What is Overachievement?
Epistemic Status: I understand how overlapping bell curves work
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The Bay Area Silicon Valley area has some of the highest Asian demographics in the U.S. Many of them on the H1B visa. Many of them from China. As an ABC I am not oblivious to the cultural dynamics at play. Though having spent many years in China, I feel like a ghost between two worlds.
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I see how the Chinese mostly cluster amongst themselves, speaking mandarin. Overall there is less effort to engage socially than say the immigrants from India. This results in political invisibility.
Noticing this makes it difficult to engage in either community and keep to myself. I realize that by noticing the stereotype I fall into the stereotype. I am absent from the community.
Some of this is lack of social maturity. The education system in China has certain merits like an increased floor in basic math skills. But the external world is so pre-digested by parents, teachers, and the state that this can result in an eternal student mentality.
One that waits for instructions and goals. One that sacrifices agency as "this doesn't look like anything to me" for the practical and tangible results of "success", recognition and reward from an authority figure.
Friendship groups in Chinese culture are not based on individual affinity because everyone is shaped roughly the same. If you work on a team at a company, that team becomes your social network. There are few attempts to reach out beyond what destiny has decreed.
In this sense, every relationship is a situationship. As long as the seats at the hotpot table are filled, does it really matter who fills them?
This is not unique to China. Collectivist cultures homogenize and through this commoditize familiarity, safety, and belonging. Orthodox privilege taken to the extreme.
The greater cultural influence of Korean and Japanese exports mask their common Confucian roots. The 996 grind of China, the Chaebols of Korea, and the Keiritsus of Japan. This is what it means to wholly belong to something.
Joining the CCP and getting an MBA. They feel similar to me.
"I know how to play The Game"
You cannot be in two such games at once.
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The "mindless" machine stereotype is unfairly applied to the Chinese I think. "Everyone is just a slightly different variation of the same person." Often it's just a roundabout way of expressing racism. Of rounding down individuality.
A city in Japan that is known for its cream is known for producing artisanal produce and protecting traditional values. A city in China that produces all the world's glasses is just Ching Chong City #11, one to demand lower prices from by deriding the quality and then selling at a 20x markup as high quality.
Supposedly the Lululemon founder for example found it funny that the Japanese could not pronounce the brand but would spend money to buy this high margin 'luxury' good.
I think a Chinese or Korean person might have a small laugh at this, but I doubt there was much attempt by the founder at distinguishing the "orientals".
The long lines at ramen shops sometimes seem like an apology from the west. "This is sooo good, and soo different and soo cultural" Do they know that even in Japan ramen is considered Chinese food? The pinyin romanization "la mian" means nothing without the katakana to nudge it into the Overton window.
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I remember my U.S. middle and high school years where being a FOB was social death. Someone you could make fun of behind their back and even to their face and they wouldn't "get" it. If you were a FOB you weren't part of the cultural zeitgeist but a social commodity. Like concrete, the hidden foundation on which upper class hierarchies are built.
I remember my time in a Chinese high school. Some people would distance themselves from me for not being "smart" enough. Having built an entire identity around being good at math and a good student this was jarring. So what if I was socially invisible, at least I as smart. Well... not anymore. Just another dumb American.
In the U.S., sometimes the American born east asians want to distinguish themselves from the mainlanders. Interactions seem to be done at a distance, like poking at a roadkill. If the two got too close then they wouldn't be able to be distinguished by others. This is more pronounced for the women and less for the men, who seem to bond more easily around things like sports, league of legends, or investing.
I see the depiction in the media of east asian men. "this is why in Japan they have women-only train carriages and the phones have to make a 'click' sound when taking a picture". Many appreciated the popularity of Bruce Lee and other actors who provided an alternative stereotype. It never really evolved past this. I recognized the lead Chinese actor in Shangh-Chi from the show where he played a Korean.
I once attended a corporate diversity seminar. Maybe this is where I could be seen? I realized quickly that it was not diversity of heart, mind, or soul that was desired. It was physical diversity. It was the same "more of US, less of THEM" at the heart of every political group vying for influence and power.
They never pointed out exactly what the the "us" and "them" were. But I think everyone knew.
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Unlike Korean and Japanese exports, Chinese exports seem bleached of their cultural roots. The most dominant and high quality consumer facing examples like TikTok and DJI seems almost American in value. They are for showing off. The more Chinese feelings ones like Alibaba, Shein, and Temu are used almost secretively, as if somewhat ashamed that one would have to concern themselves with price.
Many people imagine that if the CCP were to stop being so oppressive that 100 flowers would bloom and that suddenly all the Chinese would have some great truth to express. This isn't necessarily true.
This I understand about my parent's generation. They wanted their work to speak for themselves. "Why do young people have so much to say?" If cultural flair reduced the market value then it should be removed. Price was the price of everything.
The tiger mom does not want Beethoven performed with oriental flair. She wants entrance and recognition in the halls of the elite in the era of pax americana.
But quiet brilliance does not work when you are invisible.
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Perhaps this is why it's so jarring for the older generation to see blackness sprinkled into everything even as the younger generations bond over naruto-attack-on-titan-hip-hop-keep-it-realness. Prior to the Silicon Valley boom, many immigrants were not highly paid professionals in safe high-tax neighborhoods. They were disproportionately victims of crime. Victims who never fought back and just dealt with it.
There are shadows of this stereotype as people look to China and wonder "Why don't they rebel or something? Are they spineless?"
They say this even as they wave around a picture of someone facing down a tank. Stereotypes are hard to shake. They stick to you like sweat on a coolie.
Even someone who stood in front of tank, would likely be conflicted if the tank began to lift his friends and children and their children's children out of poverty at the fastest rate in history.
You cannot call for revolution when the revolutionaries are still the ones in power.
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To be commoditized and treated like a "thing" leaves cracks in the psyche. Cracks that never really heal. Perhaps the COVID dog killings during the lockdowns in China best exemplify the cultural divide.
In the U.S. not even dogs are treated as things. Like children they are considered pure souls who can do no wrong. While in China, at least for the previous generations, children were treated like investments. Something to care for yes, but like a fruit tree, expected eventually to bear fruit.
A future.
You cannot expect only children to bear the responsibility of providing meaning for so many generations without losing a part of themselves.
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So... what does all of this have to do with overachievement?
Well I've wondered for a long time what over achievement actually was... How can you have too much achievement if achievement is defined as "the good thing".
In short, over achievement is a form of greed that sacrifices what shouldn't be sacrificed for excess of what should be enough. It's chasing excessive distinction despite already being distinguished.
Because distinction is never granted, there is never the feeling of "enough". There is never enough money, never enough status, never enough of anything. Just a constant feeling of lack and a background ache of anxiety.
When you get so desperate for something to fill the void you burn for fuel the things that are sacred. You sacrifice love itself.
And without love on which to be the measure of all things you have nothing to anchor yourself. You become a fake producing fakes. Sacrificing the inner heart for the outer "Mianzi"
China's productivity and its achievement of some pseuodo-utopian ideals ring hollow when they seem to be achieved by sacrificing love.
When it burns the very thing that anchors us to what is real.