6 Reasons Why China Sucks

Disclaimer: This blog contains elements of personal opinion; disagreement is NOT a valid reason for reporting.

There are certainly good things about China, such as its cuisine, some of its recent developments (especially in terms of economy and technology), its tourist attractions, and arguably its history. However, in general, things are far from good there, and certainly nowhere near as good as in Western countries. In this blog I will be presenting 6 reasons why China sucks, from the perspective of a Chinese person born and raised in China.

Looking at the recent history of China, especially after the founding of the PRC in 1949, I have to say that things aren't (or at least weren't) that good. Around 1958-1960, the Chinese government started the so-called "Great Leap Forward" which ended up causing millions of people to die from starvation. You think that was it? Nope, things only got worse after that. In May of 1966, the infamous Cultural Revolution was launched after the CCP decided that there were "risks of a resurgence of capitalism", and it didn't stop until the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. It severely disrupted citizens' normal day-to-day lives as well as the Chinese economy, and led to lasting impacts on the general development of China that are still being felt today.

Luckily, in late 1978, the government finally realized what they had been doing wrong, and introduced market-oriented reforms that helped to get China back on track with the world. However, as mentioned earlier, the impacts of historical mistakes and mishaps have continued to take a toll on many aspects of Chinese society to this day.

Do you want to work yourself so hard that you literally pass out at your desk? Well, if you do, then just go to China. In China, many companies force their staff to work overtime, instead of the usual nine-to-five schedule they claim their employees stick to. It's not uncommon to see office buildings with lights still on around 8 or 9 PM, which might be beautiful to us, but certainly aren't good for - you guessed it - the people who are working unpaid extra hours inside.

Do you think that's as bad as it gets? Well, if you say yes, you're wrong again. There's something even worse. It's called "996", where employees work from 9 AM all the way to 9 PM, six days a week, from Monday to Saturday. Just do a little math and you'll find out that it's a 72-hour workweek. And yes, you only get one day off per week. Honestly, I think I should give a big thumbs-up to anyone that survives this kind of crazy work schedule.

Also, there's no such thing as a minimum wage in China (I mean, technically there is, but it's rarely enforced). This can be both a good and a bad thing, but I think the bad outweighs the good. The good thing about it is that salaries are low, which directly translates to cheaper prices for everyday goods (for example, a bottle of soft drink only costs around half a dollar in China). And what's the bad thing, you ask? Well, it's also cheap salaries, which means that employees (especially lower-end ones) may not earn enough money to even be able to feed themselves. Yes, it's true.

Education is, arguably, the most important thing in the world. It's responsible for teaching children not just knowledge, but also the way they think, the way they see the world, and most importantly, their values. These things directly affect how young people will go on to contribute to society for the rest of their lives. So how well does China handle that part? Terribly, if not completely messed up.

(Actually, I already did a blog where I talked about this in more detail, so I won't get too in-depth here. If you're interested, you can read that blog here.)

Starting from the first year of middle school (equivalent to grade 7 in the US system), students will need to deal with incredibly large and growing amounts of homework, tests and exams. Now, you could argue that elementary school in China (grades 1 to 6) is in preparation for all that, but I disagree. It's more like a trap to lead you to think that middle and high school won't be that stressful. You fall for it (which I did, by the way), only to find out for yourself later on that it's total nonsense. It's very common for middle and high schoolers in China to stay up and study really late into the night, sometimes even into the early morning hours.

The Chinese education system also puts a strong emphasis on exam preparation. Nearly all of the 12 years of schooling in China is dedicated to just one exam, the Gaokao, which takes place every year in June and, according to many, "essentially decides the child's future".

You think that's all? Well, if you do, you'd be wrong (again). I haven't even mentioned parents yet. Chinese parents almost unanimously adopt a strong "education first" mindset, forcing their children to push hard and sometimes beyond their limits in order to excel academically. For nearly every Chinese student, there is intense pressure from parents to score high on the Gaokao and get into a good university, only to continue cramming for the Nationwide Master's Program Unified Admissions Exam later on.

To be perfectly honest, traffic in China is really, really bad. There's actually two aspects to this. The first is in terms of the frequency and severity of traffic jams. It's very common to see large cities such as Beijing and Shanghai filled with tons of slow-moving cars on all roads, major and minor, on a daily basis, especially during rush hour. And how slow are they, actually? Well, sometimes they can be as slow as walking, or even slower. Just imagine driving a car and getting overtaken by a pedestrian. Sure, you can resort to public transportation like the subway in order to avoid that, but only if you're ready for the extremely crowded subway stations as well as trains. All this congestion doesn't come for no reason, either. According to many, they are mostly due to the sheer number of cars on the road, frequent car accidents, as well as sub-optimal driver behavior. That brings us to the other aspect here.

The average driver in China has little, if any, knowledge on safe and courteous driving. More often than not, they'll just change lanes to get in front of you whenever they see a gap between you and the car in front, completely ignoring the "keep a safe distance" principle. Also, there is little mention of the right of way in China, which has led to many drivers totally disregarding it and just going forward whenever they feel like it, resulting in countless accidents, with and without casualties. Reportedly, the rate of traffic accidents in China is around an order of magnitude higher than in Western countries.

When it comes to values, or what's important to people, Chinese people's values tend to be "wrong", or at least very different from their Western counterparts. There are many examples of this. One of them is people's take on education, which I already mentioned earlier, so I won't say it again here. Instead, let's focus on some other examples of this. The most notable example in my opinion, besides education, is that Chinese people tend to put too much of an emphasis on "rules" that are completely redundant. You'll see what I mean here in a second.

At a very young age, Chinese children are instructed by their parents (and sometimes teachers) to stand and sit in a pre-defined manner. For example, a kid might be told to sit "with hands on the desk or table at all times" when they are eating or studying, or stand "straight with hands on the sides and no movement whatsoever" when they are standing. They are also taught to hold their pen or pencil with a so-called "standard" grip whenever they are writing, even though many go on to abandon it in favor of whatever grip they're comfortable with.

These are just a few examples out of many more, and one thing they have in common is that they are totally unnecessary, even though Chinese people tend to see them as essential for one to "do well" morally and academically. And according to them, failing to follow these rules could lead to bad habits, which is nothing but complete nonsense.

I'm not against having rules in place, don't get me wrong. However, after all these years I still don't see any point in having these specific rules, other than ramping up children's stress and providing grounds for parental surveillance, which is very common in Chinese families (including my own).

In today's globalized world, having a decent grasp of a foreign language, especially having a good command of English for people from non-English speaking countries, is getting increasingly important. So how successful is China on this side of things? I would say it's not very successful.

In China, a foreign language (usually English) is introduced as a compulsory subject from third grade, and in some places, even first grade. But what do they teach, exactly? Well, no surprise, it's mostly useless stuff. Sure, you are taught a lot of words and expressions as well as grammar rules, but for a language, learning these alone won't be enough.

The thing about languages is that you really need to be immersed in an environment with that language in order to improve substantially (think about the way you learned your first language). This could take various forms, such as talking to others in that language, reading online content or watching videos in it, reading books in it, or writing in it. In China, you get very little of that, if any. People rarely use English outside of English classes, and simply resort to Chinese for everyday communication. As a result, Chinese people tend to have a low English proficiency, with only 1-5% of the population being fluent in it depending on your definition of fluency. On a more personal note, none (yes, none) of my parents or grandparents can speak English (or any other foreign language, for that matter).

What does all this mean, exactly? Well, it means that Chinese people often have a hard time trying to communicate with people from other countries. Over time, this can have a considerable impact on the country's development and foreign relations.

All right, I think that about wraps it up. Don't get me wrong, China is a great country in many different ways, but it also has its own problems like anywhere else. What I genuinely hope is that the government will one day take meaningful steps to address those problems, and make the country a better place for everyone.

Thank you for reading.