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Your testimony reminds me of a kid I met in Mali. The guy was our guide, and he spoke 6 languages, including 4 local dialects, french and english. He had a cell

Your testimony reminds me of a kid I met in Mali. The guy was our guide, and he spoke 6 languages, including 4 local dialects, french and english. He had a cellphone and knew how to drive a 4x4. He drove us to the desert, in a place at the north of Bamako known as the Dogon's country. There, he asked us if we were ok to take a detour by his parents village, and we agreed. His parents were living with no electricity, using water from a well, in a small mud-made house. They slept among the goats and chickens. It made me realized he had to live between those 2 worlds, and it felt so unreal.

csomar 8y ago
Lots of people from North Africa are leading this life too. North Africa is richer but the inequality is sometimes is surreal. The countries' bad infrastructure and the lack of options to move to better countries (visas restrictions) give them no choice.
spyckie2 8y ago
When Asian parents says, don't get a literature degree, become a doctor, they have a good reason to say it. It's not necessarily this bad in terms of standard of living (the above description would be subsistence levels, maybe less than 200$ a year), but the median household income in China is about $12-15k US a year compared to $56k in the US. And it's not that in China everything is cheaper so 12-15k goes a long way - no, they just live with less. Things that we take for granted, like insurance, available hospitals, quality goods, good customer service, safety of food & goods (a big one we don't even notice) - these are the result of a developed economy, and we definitely pay for it - we (as an economic whole) have the additional income to allow for these things to exist. Even with a 10% GDP increase per year, it would take China another 15 years to get to US level standard of living. With a 5% GDP growth, it would take 30 years. These are just numbers to me (12k vs 50k living, I can see one is 4 times better!), but my parents know firsthand what the difference feels like and it makes their urgency much stronger. For reference, I think my grandparents would be living on an equivalent of around $2-3000 a year based on what I know my mom gives them (and maybe other family members).
- kamaal 8y ago
  The term you are looking for is called Abundance. A few days back I was discussing this with my friend who immigrated to the US and settled there. I'm an Indian. We were discussing how his wife and kids, who are Americans just do not understand his perspective of things from a living standards stand point. The thing is sometimes its impossible to erase the effect poverty has on you. When you go through tough times, your benchmarks to save and invest get set based on the worst times your life has seen. And then that spills over to every purchase or life style decision you will ever make. Be it clothes to car or whatever. In India I've seen people who have been born in well off families a generation early just fail to understand why the people who have just come out of lower middle class/poverty don't take vacations, or don't buy expensive sneakers or gadgets or even dine at good restaurants. When I worked in the US, I used to be totally floored at the amount of opportunities and abundance of every thing the country had to offered. To me most of the complaints US citizens had looked like cry me a river themed whining. Eventually I realized every one just get seasoned to whatever they have and that sort of becomes their new reality over time.
  - 2sk21 8y ago
    Very well put!
  - mindentropy 8y ago
    In your opinion what do you think of the abundance? In my opinion this abundance is nice to be kept aside for tough days but should not be used/exposed on a day to day basis. I too am an Indian and I see not only the well off but even the middle to lower middle class who look at the well off and set the standards based on them. So many of them buy so many useless stuff and waste a lot be it food or some other material things.
    - vinceguidry 8y ago
      My earliest childhood memories are of the varied households we bounced around in because my mom couldn't keep the rent paid reliably after she threw my alcoholic father out. She remarried a Marine and that experience of poverty, along with the constant familial abusiveness, never directed at me but rather my mom, went away overnight, to be relived once a year when we took summer trips back. Abundance to me is something you need to fight for in order to keep in your life. I'm the first one to notice and complain at my job when the team lunches start to go away under the pressure of meetings, the first one to start playing ping pong again when time pressures keep us from going. The little abundances we have in life are to be managed, never vilified. There's an amazing soul food restaurant that's a little ways away, the portions are huge and the taste is so decadent. I'd go there every day almost if it was closer. I'd take half the food home or get less carb-heavy sides. But when I suggest going as a team there's just so much pushback. Every time I find a new form of abundance I need to also find a way to integrate it into daily life, otherwise it goes away.
strken 8y ago
Without being too much of a prick, my dad grew up in a first world western country in a house with a dirt floor, had no power until after 1970, ate a diet of mostly potatoes a few months before they were due to be planted and 10 months since they were picked, slept with the cows because it was more comfortable than sleeping in a bed with the other male children, and ended up a comparatively wealthy amateur entomologist only because he got a free studentship and became a teacher. They used to store meat in a Coolgardie safe before they bought a kerosene fridge. Anyone in a developed country has an insane level of wealth even compared to our parents, for the most part. I'm reading High Output Management right now, and it's basically the opposite of every strike and industrial action my parents found themselves in. There's an inherent tension between a stable life and a rich life that I find hard to resolve. I dunno.
taejo 8y ago
What do distinction do you make between "dialects" and other languages? I understand "dialect" to mean something like "one of several (usually regional) variants of a language", but that is only really meaningful when the language is referenced. Do you mean he spoke 4 local dialects of the same (unspecified) language, or of French or English? Both of these seem to be the wrong interpretation, since you count them as six languages in total.
- skybrian 8y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an_army_and_navy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with...
BrandoElFollito 8y ago
I was brought up in a middle-class+ family in France. We read what we needed and my parents lived a simple life. I am now much better than them, financially. I still live a simple but comfortable life and my children somehow get infused with it (they have everything they need to the point that I never know what to get them for xmas). I was very surprised when the 12 yo one told me one day "rich people are rich because they live a life of less welthy ones, and the less wealthy want to live a life of rich". He was referring to his friend whose parents have a hard time making the month buying him the latest iphone because his friend insisted on having the latrst one (while my son has a mid level phone he is genuinly happy with)

csomar 8y ago

Lots of people from North Africa are leading this life too. North Africa is richer but the inequality is sometimes is surreal. The countries' bad infrastructure and the lack of options to move to better countries (visas restrictions) give them no choice.

spyckie2 8y ago

When Asian parents says, don't get a literature degree, become a doctor, they have a good reason to say it. It's not necessarily this bad in terms of standard of living (the above description would be subsistence levels, maybe less than 200$ a year), but the median household income in China is about $12-15k US a year compared to $56k in the US. And it's not that in China everything is cheaper so 12-15k goes a long way - no, they just live with less. Things that we take for granted, like insurance, available hospitals, quality goods, good customer service, safety of food & goods (a big one we don't even notice) - these are the result of a developed economy, and we definitely pay for it - we (as an economic whole) have the additional income to allow for these things to exist. Even with a 10% GDP increase per year, it would take China another 15 years to get to US level standard of living. With a 5% GDP growth, it would take 30 years. These are just numbers to me (12k vs 50k living, I can see one is 4 times better!), but my parents know firsthand what the difference feels like and it makes their urgency much stronger. For reference, I think my grandparents would be living on an equivalent of around $2-3000 a year based on what I know my mom gives them (and maybe other family members).

kamaal 8y ago
The term you are looking for is called Abundance. A few days back I was discussing this with my friend who immigrated to the US and settled there. I'm an Indian. We were discussing how his wife and kids, who are Americans just do not understand his perspective of things from a living standards stand point. The thing is sometimes its impossible to erase the effect poverty has on you. When you go through tough times, your benchmarks to save and invest get set based on the worst times your life has seen. And then that spills over to every purchase or life style decision you will ever make. Be it clothes to car or whatever. In India I've seen people who have been born in well off families a generation early just fail to understand why the people who have just come out of lower middle class/poverty don't take vacations, or don't buy expensive sneakers or gadgets or even dine at good restaurants. When I worked in the US, I used to be totally floored at the amount of opportunities and abundance of every thing the country had to offered. To me most of the complaints US citizens had looked like cry me a river themed whining. Eventually I realized every one just get seasoned to whatever they have and that sort of becomes their new reality over time.
- 2sk21 8y ago
  Very well put!
- mindentropy 8y ago
  In your opinion what do you think of the abundance? In my opinion this abundance is nice to be kept aside for tough days but should not be used/exposed on a day to day basis. I too am an Indian and I see not only the well off but even the middle to lower middle class who look at the well off and set the standards based on them. So many of them buy so many useless stuff and waste a lot be it food or some other material things.
  - vinceguidry 8y ago
    My earliest childhood memories are of the varied households we bounced around in because my mom couldn't keep the rent paid reliably after she threw my alcoholic father out. She remarried a Marine and that experience of poverty, along with the constant familial abusiveness, never directed at me but rather my mom, went away overnight, to be relived once a year when we took summer trips back. Abundance to me is something you need to fight for in order to keep in your life. I'm the first one to notice and complain at my job when the team lunches start to go away under the pressure of meetings, the first one to start playing ping pong again when time pressures keep us from going. The little abundances we have in life are to be managed, never vilified. There's an amazing soul food restaurant that's a little ways away, the portions are huge and the taste is so decadent. I'd go there every day almost if it was closer. I'd take half the food home or get less carb-heavy sides. But when I suggest going as a team there's just so much pushback. Every time I find a new form of abundance I need to also find a way to integrate it into daily life, otherwise it goes away.

strken 8y ago

Without being too much of a prick, my dad grew up in a first world western country in a house with a dirt floor, had no power until after 1970, ate a diet of mostly potatoes a few months before they were due to be planted and 10 months since they were picked, slept with the cows because it was more comfortable than sleeping in a bed with the other male children, and ended up a comparatively wealthy amateur entomologist only because he got a free studentship and became a teacher. They used to store meat in a Coolgardie safe before they bought a kerosene fridge. Anyone in a developed country has an insane level of wealth even compared to our parents, for the most part. I'm reading High Output Management right now, and it's basically the opposite of every strike and industrial action my parents found themselves in. There's an inherent tension between a stable life and a rich life that I find hard to resolve. I dunno.

taejo 8y ago

What do distinction do you make between "dialects" and other languages? I understand "dialect" to mean something like "one of several (usually regional) variants of a language", but that is only really meaningful when the language is referenced. Do you mean he spoke 4 local dialects of the same (unspecified) language, or of French or English? Both of these seem to be the wrong interpretation, since you count them as six languages in total.

skybrian 8y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an_army_and_navy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with...

BrandoElFollito 8y ago

I was brought up in a middle-class+ family in France. We read what we needed and my parents lived a simple life. I am now much better than them, financially. I still live a simple but comfortable life and my children somehow get infused with it (they have everything they need to the point that I never know what to get them for xmas). I was very surprised when the 12 yo one told me one day "rich people are rich because they live a life of less welthy ones, and the less wealthy want to live a life of rich". He was referring to his friend whose parents have a hard time making the month buying him the latest iphone because his friend insisted on having the latrst one (while my son has a mid level phone he is genuinly happy with)