Keyu Jin

It's not easy to make money.

In the education system, there are not enough jobs for the young people.

So how do you get ahead?

How, as, let's say, if you're part of a lower stratum society, how are you going to make sure that your children are going to have a better life than you?

You invest in education.

So everything is about competition in a country with 1.3 billion people.

That's somewhat to be expected.

Yeah, Confucianism is more of a moral philosophy than, let's say, religion or a belief system.

It prioritizes social harmony above anything else.

It's not about metaphysics, but more about ethics.

And at the individual level, the responsibility, the duties are all meant to preserve that social order.

So it's filial piety.

It is loyalty.

It is how to be a Chinese gentleman.

But things like saving, frugality is part of the moral discipline.

Education is part of the moral cultivation.

So there's a very strong emphasis that you as a citizen have a responsibility to contribute to society as a whole.

If China were relatively successful economically, a huge part of the reason is, by and large, it's been meritocratic.

That is changing somewhat now, but...

The only way that you have still that many poor people, especially a couple decades back, still be in harmony with society, seeing all these rich people make tons of money and you're still belonging to that lower stratum, the only reason is that you believe that your children have a future through meritocracy.