To be honest, I do not really feel there is much difference between Shanghai and Singapore in term of appearance, both are big, and fast paced city. The main difference to me is in people’s mindset.
Back in my first year of university, I asked my parents a question, “should I go to do a part time job?” I think most of my friends here will be stunned when they hear this question. And the fact is when I asked this question during junior college years, all of my family member were against it and my grandmother even spend a few hours talk to me and educated me that getting a good result was the more important thing for me.
In china, especially in cities, people do not want their kids expose to society too early. This is maybe also because there is only one child in a family in china, there is less burden and children a kind of “spoiled”. When I come to Singapore, I saw most of employee in MacDonald are secondary school kids, this is impressed me, this is hardly seen in big city of china.
To comment whether china children are “over-protected” is good? I may say it is both good and bad. For me personally, this kind of protection give me a happy childhood, without worry too much things. And to compare to my peers, I seems to be a bit less experienced.
