A Chinese programmer died in hospital after fainting while working at home late last year.Gao Guanghui (transliterated), 32, allegedly died of cardiac arrest, leading his family to believe that he died from overwork.According to Chinese media, he was promoted to department manager recently and had consistently been working long hours prior to his death.In addition to programming tasks, he was...
What’s funny is your experience is similar to mine except my family was Hispanic and living in the USA. I went to work with my mom or dad s lot too, both before and after school, even up to my preteens.
We didn’t boil the tap but we didn’t really drink it either - it smelled weird (later testing showed it had some heavy metals and other hazardous chemicals - likely from the nearby refineries) - instead we went to this water well thing where we would out 5 gallon jugs of water (like the one in water coolers) and got water they’re for drinking.
We did get the internet sooner, at least I suppose. But for awhile my experience with the internet were those “free trial” discs the companies gave because internet was (and I hear still is) expensive.
I had a very similar childhood in the US.
I sat at a booth and played with coloring books while my mom worked in a restaurant’s kitchen, dad’s work was seasonal and very irregular. We didn’t drink the tapwater in our little town because it didn’t smell right and even came out discolored a few times; instead we’d drive to springs where a bunch of other people got their water too.
“Wealthy” white american here, child of a single parent. Third generation in the US. I went to work with said parent or family and was offloaded to childcare at YMCA or relatives or often just hanging out at the pizza place where said parent worked. I made a lot of pizza boxes over the years. I also got a lot of free pizza.
I rode the bus to school because it was cheap throughout childhood until basically high school when I could walk from my house. There were periods I walked to and from school though, even as young as 7 years old. I was most often one of the poorest families in an incredibly wealthy town. A town I can’t possibly afford to buy a home in today despite having a great job.
I didn’t have hot water in one of the houses I grew up in for over a decade. Never had to boil water though thankfully but one of the neighboring towns had a catastrophe ruining their water supply. Before I was born, my family lived in that town. We had an AC by the time I was a teenager but was instructed to never put it below ~78f with low fan speed or so. I’m totally fine today without AC and just fans… but once I got a good career I swapped to whatever AC temp I wanted, it’s the luxury I always wanted.
Modern QOL in the US is absolutely insane compared to 40 years ago, even with current difficult economy challenges.
When I travel I see conditions way worse than what we had then for most humans, but i’m not traveling to wealthy nations typically. I also don’t bother with shitty expensive resorts. Give me Lima any day (oh my god the food, best in the world imo.)