好方便！- Perhaps too convenient…

I was in college when I learned the term “方便.” It means convenient. I don’t often use this expression in English so I never paid much attention to it, and wondered if knowing it would even be worth while. It wasn’t until I came to Taiwan that I realized this is a very commonly used phrase. In fact, I heard it every day and began using it more and more. Had my perception changed, did I start to care more about what was convenient to the point where it entered my daily vocabulary?

Convenience is always on the mind of Taiwanese. They have built Taiwan to be a very convenient place. Modernization and innovation have been directed by convenience and, I have to admit, Taiwan is a very easy place to live. So convenient that Taiwan’s East coast feels like one large city. The cities, large and small, are all connected by standard rail lines as well as a high-speed train. You can travel through the major Eastern Taiwanese cities, spread out over a couple hundred miles, more conveniently than you can traverse the two miles from Harvard Business School to Boston University’s West campus. It’s truly convenient, but is there a downside to this?

When things are too convenient and life becomes too easy, we never have to work hard to get what we want. Always having what things at arm’s reach means we never learn to work hard to achieve our goals, or how to deal with things that are not immediately given to us. We become spoiled. Grown adults end up with a lack of appreciation; grown adults start to seem a whole lot more like spoiled children. Too many people expect instant gratification.

Perhaps this is another reason for the rise of the Strawberry Generation in Taiwan?

There are very real consequences to having a more spoiled culture. Taiwan has the lowest birth rates in the world: people do not want to sacrifice their personal freedom and money to raise a family. The majority of Chinese parents I’ve questioned have all said their lives changed for the better, and had much more meaning, after having a child. The selfish desire for freedom and money thus inhibits most people’s chance to experience this kind of true and fulfilling happiness. It’s sad to see wealthy and otherwise successful people sit around and wonder why they “just aren’t happy.”

But the move to modernization and the rising quality of life is not unique to Taiwan. It’s a worldwide thing; it’s what we all work for. I’m an engineer and I’m wondering what the most beneficial thing I can contribute to this world is. Wouldn’t innovation, new designs, things to make our lives easier and at least more enjoyable seem like a good idea? But, if that just spoils future generations, that means I’d be working to cause more harm than good.

Growing Strawberries in Taiwan

A majority of Taiwanese children are spoiled. They audaciously address their parents, in public. Their behavior is unrestricted, running in the street, the supermarket, the mall, and yelling. Taiwanese, from their 20’s through their 80’s have criticized this piece of their culture. “Strawberry Generation,” is how they address the younger generations: they look and taste delicious, but spoil easily.

But why?

Children are spoiled by their parents. We have to rewind time, and look at what Taiwan was like when today’s parents were growing up (post World War II Taiwan).

Following the war, Taiwan was recovering from a taxing Japanese rule. As if the national idea wasn’t already vague, there was a large migration of mainland Chinese with the KMT party and Chiang Kai-Shek. Taiwan was not a developed country and they were not a well established Democratic-Republic. Taiwan would only get around to abolishing martial law in 1987. Its economy was just starting out and, although it would become the successful capitalist economy and tech island that it is today, this seemed far off. People were not able to live the kinds of lives they are able to now.

Children raised at this time had parents who experienced rough times – the Japanese occupation and the World War that brought it to an end. They didn’t have much to give their children. Families had to work hard to get by, most parents had no means of spoiling their children.

These children are the parents of today. They view their children as precious treasures and do for their children what their parents had done for them: give them everything they could. These parents also transformed Taiwan from a cheap labor island in Asia, to a “tech island” and an economic leader on the world stage. They have worked very hard to make all this happen and want to enjoy the fruits of their labor – and share them with their children.

But raising children in a prosperous economy is nothing like raising them during hardship. The parenting practices they learned from their parents were not applicable in this new age. This is parallel with the concept of “New Money.” The result is the “Strawberry Generation.”

What can be done? Even those self-aware parents are spoiling their children. Knowing is not enough.