Hung Huang, one of China’s four Opras, and the CEO of China Interactive Media Group, the host of TV talk show Crossing Over and one of the top-five most popular Bloggers in China wrote a post for the New York Times Economix Blog about why the Chinese save so much.
She thinks the Chinese save out of fear.
I don’t agree, because China is not unique when it comes to Asians saving money. Galbi Think.org says, “Savings rates for East Asian economies averaged about 35% of GDP.
For a comparison, the long term saving rate in the US is less than 7%.
Another study reported by All Business.com says, “The fact that the saving rate of rural households (in China) is considerably higher than that of urban households—even though their income levels are so much lower—is surprising.”
Not so surprising. I married into a Chinese family and I’ve come to believe the Chinese can out frugal anyone. The less earned, the more the Chinese save. All it takes is saying no to buying frivolous junk and eating out when the money isn’t there.
In fact, I found the comments to Huang’s post to be more convincing.
Melvin Chin says, “Asians, including Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans, are predominantly brought up with the concepts of frugality and saving from very young. … Saving teaches them to be proud of what is accumulated, enjoy the fruits of abundance, and cherish the habit as a virtue.”
B. Ray says, “The strong family connection is the reason for Chinese to save. It is the same in Taiwan. Almost every elder person I know saves for their descendents.”
Fei says, “Simply look at the generations of Chinese who live in North American, you’ll find out that the majority of them still maintain a lifelong enthusiasm of saving … because saving is a habit that’s deeply rooted in the Chinese culture.”
If all Asian cultures are so good at saving money and are all collective cultures, what does that say about the West and North America’s individualistic cultures?
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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