This session was in some way a wakeup call for the material people; “Things about America and Americans” expose in some way a large group of our society here in the US. We became in participants of a nonsense race to reach many material goals that most of the time, has not meaning but inflate our ego. In Asian cultures it is important to ask a new person what is his /her name, occupation, age, and some other personal characteristics. For some people here in America, the success and important characteristics of a person are the total of square feet of the place they own, the name of the store where they shop, the brand of the car they drive, etc.
Some of the best memories I had of my time working in China are directly connected with the simplicity of the people’s lives. They can find happiness at a picnic on their day off (at that time in year 2000, were only four days per month), a visit to a museum or a park and some other activities that the people in Ningbo used to do and enjoy.
I think that this little touch of simplicity will be very useful to talk about in our classrooms. Let’s inform to our students that it is fine to enjoy their life, with simple things it is more important that all the “likes” in the social networks.