An American born Taiwanese went to visit his grandma in Taiwan. He told his grandma that he works full time to earn his living and tuition in order to study in college. His grandma is so upset to blame this kid’s parents for not taking responsibilities to pay this kid’s living and tuition for college education. This kid defended his parents and said that all his American friends are like him to earn his living after eighteen years old. Well, this may be unheard by most Taiwanese people and is also very unusual for American born Taiwanese family, but this is a true story. You may wonder because the family of this kid is too poor to support those expense. In fact, that family can afford that, but it is only part of responsibilities for this kid to take care his life and education. This is American value that if you want the rights you also have to take the responsibilities.
Most Taiwanese parents want their kids to work in a very safe and nice place with consistent good pay for their life. Thus, they try to provide the best nice learning environment for their kids. They only ask their kids one thing that is to study and study and study during their school years. They never teach their kids about what is their rights and responsibilities. They never know what is the best potential of their kids. They only want their kids to receive highest scores and to attend the most elite college. Yet, they don’t care whether they will kill one of the best musicians, painters, athletes, writers and so on in the world. They only try to use their superior power to control life and destiny of their kids. They don’t care what their kids like or dislike in their kids’ inner most world. Do you expect this kind of kids can reach their maximal potential in their career with passionate motivation all their life?
Any persons who want all rights and never take any responsibilities will become very, very selfish. Those persons will only care what they can take from their job and life but not what they can give to their work and society.
Who makes this? In America, if any persons always say their mother told them what to do and always follow what their mother say, they are called“mama’s boy”. Those persons refuse to grow up to become a man. They always hide behind someone’s else and don’t want to take any responsibilities for what he/she has done. Under the current situation of Taiwan, the so-called good students are trained to be good in taking examination with high scores and to do everything just following what their parents told them. Do anyone expect those over-protected kids can survive in very harsh changing work environment?
No one has crystal ball to tell others what will happen in the future. In this constant changing world, nothing is forever, so do so-called most stable nice-paid jobs. The best paid stable job in Taiwan for several decades is medical doctors. The ratio of medical doctors is based on one medical doctor to take care five hundred patients. Currently, there are 1,000 medical students in Taiwan each year, which is assumed by 500,000 newborn babies each year. Yet, for the last several years, newborn babies in Taiwan range from 200,000 to 250,000 per year. It is very clear that medical doctors are over-produced for the last several years without any doubt. Thus, we know what will happen to those persons who decide to become medical doctors now and in the near future.
Can this be changed? It should work from the foundation of education, changing parents perception, teaching kids independent thinking, and reforming society expectation. It is pretty complicated process and will take generations to accomplish this goal.
No matter where we live around the world, there are always some over-protected kids. Good system can reduce those kids to minimal. Bad system will produce relatively high ratio of those kind of kids. If those over-protected kids dominate whole society, productivity will be reduced.
Years ago, the purpose of educational reform in Taiwan is to change whole educational system to produce more competitive kids. It is impossible to change one small niche through educational reform and to expect whole society also changed. If there is no radical change of whole educational system and society now, Taiwanese people will feel sorry in the future. Unfortunately, people always feel regret until it is too late. It is Taiwanese people’s choice. There is no one to blame except Taiwanese people themselves.
A late friend of mine has this to say about job and passion to his students: "Don't follow the money, follow your passion and money will come." No one can be sure about the second part, but we are certainly happier being able to find passion in our jobs.
