Cultural Differences, Work, and Play
31-Oct-04
Some interesting cultural differences came up at a Halloween party I was at last night: A friend of a friend (just came over to America from South Korea about 2 months ago, and who is now a grad student at UCLA) commented “I’ve gone to the library to study a couple times, and I’ve noticed something: there are no Americans who study there. Everyone there is International (and primarily Asian).” The group pondered for a while about this, trying to explain it.
The couple of native east Asian students in the group swore that it was because school and life is so much more competitive over there, so the students must “be trying their their hardest at all times”. I’m not entirely sure about this, though–given my experiences in Taiwan, I’ve seen plenty of Taiwanese slackers (no matter how studious they may claim to be ;) ). Only their procrastination was sleeping-while-pretending-to-study, as opposed to the American talking-while-pretending-to-study.
I think different cultures have different levels of dichotomy between “work” and “play”. I suspect East Asia to be on the more highly dichotomized end, America to be on the not-so-dichotomized end (A friend once remarked to me about the vast number of American figures of speech that were sports- or game-related. These things overflow their boundaries and seep into every aspect of our lives). Me, I look at how I study, and it’s in coffee shops, with friends if I can. And, while I do get work done, it doesn’t hurt if studying “degenerates” into conversation for a while. Heck, I remember preparing for AP tests back in high-school–spending the afternoon in coffee shops, or at Del Taco with friends and books and free refills of Mr. Pibb–or in large groups over at classmates houses, with study sessions that degenerated into parties.
And what’s the upshot of all this? There are huge differences both studying mentalities and the entire educational systems from culture to culture. But, while the student-products of different cultural systems might have their different trends in strengths and weaknesses, I think most students end up at equivalent levels once it’s all done. And (yes, I realize this might be considered crass in our culture of pluralism and tolerance, but I don’t care! ;) ), I think that our way is better. I think it’s a shame that my Taiwanese friends had their childhoods stolen as they attended cram schools after regular classes, every day until 5 or 7pm. My elementary school let out at 1:45pm, and (because I usually did all my homework in class) I spent the afternoons free, riding my bike, playing my old 8-bit Nintendo, and building “fortresses” in the hills down at the end of the street where I lived. And now I compare where we all ended up, and I see no benefit to their system of over-work compared to ours.
And does this apply to the rest of life outside of school? I remember reading a book by B.F. Skinner (the psychologist who pioneered reinforcement and behavior conditioning), a utopian novel named Walden II. In his society, everyone worked 20 or 30 hour work-weeks. And they were as productive as 40-hour workers. His theory was that so much of our time “at work” is really spent like those students in the libraries back in Taiwan–we spend just as much time pretending to work as actually getting work done. Eliminate the guilt and responsibility of an impossibly-heavy load, and we’ll get just as much done and be happier for it. Now, I don’t know if this would actually work (lost productivity is caused by laziness (communism) even more than it is by overwork-stress (capitalism) ), but it’s an interesting idea.
One last thought: when most people think of Eden, of Paradise, they imagine hammocks and drinks with umbrellas in them. They imagine carefree days relaxing. The Eden in Genesis was not exactly like this–Adam and Eve were placed in the garden to work. Paradise, as the ancient Hebrews held, had elbow-grease as an integral component. And I can understand this–there is something about doing a good job, or working a task to completion, that is deeply fulfilling. There is something innately good about work, that makes it just as good as relaxation. Now, some degree of relaxation is necessary–thus the Hebrew notion of Sabbath–but relaxation alone is not the sole component of Paradise.
Here in America–look at the post-dot-com-bubble 60 hour workweek–I wonder if we picture paradise as relaxation because we’ve binged on work…