What is Digg?245 Comments
- pktgumby, on 10/12/2007, -80/+306Too bad math doesn't help when you're behind the wheel.
- Akaji, on 10/12/2007, -2/+163You may want to specify which gender...
- milkmage, on 10/12/2007, -11/+154dude, you ever been to China? after being in downtown Shanghai and Beijing during rush hour, I'll never call another Asian a bad driver. I think they just send all the bad ones over here.
- bIuebonics, on 10/12/2007, -3/+89now now, it's not fair to generalize bad drivers as being asian. women come in all races. ;P
- weizilla, on 10/12/2007, -3/+73As an Asian-Amerian with immigrate parents, I can tell you it is absolutely correct. If I ever told my parents I wanted to be an artist or a WWE wrestler or that I got a B in class, they would beat me with a coat hanger until I turned white.
- greymaxcat, on 10/12/2007, -13/+69Why Asians look Better in School Girl Uniforms?
- DiggingDeep, on 10/12/2007, -8/+58@pktgumby: While I agree that some Asian Americans aren't adept at driving, it's safe to say that every ethnicity has their share of poor drivers.
I'm Asian American and I suck at math. So what? I thought we were done with this model minority crap. I'm just happy that I have some common sense which seems to be in low supply these days. - SomaSynth, on 10/12/2007, -2/+47I benchmarked the rendering performance of my basement full of asians. 3500 3DMarks. Not too bad, very good floating point output.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+46I hate these absurd stereotypes. I'm east asian, I suck at math, I'm an ex-Navy officer and I drive very well. Granted, I've done well academically but the reasons that asians do well academic is because our culture pushes education as important. My sister is a violinist and can't count worth a damn.
- Azimuth1, on 10/12/2007, -5/+46"A recent BBC News story compared two questions, one from a Chinese math test and one from a math test from the UK. The difference was fairly astonishing."
Right, let's compare that original Chinese admission question
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42842000/gif/_42842559_maths_diagram_416.gif
To this question from several top English universities' (Cambridge, Warwick etc.) admissions test (called STEP)
http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/stcs/STEP/2002paperII.pdf
Oh snap.
Because it was the BBC, and because they presented it in a clear and concise manner, they must have been telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth, right? They compared a question given to current students at a bottom-of-the-league-tables university to determine whether they're retarded or not, to a question given to applicants to one of China's best universities. That is not a fair comparison. The above is a fair comparison. - KuntaKinte, on 10/12/2007, -3/+43new study results: why black people eat more chicken than everyone else
- Shuk, on 10/12/2007, -5/+45Dugg for Russell Peters!
- monergism, on 10/12/2007, -2/+37Education is stressed by other cultures because they understand that knowledge IS power. Sadly we Americans no longer encourage the engineering skills.
- Tenlow, on 10/12/2007, -3/+31Although once they beat you white you would have an easier time trying to become a WWE wrestler.
- TroubleInMind, on 10/12/2007, -17/+45Does this explain why they put those trifoil wings and coffee can mufflers on their mom's Civics?
- hunglowang, on 10/12/2007, -2/+24Well Chinese tend to study frigging hard, when they move to America they study also as hard, then the next generation study less hard but still hard, then the generation after that realize that they dont need to study any more so they slack off.
....bonus points for whoever understood what i wrote. - wtfersk8s, on 10/12/2007, -4/+26i got the Pythagorean therom down pat!
- Blizzardman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21It's all down hill from here. Especially when they started replacing F's with E's and red ink for errors with lighter "happier" colors to improve self-esteem.
- englishganxta, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21it's the stupid "No Student Left Behind" thing.
- DeFex, on 10/12/2007, -5/+24its not that asians are better, The north american schools have been deliberately dumbed down because stupid people are easier to rip off (by the government and their corporate buddies)
- KuntaKinte, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19new study results: why white people are whiter than black people...news at 11
- nikkilai, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17Yep. That's just the Japanese. Have you SEEN Filipino school girl uniforms? Ugh. I can't believe I used to have to wear these:
http://www.batch2006.com/imag_mindanao/06-07-06_1820.JPG - KidVicious, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17"I'd also ask why is the suicide rate so high in Japan"
18 hour work days + cultural history of venerated suicide
"Asians aren't better at math."
Did you *see* the chinese high school math question FTA? - stockjones, on 10/12/2007, -9/+22I'd also ask why is the suicide rate so high in Japan, and how come countries like China and India have so much poverty? I wouldn't deny that many Asians seem to be good at math (not all), but this article is equivalent to me making the claim that Europeans could be commended for bringing about the Industrial revolution, human rights, child labor rights and modern civilization as we know it today. Everyone contributes. Most asians can tell you there is serious pressure to perform academically and I wouldn't consider it all very nurturing or healthy. And I say that as someone who is half asian.
- pegisys, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16"You may want to specify which gender..."
it may not matter to him :p - offwithyourtv, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Is it weird that I had always wished my high school curriculum was harder? They didn't push people hard enough, and I'm guessing they push people now to a lesser extent. I envied how students were pushed so hard to achieve in countries like Japan that it made the struggling students suicidal. Expectations are too low in America because they're too worried about dumb kids' self-esteem. It'll be harder for those kids when they finish school, since the real world doesn't give a ***** about your self-esteem. The average and smart kids suffer because the dumb ones can't be left behind.
- stockjones, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13You are right education is stressed more in other countries. Its taken for granted in the States which is not good. At the same time, however, I know asians who have ill-will feelings toward their parents because of the pressure. Nurturing focus on education is good. Cracking the whip forcing it down your throat is bad. I don't want to bring it up and its probably rare, but looking at Cho's parents from the Virginia incident and knowing how strict some Korean parents can be, Im suprised more Cho's havent reared their head. The pressure some of these parent put on their kids is tremendous and it is not healthy.
- jcao, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14hey man, that's only in Japan
- ElimGarak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Ethnicity has absolutely nothing to do with this. It has to do with work ethic - IE if the parents get involved and make their kids study, then they will appear to be "smart". Americans and blacks and so on are not dumb - its just that culturally their families are not making them study as much (on average). They also get to go to worse schools on average, and are stuck among peers that don't give a damn about education, reducing peer pressure.
Einstein is a special case - he is an aberration. Part of the whole European Jew thing is more of a work ethic once again. For centuries Jews weren't allowed to own land and stuff - therefore education played a much bigger part in whether they succeeded or even survived. Thus families tended to be more educated (social evolution of sorts), and thus their children tended to be more educated. Thus so many Jews ended up in hard sciences, and got the chance to enter into the history books. - ndawg25, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10hell yeahh! BEAT YOUR KIDS PPL.
- ElimGarak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Yup, the US state of education is awful. This fact is probably very closely related to the number of people in US that don't believe in evolution.
Basically, in Asia parents discipline kids, and make them study. In the US some parents go to the highschool teachers, and ask them why the teachers try to make the kids study. And produce functionally illiterate students.
It is freaky to seek that in some industries/companies 85-95% of all the people are immigrants. - mikev, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8i'm not asian (i'm greek), but the part about parents = spot on. my parents grew up with literally nothing, and always told me the one thing that can't be taken away from you is education.
- idonthack, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9A girl on the Interweb?
Lies. Lies and trickery! - kelbear, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7This is an important thing that most will never notice.
The immigrants are ***** MOTIVATED. They're coming from a huge pool of competition for entry into the U.S, likely successful enough to have the tens of thousands of dollars it can take to move here, plus they probably got into the highly competitive colleges. The immigrants are the most driven individuals a country can send because they really WANT an American life. Their kids will be born American and will have an American life handed to them from the start, and they don't appreciate how hard it was to get this life.
The immigrants are just hungry for success. The second generation kids like me are just born into the success of their parents. - tech42er, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I nominate teal. It's cool and stable, yet bright happy, self-esteem enriching color.
/sarcasm
//that's sickening - theblackgecko, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@superal
You've hit a major point. Roughly 1 in 20 students at your high school are in the AP classes (and presumably intelligent). That's the top 5% of American students (assuming your high school is average). The students who take these exams in China are probably in the top 1% of Chinese students.
The top students of the U.S. are just as qualified as students of any country. However, in the United States, we also let the next 49% of students go to college. In China, only the top students are given a chance for college. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Education is stressed in asian cultures but the system doesn't work very well in Asian countries. Many of these systems depends on rote learning and doesn't teach critical thinking. In Japan, they have great technicians and salary men but not many great scientists or creative folk compared to the US. There's something in the US college/university system that works even when the general school system sucks.
- missflibbles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6...so, what you're saying is that you're Asian?
- nikkilai, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8solidhubris, I'm female. I know we're a rare breed on digg.
- Y0tsuya, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7@pifko87
You've never been to Shahghai. - DiggingDeep, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10How else would they be able to micromanage their resources in StarCraft?
jk jk - scotticus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Well, I predict that will change with time. As East Asia becomes more prosperous, new generations of students will have an increased interest in pursuing higher education, which will lead to more Asian PhDs, which will lead to more and better Asian universities. All of this takes time.
Part of it is also funding for research... America does a great job (relatively speaking) of funding the sciences. If Asia manages to commit to funding higher ed, they'll become leaders in a few decades. - MOGua, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@azimuth1
http://www.imo-official.org/results.asp?column=awards&order=desc&results=overview
With -only- 21 participations, China is number 1 in the world with the most gold medals in the International Math Olympiad.
China's record: http://www.imo-official.org/country_team_r.asp?code=CHN
UK's record: http://www.imo-official.org/country_team_r.asp?code=UNK
Here are all the problems from 1959 to 2006 in pdf for your enjoyment: http://www.imo-official.org/problems.asp
Be prepared, they are insanely hard. - kelbear, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Perhaps having higher goals can get us Americans closer to the Asian levels of math, without the parents trying to destroy your self-esteem. Bump the curriculum up in difficulty and have the kids match it, instead of dropping it down and taking everybody down with it. How can a kid rise to the challenge if they never receive a challenge in the first place?
Asian education has a big problem in rote memorization and standardization of ideas. It's blunt-force learning through repetition, something that they probably don't need, and we probably won't need in order to catch up.
Cultural emphasis is important too. There's no cheersquad rooting for the Academic Decathalon kids. But tons of praise for the football team or the basketball. Sports vs. Academia. Sports has value, but much MUCH less than academia, especially with regards to the future of the kids. And the sports are not even inclusive, it's only for those who are on the team, and doesn't teach anything to the rest of the kids(the vast majority of the school). - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Yo Yo Ma and other great asian musicians must lack "decent musical expression"?
- Ninnux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@milkmage
Nearly all the drivers you see in Shanghai and Beijing are professionals. Cars are still too expensive for average people to buy (although this is changing). Most Chinese you see here came on scholarship or work visas. This population, by definition, spent most of their life becoming good at a skill or general academic performance to make it to America. Two things may be said, then, about this group: 1) They didn't become professional drivers and therefore suck at driving; and 2) They are a self-selected population of mentally fit individuals. As such, they likewise spend a large amount of resources and energy taking care of the family and bettering themselves.
/Same with many Indian families.
//Married a Shanghaiese girl, and yes she sucks at driving, and yes she's a genius (Ph.D.)
///The greater Asian continent will again rule the world - smpx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@stockjones
You can probably link both the "good math" and "high suicides" to social pressure. I spent a good portion of my childhood in East Asia, so I'll paint you a picture of what I remember.
As an elementary(!!!) school student, my day starts at 5:30am, both parents work so after cooking my own breakfast I take the bus across town and get in class by 6:40. The first thing I check at my school is the "school-wide ranking", to see if I'm still on it. Since population density is high, my school has several thousand students all trying to get on a considerably small ranking table. The smallest drop in grades result in falling off the ranking system, which is unimaginably unacceptable.
My classes end at 4, and immediately after, I walk over to my cram school (This is so common it's expected. If you don't go you might not be accepted by a good high school, which means you won't be accepted by a good university) where I study more until about 9. I go home, practice playing the piano for a couple hours, and sleep.
Rinse and Repeat. I just spent 16 hours on my academics, and I'm in the 6th grade. I may not speak better English by this time, but I have better grammar and spelling than most North American students. (I should, too. For every percentage I miss on an exam, I get hit on my knuckles by a bamboo cane-- this is regardless of what subject I'm taking).
Academics in Asia isn't what North Americans understand as academics, and math and sciences are amongst the most treasured. I've seen highschool teachers dish out ridiculous punishment to students who don't perform, and if it's the fault of the parents not providing, I've also seen teachers go to the student's home, and beg on their knees for the parents to help the students. Most of the time, teachers are very respected, very treasured members of society, and as a result they take their jobs much more seriously than we treat their counterparts here in North America.
What does all this mean? Asians aren't always better at math, just those who have understood the power of discipline, and take academics seriously. If the consequence of not getting 100 on that math test means: your parents will be furious and beat you, your teacher will be furious and beat you, you will be humiliated in public as your rivals overtake your place on the ranking board, you might not get in a good highschool and thus a good university and thus have any success in life, you won't be liked by girls as much...... you will make sure you learn everything you can. - Y0tsuya, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@stockjones
Your theory about strict parents has already been disproved by Columbine. Plus, many times kids will hold ill feeling toward their parents no matter what. It's called puberty. In the old days it encouraged the young to strike out on the own and procreate. These days it makes things awkward at home. - sail191912, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Asians may not seem to be the safest drivers, but skill-wise, Asians have extremely fast driving reflexes. Try driving in asia and you'll see what I mean.
"why is the suicide rate so high in Japan?"
I think it might be the culture. Someone from our Japan office committed suicide because he was so pissed at his boss. - superal1394, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Ironic thing is my schools football team sucks too.
My school just sucks at everything. Theres the top 100 AP students, and then theres the other 1,600. -
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