“What everyone wants from life is continuous and genuine happiness.”

-Baruch Spinoza 

This past week I had a discussion with my students about why they love China and why they don’t love China. I also asked them what they thought other people thought of China. It was a lot of fun to hear all of the different answers. In one class, they gave me all the “communist” answers, we are big, powerful, strong, big army… blah blah blah. I also got answers like it is so beautiful, we have a lot of history, many places to visit, people are friendly, ect. I had one boy respond, “because there are many beautiful girls.” Gotta love teenagers. J Tank, one of my favorite students said, “Miss Brooke, I love China because I am Chinese.” He later wrote me a note in class that said, “I love China. I am Chinese. No love reason. I love China.”

He then had a picture of a heart with the Chinese flag drawn in the middle. It was awesome. He is such a stud. Tank then asked me why I like America and why I don’t like America. I gave him several reasons. When I said why I didn’t like America I told him that I didn’t like how Americans were so busy. The Chinese live simple and practical lives. Sometimes I feel like Americans don’t take the time to talk to someone on the street, say hello to a stranger, help someone out, or even give a smile. It seems like most Chinese people are happier than most Americans. The Chinese don’t have very much, but they are the happiest people I’ve ever met. Being around them makes me happy. We got off on a discussion about how many Americans have a lot of money, and they think this brings happiness. My entire class responded that this isn’t true and money doesn’t make someone happy. They all seemed to understand this concept. I told them that they were smarter than most Americans. They have already found what many people search for their entire lives: happiness.