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英文版

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛Believe it or not, you’re trapped.

Ten years ago, when you headed for the realm of freedom, bidding farewell to
your lovely wife and aged parents amongst hurrahs of your former peers and
friends, you really and repeatedly dreamed of loftily spiritual and abundantly
material end-results a few years down the road a stretch: a doctorate title, a
decent professional job, a nice home. Sort of a sprint into an American middle
class suite.

You really felt the surging of your supercharged adrenaline after setting your
foot on the American soil, you were enduringly engaged in a series of advanced
degree pursuits. Unwaveringly unflappable and unreasonably undaunted yet
downright downtrodden, you even undertook almost all sorts of underpaid jobs
up for grabs to foot the sizable bills of tuition and apartment rentals.

You carefully crafted your career strategy by muscling into the
tech-heavyweight sector on a tight job market to map your future niche
billets, and you even ditched your sanctified yet far-flung pursuit of a
doctorate, steering clear of being overly studious in this outrageously
material kingdom and getting with the program to eke out a living in this
profusely pragmatic world.

You pulled off on landing your first job with your super-sized technical
muscles despite your stuttering English. You incessantly jumped ship in this
much revved-up economy to move up a few grand on your salary roll, and you
even managed to get an upper hand at this steamily stoked stock market. Facts
trump all rhetoric, hard-work beats the nature: you bought new cars, you
bought new houses, you're bloated with the breezy feeling of being wealthy and
healthy as well as wise while you're piled high and deep in debt.

Fact is, you're financially strapped with a hefty liability—to pay off all
your debts as soon as possible or the rest of your life. To live grandly,
you've got to work even harder, yet merely working harder doesn't resolve all
the issues. The fashionable mantra is to work smarter but not harder, which
leads you to another tricky trap where you make every endeavor to learn how to
climb a few echelons up, if not heading through the stratosphere, on the
corporate ladder.

OK, there're many books on career development, but you just don't get it. The
language barrier seems to be so formidable (well, you've blown it away through
year's hard-work on learning a few language tricks and trades), and the
insurmountable cultural gap has been eccentrically gaping at you. Your know a
technical track is virtually a blind alley, while the managerial freeway is
absolutely wide open for winners who take all and losers who lose all. Looking
around, only a few compatriots have made it to managerial posts, but then most
likely their career will get plateaued sooner or later and they'll be stuck
somewhere in the muddle of middle management arena. Those who really have made
it to the top are guys who hit their stride as early as in their 20's,
relentlessly and strategically taking it in their stride and working their way
up on the corporate ladder.

Age aside, you are a hopeless outsider of those inner circles-call them
three-dimensional diversified mentor and protege network that is the single
most important factor to accelerate a person's career. Theoretically, you know
among three C's—confidence, credibility and competence—you barely have the
former two C's. Yes, your competence has been honed up a lot and taken a solid
shape through your own obsessed training and infallible education as well as
rotated work assignments. However, your confidence level is proportional to
your not-so-impressive communication skills, and your task to quickly
establish a network to nurture your career growth is so culturally
intimidating to you. Without a superior mentor's advice and counseling, your
career advancement is just a castle in the air, and your confidence and
credibility are nowhere to originate from. To make matters worse, your
competence is being quickly worn down in daily and tedious Mickey-and-Mouse
type of work. You have no chance to advance to a level demanding your
intelligence and diligence as well as persistence built in your DNA, and
you're ultimately trapped at a career stop sign.

First you're resentful, then you become numbed. You tell yourself, forget
about career, think about just making a living, which tends to cajole yourself
into your first trap: buying bigger houses and driving pricey cars, building
more equities yet getting deeper in debts.

Now you have to comfort yourself in the belief that as a first generation
immigrant, your task is just to lay some ground work for your kids, so your
high stakes naturally come to your next generation: your kids who now are your
only hopes. There're just as many books on kids' education as those on your
career development. You know the importance of education, and you don't want
to take chances or take it for granted either.

You're bound to shackle your kids' spare time with endless extracurricular on
soccer games, boy scouts, dance classes, paintings and piano lessons and so
on. You even go so far as to chaperone kids to a Chinese school to preserve
your rich Chinese heritage. You've found you have no time to gasp over those
hectic weekend schedules. So you ask yourself are all these really that
necessary? Do you miss the precious part of your life just plainly having fun
and playing with your kids? Are you zealously transferring your pressure to
your next generation? Do you emphasize too much academically while ignoring
the development of your kids' full character?

You've also realized that your value system always clashes with the one of
your kids sooner or later. You've lost your identity of certainty on how to
educate your kids and you simply go with flow because you've got a strong
tendency to mimic other Chinese parents' education styles; you subconsciously
want your kids to be number one in their schools respectively, but there can
be only one student who gets ranked number one in a school. Then you truly
believe in this land of nothing impossible, even a C student can someday make
it to the President of the United States—you better bet this isn't just your
wishful thinking, and you know many corporate CEOs who are making fast bucks
hand over fist are simply college or high-school drop-outs (case in point:
Microsoft’s Bill Gates or Oracle’s Larry Allison etc.). So why bother
pushing your kids so hard on their education? Can't you just let it rip?
You're desperately trapped in another bubble in which your eyes are blurred by
a fuzzy value system where everything sells yet clashes.

Now, let yourself admit you’re hopelessly and timelessly trapped on this
land, forever exotic to you.更多精彩文章及讨论,请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net
Report

Replies, comments and Discussions:

  • 枫下沙龙 / 谈天说地 / (转自未名空间)信不信由你,你算是全陷在这里了
    本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛在美国也一样
    文章来源: 冷眉 于 2001-10-11 3:42:00:

    信不信由你,你算是全陷在这里了。

    十年前,当你在亲朋好友的一片赞杨声中,告别了心爱的妻子和年迈的父母而登上去美国
    的飞机时,你还真有点沾沾自喜和得意忘形。你梦想在那个物质极大丰富的新大陆闯出个
    人样来:拿它个博士什么的,再找个象模象样的工作。然后买车、买房,一家伙混它个中
    产阶级。

    当你的脚一踏上美国这片神奇的土地,你还真感到斗志昂扬呢。你马上投入了紧张的求学
    生涯。虽然功课重,而且指导教授的活逼得紧,你还真有点坚韧不拔、一往无前呢。钱不
    够用,你就到处找工打。周末,你去做餐馆侍者、二厨、清洁工。暑假里,你去台湾人开
    的微机组装流水线上组装硬盘,每小时挣可怜巴巴的五美元,每天干十二个小时以上。那
    台湾老板逼得你有时连饭都没时间吃,但工作来之不易,你硬给顶了下来。暑假结束后,
    你用挣的钱买了个小破车开开,好不得意。后来你终于能够为指导教授批改作业,或去当
    美国大学生的私人辅导老师,你还感到有点“升级”了呢。总之,你真好样儿,不怕吃苦
    ,什么都敢、也什么都愿体验体验。

    然而,当你放眼四周,发现有好几个哥们儿,在计算机系两年不到就混到硕士学位,接着
    他们就应聘到_AT_&_T_或(原)贝尔实验室挣大钱去了。你不甘心,凭什么你就得熬它个五
    、六年,你又不比谁笨!于是,你抛弃了攻取博士的青云之志。要在这个疯狂的物质世界
    里混下去,你得掌握一套实用主义原则。于是,你半路出家,也跑去某所大学的计算机系
    混了个顶顶吃香的信息系统(Computer_Information_System)硕士。听说这一行很吃香呢
    ,到下个世纪还缺人。难怪张三李四王五全都趋之若骛。

    果不其然,你很快就找到份工作。虽然你英语讲得臭,但你的技术背景强着呢!好几家公
    司抢着要雇你,你还真是飘飘然而忘乎所以也。很快,你又七跳八跳,短短两年里你接连
    换了五个工作,工资快蹦到六位数了。下班后闲得无聊,你又迷上了玩股票。好家伙!NA
    SDAQ_直上云霄,你的股票户头里的数字也在接着翻番。事实胜于雄辩,苦干胜过蛮干。
    你很快就买了新车、新房。你的美国梦实现了,你庆幸你是个命运的宠儿。

    很快,你就发现你掉在一个无底的陷阱里了。凭你的工资,你得还几十年才能还清那一屁
    股的购房贷款!可是,你恐怕不会有还清的这一天了,因为政府鼓励贷款和超前消费以刺
    激经济,所以购房贷款的利息部份,是可以从收入里扣除而免交联邦税的,这可是一大诱
    惑。在美国,谁也不愿意把那辛辛苦苦挣的钱的三分之一“交公”。因此,这里的人们就
    往往是不等还清手上的贷款,又去购更大的房产以增加贷款、减低付税。这里的大趋势是
    房越买越大,贷款越贷越多,这陷阱哪有个尽头!

    美国是个十足的金钱社会,要有足够的钱,才能支撑这种昂贵的生活方式。实话说吧,这
    么多年来,你的精神世界已大都为物质诱惑所统领。你没有时间、也没有精力去追求精神
    生活。与其说你是工作努力,不如说你是工作奴隶。你知道,如今时髦的说法是“时髦地
    工作”(Work_Smart),那意味着要选个时髦的工种来“借力打力”(Leverage),如当他个
    领导什么的,做他个人上人。在年终总结里,把别人的工作成绩写成是在你的领导下完成
    的,所谓体现领导才能(Leadership_Initiative)。在晋升加薪的同时,也能调整调整自
    我感觉(Ego)。虽然真正难的是如何晋升,晋升后的工作却不难应付。这样,你用心地观
    察时机,试图去研究如何在自己岗位上晋升。

    然而,你很快就发现这又是另一个陷阱。纵然他人说得天花乱坠,那充其量不过是个空中
    楼阁,而你的头不断地碰在这楼阁的玻璃屋顶(Glass_Ceiling)上。你深有体会,在自己
    的技术上求发展,空间十分有限,真所谓僧多粥少。你又发现,在管理行当有很多人事业
    如日中天,但如果你一旦涉足管理,你会遇到巨大的语言障碍和无形的文化鸿沟,而后者
    对你来说,这辈子几乎是难以逾越的。诺大一个几十万人的公司里,你发现周围中国同胞
    没有多少能爬到中级管理阶层。那十几个爬上去的,大部份似乎又在那里搁了浅。仰视着
    登上高级主管位置那么屈指可数的几个,你又望而却步了。看看那几个人,除了他们才干
    超人外,都是在很年轻时就捷足先登,并开始努力攀沿的。你恐怕已动手太晚了。

    撇开你的年龄不说,你至今还没摸到那个打入美国主流社会的多元化、多人种关系网络的
    门呢。假定你的工作能力强,那也必须体现在你与人交往的能力上。在美国这里也讲“关
    系”,但这里又不同于在中国的那种任人唯亲的乱拉关系。当然,由于这里人才济济,合
    理、合法地采用“美式拉关系”依然是职务晋升的最为重要的一环。在公司里,没有一个
    德高望重的高级主管做你的指导或“大师”(俗称“后台”),你这辈子甭想爬几格上去。
    虽然机会可能注定与你无缘,那埋在你_DNA_里极高的智商和膨胀的自我,迫使你打定主
    意还是要接着爬。不久,你终于到了你的职业顶峰。你感到无路可走了,你困惑了,你厌
    倦了,你疲惫了,最后你麻木了。你陷在那里了。

    你有了儿女。他们在一天天地长大。自然而然,你只好把希望寄托在你的下一代身上。作
    为第一代移民,你来美国就是“垫底”的。你知道教育二字的份量,所以你对你孩子们的
    教育不敢掉以轻心。你下班后要检查孩子们的作业,要给他们读书,还要布置额外家庭作
    业。有时,你也扪心自问,是不是对孩子们要求太高?并非每个孩子长大后都能成为杰出
    的科学家或艺术家或别的什么家,让他们有个愉快的童年和少年,让他们建立鲜明的个性
    或许更为重要。咱们中国人这种成名成家的思想,不但带给自己一个“高压”的童年,也
    把这个压力代代相传。你也知道,在美国要吃得开,靠的是人的综合素质(People_Skill)
    而非单单学习成绩。美国不是有好些公司老总(CEO)只有高中或大学学历、甚至高中或大
    学辍学吗?大名鼎鼎的前微软公司老总比尔•盖茨连大学都没读完呢,可你不能不
    说他非常成功。

    所以,你又得加紧孩子们的课外活动,培养他们多才多艺。可怜的一对小小年纪的儿女,
    除了比他们同龄的美国同学多一份额外负担(上中文学校)外,还得参加你为他们安排的多
    项课外活动:踢足球、参加童子军、游泳、练芭蕾舞蹈、练民族舞蹈、练钢琴、习绘画…
    …打那以后,甭说平时下班后,就是周末也全给搭了进去。如此这般,不亦乐乎。

    然而,在美国这里,你始终对如何教育孩子困惑不解,这种困惑并不亚于早先对你自己如
    何晋升的困惑。所以,你也只好模仿别的家长们的做法:别人学啥,咱学啥,反正不能落
    后。这样,累坏了孩子、忙坏了家长。你有时也想到过是否回国,但你又困惑了:孩子们
    是美国公民,这里生、这里长,理所当然。君不见人家现在国内的“大款”们,千方百计
    地想着花钱把孩子们送到美国念高中、读大学,很多人还愁着没门呢。你好好地不呆在这
    里而想回去,是不是在犯傻?何苦这么折腾过去、折腾过来呢!你感到又陷在这里了。

    你不得不承认,你没戏了。你这辈子算是陷在这处处是陷阱的异国它乡了。你还是指望退
    休后再回中国落叶归根吧!

    回复:在美国也一样 (English Version:-)
    文章来源: 冷眉 于 2001-10-11 3:47:00:

    Believe it or not, you’re trapped.

    Ten years ago, when you headed for the realm of freedom, bidding farewell to
    your lovely wife and aged parents amongst hurrahs of your fo更多精彩文章及讨论,请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net
    • 英文版
      本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛Believe it or not, you’re trapped.

      Ten years ago, when you headed for the realm of freedom, bidding farewell to
      your lovely wife and aged parents amongst hurrahs of your former peers and
      friends, you really and repeatedly dreamed of loftily spiritual and abundantly
      material end-results a few years down the road a stretch: a doctorate title, a
      decent professional job, a nice home. Sort of a sprint into an American middle
      class suite.

      You really felt the surging of your supercharged adrenaline after setting your
      foot on the American soil, you were enduringly engaged in a series of advanced
      degree pursuits. Unwaveringly unflappable and unreasonably undaunted yet
      downright downtrodden, you even undertook almost all sorts of underpaid jobs
      up for grabs to foot the sizable bills of tuition and apartment rentals.

      You carefully crafted your career strategy by muscling into the
      tech-heavyweight sector on a tight job market to map your future niche
      billets, and you even ditched your sanctified yet far-flung pursuit of a
      doctorate, steering clear of being overly studious in this outrageously
      material kingdom and getting with the program to eke out a living in this
      profusely pragmatic world.

      You pulled off on landing your first job with your super-sized technical
      muscles despite your stuttering English. You incessantly jumped ship in this
      much revved-up economy to move up a few grand on your salary roll, and you
      even managed to get an upper hand at this steamily stoked stock market. Facts
      trump all rhetoric, hard-work beats the nature: you bought new cars, you
      bought new houses, you're bloated with the breezy feeling of being wealthy and
      healthy as well as wise while you're piled high and deep in debt.

      Fact is, you're financially strapped with a hefty liability—to pay off all
      your debts as soon as possible or the rest of your life. To live grandly,
      you've got to work even harder, yet merely working harder doesn't resolve all
      the issues. The fashionable mantra is to work smarter but not harder, which
      leads you to another tricky trap where you make every endeavor to learn how to
      climb a few echelons up, if not heading through the stratosphere, on the
      corporate ladder.

      OK, there're many books on career development, but you just don't get it. The
      language barrier seems to be so formidable (well, you've blown it away through
      year's hard-work on learning a few language tricks and trades), and the
      insurmountable cultural gap has been eccentrically gaping at you. Your know a
      technical track is virtually a blind alley, while the managerial freeway is
      absolutely wide open for winners who take all and losers who lose all. Looking
      around, only a few compatriots have made it to managerial posts, but then most
      likely their career will get plateaued sooner or later and they'll be stuck
      somewhere in the muddle of middle management arena. Those who really have made
      it to the top are guys who hit their stride as early as in their 20's,
      relentlessly and strategically taking it in their stride and working their way
      up on the corporate ladder.

      Age aside, you are a hopeless outsider of those inner circles-call them
      three-dimensional diversified mentor and protege network that is the single
      most important factor to accelerate a person's career. Theoretically, you know
      among three C's—confidence, credibility and competence—you barely have the
      former two C's. Yes, your competence has been honed up a lot and taken a solid
      shape through your own obsessed training and infallible education as well as
      rotated work assignments. However, your confidence level is proportional to
      your not-so-impressive communication skills, and your task to quickly
      establish a network to nurture your career growth is so culturally
      intimidating to you. Without a superior mentor's advice and counseling, your
      career advancement is just a castle in the air, and your confidence and
      credibility are nowhere to originate from. To make matters worse, your
      competence is being quickly worn down in daily and tedious Mickey-and-Mouse
      type of work. You have no chance to advance to a level demanding your
      intelligence and diligence as well as persistence built in your DNA, and
      you're ultimately trapped at a career stop sign.

      First you're resentful, then you become numbed. You tell yourself, forget
      about career, think about just making a living, which tends to cajole yourself
      into your first trap: buying bigger houses and driving pricey cars, building
      more equities yet getting deeper in debts.

      Now you have to comfort yourself in the belief that as a first generation
      immigrant, your task is just to lay some ground work for your kids, so your
      high stakes naturally come to your next generation: your kids who now are your
      only hopes. There're just as many books on kids' education as those on your
      career development. You know the importance of education, and you don't want
      to take chances or take it for granted either.

      You're bound to shackle your kids' spare time with endless extracurricular on
      soccer games, boy scouts, dance classes, paintings and piano lessons and so
      on. You even go so far as to chaperone kids to a Chinese school to preserve
      your rich Chinese heritage. You've found you have no time to gasp over those
      hectic weekend schedules. So you ask yourself are all these really that
      necessary? Do you miss the precious part of your life just plainly having fun
      and playing with your kids? Are you zealously transferring your pressure to
      your next generation? Do you emphasize too much academically while ignoring
      the development of your kids' full character?

      You've also realized that your value system always clashes with the one of
      your kids sooner or later. You've lost your identity of certainty on how to
      educate your kids and you simply go with flow because you've got a strong
      tendency to mimic other Chinese parents' education styles; you subconsciously
      want your kids to be number one in their schools respectively, but there can
      be only one student who gets ranked number one in a school. Then you truly
      believe in this land of nothing impossible, even a C student can someday make
      it to the President of the United States—you better bet this isn't just your
      wishful thinking, and you know many corporate CEOs who are making fast bucks
      hand over fist are simply college or high-school drop-outs (case in point:
      Microsoft’s Bill Gates or Oracle’s Larry Allison etc.). So why bother
      pushing your kids so hard on their education? Can't you just let it rip?
      You're desperately trapped in another bubble in which your eyes are blurred by
      a fuzzy value system where everything sells yet clashes.

      Now, let yourself admit you’re hopelessly and timelessly trapped on this
      land, forever exotic to you.更多精彩文章及讨论,请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net
    • Sign
      • hahaha...
    • 这篇文章是在瞎说,目的无非是告诉后来人在美国和中国一样的生活感觉吧?我觉得这是在瞎说,谁不羡慕美国的民主自由的社会?好就是好,不好就是不好。要实事求是地说话
      • 民主自由的社会,是不错,跟你有多大关系。
        • 你这人说话没有意思,怎么话里带刺?
          • Sorry,不是我故意代刺,只是觉的你随便说人瞎说也不对吧。
      • 这篇文章应该不是瞎说,只是没说北美的好处罢了。
      • 民主自由是好,过来了到真的有民主自由了。不过你来了就知道好有比民主自由更好的东西,但你没有。
    • 内容形式视角都很有个性,挺好的。
    • don't be so sour, just get back China... hurry up
    • 这些购房、升迁、子女教育的问题在中国就不存在吗?就能轻易的解决吗?大家都不是傻子。从博士到福建船民,都往美国跑,你见到几个回中国的。
      别提江核心的儿子,也别提哪些拿了国籍、绿卡回去蒙中国百姓的。你要是普通人,又不想(不善)钻营拍马,你会发现在美国比在中国好过得多。
      • Yes, you may in your "junior" stage, facing the same problems here or elsewhere, but the difference is...
        how you may get beyond of it. You can start your own business, you can pursue your career advance. The difference between here and there is...There, it's your own country and your own people, you're not discriminated, you have other obstacles to overcome, such as politics and corruption; but here, heard of WASP? you'll have zero zitch chances here versus certain chances of becoming a P. Don't deny it, admit it, then face it, and then you'll start to think of it, find a way around it, maybe, just maybe, your chances lies right there...
        • 接着写啊, 等着看那个省略号里面的。顺便问一句, 你不是NUMNUM吧?
          • First of all, I'm not that funny named guy you just mentioned,
            last but not least, I've said what I had to say, I'm still here, not there, don't even know if I will be there; or when and how...
    • 挺好的文章,看一看笑一笑就过去了,怎么还有这么多义愤填膺的
      • 老九大哥,好久不见了,在忙啊.:)
    • 文章说的是事实,我们又不是傻子,也都看到了,关键是如何应付,有什么新思维,好 经验,这才是我们想要的,所谓‘听君一席话,胜读十年书’,俺们在网上天天听别人 讲话,感觉读的书都忘了,更不提胜读了,咋回事呢?
    • 这篇文章很象王强的笔锋啊,呵呵.
      • who is 王强?
      • The English version is like a show boat... Good to read if you want to pick up some colloquialism, but it doesn't flow as well as the Chinese version...
        • 很久没见了啊。 上回被人拍砖拍怕了吧?
    • 这就是“穷爸爸”的生活。《穷爸爸,富爸爸》
      • Exactly. Rat track
    • 这边生活容易,能干很多自己想干的事。何必把工作看得那麽重?做个程序员,30%分析,70%CODING,胜任有余,轻松自在。最好做主机或小型机,技术一二十年没大变;再最好在大金融干,即使变技术,公司也要负责培训老员工。