The following is a translation of this post by popular Chinese blogger acosta. While it isn’t explicitly about China, it does offer us some valuable insight into the way one of China’s most influential bloggers thinks about sacrifice and the way to achieve success. Given that acosta’s posts generally get read by tens of thousands of people and often attract thousands of comments, it’s fair to say that a number of netizens of his generation see things the same way.
Translation
In the film Infernal Affairs [a 2002 Hong Kong action film that was adapted into 2006's The Departed Hollywood film], there is a line: “This is the best of times, this is the worst of times”.
Whether you’re living in the best of times or the worst of times is a choice that’s entirely in your hands. We must face these bustling, flourishing, bizarre, and restless times, which are pregnant with hope, and at the same time, loss. We must remove the scales from our eyes and see clearly that we are living in times that demand giving of ourselves. For everyone who hopes to be successful, the things you can give/spend are the only wealth you [currently] have.
Most common people are running about living their lives, working and sweating to overcome obstacles, using talent and the sweat of their brow to cast their futures and achieve a great life. Life is the same the world over, the development of human societies requires paying out and reaping the benefits, and [sometimes] even sacrifice.
On the ancient topic of paying out and then reaping the benefits, no explanation is needed, when progress [i.e., paying out] is made a step at a time, gains will definitely come.
So what about sacrifice, that higher level of “paying out/giving of oneself”?
I remember reading a story in a magazine some time ago that was simple but thought-provoking. It was called “The Desert Spring”.
There was a traveller who was in the lonely process of crossing a desert. He had already drank the water he’d brought with him, and his increasing thirst had driven him to hopelessness. In his last moments of struggling for his life, he saw a great green tree in the distance, and pushed madly on towards it. There was no water at all around the tree, just dry desert sand, and scattered across it, several skeletons of men who had obviously died of thirst under the tree.
What was really strange was that there were traces of digging in the earth under the tree. Disregarding everything else, our traveler began to dig and eventually had dug out a deep pit using his bare hands. To his surprise, in it was hidden a football-sized jar, full of clear water.
He couldn’t wait to open the jar, but on the top was a slip of handwritten parchment that read, “If you pour every single drop of this water into the pit, you will receive an entire pool of spring water.”
The traveler was truly trapped. Without thinking of the trustworthiness of what was written on the paper, he thought of his surroundings. It was an ocean of dry desert; the jar could only satiate a little bit of thirst and prolong death for so long; even if he drank it all in one gulp he couldn’t count on just that to keep him alive in the desert. On the other hand, if what was written on the paper was a lie, he would certainly die [almost immediately] of dehydration.
His throat was burning and his physical strength had already left him, if he didn’t drink water very soon he would quickly die. He looked around, gazing at the skeletons around him, and then used the only strength he had left to pour the water into the pit. The water quickly sank into the dry sand and in a moment, there was no trace of it at all.
The traveler waited a little bit, extremely regretful, having personally poured the lifesaving water into the hopeless pit. He fell, powerless, by the side of the pit, when he heard the sound of flowing water. In the pit, a puddle of clear spring water had sprung up, and the traveler was saved! He packed away the water in his own containers, and filled the jar with water again, sealing it with the strip of paper and burying it in the pit. Eventually, he made it out of the desert.
This story seems incredible, but it’s actually reminding us of an iron [i.e., unchangeable] truth: at times, by “paying out” so much that it approaches sacrifice, you can create a miracle.
If you still haven’t found your desert spring, it’s because your travels haven’t yet taken you far enough, and you haven’t yet given enough of yourself.
Brief Commentary
The job market is exceedingly difficult for young Chinese college graduates these days, and success can be difficult to come by in a place where job fairs can look like this (see photo at left). Many graduates live together in cramped apartments, working jobs they once thought were well below their qualifications and pay grade. These “ant people“, as they have been called, are a significant demographic, and it’s interesting to analyze the acosta’s desert traveler story with them in mind. The message that success comes from sacrifice and faith could be dangerous for a group that’s already sacrificed much and, in some cases, had to redefine success in light of the dearth of high-end well-paying jobs. After all, for those working menial jobs and living in one-room apartments with eight former classmates, what else is there to sacrifice?
It’s hard to get a handle on exactly what acosta’s readers think of the idea. Several of the early comments have expressed their agreement, others said in various ways “easier said than done”, but many just posted “cute” animated gifs. Still, this, more than any of the dissident political stuff we like to discuss on English blogs, is the kind of discussion that’s going on in the internet in China. Here’s a small window into one of China’s most popular blogs; what do you think?
I think “when did they(?) politically neuter China’s youth?”
I think that’s sort of unfair. Chinese youth aren’t allowed to think about anything other than politics for a second without being labelled “polically neutered”?
well, I’ve been reading up on the whole “May 4th” generation so that was my point of comparison. Mebbe it isn’t fair, but I can’t help but be shocked by the differences
A society does not depend for its survival on governance, as important as that is. It does depend on trust and sacrifice, however. Needless to say, in a society you have to have some people (actually, quite a few people) who don’t spend all of their time focusing on who should be in charge, but actually do work and trust they’ll get a paycheck after some time, and that maybe they won’t get recognized for every little thing they do.
I visited a kibbutz once and when I asked the tour guide what happened when people didn’t work enough, she said she was too busy to worry about what other people were doing.
While that has been demonstrated not to be a realistic policy to depend on for wider society, at least where the participants are not already self-motivated, given the evident need for external incentives among most people, I think it does indicate that a society which gives good thought to sacrifice (as opposed to a sole focus on governance and voting–which is often also associated in Western discourse, unfortunately (and unnecessarily), with partisanship and confrontation) is able to run on some level.
Contrast, for example, all of the fanfare in our U.S. elections, for example–years of constant debate, etc.–and at the end of the day, so little in public discourse focuses on the values we all depend on–such as the work ethic (and other supporting ethics) of the people who mostly run the country: the laborers, the scientists, the regular business people, artists, etc.
I think it’s actually pretty weird.
Religious communities (when they don’t get drawn into politics) often cover such topics–and indeed they are one venue where it is accepted in Western culture that values are discussed where you might have to change your individual behavior as a result, as opposed to political questions where you’re talking about laws or financial regulations to compel everyone by law–but outside of grade school, such topics rarely enter the public discussion.
While we certainly need discussion on good governance (I don’t think campaigns are a necessary part of this though, as you can have universal suffrage and elections without them), I think we’d be a lot better off with more focus on such topics.
Maybe Western culture avoids these topics because it accepts that just discussing virtues and asking people to act on them is not very likely to boost motivation to a very high degree where people are recognized as selfish; everything is seen as something where human nature needs to be forced and compelled (with the exception of religious communities where a belief in the after-life provides an impulse to overcome this limitation, though even here, the discussion may sometimes focus on compulsion).
Thanks for sharing this. If I get your upshot clearly — that most people in China are more concerned with surviving economically than politics or political systems — then I both agree and disagree.
I agree in that most people in most places are concerned with those things most immediately relevant to them, and that usually doesn’t include far-removed power centers, like government. Rather, as you and the other blogger have pointed out, that includes doing whatever they need to do to find material security.
I disagree in that this is a far leap from caring about politics. It isn’t hard to imagine these job-frustrated masses looking to a larger, more money-flush power — the government — for assistance or guidance when, despite all of the above-mentioned sacrifice, these people cannot support themselves or their families. Thus, the economic and local becomes the political and national.
One more thought: most of the political dissidents aren’t from the well-trained, young class of people mentioned above because the young people’s grievances are, as of now, relatively mild. Rather, most dissident activity derives from rural or less-wealthy people who are pushed off land or property at city borders or in development areas. These people are losing homes and being uprooted, and you might understand why *that* economic matter can quickly become political.