That change would be a good start. I enjoyed the article very much, but not at all because I thought it gave a balanced "Chinese perspective" on the Western elite. It read it as a story about a smart Chinese guy who was very focused on success in a narrow career track offering reflections about his awareness of limited experience. The part about the heart rate monitoring of his feelings serves as a good example... this is not a "Chinese" thing to do or even an elite Chinese thing. This guy is different ️.

Also relevant is that fact that the article contains that statement, "I am the child of modest workers".

> Yet I had to do it every day. At the end-of-year exam, I scored second from the bottom of the class—the same place where I began in first grade. But this time it was much harder to accept, after the glory I had enjoyed just one year earlier and the huge amount of effort I had put into studying this year. Finally, I threw in the towel, and asked my parents to send me abroad. Anywhere else on this earth would surely be better.

Given his academic performance in his high school, it's unlikely he got a scholarship to a leading UK private high school (Hurtwood House checking his Linkedin). Parents who can afford to send their kid to an overseas high school that charges $40k/year are not modest by Developed country standards, much less Chinese, and even less so Hebeinese.

He doesn't say his parents were poor or blue-collar workers, he compares himself to a child of aristocrat. Context is everything.

> He was a child of aristocrats; I am the child of modest workers.

When a one-digit millionaire compares himself to a billionaire like Bill Gates, using "modest" to describe one's wealth would be appropriate in this context.

Child of “modest workers” in a communist country can have different meaning. Maybe they’re party elites? We don’t know. Something just doesn’t add up though.

In another article he writes: "In China, where I was born, there are a lot of people who work much harder but could not enjoy similar results. The difference is that I was lucky enough to have had the chance to move abroad at a young age, thanks my parents. In other words, as Warren Buffett said, a large part of life is the lottery at birth."

http://www.economist.com/whichmba/mba-diary-standing-oration

He's using the word "modest" to mean "not particularly prestigious" as opposed to "poor".

Wonder if Hurtwood House knew the truth that he was second from the bottom or do they just take in anybody with money.

Why would they turn someone away with a pile of money?

I wouldn't blame the author for this. I have a similar background in many ways. It took me a long time and a good deal of luck to realize that I am not the child of modest workers.

That's true certainly in my teens I wouldn't have thought that though I do come from a middle class back ground as would those went to public school instead of a comprehensive.

I suppose it started to dawn on me when mum commented that if we had stayed in Birmingham they would have used my Grandfather (a headmaster) to try and pull strings to get me into Kings Edwards, BTW this is "the" King Edwards (JRR Tolkien's alma mata) that takes turn with the Oratory for the top school in the country.

I agree, these judgements can only ever be made relative to one's own perspective. It's important not to take at face value someone else's notion of "modest worker", and even more important not to take your own notion at face value either.

I think the upper class/elite in China are pretty isolated from the rest of the people, and really don't realize how bad a lot of their countrymen have it.

A good friend of mine is from Chengdu and for most of his life he thought he was just average - a guy whose parents sent him to the US for high school, pay ~30,000CAD/semester in tuition, bought him an X3 for his first car, etc.

Not to mention that china probably has internal differences than any other places.

The biggest expensive cities are in league with NYC/SF/London, but there is still a large countryside that is "modest" and vast unpopulated area with noone or villages that are decades behind.

But were they Party members. And if yes, how high up?

I agree with your statement, but if you turn around that logic, it is meaningless. Will you read about a blue collar worker's view on Chinese society? Probably not, since they are unlikely to have experienced it. Only Western elites will have been likely to experience Chinese society. Obviously someone who will be published in a magazine is elite. I am willing to wager than all the other writers are 'elites' in some way. As societies, we don't really want to read about some Cantonese kid working after school at his parents restaurant for 6 hours a day. We want to see success! That is why we tunnel so heavily on Cambridge, Stanford, and Goldman Sachs. Do you really think he would have been given a voice on this magazine if he was not affiliated with those institutions?

> We want to see success!

We do, but this success is presented as if coming from an average Chinese experience. But it's very much not so. A lot of success to him came not just from pure hard work but because his family could afford to have "plan B" of sending him abroad.

Like someone here on HN said it, it is not that the elites don't fail, they do, but after each failure they can just keep trying until they succeed.

> Will you read about a blue collar worker's view on Chinese society?

I would love to actually. What would an American welder think about China or, maybe what they would think about how Chinese welders work and vice-versa.

> As societies, we don't really want to read about some Cantonese kid working after school at his parents restaurant for 6 hours a day.

No, but they would love to read about the Cantonese kid working after school and then based on his hard work end up at GS.

The bottom line is growing in up in a family like it doesn't matter what country or culture you come from you already won the lottery. You can live in Venezuela or Africa and still take weekend flight to shop in New York. Your perspective is already very different.

I am the child of modest workers (my dad didn’t even have a bachelor degree) and have even experienced bankruptcy as a pre teen. I’m definitely not a western elite by background, but was able to experience Chinese society. Heck, there is a whole stereotype, not completely unjustified, of western losers coming to China to make a long term living as rockstar English teachers.

There used to be a British acronym FILTH Failed in London, Try Hong Kong :-)

I am using a throwaway for obvious reasons. But having been to both HK and Shanghai, I can say there is a world of difference between Westerners in both cities. The ones in HK working in finance at least have a college degree. They know how to behave in a proper surrounding. The ones I met in Shanghai are almost all trailer trash that have nowhere else to go. The filth coming out their mouths is astounding. You can see why a lot of Chinese people don't like them: egotistical and cynical. They also have chip on their shoulders. That's when you know how a person is brought up truly matters.

Most of the foreigners I knew in Beijing had PhDs like myself, some just had master degrees. But then I was working in a research lab. I heard of the English teachers but never met them before.

The thing about foreigners in mainland China vs. Hong Kong, there just aren’t that many at all. Maybe shanghai has the most, but even then it is less than 100k, a drop in the bucket compared to Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, or even Bangkok.

"Most of the foreigners I knew in Beijing had PhDs". Speaking of research, you are illustrating self-selection bias and small sample size fallacy in your argument. A small group of friends do not represent the whole. You shoudn't downvote people just because their opinion differs from yours.

Of course it was, but then again there are so few foreigners in Beijing that small sample size bias is inevitable.

Also, haven’t downvotes anyone on this thread.

Seems like you are choosing to downvote people that do not agree with you. I prefer to argue with logic and not downvotes. Its very unfortunate. Good day, Mr. Mcdirmid.

The software of HN forbid to downvote the replies to a comment that a user has made, so seanmcdirmid was not able to downvote you. Someone else had to downvoted your comments.

[In case you are wondering, I didn't downvote you neither.]

[Also, complains about downvotes and accusations of downvotes are good methods to get more downvotes. See https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ]

I didn’t downvote anyone.

Heard this a lot in investment banking. Definitely "used to be" as these days you're unlikely to make it in Hong Kong either.

The friends I know who tried to get into either say it's as hard to join HK as London. They are both super competitive.

Well, they could try Shanghai.

The main offices are usually in NYC, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore. I don't think that Shanghai is an option.

There is some investment and finance going on in shanghai these days. It isn’t world-class, but everyone wants to be there to learn and look to the future. Kind of like how HK and Singapore were 40-50 years ago.

I thought this BBC article about present day "blue collar" Chinese experience rang true. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-dd0e6fd5-12fc-4a4a-a...

From what I hear its now plan A to send your kids to British public and American private Schools as well as for the Russian elites.

Its what I have been told happens in my home towns Public schools - one of Barack Obamas roomies at Harvard came from one of them.

As suggested a in the UK Public School is what an American would call a private one ie one where rich people send there kids

If you are from the UK, you should probably clarify what you mean by a "Public school" since a reader from the US probably interprets that differently than what you mean.

Well its simple. I, personally went to two public schools, both of which were in the private school sector.

No, it isn't obvious. In the UK the prefix public and private are both synonymous for "fee paying" for schools.

I went to a prep. school (9 to 13) and a public school (13+) after that. Both of which would be described as private schools.

Yup. A huge number of rich foreigners send their children to UK fee paying schools. Lots of Middle-Eastern, Russian and Chinese. Something like 15% of current world leaders were educated in the UK.

Certainly caused some mumblings about the general character of some of the most prestigious institutions like Eton. It would be easy to put that simply down to xenophobia but there is a relative difference between the established culture and the new. British aristocratic elites are generally (and of course this is all relative) far poorer than the children of Oligarchs and party officials. Generally the attitude of the aristocratic Brits is to keep their head down and not be flashy, whereas some of their classmates literally have a private jet for their use on weekends.

Yes - the big surprise of the sudden high score in the high school test made me smile as well.