Yesterday, my son called and talked about going to China this summer. He asked if I could go with him. I cannot because my daughter wants to take high school course in summer. Then he talked about his meeting of the Chinese students visiting MIT and his plan of seeing them again in Beijing.

I told him of the difference between children growing in China and American born Chinese like him. He agrees that the former are a lot more complicated than ABCs, but not necessarily more mature and independent. He admitted that it was more challenging to deal with students from China than with American ones.

It so happened that a friend of mine called me yesterday afternoon and also talked about a relative of hers, actually her 25-year-old nephew who came to America for his graduate study. She noticed that this boy accepted whatever service she did for him, without even saying a thankyou, as if he should be well served. It is so annoying to do something for him when he does not even know to appreciate your service.

I have to admit that many children from single-child families are rather self-centered and also children growing up in China face a more intense competition and thus are more complicated than ABCs here. If both are put to test, I have no doubt children growing in China will survive better than those ABCs. Doesn’t this tells us something about the two countries in which the two groups of children grow up?