Thankfulness and the struggle between consumerism and relationships

Around Thanksgiving, some of my classes were writing down things that they were thankful for or reasons why people give thanks.  The activity overall bombed, but I thought the things they were writing were interesting, so I saved a handful of the slips of paper that they wrote on.

Here's the list.

thankful teacher teach me. made me knowladgeable.

parents

My parents gives my life.

mother

it is the way of manners

Family gives me love

My parents love me.

sun

My parents give me life

thanks for my friends give me happiness

My girlfriend play with me ["play" is common Chinglish for "hangs out"]

love. friendly

My boyfriend like me.  Me too.

Parents give me life

friends

thankful my small brother bring me many happy time

harmonious family

Friends give me warm

study in class

Teacher educate me

my parents, because they birthd me.

Because they always help me. when I was in difficult.

Because the people have a thankful heart.

harvest

thankful: my parents give my life and educate me.

thanks for my families careness to me

love

good health

A healthy body

thanks for our teachers tell more things about the world

Notice a theme?  Like how nearly all of these are focused on relationships?  China is caught in this really weird tension between a history of valuing relationships and community a ton and the alluring pull of consumerism and materialism.  

This was super evident as I gave their finals these last two weeks too.  Finals were great because I had time to talk with each student individually and in small groups, and since we had talked about a lot of things this semester, I could ask them questions like, "What are life  lessons that you have learned?"  "What are your biggest dreams for your future?"  "If you had a time machine, what time in the past/future would you want to visit?"  

Their answers were probably pretty evenly divided between really obvious/shallow and heartbreakingly honest and deep.

The label "shallow" doesn't mean that they weren't honest, just that I hope they get more significant dreams at some point...soon... -- "I want to be a successful businessman" and "I want to earn a lot of money" and "I want to buy a house and a car" and "I would go back to my childhood because there was less pressure."

Then there were answers like, "I would go back to my childhood because I was unkind to my grandmother... and she is dead now... and I wish I could do it again" or "I want to go forward in the future, to know how long I will live" or "I want to know when the people who are important to me will die, so that I know how much time I will have with them."

They know life is short and that they fail in a lot of ways.  There is so much pressure to perform well in Chinese society that it's pretty impossible to not realize that.  

And so...

And so I hope that they will learn quickly, learn soon, that no material things, no amount of success, not even their relationships with their friends and family will be able to make those things right.