Do you honestly think that these people are committing suicide for "honour" reasons.
It was just a theory. It makes sense....well, it doesn't make sense but this mentality exists. You may be right, it may be due to low wages but why is it that these 10 people decided to end their lives only after the big boss came for a visit? Perhaps to make a statement?
Either way we look at it, the gov't is to blame either directly, or indirectly.
well I think it was just things adding up.
-no social life, if you play The Sims, your sim goes crazy too from not socialing! lol.
-crazy work hours, 16 hours a day for 7 days a week. generally they get 1 to 2 weeks off a year (Chinese new year and sometimes one more for visiting your ancestor's grave). Monday blues? TGIF? lol. they have daily blues and thank God tmmw is CNY.
-plus this guy in the news was accused of stealing something.
add all these up and it would tear most man apart.
Stats dont mean anything if you don't look into the problems within the society. Just because x out of Y suicide doesn't makes sense out of suicides. Every society and culture and lifestyle are very different. We are lucky to be in Canada, which is better than China in almost every aspect of living. China is very different to Canada, and most of you will never understand. I swear, people treat their pets better in Canada, than employers treat their employees in China.
lives are not just numbers, every human being is worth something to their friends and family. Yes, x out of y suicide in every society but that does not make it OK or normal. These suicides happen way too often in Asia, something must be done.
sorry this kinda became a rant about society, but it is just so sad to read these stuff. It happens very often, at least in Hong Kong and China, I read about it in the Chinese newspaper all the time.
well I think it was just things adding up.
-no social life, if you play The Sims, your sim goes crazy too from not socialing! lol.
-crazy work hours, 16 hours a day for 7 days a week. generally they get 1 to 2 weeks off a year (Chinese new year and sometimes one more for visiting your ancestor's grave). Monday blues? TGIF? lol. they have daily blues and thank God tmmw is CNY.
-plus this guy in the news was accused of stealing something.
add all these up and it would tear most man apart.
Stats dont mean anything if you don't look into the problems within the society. Just because x out of Y suicide doesn't makes sense out of suicides. Every society and culture and lifestyle are very different. We are lucky to be in Canada, which is better than China in almost every aspect of living. China is very different to Canada, and most of you will never understand. I swear, people treat their pets better in Canada, than employers treat their employees in China.
lives are not just numbers, every human being is worth something to their friends and family. Yes, x out of y suicide in every society but that does not make it OK or normal. These suicides happen way too often in Asia, something must be done.
sorry this kinda became a rant about society, but it is just so sad to read these stuff. It happens very often, at least in Hong Kong and China, I read about it in the Chinese newspaper all the time.
Much of the world's people are still poor, struggle to survive.
In our relative affluence with employment standards and unions we tend to forget that it wasn't that long ago that Western society had terrible working conditions.
And how much of the world was colonized to support the emerging industrial societies!
Recall Charles Dickens and his novels depicting Nineteenth Century England?
"When Dickens’ father was transferred to Chatham in Kent County, the family settled into the genteel surroundings of a larger home with two live-in servants—one being Mary Weller who was young Charles’ nursemaid. Dickens was a voracious reader of such authors as Henry Fielding, Daniel Defoe, and Oliver Goldsmith. When he was not attending the school of William Giles where he was an apt pupil, he and his siblings played games of make-believe, gave recitations of poetry, sang songs, and created theatrical productions that would spark a lifelong love of the theatre in Dickens. But household expenses were rising and in 1824, John Dickens was imprisoned for debt in the Marshalsea Prison. All of the family went with him except for Charles who, at the age of twelve, was sent off to work at Warren’s Shoe Blacking Factory to help support the family, pasting labels on boxes. He lived in a boarding house in Camden Town and walked to work everyday and visited his father on Sundays.
It was one of the pivotal points in Dickens’ education from the University of Hard Knocks and would stay with him forever. The idyllic days of his childhood were over and he was rudely introduced to the world of the working poor, where child labour was rampant and few if any adults spared a kind word for many abandoned or orphaned children. Many of his future characters like Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and Philip Pirrip would be based on his own experiences. The appalling working conditions, long hours and poor pay typical of the time were harsh, but the worst part of the experience was that when his father was released his mother insisted he continue to work there. While he felt betrayed by and resented her for many years to come, his father arranged for him to attend the Wellington House Academy in London as a day pupil from 1824-1827, perhaps saving him from a life of factory work and setting him on the road to becoming a writer."
And of course on this continent, in more recent times ~ Steinbeck's 'Grapes of Wrath' set in the Great Depression of the 1930's! Steinbeck was hated in Salinas, today there is a big cooler named after him and a now a fancy John Steinbeck Centre Welcome to The National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, CA
"1956: Steinbeck wrote to an aspiring writer from Salinas: “Don't think for a moment that you will ever be forgiven for being what they call 'different.' You won't! I still have not been forgiven. Only when I am delivered in a pine box will I be considered 'safe.' After I had written the Grapes of Wrath and it had been to a large extent read and sometimes burned, the librarians at the Salinas Public Library, who had known my folks remarked that is was lucky my parents were dead so that they did not have to suffer this shame.”
Things have been good for many of us since the 1960's, though spare a thought for the 'illegals' who grow a lot of our food in California/Arizona! California Agriculture Online
"A study of 65 rural California towns indicates that labor-intensive agriculture contributes to poverty and welfare demands in rural communities by attracting large numbers of unskilled foreign workers and offering most of them poverty-level wages. In the 65 towns, 28% of the residents live in households with below-poverty incomes"
Oops...end of rant!
__________________
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
- Albert Einstein
Stats dont mean anything if you don't look into the problems within the society. Just because x out of Y suicide doesn't makes sense out of suicides.
[...]
lives are not just numbers, every human being is worth something to their friends and family. Yes, x out of y suicide in every society but that does not make it OK or normal. These suicides happen way too often in Asia, something must be done.
Of course all these suicides are people, not just numbers, and of course suicide is never "OK". All those things are important to remember, as any empathic person should. But if the claim is that suicide rates are particularly high at Foxconn, that simply isn't true compared to the rest of China, and no amount of empathic impulse changes that statistical fact. This is no different than thinking that murder is bad, yet recognizing that the murder rate in Canada is nonetheless extremely low for North America as a whole. Suicides at Foxconn are terrible because suicide in general is terrible, but the rate is nonetheless lower than for China a whole, which means that Foxconn is not causing suicides (indeed, it could be argued that having a job at Foxconn prevents suicide relative to other jobs in China).
I really do appreciate the compassionate response people have to this issue. But it is also important to understand what the statistics really say, in addition to having compassion. One can do both.
Of course all these suicides are people, not just numbers, and of course suicide is never "OK". All those things are important to remember, as any empathic person should. But if the claim is that suicide rates are particularly high at Foxconn, that simply isn't true compared to the rest of China, and no amount of empathic impulse changes that statistical fact. This is no different than thinking that murder is bad, yet recognizing that the murder rate in Canada is nonetheless extremely low for North America as a whole. Suicides at Foxconn are terrible because suicide in general is terrible, but the rate is nonetheless lower than for China a whole, which means that Foxconn is not causing suicides (indeed, it could be argued that having a job at Foxconn prevents suicide relative to other jobs in China).
I really do appreciate the compassionate response people have to this issue. But it is also important to understand what the statistics really say, in addition to having compassion. One can do both.
The comment earlier re 'Communism' is to blame is, if I'm to be polite ,a rather sad display of missing knowledge!
Five of the top six suicide countries are EX Communist!
( is that because they miss the Soviet Union?)
The fifth place Japan has never been communist!
China is 26 in world .. with nearly one third male rate as Japan!
Suicide in the People's Republic of China is unique[citation needed] among countries of the world in that more women than men commit suicide each year: in 1999 the rate per 100,000 people was 13.0 for men and 14.8 for women,[1] the highest female suicide rate in the world. The male rate is lower than in many other countries, including some Western countries such as the United States, Australia and Germany, is much lower than in the other East Asian countries, Japan and Korea.
BC has suicide highest rate in Canada, Newfoundland the lowest!
Among the most common faith groups in the U.S., Protestants have the highest suicide rate; Roman Catholics are next; Jews have the lowest rate.
Followers of religions that strongly prohibit suicide, like Christianity and Islam, have a higher suicide rate than those religions which have no strong prohibition (e.g. Buddhism and Hinduism.
__________________
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
- Albert Einstein
Linear Mode
