Discussion Why is my race (Asians) so obsessed with hard work?

[sserafim]

"You gotta work for success, go work those 15 hours a day shifts with no breaks bro"

"Nothing is life is given, you have to earn it"

"Without hard work there's no reward"

"Hard work beats talent"

"Work hard now, enjoy later"


And many more phrases like that, jfl at thinking you can outrun natural talent and great genetics just with hard work

It's like they can't see all the celebrities and privileged people from our countries or everywhere in the world who didn't drop a single drop of sweat from working hard

 

[KillingPain267]

Because they want to finally surpass the west.

But honestly, I think it's just a meme,and other places have just as much obsession with hard work. Ever heard of "Protestant work ethic"?

 

[sserafim]

I mean, isn't that true? I think talent gives you a running start, but it's hard work that pays off in the end. I'm naturally talented and intelligent (also humble ), doesn't mean anything when not being able to execute it.

Work smarter, not harder. It doesn't matter if you work hard but in the wrong way. That's like not having worked at all

 

[final_countdown12]

Its an old stereotype that doenst make sense, just like that old stereotype related to "japan is #1 ranking in suicide" which is not true. There are at least 6 countries ahead of Japan in terms of suicide (including USA).



stereotype is for ignorant people. High IQ people should be able to reflect, think deeper and check fact to really see if the stereotype is true or not.

asian people work as hard (and are as obsessed) as american or african people.

 

[Throwawayacc3]

Work hard now enjoy later lmao. I've browsed over this but social security is set to run out at the current rate of the US economy/birth rate by 2037. Our parents won't see it but we certainty will. No more pensions!

 

[vak]

Work smarter, not harder. It doesn't matter if you work hard but in the wrong way. That's like not having worked at all

Ah, ok, I see what you mean there. My employee drives me crazy, he's not Asian (well, technically maybe, he's Georgian and it's complex where they belong) and when dealing with a problem, he goes through all the manuals to make sure he does it right, where I can just see the pattern and decide on the spot in a few seconds. Ok, i retract my statement, I get what you mean now.

 

[Pluto]

 

[EvisceratedJester]

It could just be, at least in part, due to leftover Confucian values.

Spoiler

Historically, the Confucian culture of frugality, hard work, and respect for the family is conducive to economic efficiency and productivity

This, according to Chua, is precisely where the Western parents have failed.
"Western parents try to respect their children's individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they're capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits, and inner confidence that no one can ever take away."

The Hard-Working Culture — BRICS Business Magazine

To find the key to understanding China’s economic miracle, one should filter into the Chinese family. Professors Shaomin Li and Sam Ho Park speak about Chinese moms, kids, and other aspects of the world’s most convincing success story.

www.bricsmagazine.com

Confucius discusses the importance of hard work in life in the context of morality; working hard is simply part of being a good person. He adds that putting forth your best effort has personal benefits, so there are reasons for even a selfish person to do so. Hard work will bring you satisfaction—namely, if you always do your best, then you'll be satisfied with your efforts regardless of their outcomes. For example, if you do your best at work and still get laid off, at least you'll know that it wasn't your fault.
On the other hand, if you don't give your best effort, you'll feel unsettled and guilty because you'll know that you could have done more. For instance, if you slack off at work and then get laid off, you'll feel guilty and anxious, wondering if you might have kept your job if you'd just worked harder at it.

Confucius Weighs in on the Importance of Hard Work in Life

Confucius discusses the importance of hard work in life in the context of morality. Learn why working hard is part of being a good person.

www.shortform.com

*The rest of it is hidden behind a paywall, sadly

I'm not Asian (I'm only part south asian on my mom's side but all of her family is from the Caribbean), nor do I have much knowledge on confucianism, but I'm going to take a wild guess here and assume that the amount of pressure put on Asians to work hard and achieve high status is due to them having misconstrued what Confucius was trying to say about hard work. It seems that his message was more along the lines of trying your best, at least based on what the blog claimed, but his message may have gotten misinterpreted over time to mean "work hard, failure isn't an option", with failure being a treated as a sign of moral failings and slacking off.

The past hardships in certain Asian countries, like China, may also have worsened this mentality, with families wanting their children to work hard in order to succeed so that they don't end up going through the hardships they went through growing up. Basically, a good ole case of generational trauma, working to make things worse than they already are. In their minds, they are helping to prepare their children for the future and are setting them up for a good life.

The collectivist culture found in most East and Southeast Asian countries probably doesn't help too much either, since it may contribute to more comparing and may put more pressure on parents to have successful children so that they can keep up a particular image and be better accepted by their peers. When you live in collectivist society, you are thinking more about the group rather than about yourself. Your identity isn't defined by you as the individual, but is instead defined by those around you. Thus, there is more pressure to try and meet certain societal expectations in comparison to what is typically seen in more individualistic societies (of course, there is still social pressures in those societies too. Just not to the extent that is found in collectivist societies). This mixed in with Confucian values likely helps to explain, to some extent, why hard work is of the most importance within many Asian cultures. It's a social expectation derived from Confucianism that everyone is expected to live up to.

Collectivism values personal interdependence. In collectivist cultures, people are more likely to "see themselves as connected to others, define themselves in terms of relationships with others, and see their characteristics as more likely to change across different contexts." A collectivist's sense of self is defined more by who they are with other people, or by their membership in a group. Maintaining social harmony, getting along with others, and meeting social expectations are more important in collectivist cultures.

https://www.afsusa.org/study-abroad/culture-trek/culture-points/culture-points-individualism-and-collectivism/

Now, this should all be taken with a grain of salt. I'm not East or Southeast Asian so this is purely based on some quick research I did and I might be wrong here.

 

[steppingoff]

"you gotta work for success, go work those 15 hours a day shifts with no breaks bro"

"Nothing is life is given, you have to earn it"

"Without hard work there's no reward"

"Hard work beats talent"

"Work hard now, enjoy later"


And many more phrases like that, jfl at thinking you can outrun natural talent and great genetics just with hard work

It's like they can't see all the celebrities and privileged people from our countries or everywhere in the world who didn't drop a single drop of sweat from working hard

Do you feel pressure to choose certain professions over others. Be successful over being happy? Stressed to succeed when you can't

 

[sserafim]

Do you feel pressure to choose certain professions over others. Be successful over being happy? Stressed to succeed when you can't

Yeah. My parents wanted me to be a doctor and they want my sister to be a lawyer. The only acceptable professions are doctor, lawyer or engineer. Life is all about being successful according to Asian culture and people. Being successful gives you money and prestige, I guess, as well as bragging rights for my parents. Asian people are obsessed with how they're perceived by other people and what others think of them. They value their image, reputation and "honor".

My parents are mad at me for being a NEET right now and they view me as a failure. They think that I'm a disappointment. They want me to eventually get a job, conform to NT standards and become a productive member of society. They want to me to succeed when I can't (and also don't want to). I just think that their expectations are annoying and that they're imposing them onto me. They want me to be like everyone else but I am ND due to Asperger's and I can't tolerate as much on my plate.

I also don't want to participate in or contribute to society. I don't like society or other people. Asian people are also obsessed with saving face (preserving dignity) and they feel shame when they're humiliated, like when they're not as good as others or if their children "let them down" like I did. My parents have told people (especially their family friends) that I'm preparing for medical school whenever they ask about me and what I'm doing

 

[Adûnâi]

Why is my race (Asians) so obsessed with hard work?

1. The industrialisation has hit the Sinosphere later - so they're still in the proper, industrial mindset.
2. The hippie liberal woke culture has not hit them, so again, they're still actually active in this reality as opposed to being resigned to their fate like the Westerners are.

Face it, life is slavery, and if people stop, they die - in hunger or conquest. The Americans worked so hard (and in such pristine conditions) that they are still falling down to Earth. When they hit it, they're gonna make a huge "splat".

See my country of the Ukraine - they stopped working in the late USSR, stealing and looting their own heritage. Destroyed their country in 1991. Now they're literally being sacrificed to weird gods in this pseudo-war - because they refused to respect themselves.

My grandma left for Italy in the 1990s and thus I can just rot in my room instead of consuming SN - but she still is obsessed with work as opposed to the rich bourgeoisie (she also supports Kiev, so she's just a golem NPC, but the idea remains - work, work, work because nobody owes you anything (although she apparently owes me a cozy, albeit solitary, life - despite my laziness and uselessness, so go figure)).

 

[steppingoff]

Yes, my parents wanted me to be a doctor and they want my sister to be a lawyer. The only acceptable professions are doctor, lawyer or engineer. Life is all about being successful according to Asian culture and people. Being successful gives you money and prestige, I guess, as well as bragging rights for my parents. Asian people are obsessed with how they're perceived by other people and what others think of them. They value their image, reputation and "honor".

My parents are mad at me for being a NEET right now and they view me as a failure. They think that I'm a disappointment. They want me to eventually get a job, conform to NT standards and become a productive member of society. They want to me to succeed when I can't (and also don't want to). I just think that their expectations are annoying and they're imposing them onto me. They want me to be like everyone else but I am ND due to Asperger's and I can't tolerate as much on my plate.

I also don't want to participate in or contribute to society. I don't like society or other people. Asian people are also obsessed with saving face (preserving dignity) and they feel shame when they're humiliated, like when they're not as good as others or if their children "let them down" like I did. My parents have told people (especially their family friends) that I'm preparing for medical school whenever they ask about me and what I'm doing

Your experience sounds like what my Asian friends talk about there parents. Relentless pressure

Is this leading you down the CTB road? I can understand if it did

 

[sserafim]

Your experience sounds like what my Asian friends talk about there parents. Relentless pressure

Is this leading you down the CTB road? I can understand if it did

I'm just mad that they expect so much from me and won't let me NEET in peace

 

[Adûnâi]

but I'm going to take a wild guess here and assume that the amount of pressure put on Asians to work hard and achieve high status is due to them having misconstrued what Confucius was trying to say

And I would posit that it's because of the general feudal attitudes - all peasants were effectively enslaved (maybe outside of Europe due to the Black Death?), and worked at break-back jobs in the field for days on end.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

I'm just mad that they expect so much from me and won't let me NEET in peace

While having Asian parents probably only makes things worse, even if your parents weren't Asian they would still expect you to get a job and eventually become independent. That's generally the expectation that most parents have for their children.

 

[sserafim]

While having Asian parents probably only makes things worse, even if your parents weren't Asian they would still expect you to get a job and eventually become independent. That's generally the expectation that most parents have for their children.

The worst part is how they compare me with their colleagues' and friends' kids, who are successful, and ask me why I can't be like them. It's just annoying. They say stuff like "look at []'s daughter. She's at the State Department and is already at [] level. Everyone is working and progressing in life. You need to do something!" They treat life like a competition. It *is* a capitalist rat race but I don't want to play the game

 

[KillingPain267]

stereotype is for ignorant people. High IQ people should be able to reflect, think deeper and check fact to really see if the stereotype is true or not

Truth!!!

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

While it's true that Asians generally expect more from their children in terms of work ethic, every white person I've ever met seems to have gone through getting kicked out or at least pressured to move out of their homes as soon as they turned 18. In my experience, white families are pretty brutal in stopping support of their children once they turn 18. They will not pay for their college and force their kids into debt via student loans even if it's perfectly affordable. They tend to expect their children to find housing and to support themselves on a minimum wage job even in this current economic climate and even if the parents themselves are filthy rich. Best they'll do is help you know a guy who knows a guy that'll give you a job you aren't qualified for. Maybe this method of parenting works in toughening up some of them by removing their option to be a NEET entirely though. No way you'd be able to live the luxurious (I'm being sarcastic) life you lead now if you actually had been raised by a white family.

That said, it really sucks having to be forced to become a doctor or lawyer. I thought I wanted to be an artist just to be opposed to that but it turns out I'm not even good at that.

The worst part is how they compare me with their colleagues' and friends' kids, who are successful, and ask me why I can't be like them. It's just annoying. They say stuff like "look at []'s daughter. She's at the State Department and is already at [] level. Everyone is working and progressing in life. You need to do something!" They treat life like a competition. It *is* a capitalist rat race but I don't want to play the game

I hate this shit too. It's infuriating because they think it's supposed to help. Even when my mom tries to bring up a friend's son who became so rich from working at Google he retired at 24, all I can reply with is "well does he have a girlfriend?" And my mom can only say "well yes but why does that matter?"

 

[sserafim]

While it's true that Asians generally expect more from their children in terms of work ethic, every white person I've ever met seems to have gone through getting kicked out or at least pressured to move out of their homes as soon as they turned 18. In my experience, white families are pretty brutal in stopping support of their children once they turn 18. They will not pay for their college and force their kids into debt via student loans even if it's perfectly affordable. They tend to expect their children to find housing and to support themselves on a minimum wage job even in this current economic climate and even if the parents themselves are filthy rich. Best they'll do is help you know a guy who knows a guy that'll give you a job you aren't qualified for. Maybe this method of parenting works in toughening up some of them by removing their option to be a NEET entirely though. No way you'd be able to live the luxurious (I'm being sarcastic) life you lead now if you actually had been raised by a white family.

That said, it really sucks having to be forced to become a doctor or lawyer. I thought I wanted to be an artist just to be opposed to that but it turns out I'm not even good at that.


I hate this shit too. It's infuriating because they think it's supposed to help. Even when my mom tries to bring up a friend's son who became so rich from working at Google he retired at 24, all I can reply with is "well does he have a girlfriend?" And my mom can only say "well yes but why does that matter?"

It *is* infuriating. I hate the constant comparison and how achievement-oriented Asian culture is. It's annoying when my parents compare me with other people. I don't want to progress in or move forward with life, but still, it makes me annoyed to see how successful other people are. I guess I'm secretly jealous of them. By the way, my parents say that they spoiled me. They also say that they were too nice to and too easy on me

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

It *is* infuriating. I hate the constant comparison and how achievement-oriented Asian culture is. It's annoying when my parents compare me with other people. I don't want to progress in or move forward with life, but still, it makes me annoyed to see how successful other people are. By the way, my parents say that they spoiled me. They also say that they were too nice to and too easy on me

That's when you can turn it right back around and then blame them for doing the spoiling, though I doubt that would work in accomplishing anything meaningful enough to get them to stop. Life kind of dealt you a shit hand by making you aromantic because most other Asians I know in similar situations only got out by being saved by a different-race partner who did all the work for them and made their parents mad enough to give up on them entirely.

 

[Throwawayacc3]

And I would posit that it's because of the general feudal attitudes - all peasants were effectively enslaved (maybe outside of Europe due to the Black Death?), and worked at break-back jobs in the field for days on end.

I love how eloquent you put this then proceed to visualise it with some content from Papa Franku lol.

It *is* infuriating. I hate the constant comparison and how achievement-oriented Asian culture is. It's annoying when my parents compare me with other people. I don't want to progress in or move forward with life, but still, it makes me annoyed to see how successful other people are. I guess I'm secretly jealous of them. By the way, my parents say that they spoiled me. They also say that they were too nice to and too easy on me

If your parents are so smart and gods among people wouldn't they just do some simple statistics? Pop out 20 children - odds of having "gods among us" spawn would be higher rather than limit themselves to two children.

Your parents are the biggest hypocrites and abusive pieces of crap. This is pretty normal among most boomer/gen X parents.

 

[Lucid7972]

"You gotta work for success, go work those 15 hours a day shifts with no breaks bro"

"Nothing is life is given, you have to earn it"

"Without hard work there's no reward"

"Hard work beats talent"

"Work hard now, enjoy later"


And many more phrases like that, jfl at thinking you can outrun natural talent and great genetics just with hard work

It's like they can't see all the celebrities and privileged people from our countries or everywhere in the world who didn't drop a single drop of sweat from working hard

when you question that, your old man would tell you people who work harder than you does not whine like you.
existence sucks, existing as an Asian double sucks : )

 

[sserafim]

That's when you can turn it right back around and then blame them for doing the spoiling, though I doubt that would work in accomplishing anything meaningful enough to get them to stop. Life kind of dealt you a shit hand by making you aromantic because most other Asians I know in similar situations only got out by being saved by a different-race partner who did all the work for them and made their parents mad enough to give up on them entirely.

Apparently my past life was "full of love", so the wheel of fortune probably decided to change things up in this life…

View attachment 136034
Here's the full spread! I will explain what each card means in full. This is one of the most complicated spreads I've done for someone before so forgive me haha

The chunk of cards on the left will be everything in your most recent past life from birth to death, the chunk on the right is your karma and what you've carried with you in this life.

View attachment 136035

4: your relationships
The ace of wands is a card of fertility new love and new growth. A lovebird perches on the lonely branch. This is just the vibe I'm getting but it seems like you had a young love, a very strong reckless young love. One person who really captivated you. It was wholesome and exciting!


Lastly the wands are very prominent in your human connections, showing you were growing so much, learning a lot, building something special, or just plain creative in all its forms. Maybe your family were artisans of some kind and made a specific good? Just an idea!


The next row will get more heavy with more spiritual ideas, again, through this you were surrounded by love, or through everything you had a partner or parent or friend. Somebody who loved you unconditionally to guide you through everything.

when you question that, your old man would tell you people who work harder than you does not whine like you.
existence sucks, existing as an Asian double sucks : )

Yeah, being Asian sucks, especially in America. I'm almost white but not exactly. I'm yellow on the outside but white on the inside. My cousins in China said that they could tell that I was American/Westernized. Maybe if I were raised in China, it would have been better (racially, just to like finally feel a sense of belonging and not like an outsider) but I doubt it. I would probably be a conformist NPC sheeple lol

 

[acephale]

I think because asian countries have big population thus the competition is very high.