blog post 250-275

Peter's description of money in China compared to the American view in pages 250-275 has quite a bit of contrast between the two. There is a part of the section where Peter describes his salary and the that he disperses it throughout the month. He basically says that he spends his money on unnecessary things and food. Hessler bought a fishing pole only for it to sit in the living room of his house and collect dust. He does things like this with his money because he has nothing to pay for or bills to worry about. If he saves his money that he earned he would have about 400 American dollars a month. From what Hessler illustrates in this section, Chinese people are very generous about giving money no matter how much they have. Even to show respect, Chinese students will pay for their instructors lunches if they happen to be out at the same place. Peter found this to be very uncomfortable and would even pay for his meals before students would come into the restaurant. Although the Chinese are very giving when it comes to money, they are also fined to many things. The only good aspect about the fines and jobs is that the Chinese government will make sure that they have a job to pay for the fine. I think that America should take more consideration into that aspect of the government when they give tickets and fines to people that have no source of money. Chinese are fined for having more than one child, failing exams, missing morning exercise, and many other things. These fines teach the citizens to be more responsible and lets them know that there are consequences to all of their actions and choices in life.