Author: Wang Junchao
In the past few years, my friends leave Beijing every year. Every time my friends say goodbye to me, I always have a lot of feelings and ask myself when I will go back. When I came to Beijing after graduation, I didn’t think too much. I just liked the Internet, but I couldn’t find a suitable job in my hometown. When I talked to my colleagues in the company about the reasons for moving to Beijing, I found that some of them were just like me, while others said they were just for making money. Among the moneymakers, I know some of them had their own ideals at the beginning, but as they grew older, they felt hopeless to realize their dreams and lost the motivation to pursue their dreams, so they gradually became reluctant to talk about their ideals, perhaps for fear of being laughed at by others.
In any country, there is a phenomenon of unbalanced development, such as medical care, education and industry development. If it is a traditional industry, it is better. However, due to the characteristics of the Internet industry, first-tier cities are much better in terms of both development environment and talent attraction. In recent years, there have been some job opportunities in some second – and third-tier cities. Some of my colleagues have left Beijing to work in their hometown, but some of them have come back eventually. The salary is one thing, but the most important thing is that the working atmosphere is too bad and they cannot give themselves a good space for development.
In the past few years, my relatives and classmates would come to Visit me in Beijing every year. Every time, I would help them plan their travel routes, lead them to travel around and then send them to the railway station. This year when I dropped off a friend, I wished I could change seats and be the one riding home. There seem to be two people in my heart all the time: one person said that you want to realize your ideal, stay in the most prosperous city in China, feel the life of the metropolis, realize personal value; The other said it’s better to go back to your hometown and have an easy time. It’s not stressful. The ex-securities are good for your wife and kids. In fact, there is no right or wrong, just different personal choices.
Being a student and a white-collar worker are two different states, and the difference in life state will make you feel the passage of time obviously. I have been in Beijing for four years, and if I had gone to university, I would have already graduated. However, my life state is not much different from that when I first came to Beijing, so I feel that time flies. Every time my classmates ask me when I will go back home, I always smile and explain the reason why I can’t go back home now, and talk about the disadvantages of working in my hometown and not being able to do my favorite Internet. Although the reason is the same every time, said many of their own feel too perfunctory, but the students will still often ask, I always think, if you can often get together with classmates after going home, playmates, hometown students several have bought a car, if you go to a far place to play, driving is also a lot of convenient. But that’s still just imagination.
People should do the corresponding things at the corresponding stage. At the beginning, they have no worries when they are alone. When they get older, they will also face a series of things such as getting married and having children. When I grew up, she found herself really can’t live for themselves, their come from rural areas, while the society has developed very quickly, but parents’ traditional thought is very heavy, I can’t get married late, cannot too were born children, if the marriageable age do not matter, parents will always be thinking in my heart, this would be a knot in their heart, don’t worry. Having said that, I don’t agree with the idea of forcing yourself into a relationship to satisfy your parents’ wishes. Fortunately, I was lucky. A few years ago, I found my favorite girl and my parents were satisfied. Now when I call home, the question my parents ask is not if I’ve met someone but when I’m going to get married.
My father told me that as long as I was healthy and had a good job (he didn’t expect me to be much), he and my mother would be satisfied. My mother said that as long as I was good, they would have hope and they would be motivated to work harder. A few years ago, a girl in my village died accidentally because of a car accident, so his parents sold a lot of their land, in our kind of land means the amount of income, also means the amount of pay. Parents make money for their children, without children, as long as the money can meet their own life is enough, so there is no need to plant so much land. I know my mother hopes that when I get married and have children, they will grow less and follow me to the city.
If we only talk about the income of the rural population, I think our village has been quite good, the village is living on the production of apples, the price of apples has been rising in recent years, generally speaking, the annual income of each family is about 100,000. But until now our village still does not have a decent supermarket, every time I see the rural drama on TV, the supermarket in the village makes me very envious, thinking that if our village has such a supermarket to buy things will be a lot more convenient. Talking with the owner of the shop in the village, why not decorate the store well and expand the scale, he told me that it is not easy to sell things like this now, and to expand the scale is to lose, let alone make no money, where to expand the scale of the money. Most of the young people in the village are in the city, and they only go back once or twice a year. How much can they buy even if they go back to buy things? Besides, some people have already brought some things home from outside. There used to be a large store in my grandfather’s village, which I was quite envious of at that time. In recent years, I went to my grandfather’s house and found that the size of the store was shrinking day by day. Now there is only one shelf left. Although the income is good, people in the village are still very frugal, and parents save all their money to pass on to their children.
Most young people in China rely on their parents for the down payment to buy their first house, and some parents not only need to make the down payment, but also need to supplement the mortgage. Of course, there are those who earn money by their own efforts, but very few. Parents are very hard, early to prepare the house for parents and children, married to prepare the bride money, the house decoration also need to decorate the money, the child car also need parents to pay, as for you say the child’s money, can only answer you three words – enjoy. My brother is right in saying that the consumption ability of urban people comes from the help of rural parents, who save money to buy houses for their children and subsidize their children’s life, so that children can use their own money for consumption. For parents, they will feel secure only after their children get married and have grandchildren, which means no more subsidies for children.
We have a saying that if an old man lives to be 80 or 90 years old and sees his great grandchildren before he dies, he is considered complete. One day people will leave, but if the old people die of natural aging and see the fourth generation, it is not a pity. My grandfather has two sons. My father and my uncle are the only children of each family. Before, my grandparents hoped that my brother would get married, and now my brother expects me to get married and have children after he has children. After a lifetime of hard work, the old man managed his children to get married and establish a career. When he was older, he wanted to do it, and the rest of his desire was to look forward to the younger generation getting better and better. Now every time my dad give me a call, he USES a low tone to talk to me, I will feel special, and fear, and afraid to say with me home the news of the death of loved ones, I clearly remember my college roommate that morning was his father’s phone call, tell him grandpa died for him to go home, he call hold head and wept. Distance does not quench the thirst of the near. Even though transportation is developed, it takes time to go home from other places. Many people fail to see their loved ones last time because they are outside.
As I get older and have experienced more, I have a clearer understanding of some principles. When I just graduated, I accidentally talked with a colleague about the topic of civil servants. At that time, I swore that there was something good about civil servants. My colleague said that maybe you can’t feel it now, but after a few years, you will know that civil servants still have advantages in this society. After a few years, I do now realize the benefits of being a civil servant and understand why so many people do it. Job stability, security of welfare, not hard work, not low social status, this is indeed what many people expect. Recently, my girlfriend told me that two of her former colleagues who worked in her hometown have been admitted to the civil service. Although her salary is several times that of these two colleagues, I can still see her admiration for them. At first, they worked in the same company, and then she came to Beijing. Both of them worked as contract workers in public institutions, and at the same time, they were preparing for the civil servant exam. Fortunately, they both succeeded.
I know that some people in the industry are quite contemptuous of the job of being a civil servant. It seems that the word civil servant is always accompanied by such keywords as boring, nothing to do and meaningless life. People in the Internet industry have something in common that they always like to talk about their ideals. When you tell others about your ideals, others will praise you and envy you. Ironically, after many years, that friend without ideals has achieved something in his work, while you are still mediocre. I also studied the development history of some Internet companies. I found that in the early days of many companies, the founders had simple ideas. They just did something out of their own interests. So NOW I am not used to the ideal hanging mouth, work in silence, things well done some things will be natural.
It is true that there are many people who have no ideal. They used to say that they want to be a scientist or a musician only because of the glamour of their work rather than because of their real interest. If it wasn’t for one of my classmates who took me to the Internet bar in high school and exposed me to the Internet, I think I would have found a job in the local area after graduation just like most of my classmates. If I didn’t like it and got bored with it, I would change to another one. Some dreams may be just a small desire to do a good job and achieve something in the work, but never rise to the height of changing the world and making human life better. So I always think I’m lucky that the Internet exists in this era, otherwise I really don’t know what I can do.
When I was in my hometown, I always heard people say that the consumption in Beijing is very high, and that it costs 5 yuan to buy a bottle of mineral water. After coming to Beijing, I found that it is not the case. Objectively speaking, Beijing has high housing prices and high rents. Besides these two things, prices are almost the same as other places. Take a brand of rice noodles for example, the price in Beijing is the same as that in other places. A bowl of rice noodles costs 26 yuan, and the store in Beijing will queue up early, while in our county, when we arrive at the meal point, the store is not full yet. There is 5 yuan of mineral water, but either in the scenic spot to buy, or that bottle of water is really expensive. Go to the supermarket to buy things normally, the price of Beijing is about the same as our hometown, and there is no exaggeration as people say. However, because there are many businesses in Beijing, some brands are expensive just because they are good at making things and the cost is high. They are not deliberately raising the price because they are in Beijing. There are many temptations, so you’ll feel like your money is going quickly.
I used to think about a problem that my food was almost the same as in my hometown. Although I would go to a good restaurant for dinner sometimes, it was only a fixed number of times a month. Why couldn’t I save money? Later I came to think that although the food you eat is almost the same as at home, you might eat some kind of food once every few days at home. In Beijing, it is true that you can eat all you want. It was not easy to eat KFC once when I was in college. Things are still those things, but consumption frequency increased, spend more money naturally.
Many people come to Beijing under the influence of the publicity of media and film and television works, because the publicity on TV is a picture of high-rise buildings and people working in a bright scene, so many people also dream of living such a life after coming to Beijing. But when you come to Beijing, things are different, especially if your salary is not high, you may have to live in a self-built house on the outskirts of the city or in a community far away from the city, and you may feel that your place is not as good as your hometown.
Once a colleague asked me why the employees of Internet companies are generally young. I think the first reason is that the Internet has a short history in China, less than 20 years. On the other hand, it is because the employees are always updating and iterating. The old employees leave the company to go to their hometown when they are old, and the young graduates enter the Internet company, adding new vitality. Although the average salary in the Internet industry is quite high, Internet companies are mostly private enterprises, so they do not have advantages in some aspects. For example, only a few large Internet companies can have hukou, and the number is not large, which is indeed inferior to some central and state-owned enterprises. China is a country with special national conditions, and the household registration system is also a hot topic of social discussion. In fact, if there is no household registration system, the biggest problem faced by migrants in The North may be the housing price.
I originally wanted to have the person to study how the final result of north bleaching race, then a think actually north drift is also in recent years, people used the income gap is not so big, you seem to have much of the nature of the work, specially to the people who work also don’t like so much now, so even senior north drift, has more than 10 years time, also can’t see the result. However, according to my observation, the results can be roughly divided into three categories: one is to stay in Beijing, buy a house in Beijing, have a hukou, and settle down; One is living apart from his wife and children. His wife and children are in his hometown, but he works in Beijing and visits his hometown at a fixed frequency. There is a class of people who continue to stay in Beijing, still live a rental life, their children pay borrowing fees to go to school, can not enjoy the treatment of Beijing citizens.
I wrote this, this article is more miscellaneous, mainly after I came to Beijing some feelings, the tone of this article is more pessimistic, spit ridicule, I hope not to let everyone have a pessimistic mood.