speak Mandarin like a 5-year-old or so. I'm in awe of their construction projects, their facility with electronics and software, their can-do attitude, their kindness, etc. They are clearly very strong and getting stronger.
But I don't think it will be a clear case of China surpassing everyone else, at least not in everything. In my opinion, one area of weakness is education. In the US, I more often see children being raised with relatively high degrees of freedom, in ways that instill lifelong curiosity, love of learning, and self-motivated study. Education in China is much more often characterized by extreme stress and credentialism.
In my life I hope to play a very small part in building bridges between China and the US, sharing ideas. I hope we will gradually stop seeing it as a competition, start seeing it as cooperative, and no one will be concerned about who is surpassing whom, at least not on an ethnic level.
I love Chinese people. I've lived in China for about two years, and speak Mandarin like a 5-year-old or so. I'm in awe of their construction projects, their facility with electronics and software, their can-do attitude, their kindness, etc. They are clearly very strong and getting stronger.
But I don't think it will be a clear case of China surpassing everyone else, at least not in everything. In my opinion, one area of weakness is education. In the US, I more often see children being raised with relatively high degrees of freedom, in ways that instill lifelong curiosity, love of learning, and self-motivated study. Education in China is much more often characterized by extreme stress and credentialism.
In my life I hope to play a very small part in building bridges between China and the US, sharing ideas. I hope we will gradually stop seeing it as a competition, start seeing it as cooperative, and no one will be concerned about who is surpassing whom, at least not on an ethnic level.