A very apt analogy, "a dish you had too many times and you're just sick of it already". Differentiating between want and need is so utterly critical at this point in our "abundant" (for Westerners at least) phase of human existence.
Interesting, your mention of moving to China and the revelation it produced. My wife and I moved, in a desire to try something new, to Australia a decade ago. We stayed for a couple years, then moved back to the US but before doing so we traveled around the world for 9 months on a shoestring budget. These non-material experiences were absolutely pivotal in reshaping how we saw the world. When we arrived back in the US and financial crisis hit soon thereafter, it just seemed obvious. All this material bullshit, all these things have no value when compared to the experience you can extract out of life; interactions with people, first-hand learning about the myriad cultures in the world, finding some secluded beach in the middle of nowhere and pondering existence, our reason for being here, and what you want to make out of life. In the wordaday world, you get trapped in the echochamber of a particular culture/way of living/being. If that localized culture is vacuous, self-unaware, hyper-materialized and egotistical, well, how does that influence a person?
I guess the point is that everyone needs to travel/experience things that stimulate their imagination and pull them down a path of exploration/education as opposed to being pulled down the path of "my lawn is greener than yours, my car is newer than yours, my house is larger than yours". That car will serve you for about 8 years, that trek along Annapurna will shape how you relate to every subsequent experience you have in life until the day you die. Which has more value? Which one provides a greater life experience?
Thanks for bringing this topic up...when the larger system falters, all sorts of interesting lines of inquiry emerge!
What Is happiness and success is something subjective that only we can answer, still people listen to the materialistic voices that try to convince us that happiness will be accomplished by the next thing we buy