The weather in HK, as far as i have experienced it, seems a bit extreme for one having lived in California for 6 years.
My first weeks here treated me to several nights of thunder and lightening the likes of which I hadn't heard before. Thunder is always a bit loud, but this probably woke the dead. I seriously wondered at one point if the sonic BOOM!!!!! would shatter my windows. Kai, however, exhausted from jet lag, somehow managed to sleep right through it.
Days were intensely hot and humid. This I had experienced before. In Japan, the first couple weeks of summer were awful, but after I got used to the heat and humidity, I was perfectly content.
But what drove me crazy about the heat and humidity in HK is that you CAN"T get used to it. Every shop, train, bus, business, and school room has AC and that AC is cranked up so the inside temp is about 50 degrees while outside it is blistering. So the 5 minutes you walk from place to place you are melting from the extreme heat. and then upon entrance to anyplace, you feel good for 10.5 seconds and then sweat freezes into icicles on your back and you are bone-chilling cold.
I have been dying of the cold ever since I arrived. The chill difference between 90 and 50 was just shocking for me and I hated it.
The past couple of days HK plunged from 80 degrees to about 50 degrees. I figured the AC would turn off and everyone would proceed as usual.
But no, these folks, happily wearing t-shirts and short skirts in 50 degree classrooms now don boots, jackets, and winter scarves as if they were preparing for a blizzard.
As if 50 degrees one week ago was cool and comfy but ridiculously cold now.
Although, I have to admit, last week when I was freezing, all I had to do was step outside and warm up. Today, I'm cold and there is no place to go to warm up, so I just keep feeling cold.
But I couldn't believe how everyone was dressed. I would like a sweater or a windbreaker. but is the heavy jacket, winter scarf, and boots really necessary?
What on earth would they do if they relocated to New England?
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Bullying
This blog, like most blogs, is about what is happening right now. I like my life now, and I'm happy to blog about it.
I'm going to step away from my usual chats about my experiences in HK to discuss an issue that absolutely everyone is talking about these days:
Recently, in the US, a string of suicides and their media coverage have caused Americans to start talking, in a very real way, about bullying and its consequences.
I was that Kid (a blog collecting stories from adults who were bullied)
Bullying isn't the issue ( an op-ed piece with very interesting and enlightening comments from the readers, which I liked better than the piece itself)
I am so glad about that, because all i ever heard growing up was "teasing happens to everyone and you just have to ignore it, or stand up to it, and it will go away". None of those solutions ever worked. if anything, it made things worse.
Bullying has caused quite a stir in Japan as well. Bullies, (as young as second or third grade) desensitized by violence due to modern media, devoid of any moral compass, and left to their own devices, have done some unbelievable things, like chopping off classmates heads and slitting classmates throats and watching them die. At school. In the classroom.
There needs to be a better word to describe bullying. A word that causes people to sit up and take notice. Like "sociopathetic activities" . But "Teacher, she is sociopathicing me" doesn't have a great ring, though.
Here is the thing I don't like talking about or even thinking about: I was bullied. Daily. For ten long years. Sometimes, witnesses called the police. I never would have done that on my own. and some of my bullies went to jail (or JV detention). Which made friends and families of the bullies step up their attacks on me even more, as retribution (which is why I wouldn't have dared call the police, or tell anyone with authority on my own). just within the line of the law, they would torture me in ways prohibited by the UN. In ways, which, if they did now as adults, would be called sexual assault or defamation of character or physical assault and allow me to at least get a court-approved restraining order. yet were permissible if done by children who are being bullies.
But which was worse? the daily assault and battery, or the social isolation? Every other kid at school, understanding that showing any mercy to me (mercy, not even friendship; that was out of the question) would in turn cause them be bullied themselves. the only friendships I had in school, until 10th or 11th grade, was with people who refused to acknowledge our friendship once we left our neighborhood because they were afraid of being targeted.
But somewhere between the 10th and 11th grades the bullying, although never ending, was manageable. Even laughable. I was pregnant with 14 kittens? obviously a rumor by someone too stupid to open up a biology book! I was a devil worshiper because i was Buddhist? obviously someone too ignorant to know their ass from their face. this stuff, utterly tame and lacking any imagination or intelligence, didn't bother me at all. Ok, maybe a tiny bit, but nothing to lose sleep over. If anyone actually believed rumors that silly to be true, they were sad pathetic ignorant fools and deserved pity more than anything else.
Why did the most vicious and traumatic bullying stop? was it because the school had a bullying crackdown? No. Because ignoring them made them go away? No. Because I had a fight and stood up to my tormentors? No. Because I told a trusted adult who gave me valuable resources? No. Because, as they love to tell you in Hollywood, I changed my clothes, ditched the glasses, and wore pink lipstick? No, no, No! Did i take up karate? No. What saved me?
Ironically, I was saved by the myriad of accidental deaths and suicides which occurred in my high school between my Sophomore and Senior years, giving the bullies other things to contemplate than ways to torture me. Even back then, i saw the sad irony in that.
Yet i was told by adults i must have done something to deserve it. And i was told to just ignore it. And I was told "everybody gets bullied at some point, so just deal with it."
These are not solutions. Does bullying have to get to the point where either they kill you or you kill yourself?
Here is an article by an Austrian who has done some very scholarly research and has offered her views why past solutions at schools haven't worked and offers new solutions:
Student Behavior: Bullying
If you were never bullied, good for you. read these links to understand more about what is happening so you dont say the same useless ridiculous comments I grew up listening to.
If you were the bully, you need to think about what values (or lack thereof) you are passing on to your children. Will your attitudes, amplified by modern desensitization and access to bullying tools you never had access too (weapons, social media, etc) cause your children to step over the line to do things that will put them in jail? is that what you want for your children? to keep the power struggle cycle going?
If you were bullied, take heart that you are not alone and share your thoughts. As adults, we have more power and freedom to express our feelings and stand up for ourselves than we ever did as children.
But whatever you don, DON"T do nothing. Do Something! read! learn! speak! change your mind! be active! Don't let it go on this way!
Note: looking back, there are a lot of typos. Rather than correct them all, I will just mention they are due to impassioned feelings overtaking my language teacher sensibilities. But I'm almost always a better writer in the classroom! :-)
I'm going to step away from my usual chats about my experiences in HK to discuss an issue that absolutely everyone is talking about these days:
Recently, in the US, a string of suicides and their media coverage have caused Americans to start talking, in a very real way, about bullying and its consequences.
I was that Kid (a blog collecting stories from adults who were bullied)
Bullying isn't the issue ( an op-ed piece with very interesting and enlightening comments from the readers, which I liked better than the piece itself)
I am so glad about that, because all i ever heard growing up was "teasing happens to everyone and you just have to ignore it, or stand up to it, and it will go away". None of those solutions ever worked. if anything, it made things worse.
Bullying has caused quite a stir in Japan as well. Bullies, (as young as second or third grade) desensitized by violence due to modern media, devoid of any moral compass, and left to their own devices, have done some unbelievable things, like chopping off classmates heads and slitting classmates throats and watching them die. At school. In the classroom.
There needs to be a better word to describe bullying. A word that causes people to sit up and take notice. Like "sociopathetic activities" . But "Teacher, she is sociopathicing me" doesn't have a great ring, though.
Here is the thing I don't like talking about or even thinking about: I was bullied. Daily. For ten long years. Sometimes, witnesses called the police. I never would have done that on my own. and some of my bullies went to jail (or JV detention). Which made friends and families of the bullies step up their attacks on me even more, as retribution (which is why I wouldn't have dared call the police, or tell anyone with authority on my own). just within the line of the law, they would torture me in ways prohibited by the UN. In ways, which, if they did now as adults, would be called sexual assault or defamation of character or physical assault and allow me to at least get a court-approved restraining order. yet were permissible if done by children who are being bullies.
But which was worse? the daily assault and battery, or the social isolation? Every other kid at school, understanding that showing any mercy to me (mercy, not even friendship; that was out of the question) would in turn cause them be bullied themselves. the only friendships I had in school, until 10th or 11th grade, was with people who refused to acknowledge our friendship once we left our neighborhood because they were afraid of being targeted.
But somewhere between the 10th and 11th grades the bullying, although never ending, was manageable. Even laughable. I was pregnant with 14 kittens? obviously a rumor by someone too stupid to open up a biology book! I was a devil worshiper because i was Buddhist? obviously someone too ignorant to know their ass from their face. this stuff, utterly tame and lacking any imagination or intelligence, didn't bother me at all. Ok, maybe a tiny bit, but nothing to lose sleep over. If anyone actually believed rumors that silly to be true, they were sad pathetic ignorant fools and deserved pity more than anything else.
Why did the most vicious and traumatic bullying stop? was it because the school had a bullying crackdown? No. Because ignoring them made them go away? No. Because I had a fight and stood up to my tormentors? No. Because I told a trusted adult who gave me valuable resources? No. Because, as they love to tell you in Hollywood, I changed my clothes, ditched the glasses, and wore pink lipstick? No, no, No! Did i take up karate? No. What saved me?
Ironically, I was saved by the myriad of accidental deaths and suicides which occurred in my high school between my Sophomore and Senior years, giving the bullies other things to contemplate than ways to torture me. Even back then, i saw the sad irony in that.
Yet i was told by adults i must have done something to deserve it. And i was told to just ignore it. And I was told "everybody gets bullied at some point, so just deal with it."
These are not solutions. Does bullying have to get to the point where either they kill you or you kill yourself?
Here is an article by an Austrian who has done some very scholarly research and has offered her views why past solutions at schools haven't worked and offers new solutions:
Student Behavior: Bullying
If you were never bullied, good for you. read these links to understand more about what is happening so you dont say the same useless ridiculous comments I grew up listening to.
If you were the bully, you need to think about what values (or lack thereof) you are passing on to your children. Will your attitudes, amplified by modern desensitization and access to bullying tools you never had access too (weapons, social media, etc) cause your children to step over the line to do things that will put them in jail? is that what you want for your children? to keep the power struggle cycle going?
If you were bullied, take heart that you are not alone and share your thoughts. As adults, we have more power and freedom to express our feelings and stand up for ourselves than we ever did as children.
But whatever you don, DON"T do nothing. Do Something! read! learn! speak! change your mind! be active! Don't let it go on this way!
Note: looking back, there are a lot of typos. Rather than correct them all, I will just mention they are due to impassioned feelings overtaking my language teacher sensibilities. But I'm almost always a better writer in the classroom! :-)
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Kindness
Hong Kong people are really quite kind. I have been wondering what motivates them to be so kind to strangers. I have observed far more acts of random kindness here than anywhere else I have ever lived.
Everywhere in the world, everyone (or most everyone) is kind to family and friends. That's a given. These are the the people you love. You love them, so you are kind to them.
Yet, it is much more rare to see true acts of kindness among strangers. In fact, I remember in the 1990s when I was in college (yikes!) my Social Psych teacher contended that true altruism didn't exist, because everyone has an external motivation to be kind and we had a raging battle about this.
In America, acts of kindness to strangers come in three basic flavors:
1. it is your job (police, nurse, teacher, fire fighter) to serve the public ( some people just take this more seriously than others)
2. You are trying to convert the stranger to your religion, and this is step one. And/or you feel you are being directed by your religious leaders to be kind to bank "good person points" (this is actually also part of #3, but its so prevalent it really deserves its own place on the list)
3. you have an ulterior motive ( it's good business PR, you need a favor in return, you want to appear heroic or kind to others, etc)
Every reason for kindness, is externally motivated in that there is another reason to be kind. In in all honestly, when people have no particular reason to be kind, they aren't. So her assertion is completely true in the US context.
In Japan, I was told, directly, that Japanese are the superior race. Mabo, for all he jokes about being physically superior to me (my blue eyes and fair skin are more sensitive to the sun than his, etc) does to some extent buy into this deep rooted national belief that everyone not Japanese is slightly mentally and physically disabled. They feel sorry for us much like one takes pity on those with Downs Syndrome or a stray dog.
This came up often when Japanese people, out of "kindness" to the foreigners, would only ever give me forks and spoons in restaurants because white people are incapable of handling chopsticks. Or who would talk to me like a child in slow exaggerated speech out of kindness that I probably couldn't understand more than a two year old, because whites simply "can't learn Japanese" for it is far too hard for our feeble brains.
Japanese pride themselves on being very kind people. But there is always this feeling that they are kind because their fear social isolation if they are unkind, or they are kind out of pity.
In France, everyone is pretty much on their own. I can't recall anyone being particularly kind or unkind. Well, if you call getting rotten food thrown at you unkind, but the West Africans in the complex where I lived were angry and disenfranchised and I lived there just before the Paris "riots" and just after the McD's bombing so there was alot of hostility to go around. The regular French were doing their own thing and let me do my own thing. Life there was kind of a draw.
In Hong Kong, I have never been made to feel like the acts of kindness I observe are anything but just acts of kindness. Any person on a train or bus who is carrying a sleeping child gets a seat. Anyone who is clearly elderly gets a seat. Pregnant women get a seat. people with crutches or some kind of issue get a seat. Small children get seats. They dont have to ask. They dont have to wait. when they get on, someone automatically hops off. No matter what time of day, how tired, or how far the trip, someone always hops off.
Kai is always given a seat, as am I, but I always refuse. I know they are wondering if I am pregnant, and I wouldn't want to take advantage of that for my own comfort.
In Japan, no old person would ever give up a seat to a younger person, no matter what their situation. They have paid their dues. Now everyone owes them. They do whatever they want, no matter how it inconveniences others. But I have seen older grandparently types give their seats to Kai and to others more in need than they. How need is determined, I don't know, but they have their method.
We saw a young teen (or early 20's) girl holding an umbrella for a grandfatherly person yesterday. Mabo was impressed. He is very sure he never saw that in Japan or America.
In HK, kindness means they bring chopsticks and forks and let me choose whichever one I want. They bring both a Chinese and an English menu and let me choose the one I want to order from.
Yesterday, at a very local place where they had no English menu, they simply put a little of everything on a plate and showed it to me so I could point to what I wanted to order. It was so cute and funny!
And even if they don't know English, and I haven't learned much Chinese at this point, they still talk to me like an adult and I talk to them like an adult and somehow we get our points across. Or we don't. In which case we both laugh and try again or leave it alone.
Whatever else I think about Hong Kong, I do sincerely believe they try harder to be kind, genuinely kind, than any other place I have ever lived.
I wonder what my Social Psych teacher would say about that?
Everywhere in the world, everyone (or most everyone) is kind to family and friends. That's a given. These are the the people you love. You love them, so you are kind to them.
Yet, it is much more rare to see true acts of kindness among strangers. In fact, I remember in the 1990s when I was in college (yikes!) my Social Psych teacher contended that true altruism didn't exist, because everyone has an external motivation to be kind and we had a raging battle about this.
In America, acts of kindness to strangers come in three basic flavors:
1. it is your job (police, nurse, teacher, fire fighter) to serve the public ( some people just take this more seriously than others)
2. You are trying to convert the stranger to your religion, and this is step one. And/or you feel you are being directed by your religious leaders to be kind to bank "good person points" (this is actually also part of #3, but its so prevalent it really deserves its own place on the list)
3. you have an ulterior motive ( it's good business PR, you need a favor in return, you want to appear heroic or kind to others, etc)
Every reason for kindness, is externally motivated in that there is another reason to be kind. In in all honestly, when people have no particular reason to be kind, they aren't. So her assertion is completely true in the US context.
In Japan, I was told, directly, that Japanese are the superior race. Mabo, for all he jokes about being physically superior to me (my blue eyes and fair skin are more sensitive to the sun than his, etc) does to some extent buy into this deep rooted national belief that everyone not Japanese is slightly mentally and physically disabled. They feel sorry for us much like one takes pity on those with Downs Syndrome or a stray dog.
This came up often when Japanese people, out of "kindness" to the foreigners, would only ever give me forks and spoons in restaurants because white people are incapable of handling chopsticks. Or who would talk to me like a child in slow exaggerated speech out of kindness that I probably couldn't understand more than a two year old, because whites simply "can't learn Japanese" for it is far too hard for our feeble brains.
Japanese pride themselves on being very kind people. But there is always this feeling that they are kind because their fear social isolation if they are unkind, or they are kind out of pity.
In France, everyone is pretty much on their own. I can't recall anyone being particularly kind or unkind. Well, if you call getting rotten food thrown at you unkind, but the West Africans in the complex where I lived were angry and disenfranchised and I lived there just before the Paris "riots" and just after the McD's bombing so there was alot of hostility to go around. The regular French were doing their own thing and let me do my own thing. Life there was kind of a draw.
In Hong Kong, I have never been made to feel like the acts of kindness I observe are anything but just acts of kindness. Any person on a train or bus who is carrying a sleeping child gets a seat. Anyone who is clearly elderly gets a seat. Pregnant women get a seat. people with crutches or some kind of issue get a seat. Small children get seats. They dont have to ask. They dont have to wait. when they get on, someone automatically hops off. No matter what time of day, how tired, or how far the trip, someone always hops off.
Kai is always given a seat, as am I, but I always refuse. I know they are wondering if I am pregnant, and I wouldn't want to take advantage of that for my own comfort.
In Japan, no old person would ever give up a seat to a younger person, no matter what their situation. They have paid their dues. Now everyone owes them. They do whatever they want, no matter how it inconveniences others. But I have seen older grandparently types give their seats to Kai and to others more in need than they. How need is determined, I don't know, but they have their method.
We saw a young teen (or early 20's) girl holding an umbrella for a grandfatherly person yesterday. Mabo was impressed. He is very sure he never saw that in Japan or America.
In HK, kindness means they bring chopsticks and forks and let me choose whichever one I want. They bring both a Chinese and an English menu and let me choose the one I want to order from.
Yesterday, at a very local place where they had no English menu, they simply put a little of everything on a plate and showed it to me so I could point to what I wanted to order. It was so cute and funny!
And even if they don't know English, and I haven't learned much Chinese at this point, they still talk to me like an adult and I talk to them like an adult and somehow we get our points across. Or we don't. In which case we both laugh and try again or leave it alone.
Whatever else I think about Hong Kong, I do sincerely believe they try harder to be kind, genuinely kind, than any other place I have ever lived.
I wonder what my Social Psych teacher would say about that?
Saturday, October 16, 2010
What is learning here?
What does it mean to "learn" in China?
My co-teacher gave the kids a test Friday morning. As I had suspected, almost all of the children failed (below 60%). The handful of children who already knew the material before we taught it, of course, got 100%. I was sure the teacher would see how ineffective the program we are using is and ask me what we can do to rectify the situation.
But actually, to my surprise, she pointed to the few who got a good score as "proof" that children were learning, but agreed that a review game might be necessary. Who learned anything? In my opinion, if you already know the answer before, you haven't learned it there. and if you don't know the answer, you haven't learned. But the teacher was convinced the children were learning.
So what is learning in China?
My husband ran an interesting experiment in California in one of his college classes. He asked a Japanese, a Chinese, an American, and a Saudi the same question: What is 5 divided by zero?
1. The Chinese said confidently, and happily "I know! It's impossible! There is no answer!"
2. The Japanese said, in the most utterly bored voice, "Zero or something"
3. The Saudi looked suspiciously at my husband and said "You are trying to trick me. I won't answer this question."
5. The American looked at it puzzled. First he said " It can't be zero; that's 0/5. It cant be five; that's 5/1. What? What can the answer be? Wait, lemme get my calculator." When he typed 5/0 into the calculator, it simply said "error". The American got excited, "What does THAT mean?! I never saw a calculator do THAT before! Lemme think.....5/0......5/0.....what can the answer be? Wow!"
Only the Chinese student got the right answer. Somehow, in his studies, he learned you can't do that, and he was thrilled to show off his ability to know facts.
Of the four, only the Chinese student would have gotten a "correct" answer on a standardized test. He would have had the higher score. He would vindicate Chinese teaching. China can proudly point to him and say, "yes, our way works; our students are smarter".
But of the four, the one who was demonstrating the ability to solve problems and try alternative methods and think critically was the American. In fact, the American was excited and happy the take this problem and work with it.
World leaders and curruculum developers around the world agree that the future of our civilization depends on creative problem solving, to get us out of the environmental mess we are in. we need solutions to feed an ever doubling population, protect disappearing species, clean up our water and air and soil, and generate boundless energy to keep the global market thriving, without doing further damage to our environment. If we continue doing things the same way as our ancestors did, sucking the lifeblood out of the Earth like a parasite, our Earth host will die and take us with it. We need thinkers and problem solvers, creative engineers, not people who can spit out well known facts.
No, that particular day, the American didn't know the answer. But at some point, he will reach the conclusion that it's impossible. And additionally, if anyone ever asked him why, exactly, it was impossible, he might have a pretty interesting and mathematically deep reason why he knew that, which might lead to a better understanding of our universe.
OK, I'm reaching here, but what's going on? Japanese are tested ad nauseum, as are the Chinese. But here, a basic mathematical concept he should have learned in grammar school, and probably knew at some point, he got wrong. Perhaps he wasn't really thinking about the question and mistakenly thought he was being asked 0/5, which is zero. He couldn't care less and it was a dumb question, and far less fun than playing video games. This is typical of the current situation among Gen Y Japanese. Even poor Japanese are far wealthier than developing countries poor, so academic success is less important to them.
I know the answer because as a child I was curious how anything could be "no answer". if there was a question, there must be an answer. I was fascinated by the concept of there not being an answer to a math problem. I never forgot this mathematical anomaly. It was a similar curiosity that the American man in my husband's class showed. Somehow, his teacher never mentioned this to him as mine had, but still, in time, i'm sure he will come to the correct conclusion because he was interested and curious and bothered by his inability to generate a quick answer to a simple math problem.
It is not about being academically successful, but about knowing and figuring out why and how that drive Americans.
The Chinese guy knew the answer because in China, there is a heavy emphasis on being able to know answers, and the child who knows is a child who has learned, and has a chance for success in life. As a developing country, the gap between the successful and unsuccessful is huge; yet, because it is developing rapidly, the chance to become successful is very real, even for peasants. And success is very academically driven; good students land good jobs regardless of their actual capacity to think.
Yet, if there is no drive to know how and why, is success and development sustainable? If no one cares to know the deeper underlying meaning behind it all, how can he become a creative free thinking problem solver? How can he solve the biggest problem our species ever faced: mass extinction?
What is learning? How do I reconcile my understanding of learning with the Chinese teaching methodology and Chinese philosophy on what it means to have learned something? Especially, given that fact, as proven in my husband's experiment, if you just look at a bubble sheet, only the Chinese student would have gotten a "correct" answer.
The Chinese way works, sort of, if you look at it on paper. But in the real world, their method is a complete disaster waiting to happen. What can I do? Americans, for all their curiosity and creativeness, don't do well in standardized exams; therefore, internationally, we have a reputation for not being very academically inclined. What Chinese person is going to take academic advice from an American? If I were Chinese, I probably wouldn't.
Oi!
My co-teacher gave the kids a test Friday morning. As I had suspected, almost all of the children failed (below 60%). The handful of children who already knew the material before we taught it, of course, got 100%. I was sure the teacher would see how ineffective the program we are using is and ask me what we can do to rectify the situation.
But actually, to my surprise, she pointed to the few who got a good score as "proof" that children were learning, but agreed that a review game might be necessary. Who learned anything? In my opinion, if you already know the answer before, you haven't learned it there. and if you don't know the answer, you haven't learned. But the teacher was convinced the children were learning.
So what is learning in China?
My husband ran an interesting experiment in California in one of his college classes. He asked a Japanese, a Chinese, an American, and a Saudi the same question: What is 5 divided by zero?
1. The Chinese said confidently, and happily "I know! It's impossible! There is no answer!"
2. The Japanese said, in the most utterly bored voice, "Zero or something"
3. The Saudi looked suspiciously at my husband and said "You are trying to trick me. I won't answer this question."
5. The American looked at it puzzled. First he said " It can't be zero; that's 0/5. It cant be five; that's 5/1. What? What can the answer be? Wait, lemme get my calculator." When he typed 5/0 into the calculator, it simply said "error". The American got excited, "What does THAT mean?! I never saw a calculator do THAT before! Lemme think.....5/0......5/0.....what can the answer be? Wow!"
Only the Chinese student got the right answer. Somehow, in his studies, he learned you can't do that, and he was thrilled to show off his ability to know facts.
Of the four, only the Chinese student would have gotten a "correct" answer on a standardized test. He would have had the higher score. He would vindicate Chinese teaching. China can proudly point to him and say, "yes, our way works; our students are smarter".
But of the four, the one who was demonstrating the ability to solve problems and try alternative methods and think critically was the American. In fact, the American was excited and happy the take this problem and work with it.
World leaders and curruculum developers around the world agree that the future of our civilization depends on creative problem solving, to get us out of the environmental mess we are in. we need solutions to feed an ever doubling population, protect disappearing species, clean up our water and air and soil, and generate boundless energy to keep the global market thriving, without doing further damage to our environment. If we continue doing things the same way as our ancestors did, sucking the lifeblood out of the Earth like a parasite, our Earth host will die and take us with it. We need thinkers and problem solvers, creative engineers, not people who can spit out well known facts.
No, that particular day, the American didn't know the answer. But at some point, he will reach the conclusion that it's impossible. And additionally, if anyone ever asked him why, exactly, it was impossible, he might have a pretty interesting and mathematically deep reason why he knew that, which might lead to a better understanding of our universe.
OK, I'm reaching here, but what's going on? Japanese are tested ad nauseum, as are the Chinese. But here, a basic mathematical concept he should have learned in grammar school, and probably knew at some point, he got wrong. Perhaps he wasn't really thinking about the question and mistakenly thought he was being asked 0/5, which is zero. He couldn't care less and it was a dumb question, and far less fun than playing video games. This is typical of the current situation among Gen Y Japanese. Even poor Japanese are far wealthier than developing countries poor, so academic success is less important to them.
I know the answer because as a child I was curious how anything could be "no answer". if there was a question, there must be an answer. I was fascinated by the concept of there not being an answer to a math problem. I never forgot this mathematical anomaly. It was a similar curiosity that the American man in my husband's class showed. Somehow, his teacher never mentioned this to him as mine had, but still, in time, i'm sure he will come to the correct conclusion because he was interested and curious and bothered by his inability to generate a quick answer to a simple math problem.
It is not about being academically successful, but about knowing and figuring out why and how that drive Americans.
The Chinese guy knew the answer because in China, there is a heavy emphasis on being able to know answers, and the child who knows is a child who has learned, and has a chance for success in life. As a developing country, the gap between the successful and unsuccessful is huge; yet, because it is developing rapidly, the chance to become successful is very real, even for peasants. And success is very academically driven; good students land good jobs regardless of their actual capacity to think.
Yet, if there is no drive to know how and why, is success and development sustainable? If no one cares to know the deeper underlying meaning behind it all, how can he become a creative free thinking problem solver? How can he solve the biggest problem our species ever faced: mass extinction?
What is learning? How do I reconcile my understanding of learning with the Chinese teaching methodology and Chinese philosophy on what it means to have learned something? Especially, given that fact, as proven in my husband's experiment, if you just look at a bubble sheet, only the Chinese student would have gotten a "correct" answer.
The Chinese way works, sort of, if you look at it on paper. But in the real world, their method is a complete disaster waiting to happen. What can I do? Americans, for all their curiosity and creativeness, don't do well in standardized exams; therefore, internationally, we have a reputation for not being very academically inclined. What Chinese person is going to take academic advice from an American? If I were Chinese, I probably wouldn't.
Oi!
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Happy Birthday, China!
This weekend everyone in China celebrated its 61st birthday.
Funny, I thought China was older than that. Like, thousands of years older. But all the banners declared it was only 61 years old.
the Fam and I spent the day prowling about the Hong Kong main island (yes I know in a previous post I swore off the main island, but it is interesting to visit).
We saw a parade. It has singers, dancers, and a marching band. However, we were utterly surprised when we read the banners, in Chinese and English. this was not your typical national day celebratory parade.
They were singing and parading against communism, stating it was the most evil thing ever, and ought to be abolished. they were marching in the middle of a very heavily traveled street, and the police were simply moving traffic around it as it went along.
It was the most festive political demonstration I ever saw. And it was in China. On the birthday of Communism. My question is: could this have happened in Shenzhen, which I can see from my bedroom window, where many of my children live? Or is this a privilege only the people in HK enjoy? Is China more open to peaceful protest than the mass media portrays?
I had a lot to think about while on my way to a market Mabo wanted to check out. the market itself wasn't so interesting, but while wandering about, we happened upon a sweet young girl who was handing out bread to people so they could feed the fish in the harbor.
We learned two things from her: If you ask nicely, the local bread shops will give bread scraps to you for free or sell them super cheap. Also, HK fish LOVE bread. There were literally thousands of them jumping over each other to get at the bread, swallowing entire slices in mere seconds. I'm really glad they are vegetarians.
At the end of the day, we saw fireworks. No one does fireworks like the Chinese. I saw fireworks shaped like the flower of Hong Kong, the Bauhinia. Kai liked the heart shaped fireworks and the ones that changed colors multiple times. Mabo pretended to be unimpressed. Of course, to him, Japanese fireworks are much cooler.
What did impress us is the orderliness and expediency with which the several hundred thousand people dissipated after the fireworks display was over.
Rather than be crushed by hundreds of thousands of people getting out of the area and into trains, we brought lots of snacks to help pass the time and waited by a blocked off street where no one would disturb us and where we ourselves wouldn't be in the way. there were so many people we assumed it would be one hour or more before the crowds got to a manageable size that we could navigate our way home safely.
15 minutes and just one pomelo fruit later, the streets were completely empty and the clean up crew was hard at work sweeping left behind bits of trash. in a dazed shock, we got up and left to get to the train station, fully expecting to be shoved into cars like sardines, like in japan, with the other bazillion people in the subway, but again, that never happened. Sure, the trains had more people than usual, but we were able to sit or stand comfortably the whole way home.
In a mere 15 minutes, millions of people around the harbor went their various ways without causing much congestion in the streets or in the subways. How did they accomplish this feat? It was utterly astounding. No one was trampled, no one needed rescuing, and the streets were as clean as ever in a snap, partly because the people themselves left their areas completely clean.
I remember we celebrated Chinese new year in SF Chinatown last year, and the place was a complete disaster area by the end of the night. there was so much trash you gave up trying to avoid it and just stepped on it. July 4th was no different.
And I have never ever seen a crowd that big disappear so quickly into the night. Utterly astounding. Good job, Hong Kong!
Funny, I thought China was older than that. Like, thousands of years older. But all the banners declared it was only 61 years old.
the Fam and I spent the day prowling about the Hong Kong main island (yes I know in a previous post I swore off the main island, but it is interesting to visit).
We saw a parade. It has singers, dancers, and a marching band. However, we were utterly surprised when we read the banners, in Chinese and English. this was not your typical national day celebratory parade.
They were singing and parading against communism, stating it was the most evil thing ever, and ought to be abolished. they were marching in the middle of a very heavily traveled street, and the police were simply moving traffic around it as it went along.
It was the most festive political demonstration I ever saw. And it was in China. On the birthday of Communism. My question is: could this have happened in Shenzhen, which I can see from my bedroom window, where many of my children live? Or is this a privilege only the people in HK enjoy? Is China more open to peaceful protest than the mass media portrays?
I had a lot to think about while on my way to a market Mabo wanted to check out. the market itself wasn't so interesting, but while wandering about, we happened upon a sweet young girl who was handing out bread to people so they could feed the fish in the harbor.
We learned two things from her: If you ask nicely, the local bread shops will give bread scraps to you for free or sell them super cheap. Also, HK fish LOVE bread. There were literally thousands of them jumping over each other to get at the bread, swallowing entire slices in mere seconds. I'm really glad they are vegetarians.
At the end of the day, we saw fireworks. No one does fireworks like the Chinese. I saw fireworks shaped like the flower of Hong Kong, the Bauhinia. Kai liked the heart shaped fireworks and the ones that changed colors multiple times. Mabo pretended to be unimpressed. Of course, to him, Japanese fireworks are much cooler.
What did impress us is the orderliness and expediency with which the several hundred thousand people dissipated after the fireworks display was over.
Rather than be crushed by hundreds of thousands of people getting out of the area and into trains, we brought lots of snacks to help pass the time and waited by a blocked off street where no one would disturb us and where we ourselves wouldn't be in the way. there were so many people we assumed it would be one hour or more before the crowds got to a manageable size that we could navigate our way home safely.
15 minutes and just one pomelo fruit later, the streets were completely empty and the clean up crew was hard at work sweeping left behind bits of trash. in a dazed shock, we got up and left to get to the train station, fully expecting to be shoved into cars like sardines, like in japan, with the other bazillion people in the subway, but again, that never happened. Sure, the trains had more people than usual, but we were able to sit or stand comfortably the whole way home.
In a mere 15 minutes, millions of people around the harbor went their various ways without causing much congestion in the streets or in the subways. How did they accomplish this feat? It was utterly astounding. No one was trampled, no one needed rescuing, and the streets were as clean as ever in a snap, partly because the people themselves left their areas completely clean.
I remember we celebrated Chinese new year in SF Chinatown last year, and the place was a complete disaster area by the end of the night. there was so much trash you gave up trying to avoid it and just stepped on it. July 4th was no different.
And I have never ever seen a crowd that big disappear so quickly into the night. Utterly astounding. Good job, Hong Kong!
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