As I wrote earlier, I am neither condemning nor denying their rights to enjoy the material wealth we have been enjoying ourselves. My concern is its speed and quantity. I also feel that they have somewhat bypassed a long and gradual road to get where they are from the era of ‘having so little.’ It is like skipping grades from elementary school to college.
Let me explain this way. When I left Japan in 1964 most Japanese didn’t even have a bathroom, or a phone in their house, let alone owning a car. When I went back two decades later, finally most household had both. It took another decade before I saw most people owned their own cell phones. In Japan, I think, it took four decades from ‘Tokyo Olympic’ to the point that an office girl could by her own car. Even in America, it is only this past five years people could own cell phone and digital camera. China, on the other hand, as an example of an office girl’s salary in Chengdu, it took only eight years from the time of ‘poor era’ to the point of owning a car. In other words, they entered ‘high tech’ era from ‘material poverty’ in one leap. Multiply this speed with their population.....can you see my concern?