Aung San Suu Kyi Quotes
I don't like to be called a symbol. And I don't like to be called an icon. I will just say that I have to work very, very hard. So I'd rather be known as a hard worker. I don't think symbols do much, nor icons.
Suu Kyi, Aung San. Interview by Mishal Husain. BBC News, 21 June 2012.
One of the major factors in the Chinese economic development is the traditional hard work ethic of the Chinese people. Many other people work hard because they have to in order to survive, but many other cultures support a norm of hard work as a virtue per se. The Han Chinese work ethic is like the Protestant work ethic in that successful, even wealthy, people work very hard. Many successful Americans work far longer than 40 hours a week and the Han Chinese are very similar.
Aung San Suu Kyi is a Burmese politician, diplomat, author, and a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as State Counsellor of Myanmar (equivalent to a prime minister) and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2016 to 2021. She has served as the president of the National League for Democracy (NLD) since 2011, having been the General Secretary from 1988 to 2011. She played a vital role in Myanmar's transition from military junta to partial democracy in the 2010s.