New York, known as one of the most prosperous cities in the world, is a place that many people yearn for. Here, there is a group of poor people from China, who, in pursuit of the American dream, will stop at nothing, even giving up their dignity and privacy, living in cramped rental houses, mixing with strange men and women, and enduring all kinds of hardship and discrimination. Why are they doing this?
1. Living status: snail dwelling, mixed living, no privacy
In New York, there is a special type of accommodation called "snail dwelling". As the name suggests, it is like a snail, cramming everything into a small space and living an extremely crowded and rudimentary life. This lifestyle is often the choice of some financially challenged people who have to share a room with other people in order to save rent.
Many of these people are poor people from China, most of them are illegal immigrants without legal status, or low-end laborers without high education and skills, who work in New York and earn only enough money to make ends meet, and simply cannot afford the high rent. As a result, they have no choice but to live in a snail's house, huddled with others in the same predicament, and live without dignity and privacy.
The dwelling room, usually some old apartment or warehouse, is randomly divided into several small cubicles by the landlord with wooden planks or iron sheets, each cubicle is only a few square meters in size, and only one bed or one bunk can be placed in it, and some cubicles are even shared by two or three people. Between these compartments, there is no sound or light insulation, only a thin layer of cloth or plastic curtains, which can be lifted or penetrated at any time. The sanitary conditions of these rooms are also poor, some have no windows, some have no ventilation, and some even do not have toilets, so they have to go to the nearby public toilets. The security of these rooms is also low, and they can only be guarded by humans to prevent people from breaking into or stealing.
In such a room, there are some poor people from China, some of them single, some of them husband and wife, in order to save money, they do not hesitate to live with strange men and women, and endure without any privacy. They go out early and return late every day, busy with all kinds of manual labor, such as washing dishes, cleaning, delivering goods, setting up stalls, etc., and the money they earn is only enough to pay rent and buy food, and they have no money left to enjoy other lives. Their life can be described in four words, that is, "poverty as water".
Reason analysis: vanity
So, why do these people choose such a life? Why are they reluctant to return to China? From a psychological point of view, these people often have a kind of vanity, and they are unwilling to admit that their life in the United States is not satisfactory, and they are not willing to face the fact that they may be ridiculed by relatives and friends when they return home. They would rather languish in the U.S. than start over at home.
They believe that in the United States, even the lowest-end jobs are better than those who don't have jobs at home. I feel that as long as I am in the United States, I will be successful and have face. They didn't want to give up this illusory sense of self and didn't want to destroy this false image, so they chose to stay in the United States and continue to live a life of poverty.
Therefore, life is very long, we must be cautious when making decisions, otherwise we will only regret ourselves more, and only in the places that we are familiar with can we find our peace of mind.