To be or not to be

“You can’t say you don’t know or you’ve no idea.That indicates that you haven’t got your own thought.” “You know…Em…Your answer is just too simple which isn’t like what a 19-year-old or 20-year-old should say,but like primary school children.You should think deeper. ”Mr. Mehdi complaint again in today’s class.Actually he complains about our being too childish nearly every class.


On the contrary he also showed his appreciation for our still being naive,being innocent at this age in one class. “You know what.You guys look so different from Singaporean students at the same age as you.You just look puerer.I mean they get to know too many things at too early an age such as the power of money,the power of fame or something like that.What they value is mainly money.But as far as I know, you Chinese students value knowledge more.Singaporeans are more practical. ”


So,here comes the problem which has been confusing me for a long time that whether we can be both naive and insightful.It seems like a paradox,doesn’t it? “Naive” means people or their behavior is innocent and simple whereas “insightful” means showing a clear understanding of a person or situation based on rich knowledge or experience.If we were insightful,we must have experienced and read a lot about our community,our society and our world.We would know not only is there good in this world,there also exists evil.We would get to know many things just like Singaporeans.Then how can we still appear naive?


Yeah,I have to admit that sometimes I do feel that I am too naive or in other words,too childish.I still believe in some unrealistically happy or perfect things.I still tend to trust people so easily that my mum once said: “You must never do business in the future because you will probably be swindled to death.”


But why on earth do Chinese students especially those who majored in science seem rather naive?In my opinion,it has something to do with the education we’ve receievd.In China,the focus of a student’s life is always study which means we are kind of cut off from the outside world and have little chance to learn more about the world.For students who major in arts,the situation is a little better because they can know more about the world in their history and politics classes.For science students,however,we deal with maths,physics ,chemistry or biology all day long.That is to say,we deal with numbers,fomulas and experiments all day and many of those scientists we admire are also crazy explorers,totally absorbed in their research and ignoring the outside world or even their close families.Having been educated in such an academic atmosphere,we tend to consider social problems in too simpleor direct a way just like when we are facing a maths or physics problem,we always try to find the simplest method to solve it out of habit.And this may result from our lack in experience of real life.


It can’t be denied that in order to survive in this actually complicated modern society,we need to be sophisticated and even somewhat tactful.But to tell the truth,I really really resist losing that kind of innocence and getting to know the dark sides of the world,which explains why I refuse to watch WoJu,haha~