Keyu Jin

I guess what I'm saying is that that meritocracy, which was so fundamental to the ancient Chinese education system, by the way, civil servants were selected based on standardized exams in the past.

That's always been throughout Chinese history, and that relates to Confucianism.

Now the opportunities, and coming back to the competition point, is that the opportunity is getting slimmer and slimmer.

And again, this is not a unique Chinese phenomenon.

Jobs, where are the jobs going to be, right?

So meritocracy has become more of a problem.

There is a good and bad part of competition.

I remember when I was going to middle school, every single midterm exam, final exam, you are ranked from number one to number 800 in your entire grade and publicly displayed.

Very nice.

But, you know, going to the U.S., I finally realized that Americans are totally competitive.

It's just that they don't display it.

It's not as apparent.

I remember I went to a very competitive high school, but everyone's like so chill.

Oh, I'm not studying.

Oh, you know, they're studying.

They are secretly studying.

When I was doing my PhD at Harvard, people said, oh, you know, my parents, they don't work so hard.

You know, people say, don't say you worked.

They're working hard, right?

Just you don't show it.