Comment by plg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by plg | Hacker News Reader

Big cities always have rich kids.

There is an undercurrent of racism in this article and in Vancouverites' attitudes towards rich kids from asia.

We tend to think of these kids through a lens where we think of our own childhoods and imagine adding enormous wealth. "Just like my childhood except add a $150,000 car allowance".

This is often not the case though. These kids can experience very difficult childhoods. Sent to a foreign country to attend boarding school, or live with a nanny in a big empty house. Hostile, often racist citizens all around them, and people constantly critical of their wealth. (how can you blame a 17 year old for having rich parents?)

I grew up in Vancouver with many kids like these around me. The vast majority of them are good, decent, friendly people who frankly have a tough time in their circumstance.

There is also a certain self-fulfulling prophecy in the whole dynamic, where hostile (often racist) Vancouverites immediately throw scorn all over these kids and their families... and then when they graduate and leave people say "see, they just came here to get an education and make a quick buck from the housing market". Well perhaps if we were less hostile and more welcoming, it would be a different story, and better for everyone including the local economy.

I've lived in Vancouver for 4 years (originally from France) and the depiction of "Hostile, often racist citizens" all around them is frankly a stretch.

I am not denying that some of that exists, but in a city where like 30% of the population is of Asian descent and where the rest of the population is mostly composed of welcoming and good-natured Canadians, I feel like you're painting with quite the broad brush there.

Well after enough of these NYT front-page articles stoking the flames of xenophobia, this may change.

Absolutely true, I'm still deep in love with Vancouver and every bit of news catches my attention and recently it's been a lot about Chinese people stealing houses, ruining the housing market, this and that. Makes me sad.

The racism angle always comes up when we try to talk about this. I agree with you that the article is holding these people up as figures of hate, whether by their wealth or by their foreignness.

On the other hand, Vancouver already had a tradition of embracing immigrants from Asia. It's the only city in North America that's majority Asian. This is one of the main reasons that the Chinese elite send their children here in the first place. So I don't find it credible that Vancouver is a particularly racist place against Asian immigrants. My guess is that a segment of the "astronaut" kids (so-called because they are launched into a foreign country all alone) just make themselves hard to ignore.

You have a point that whatever blunders they may be making, the kids are mostly pawns. I actually called for a Reddit AMA from a Chinese "astronaut" kid in /r/vancouver, but nobody answered.

Do you think you could arrange something like that? Maybe it would increase understanding.

Perhaps, if an individual doesn't want to be a victim of resentment and stereotyping, they shouldn't drive a $150,000 car?

Especially at an age where it's extremely unlikely for that individual to have accrued the necessary wealth themselves.

I think it's more appropriate to say that if the individual can have a $150,000 car at no cost, why on Earth would he/she give a shit what you think of him? I'd take the car and wouldn't hear your opinions of me or it over the engine.

Precisely what happens. And therein lies the problem.

I'm missing the part where this is a problem.

He doesn't have one.

It can be more nuanced than that. Some of these "rich kids" are brought up in an environment, or culture, where they simply don't expect ostenentatious displays of wealth (even by those who have apparently not earned the wealth themselves) to be met with these responses.

In any case, I think it's important to emphasize the individual has a choice.

No one is forcing these people to flaunt their wealth.

Driving that $150,000 car is a good thing. At the very least they don't hoard all their money.

Saving or investing ("hoarding" -- they're not keeping it under the mattress) is inherently ethically worse than consuming, without regards to what is being consumed or invested in? Really?

You're right. They could always invest in more housing.

A less tongue in cheeck answer: they usually don't invest more than half their savings.

Source: http://www.financialsamurai.com/why-the-rich-hoard-so-much-c...

It depends how you look at things.

You can look at it as mere circulation of money. And let's be clear, this is circulation of money, not redistribution of wealth (as they are merely exchanging one asset for another at market rate)

Alternatively, you could see it as this individual making a decision about what humanity should do with scarce resources.

Should we direct them towards helping those in need, or to manufacturing luxury automobiles?

With great wealth comes great responsibility.

You mean the kids are suffering from affluenza?

no I mean the kids are suffering from instant hostility due to some combination of (a) racism (b) more general zenophobia (c) hatred because of their family's wealth

it's unfair to treat these kids badly

be welcoming and supportive and you will be surprised at what you will learn about the world and about yourself

Oh absolutely. Often I hear people say that racism is a problem of the past and that our children are not racist.

Well, I think the problem just shifts. It never really ends. I've heard accounts right here in New Jersey where children shout racist slurs from the windows of their speeding school buses at my friends from India. How would those kids feel if someone yelled racist slurs at them?

I think we are all racists to some extent. However, I think most of us are tactful enough to not just yell out slurs for no reason at bystanders. It is sometimes easy to look at one's children and think "Oh they are so wonderful. I am sure they are not rotten to the core."

Middle school was terrible even though (thankfully) I was not attacked based on race. Children are evil and mean. They will attack each other with whatever they can find. Children have no problem being hypocritical. They will yell racist slurs and will complain when someone yells racist slurs at them.

So, another version of "it's all white people's fault", then?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule

I think it's also unfair to completely ignore the social impact that this growing and highly wealthy immigration (and subsequent disproportionate spending) has had on the generations of people who have lived in Vancouver and now find many important things getting more expensive and out of reach in the span of a relatively short period of time.

This has nothing to do with race or ethnicity, but more pragmatically has to do with "outsiders" arriving and disrupting the local economy and social structure. I'm not saying it should be prevented, but you can't just say it's benign either.

If 37,000 rich people flocked to Vancouver from another part of Canada, and were mostly white, the majority of the issues being raised would remain the same.

Your anecdotal story about growing up around some of these kids is not invalid, but it ignores the larger social impact of recent events that have nothing to do with kids, but more to do with their parents' money.

agreed

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