介绍:
【特别感谢南京师范大学热心听友“卷卷”/Cecilia 李文娟 帮忙听写本篇文稿】
Heyang: A mother lets her 12-year-old son quit school all together because he can earn 30 thousand yuan a month for playing video games. Do you think it’s OK for a young boy to give up studies since he can make a living by playing video games?
Sam: It does sound like every 12-year-old boy’s dream, doesn’t it? Not having to go to school anymore and earning money by playing video games. But yeah, I can see how this might be some of a controversial issue. It’s amazing to me the rise of, like e-sports, online gaming and everything, not just in China, but in any other parts of the world. It’s actually now a living for some people and it’s a job that people earn money from doing this. It’s been reported that this boy earns, you know, over four and a half thousand dollars a month just by playing this game. He signed a contract with this one particular online streaming platform. Well, where, you know, they have online viewers watching him play this game as he is doing it, sort of as life.
HY: I can’t think of nerdier, geekier, socially averted way of a job. This is totally absurd to me. But they make big bucks— 30 thousand yuan per month, that’s far more what they pay for a (Luoyu: CRI), yes, then than what I get from my job obviously. Thanks, Luoyu, making it so apparent to everyone, and also just white collar jobs in general. So what do you guys think? Is it OK?
Luoyu: I think it’s quite a bit of tradeoff here. For one thing, actually, this mother is breaking the law. According to the law of compulsory education here in China, it stipulates that all the people, every individual is entitled to have this compulsory education for nine years. And this school girl is only 12 years old (Heyang: school boy), school boy, sorry, and he went to the vocational school and obviously he hasn’t finished the schooling year. However, if you see what the boy’s mother has said, it’s a very nice gesture because his mother said: “we just hope our kid to grow up happily, and if he can realize his dream, we all back him up.” So I think people have to change our traditional mindset. After finishing this 9-year compulsory education, he can do whatever he wants and he is really gifted and talented in this e-sport. We have millions of new jobs created in modern society, for example, we have this jiudian shishuiyuan, hotel sleeper, for those people who inspect the quality of the service provided by hospitality industry being at a resort hotel, and you rate them. Also we have this wanghong, right? Internet celebrity. They sell a million’s clothes on internet and earn big bucks as well.
HY: OK, thanks for telling us that there’re a lot of new jobs that have been created in this economic climate. I think that’s the kind of news we really do want to hear. I just like to revisit the part you talked about, Luoyu, what the mom said—all we want is this boy to be happy. I mean that statement alone, there’s nothing you can say against it. But I wonder, if you look at the whole story, and the mother saying this to her 12-year-old son, isn’t it a little bit irresponsible? Sometimes it’s very easy to say yes to your kid, but he’s only twelve, and isn’t it his mother’s responsibility to think a little bit further for him? You’re only twelve. You can earn this much amount of money now, but your life is long. Is this gonna be sustainable? And also all those examples that Luoyu gave earlier, if it’s a 12-year-old boy doing all those things, how many years can he do that? Shouldn’t the mother as the legal guardian of the boy think a bit further and plan a bit further for him?
Sam: Yeah, I think that’s a very good point. I think it’s a bit indulgent to say this to a 12-year-old, you know, do whatever you want, whatever makes you happy. In the UK, compulsory education is 15 to 16 years old, and I think if you finish that level, then yes, I think you can go and do what you want. If you have that sort of aptitude, something that you enjoy doing, something that you play pays well, then I don’t see any reason not to do it. But we are talking about a 12-year-old kid here, who presumably hasn’t taken any exams, or doesn’t have any qualifications, he might be earning big money now, but he doesn’t haveyou never know how things are going much to transpire in a few yearsyears’ time. He might fall out of love with it. This is an industry stream that moves very quickly. Maybe there will be a new game that will coming come out that he won’t be as good at it, maybe he will just fade into obscurity. All of a sudden, he will find one day he’s got no backup, because he’s got no qualifications. It’s like the nearest thing I can think of is if you are very good at the sport or something, you get signed up to a football team at a very young age, and you think oh, you’ve made it or whatever, maybe you get a very bad injury, and then you can’t play football any more. And if you don’t have any qualifications because you don’t didn’t pay attention in school because you thought you were gonna be a football player for the rest of your life, and all of a sudden, you are rather stuck and you are on your own, so I do think it’s important even if there’re these sort of riches on offer that people take a look at the big picture here.
LY: The most important thing is this boy, when he is indulged, he engages engaged in this gaming industry, he’s not shy and he’s not bad-tempered. He’s an outstanding performer and that’s very important for the growth pattern psychologically for human being.
HY: And we have a lot of messages coming in again. Great! It’s a great day for roundtable. There are so many people listening to our live show actually. Hello, Huang Hongchang, Mister! I haven’t seen you in a while. He says:” I’ve seen that kid play the game and he plays well. And I think a 12-year-old boy can’t plan out his life at such a young age, also an e-player will reach his or her peak at around 23 years old, and after that his life would sort of go down and in a spiral when it comes to professional game playing.” I just wonder what does Mr. Huang do. He sounds like he knows a lot about this gaming world.”
Sam: But I mean if Mr. Huang said that the peak is around 23 years old, what happens after that?
LY: This boy has got another 11 or 12 years to reach the peak, right, as a professional game player.
Sam: But he also got 60 more years to live. What is he going to do for the rest of his life?
