Post 7

Peter Hessler describes his attitude towards money on page 254. He states, “Money meant very little to me in Fuling. I made one thousand yuan a month, while the average per capita income for a Chinese urban household was 430 yuan-fifty-odd American dollars, at the official exchange rate of slightly more than eight yuan to the dollar. In rural areas the per capita income was only 175 yuan a month, but peasants could stretch money further because they grew their own food.” This statement is interesting because he must have found it important/different that money didn’t mean all that much to him if he was going to write a whole chapter on it. It seems like he makes a lot more than the other people who lived in Fuling. Peter continues to talk about buying things for no reason; he just bought objects that caught his eye. It almost seems like he was bored so he decided to go out and buy random things to fix his boredom. On page 259 Peter Hessler tries to analyze why Chairman Moa hated money so much. He states, “Moa was the father of New China, and perhaps it was in reaction to him that the Chinese nowadays spent so much time thinking and talking about money. Or maybe it was simply that now they had more than ever before, with more ways to earn and spend it, and yet with all that new money it still wasn’t enough.” This quote is interesting because it seems like the people who have the most money rather have less money and the people with little money rather have more. I think this same idea happens in the United States where the people who have money don’t become bored and the people who don’t have money always have something to do and want more. Right now I’m a little nervous about money because I’m a college student and it’s rare if a college student has a lot of money. Even though I don’t have a lot of money I don’t feel bored, in fact I feel like I want to do more to get money. This same feeling is probably what the people in Fuling  feel like too.