Role models for the young people in China
Right now there seems to be more and more successful people coming back from U.S. to china, e.g. the former MS VP Kai-Fu Lee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai-Fu_Lee) moved back in 1998; and recently, many well-known professors from U.S. moved back to top Universities in China, Chi-Chih Yao (http://www.answers.com/Chi-Chih%20Yao), Yi Rao (http://www.nibs.ac.cn/english/index.php?act=view&id=16).
Not only do they bring their experiences and perspectives from U.S., what is more important is that they provide role models for young people. In my college years, mid-nineties, most friends and myself did not have a role model to follow. Even in the highly respectful Universities, there weren’t many professors that can be the role model and provide useful guidance for the new generation. Of cause there were historic reasons, but that probably indeed caused a narrow-minded generation. The role models set up by the government, mostly were too pale to be true, or just kind of fake. People want not only sacrifice and spiritual satisfaction, like in a religion, they also want a colorful life, and to be themselves. The government just can’t, and probably not supposed to provide all role models.
So at that time, it seems what is real is just power and money, which brings high social status. There is not much space for culturing one’s own interests like pursuing basic science, democracy, public service, helping the poor, and protect environment etc. Those responsibilities belong to the government, people think, not themselves. But when nobody really thinks about those things, the government, which is run by the same kind of people, can’t be serious about those issues. So even if the few elite people on the top of the power pyramid have the will to change the situation, there are not enough officers qualified to do this. We can image that in the near future, people will still complain that the government is bureaucratic and is not really functional well.
Today, the situation is better, besides some of those successful people in China; we also have successful people coming back from aboard with their experiences and more importantly, different perspectives, many of them determined to make a difference in China. They can really make good role models for young generations. Those people are usually confident, are leaders in their field, some of them even publish their autobiographies and use the Internet to promote their thoughts and opinions (see e.g. the blogs by Y-C Ho http://www.sciencenet.cn/blog/user_content.aspx?id=7579 and H-F Wang http://www.sciencenet.cn/blog/user_content.aspx?id=477 ). By opening themselves to the young generation, they may help to shape the thinking of the younger, and may even help to shape the future of the country.
The government, or more precisely the department of education, should use its means to help the young generation, the majority of them, including those in the countryside, to know and learn from these role models (for example by distributing free books etc). A fact is, although many of the current officials at the department of education are probably themselves foreign degree holders, most of them only learned things in their own special field instead of how to be a leader and policy maker. They should consult people who have more experience abroad when making new policy. So far from what the department has done, like increasing the fee for higher education, asking money for primary education, seems not very constructive. That is a different topic though.