How others see us ...

An interesting remark on what Chinese students see of UK culture when they come here to study.

"There is an emptiness in nightlife - party, party and nothing else. I thought there would be something special in culture - people would speak about plays or stories. I thought it would be a garden of thinking."

It's part of a piece looking at the fact that arguably,

We are in the middle of the biggest educational movement in history. Hundreds of thousands of young people are travelling to be educated abroad. They are led by the Chinese, for whom a foreign education is highly prized. There now are over 50,000 Chinese students in Britain - mostly the children of the elite and the rich - and the numbers studying abroad are predicted to double.

But the criticism is not all one way, as comments by Chinese students reveal, by the by, truths about life back home and its struggles.

The students noted that the British also had the ability to have a good time and relax, while in China people worried incessantly about their children or their parents. Part of the reason for this difference was the success of the British system of welfare and social care, said the students. There were many comments along the lines of "you can feel confident when you are old". These statements hinted at a deeper truth, in that they were all made by women.

This is also a peak into our global future, if we do the thinking needed on the raw material of these opinions with the thought that China is likely to be economically very important in years to come and that we have an aging population and need a younger workforce to pay the taxes to run the welfare ...

Technorati Tags: culture, china, UK, education, students