I'm glad I was born in developing country

Just a random rant.

As a person who grown up in low range of middle class from developing country. While it has its own cons, it also give me a lot of more benefit than I ever realized

1. Wider perceptions of things

This is the most obvious thing that come to my mind. Growing in the outskirt area of a small town in a developing country, then move to the capital for study and work, and eventually (luckily) move to another developed country for career advancement. There are people that I have met during the journey, good and bad, smart and stupid, etc. One thing I notice from many of them is that their perception of things can be surprisingly narrow, despite a better education and more access to everything.

It came to me in many ways, but the most direct one are questions

It's undeniable that people will always have a stereotype, but sometime it can mislead to many things, most of the perception they have about our country are

* People from developing country is poor, uneducated and has bad life quality
* They don't have access to technology and don't know what's happen in the world
* All developing country are the same
* They are simply stupid

It actually is not that bad as it sounds, but you get the idea of what I'm talking about. While all of these statements are generally true to many countries, it is not always the case, mainly because the generalizations of developing country are totally wrong.

It's a bad bad concept by itself, when you categorize thing into just developed and developing (or pretty much undeveloped) country. And people are ignorance enough to follow this mindset and make up their perception follow from this.

Surely developed countries do many things right, while developing countries do many things wrong. But here, let me explain

There are more than one level of developing country

Same as advance nations. You are not always on the same level, on many things. There are developing country that has a bad education, as many as one with good one.

The infrastructure can be range from bad to good too. And you don't know what that country has until you go and see by yourself. Just compare some poor country in Africa to Chia for example. They are in the same status, but the infrastructure and modernization of the city is day and night. Funny thing is lots of infrastructure in China is even better than some developed nations.

Even internet, is a lot faster in some developing countries.

There are more than one level of people even from the same country

One thing that is true is that developing countries don't do a very good job distribute the wealth and infrastructure to everyone, even if it's also true for developed country, it's a lot worse in the other part of the world. That means people from different place/city can have totally different mindset/experience regarding to everything.

But generalization (as I mention above) seems to be applied to everyone from developing world, regardless of their education background or work experience, which is kind of baffling to me, in these days and ages where things seems to be more focus onto the city itself rather than the whole country. This is simply to say, people from good modernize city in developing country is on the same level as you people in developed country and is totally not different if not better, education and infrastructure wise.

So don't judge people on what country they are from, judge them from what they do, what experience they have, what their education background is. Even if judging people already sounds like a bad thing to do, but you know what I mean. Just educate yourself more.

Funny thing is, this seems to be case for most people from previous generation, when things were still different. It's  a lot less problem for younger generation, who has the chance to travel the world, see how things change, etc.


This is why I say I'm glad I was born in developing country. It's easier to see things from bottom to top (especially when you have to work your way up). I can tell that there are things that different , what work, what not work, and so on. I'm not saying I'm smarter than anyone. It's just that I'm more accept and understandable with people around the world, rather than ... you know ... judge them right away.

2. We have to work harder

As simple as it sounds. We have to work harder for everything, because our government is so shit sometime.

To be fair, having to work hard is not the advantage by itself. But we all human in general are lazy. Look at the rich one for the most obvious example.

So there are things that we have to work harder than lots of people from developed countries if we want to get to the same level or life quality. This leads to more experience and progression in life, which in a way kind of forcing us to study more, know more and so on.

3. Less materialize

Or maybe it's just me I don't know. I know that it's not super fair to compare people like this, as there are many people from developing countries who are very materialize too. So this one is not about the comparison between the 2. But more like, the place where I grow up let me appreciate other things in life more. I couldn't be more careless about fashion, car, and phone. I enjoy nature, eating more organic food,  spending time with family, etc. This is not in my DNA, it's just that the way I grow up let me appreciate this.

BTW I'm not saying that people who care about all those stuff are bad. Actually most of my friends are like this, and they are good people. It just sometime I wish people would care more about other thing. Spending money on more meaningful stuff rather than the latest fashion which change every 6 months.

Maybe part of the reason is because my family couldn't afford me new shiny toys when I was young. Lots of things that I have to give up wishing or even think about it (or just have to work harder to get it). And the best thing that I ever get from my parent is the most basic education, which is kind of thankful because that is the only thing to push me to this point.

Or maybe because I'm a nerd. Having to work in the industry where people only care about technology discussion, having to study in the class where most people try to fight to get the best grade.

It's just a combination of things I guess.





There are many other reasons I could have thinking of but I already forget about it now. To end this blog post, let me clarify one thing first. I'm not against people from developed world, or I'm not saying people from developing world is better or anything. Surely there are sometimes when I'm being judged just because of the country I'm from, but there are also nice people too. In some cases people is just ... people. There are not much different. I just want to clarify in this blog post that generalization is just bad. If you want to judge people, base it from individual, not the country, not race, not religion. And I have a good friend all around the world. My mind is still going back and forth between my home country and where I'm living now. Although in general my life quality is quite better here, there are still something that I miss (and maybe it's the reason why there is no single best country in the world, and maybe why people do travel ...)

This is my first blog post, and english is not my native language. So it might be all over the place. Hope it's better in the future. But mostly I just want to start writing something about my life experience. So one day I can read back ...