It's my observation, a hundred times a day, living among a mixture of Asian cultures and traveling to various Asian countries (can I call them Asian countries? They are in Asia, after all) for the last two years, that a lot of these folks work really hard and will not say no to more work. There are lazy people everywhere, but the ones who work will work themselves to death.
I did not say Jerry Yang thinks the same way. I said I imagine he could. It's a thought experiment. Can you imagine what kind of life it must be to think that suffering is the mark of success? Open your mind and think about that. What it must be like. How it must affect your kids. How you must have been affected as a kid. Why, what geopolitical factors created that cultural norm? Think. Think. The point of the comment was to think.
Having lived and worked for almost 20 years in different Asian countries, I would be a lot more nuanced than you are. First, I completely disagree that suffering is the mark of success...
And, I would be hard pressed to completely generalize between say China, Taiwan and Japan. While you will find a lot of overtime and overwork in those countries, the way they happen is different and the cultural/social pressure behind that are different. And having worked with Asian Americans (both ABCs and people who came a bit later), I would vehemently disagree that you can easily generalize their behavior solely based on the culture of their country of origin, especially since they have lived in the US, spent time there, gone to school there and will have changed their values and culture over time just from this.
So, I don't think that saying Jerry Yang is taiwanese therefor will overwork his employees is a useful heuristic or likely to be true...
