The Color of Money

The red Chairman turns cobalt, turquoise, tan, purple then to a familiar green. A rainbow of symbolism seeps from the Ren Min Bi as mood ring analogies strut onto the page: green with envy and red with passion and every feeling and hue between. More than 100 years of change change change has sprung a massive population of work hard harder hardest. Work hard on what? Raging bureaucracies in a top-down system ensure that the most worthwhile accomplishments go unnoticed. Rising budgets amidst rising materialism reveals a hunger unpolished. A young Chinese generation hopes wishes wants money to appear in neat piles but no plan comes to mind; ideologies are marked by their absence. Making a lot of money is a must but details of the plan are lost among daydreams of a colorful life. All the while overflowing pressures fall onto students and twenty-somethings as daydreams drown into nightmarish expectations.

We paint our financial portraits as vibrantly or as dimly as we’d like. We wish, hope and pray for more money, and we work incredibly hard for it as well. We use low funds as a great excuse to stay in our comfort zones — to stay home — and we let our emotions run with whatever financial peak or valley we find ourselves. Everyone handles money a little differently, but we all save it hold it keep it spend it waste it give it. And the fact remains that if we aren’t creative in the way we handle it, money (or lack thereof) will prevent us from doing the things that keep life colorful.

The Word Is: Money 钱 [qián]

下次见 [Xià cì jiàn]! See you later!