A chinese woman once started talking to me in a bakery, saying she wanted to practice her english. She'd spent time in Australia and recently come back to China to look for a job.
"What kind of job are you looking for?" I ask.
"I want to get a job in an office."
When "working in an office" is the height of your ambition, a B Ark job is as good as things get. If you're looking for awful jobs people get crammed into by economic force, look at obviously-productive C Ark jobs, like being a miner or a peasant.
No, they are still awful. Just awful on different levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. If your job leaves you insecure for basic survival and safety, then merely having your esteem and self actualization trashed looks like heaven.
Are you sure it was the "height of her ambition"? Sounds like she was primarily focused on practising her English and didn't mind too much about the work.
From personal conversation (in Chinese) with another person:
> What do your parents do?
> They're normal people.
Or, from a Chinese girl's online dating profile:
> 爸爸是农民。妈妈是工人。 [My father's a farmer; my mother is an employee.]
The elevation of the concept "job in an office" isn't a problem with insufficient english; it's something Chinese people in China do while they're speaking Chinese. I've also seen a banner at 复旦大学 (generally considered the third best university in China) advertising a lecture on... becoming an "office gentleman" or "office lady" (those terms were in english, but the rest of the banner wasn't).
A chinese woman once started talking to me in a bakery, saying she wanted to practice her english. She'd spent time in Australia and recently come back to China to look for a job.
"What kind of job are you looking for?" I ask.
"I want to get a job in an office."
When "working in an office" is the height of your ambition, a B Ark job is as good as things get. If you're looking for awful jobs people get crammed into by economic force, look at obviously-productive C Ark jobs, like being a miner or a peasant.