Brain Dump | Morning Musings

If you think too much, bringing a note might be a great idea.

One of the things that I regret is basically not bringing a small note everywhere I go. This morning on getting my coffee, I had a few interesting sights. Now, the moment I am drinking coffee, I can only vaguely remember about them. It’s quite hazy but somehow I remember about romanticizing poverty, chinese-made products and its stigma, and how my caffeine tolerance is even higher. It’s why bringing a note would be a great idea for me because sometimes those golden nuggets shouldn’t be missing from being explored.

Okay, let’s talk about Chinese made products and its stigma. In the past, Chinese made is often associated with poorly made and less durable products. But in recent years, that stigma slowly fades away. A lot of our appliances are somehow chinese made and even famous brands that we know of also assembled parts of it in China. These days, we can’t really escape Chinese made products just the same way we can’t boycott certain products because we don’t align with their political views. Thanks to globalization, I guess.

Welcome to my brain dump, it’s morning and when I am able to sit down, sipping a cup of coffee while contemplating about life and emptying it out a little.

These days in the market Chinese products are still known to be very reasonable and cheap. But there are rising brands such as Xiaomi that are quite competitive as well as the hot topic, their EV car line up “wuling”. In Indonesia, while wuling isn’t so common around but they are already seen around the country since 2022. These days, there are even smaller EV from wuling. And now, we also have electric bikes that are mostly dominated by China. While it’s difficult to remove the stigma that comes from being chinese made but because its competitive price, a lot of people opt for that.

Personally, to me there are some things that I think China is doing quite well. Their plastic-made household is pretty okay but when it comes to electronics, I am still skeptical as a consumer. While I am aware a lot of things are made from china, but I wonder if there was better quality control from let’s say EU based companies or even local companies. I am also pretty skeptical even more because when I brought the latest smartwatch from them, it didn’t last longer than a year. So, that stigma is still difficult for me to erase because I kept getting disappointed when I purchased from brands like Xiaomi.

But I do recognize that they provide things that are useful for people to have. Where else can you get cheap tech wearables and stuff if not from brands like Xiaomi?

Okay I guess now we move on to the topic of poverty. Sometimes it baffles me how poverty is defined. We easily throw words like “being broke”, “ I am poor help me” or subtly showing how poor we are. I mean, when you can upload it online, I doubt that’s actually poor but I recognize something called “urban poverty” and “hidden poverty”.

I wouldn’t say expert on finance either but where I am from, there’s a little disconnect and understanding of needs. A lot of people prioritize their tertiary needs rather than their primary needs. I find this pretty intriguing because as I learn more, each of us are taught differently.

Here’s a picture. Growing up and at schools I was taught needs were based on primary, secondary and tertiary needs. Primary needs were food, home, and fashion” secondary needs were everything that are not primary needs. Meanwhile tertiary needs are everything that is considered luxury. However, in western teaching there’s a guy who defines need differently. Meet Abraham Harold Maslow or you know him by his “ Maslow’s need diagram”. I wasn’t taught this growing up but I guess a lot of us would be a lot happier with this definition of needs rather than the ones I learned as a kid.

https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

An average people where I am from, their prioritization would look something like,

• Having a job
• Having a house
• having a family
• Buy a nice outfit a couple times/year
• Having a motorbike/car
• Having a phone and not necessarily a laptop
• Doing some type of religious pilgrimage once they’re a little older
• Exit route is a graveyard.

And these days with internet and social media, the needs have become a little dissonance where people “dream” about luxury things/and watches while they still struggle meeting their daily needs let alone even affording their secondary needs. These days having a phone is also a primary need rather than a secondary need. But laptops and other electronics are still classified as secondary needs. It’s certainly interesting and Idk, even from the basic idea of needs can tell a culture apart from one another.

So, if you can afford some type of subscriptions and even have your house full of electronics, consider yourself “not poor”. Be a little grateful with life 😂and even from me, by understanding that, it also personally helps me even more grateful about life.

That’s all from me today and see you tomorrow morning!