Recently I travelled to Europe and had a long talk with an old classmate now living in Germany. He has been a PhD candidate for several years there, and is now expected to finally graduate and return to China in 2015. Naturally we talked about the big working pressure and pessimistic job market in China, and he was clearly anxious about the future. But I was surprised by what worries him most.

"You know what I am most scared about?" He said, "I'm afraid this European living style that I have been used to for years will disappear as soon as I return to China."

I deeply understand what he refers to. I tried to comfort him, saying that things have changed here, and that his impression of endless workdays and a lack of time to enjoy life mainly comes from his parents, who are actually different from the current generation in terms of living attitude.

I have to say that globalization, accelerated by science and technology, has made people across the world look increasingly similar. Take a simple example. When we travel abroad and see people holding the same type of smart phone and reading e-books on the same mobile terminals, we instantly feel close to them.

Common topics can be easily found in this social media era, and conversations can easily continue. Such a similarity, based on technology, spills over into every sphere of individual life. And inevitably people's values for life are becoming increasingly similar.

Some may complain that globalization is killing the variety of human beings. For instance, this friend living in Germany says disappointedly that nowadays the French are not as romantic as imagined, Germans not necessarily prudent, and British not especially gentlemanly; all Europeans just look similar to each other.

While this is probably not completely groundless, those labels themselves were originally somewhat stereotypical. Globalization helps identify our similarities and make transnational collaboration more efficient.

Purely in terms of living styles, people in different countries can see the positive and negative parts of each other's everyday life in detail nowadays. We can see that young people from different countries are thinking about increasingly similar things. They both stress enjoying life, and meanwhile work hard to widen their horizons and increase leverage for career growth. The Chinese, especially young people, are certainly not exception.

As far as I know, the young people around me are just like those in other countries.

They arrange refreshing activities every weekend, and use all holidays to make DIY trips both at home and abroad. Meanwhile, they have career ambitions and try their best to find more chances and more possibilities.

The words of this friend in Germany linger in my mind. I understand his worries that the comforts of life may be destroyed in the rat race back in China. But I have to say that the situation is changing. People here equally know how to enjoy life, and they keep reminding themselves that although work is important, life is much more than just work.

Nan Ming, a freelance writer based in Beijing