My boss had a chat with us yesterday. He said the reason why she sent her daughter to New Zealand is that he doesn’t want her to live in such a complicate country/society like China, that he wants her to be a simple person and be happy and do whatever she likes.

I always thought my boss must be very happy with lots of money/property and a perfect family. But from our chat it seems that he is not. He said he was very tired.

So are Chinese tired? I think the answer is positive.

When you still a kid, you are required to take lots of after-school courses such as learning English, playing musical instruments, drawing etc while you are supposed to play outside with other kids. According to my boss, her daughter cannot find even one friend to play with after she came back from New Zealand this winter because all her friends/former classmates are so busy preparing for secondary school entrance exam that they cannot spare even half a day.

After secondary school entrance exam, it is followed by Gaokao for which Chinese students have to study from early morning to midnight with almost no break. I’ve been there too. I think that was really a tough time.

If everything goes well, you get to go to college. However, after spending relatively relaxing four years in college, we have to face the hard labor situation where a bunch of people compete for one job. When you finally get a job and manage to support yourself, it’s time to consider getting married which was constantly reminded and urged by your families especially parents.

If you get married, you will inevitably need to buy an apartment or a house because most Chinese women don’t accept naked marriage. According to a research, the cost of marriage in Shanghai is RMB 2.0082million. But in view of the current house price, most Shanghai people say, with RMB 2 million you cannot even afford an 80 square meter apartment in urban area.

Once you become a parent, you will have to work hard for your child to provide the best for him/her. When he/she becomes an adult, you will worry about his/her jobs and marriage. You will have to help them pay down payment for an apartment. I think that’s what most Chinese parents are doing for their children. Take one of my colleagues for example, his parents just paid more than one million yuan as a down payment for his new apartment. They said they will also take the responsibility of paying the monthly install payment for him and they are now in charge of taking care of his new born baby too.

This is most Chinese people’s life, though there are lots of exceptions. It’s relatively very tired to live such a life though we can get some fun from it.

So as a Chinese, do you feel tired sometime? And bloggers from other countries, what is your life like?