While doing my laundry in a local laundrymat one day, a man asked me where all of the old "Chinese laundries" had gone. I guessed that those were probably ran by the first generation immigrants. They worked hard, sent their kids to school, and watched those kids go on to become doctors, lawyers, engineers, and the like. I speculate that you don't see so many "Chinese laundries" because there are so many more opportunities available today than decades ago and the older generation paid their dues to see their kids get ahead.

There are a lot of Koreans in my neighborhood who're following the same strategy. All three Korean families on my street are business owners, as is the other Korean family that lives on the next street over. They're some of the hardest working people I've ever known and good people. The Koreans work hard and support each other's businesses. They don't seem to be jealous of each other, either, at least not the ones I know.

Not all Asians are created equal when it comes to work ethic. My wife is Filipino. We've noticed over the years that not so many Filipinos go into business and when they do, the others seem to resent their success. No business can succeed without making a profit but most Filipinos expect to be given a special deal or something. They don't like it when others profit at their expense. My wife calls it the "crab theory." Supposedly, if you put a bunch of crabs in a bucket and one tries to climb out, the others will reach up and pull it back inside. It seems a lot of Filipinos are jealous of others' success.

I speculate that the difference between the Koreans and the Filipinos might have something to do with geography. The Philippines is made of thousands of islands. There are dozens of dialects and languages and the people tend to group by their province. Korean is a continuous landmass, so perhaps they're less "provincial."