Some time ago, "Rich Man War" became popular on the Internet, this live-action documentary film was filmed in Hong Kong more than ten years ago, and it still seems very touching today.
In this era, few people should doubt the authenticity of knowledge changing destiny, but remain skeptical about the feasibility of knowledge changing destiny.
I think the real cases in the film can bring a lot of inspiration to parents.
I also have this series in my own collection and plan to show it to my daughter when she is older.
For children, the reality presented in the film, although cruel, helps them deeply understand what the essence of studying hard really means.
This society punishes people who cannot read books extremely harshly
"Rich Man War" is a live-action documentary that invites some social elites, such as CEOs of listed companies, rich second generation, lawyers, etc., to experience the life of homeless people, sanitation workers and other bottom-level lives in a week's time through the program.
Among them, what makes it interesting to me is that almost all elites have a blind confidence before experiencing it.
They think that even if they fall to the bottom, they can change their fate through ability and wisdom.
As the elder Rockefeller said many years ago:
Even if I strip my clothes and put them in the desert, as long as a caravan passes by,
I'm going to be a millionaire again.
John Rockefeller (the first billionaire of the nineteenth century)
However, when they are really at the bottom, they really feel the cruelty of resource scarcity.
Tian Beichen, whose father is a generation of Hong Kong pants kings, founded his own clothing kingdom after graduating from Harvard University.
Character: Tian Beichen
Today, with more than 700 stores around the world, it can be said that everyone in the Hong Kong business community is well known.
He believes in the free market and eliminates many weak people, but if there is fighting spirit, the weak can become strong.
In the show, Tian Beichen turned into a street cleaner with an hourly wage of only 25 yuan, doing nine hours of disgusting work every day.
The daily living expenses are only 50 yuan, and I live in a "luxury cage house" of less than 15 feet.
At 6:15 in the morning, he had to rush to Wan Chai for work, and in the early hours of the morning, only an overnight bus could go to Hong Kong Island, and the fare was as high as 13 yuan, which frightened Tian Beichen and sighed that there was so much money to spend.
It was not easy to take out the garbage and sweep the streets, and it took more than half an hour to clean up more than a dozen garbage cans before half past eight.
I thought that after five hours of hard work, I could finally eat lunch, but I found that after deducting expenses, I only had 15 yuan left on my body.
And 15 yuan is not enough to buy a bowl of ordinary hot noodle soup in Hong Kong, so you can only buy the cheapest sandwich at a nearby convenience store.
In less than two days, Tian Beichen, who believes in "as long as there is fighting spirit, the weak can become strong", sighed:
Physically tired, the next day is a bit passable, if I want to do a month or half a year, I may not have the fighting spirit.
In the past two days, I only want to eat, there is no hope at all, I don't want anything, I work hard just to eat a good meal.
I now understand most of their thinking, how can they plan for next week, next year, and the future? The most important thing is to settle for the next meal.
However, even with such hard work, there are still many people who rush to another place to work night shifts after the day shift, otherwise the little money earned during the day is not enough to pay rent or support their children.
Near the end of the show, a few days of experience gave Tian Beichen a deep understanding:
This society is punishing people who cannot read books extremely harshly.
Judging from the statistics, those who engage in low-return jobs are basically people with low education and low technical level.
People who have no knowledge and skills can only be squeezed at the bottom of society, and unless they win the lottery, it is difficult to have a chance to turn over.
The essential value of reading is to give people bargaining power
Some people may retort: "In this society, there are many people who have not read books and are also living well." ”
It's really a matter of probability.
There are certainly people who have not read books, crawled in society, and finally succeeded, but it must not be a common phenomenon.
Take a look at the picture below:
Statistics from the Federal Reserve's St. Louis Division illustrate the relationship between the educational attainment of the most educated (over 40 years old) in the household and the proportion of net household wealth exceeding $1 million.
It can be seen that the difference in absolute wealth is much more shocking than the income level, and the proportion of millionaires in families with a master's degree or above is as high as 30 times!
And the average salary is only the "threshold meaning" of reading.
The documentary tells us with harsh reality:
In addition to being closely related to the social entry threshold, the more essential value of reading is to let people have bargaining power.
From no choice to choice.
From the people in the film who are struggling to survive, you can see that poverty is not the most terrible.
What is even more terrifying is the state of hopelessness, helplessness, and no more spiritual pursuit.
Life is hopeless, as if a document is locked in a mezzanine, day after day, coming and going in a dead end.
"We didn't have a choice."
It is the simplest summary of this state of life by Arbor, who lives in a cage house.
Time and energy are spent countless times in daily life, from daily food prices to high housing prices.
When people have to spend a lot of time to survive, they have no energy to think about the future, and even rest is a luxury.
Tian Beichen was very embarrassed:
After experiencing it, I realized that many people not only want dignity, but do not have the opportunity to ask whether there is dignity, because they do not have the ability to bargain without a skill, which can be replaced at any time.
Not having bargaining power in life is the saddest thing.
Because I don't have a choice, I can only cycle back and forth like a cog, and I don't see any future.
Seeing this, I thought of a very classic saying by Long Yingtai to his son Andre:
I ask you to study hard, not because I want you to compare your grades with others.
It's because I want you to have the choice to work meaningfully and time-based in the future, rather than being forced to earn a living.
The difference between "with choice" and "without choice"
This point is more valuable for middle-class families in the city.
For the most part, children of middle-class families are unlikely to work in jobs that are heavy and less rewarding in the future.
But that doesn't mean our children won't fall into a "gear-like" life with no options.
In fact, with the increasing competition and the development of artificial intelligence, if you do not study hard when you are young, do not acquire knowledge and skills, and have sufficient reserves in thinking and cognition, the possibility of struggling to survive in the future is higher, not lower.
Even without waiting for the future, from the time the child enters elementary school, every life node will reflect the difference between "having a choice" and "not having a choice".
In primary school, if children can't get the most basic homework, under the pressure of the real environment, how can they have more time and energy to choose learning outside of textbooks, developing hobbies or upgrading their thinking and cognition.
When it comes to junior high school and college entrance examinations, it will be more realistic, and every screening is a cruel hierarchy.
After graduating from college, whether you choose a job or a job chooses you is closely related to your accumulation over the years.
And most of this accumulation comes from the books you have read, and when enough knowledge is transformed into higher cognition than ordinary people, you have the right to bargain.
I don't know if anyone has felt the same way as me:
When I was young, I didn't know much about the meaning of reading, and I wasted a lot of precious time.
It wasn't until I graduated from college that I suddenly discovered that the world is a powerful combination, and it is placed in front of you - tall and magnificent.
You want to find a way to its core, but you find that it is tightly closed, you can't find the key, you can't open the door, so you can only wander outside the door. This feeling is too powerless, I don't know where my future life is, and I can't even find a direction for my efforts.
Every day can only reciprocate in 996 without choice and no choice.
Thankfully, I read a lot of books carefully in those years and gradually understood that the world has laws and can be analyzed.
As long as the mindset changes, with hard work, you can get the key to the core of the world.
Therefore, now I will try to learn the methods of parenting, try my best to guide my children to love reading, and understand the meaning of reading.
I hope she can understand the relationship between reading and life choices sooner.
"The Sorrow of the Countryman" is a book promoted by the New York Times and the influential "Times".
The author, J.D. Vance, uses his real life experience to tell how a child from an ordinary family can cross classes and find the right to choose for his life.
Vance said in the preface:
I wrote this book not because of what I had accomplished, but because I did something so mundane that most kids from families like mine couldn't.
Now, when people see me, when they see my job and my Ivy League diploma, they think I'm a genius, but IMHO, this theory is nonsense.
If it weren't for my parents doing their best to provide me with precious educational resources in a resource-poor environment, even if I had talent, I would have wasted it.
And those children who were my age, who gave up studying hard early, are still stuck in the Appalachian region of Kentucky, not fully escaping substance abuse, alcoholism, poverty and trauma...
Class mobility is just as difficult in any country.
For children from ordinary families, reading is still the most effective way to change their destiny, it may not make you a winner in life, but it can save you from falling to the bottom.
Finally, a classic line from "Stormy Harvard Road" to us and our children:
No one can bargain with life, and if you want more options, you have to work harder!