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<p>Are you truly so ignorant of other countries and cultures that you don’t know the answer to that? I don’t think the political and social turmoil that happened in the PROC (do you know what that is without looking it up?) is the right catalyst for economic prosperity.</p>
<p>Wow I would be very intimidated to express an opinion in this thread. Sure some opinions are distorted by stereotypes, but if you request opinions you should be respectful towards them. Not a very mature approach to this thread. Talk about something college related.</p>
<p>run, now that is what i call comic relief. hahahahah</p>
<p>Haha thanks</p>
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<p>But then that doesn’t speak very highly of their own engineering skills and capability, which is what was being argued in the first place.</p>
<p>It’s not like they buy up American factory equipment. Americans are rich, have have a consumer culture, and like American products. China has a lot of manufacturing capacity. It is profitable to engineer and produce imitations of US products and sell them to the US.</p>
<p>Haha I might have misunderstood a certain comment in the thread. You guys should read the book “Outliers”. One chapter goes into detail about the cultural aspects of mathematics and it discusses how it correlates to the work ethic in the asian culture. How success is based on environment. It sounds like I’m advertising a book haha but really it’s explains it in a non-sided manner.</p>
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But then that doesn’t speak very highly of their own engineering skills and capability, which is what was being argued in the first place. [/quote
<em>sigh</em>…</p>
<p>It’s much more profitable to do so, that’s why they do it. It doesn’t mean that they DON’T HAVE THE CAPACITY TO BE CREATIVE. They’d rather not, because it’s simply smarter not to.</p>
<p>But saying something is profitable isn’t the same thing. This thread was started on the basis that asians are concerning the rest of the world because they are “dominating” the top colleges and, according to some, excelling in engineering and mathematics. And yet all they really produce is imitative goods? And you’re argument is…they make more money?</p>
<p>You keep harping that it’s much more profitable…fine. But that doesn’t show the supposed academic excellence and domination of the engineering/mathematical fields. Imitation goods is almost, by definition, showing the lack of creativity to forge their own goods. And the only reason imitation goods are profitable is because they’re cheap. You know…as in low quality. Again, not showing the supposed expertise in engineering and academia as a whole.</p>
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This is total BS, a Chinese company can produce a higher quality good for a lower price than an American company. This is becuase of their combination of industrialization and cheap labor/high population, it’s not because they are Asian. They are often given extremely low price jobs (crap from Wall Mart), so you get low quality.</p>
<p>And lol, there are also Chinese products for Chinese people. They just, you know, sell them in China.</p>
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<p>By dominating the economy, you dominate everything else.</p>
<p>Oh, and what I said was in response to the other guy who claims because chinese produces imitation goods, they aren’t creative. My rebuttal was they do it for money, not because they’re not creative enough to create new material.</p>
<p>I don’t know why you can’t wrap your head around that.</p>
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<p>Hardly.</p>
<p>Chinese are very economically successful in Malaysia, but don´t really have any political power there.</p>
<p>yes, i’m sure its asians’ “lack of creativity” that accounts for our domination in industry. let’s just say i drive a honda and it does things i’ve never even heard of before</p>
<p>the summary of the thread: it’s easy to point your finger at the other guys and say they lack creativity when you can’t even define what creativity is</p>
<p>Summary of this thread:
student01 and username are Asian.
pandem is not.
Each is arguing why his/her culture is superior.
Nothing intelligent or perceptive has arisen from this discussion…</p>
<p>Actually, I was born in America and one of my parents is white. fyi</p>
<p>My 2 cents.</p>
<p>First of all, I think all these racism allegations should stop, because I suppose all of us here will agree that this is more of a cultural than racial thing… So you can call it ‘culturalism’ or something. It’s just that people are often ‘lazy’ to type “A person exposed to, and upbrought in Asian culture” (since you can get a white kid to grow up in China with all that Eastern mentality, emphasis on studying, and so on), hence creating the misunderstanding.</p>
<p>I am not really from an Asian country – or South-East Asian at least – more like Western Asia/South-Eastern Europe. But from what I have heard here and there, the so-called ‘Asian mentality’ and (post-)USSR mentality are pretty similar – emphasis on studying (especially math/science), reverence to elders, teachers, career goals, dream of a lifetime = good car, money, good apartment, well-paying job etc. I will try to shed some light on this issue from the post-USSR perspective, and the way things work in the country I live in.</p>
<p>Basically, you are born to study for the sake of studying. There is a spirit of competitiveness and bragging between the students and parents – parents likes to show off academic achievements of their kids quite a lot. You go to a school where you are not even offered classes – there is a pre-defined schedule of ~15 classes (-1 from freedom of choice [potential ‘creativity’ in class selection]) you have to take that covers pretty much all subject areas. School clubs, organizations, sports etc. are not really popular/existent – you go to school to study, come home to eat and study, and so on. Now in classes the academic creativity is not necessarily suppressed – in some schools you would often find teachers who encourage different solutions and approaches (in some, you won’t). The whole school studying also serves as a preparation for the college admission test, that includes math, physics, chemistry, biology, geography, world history, history of Azerbaijan, and English sections. It’s pretty hard, and since this country was established in 1991 (18 years ago) there were only like 4-5 perfect scorers (700/700). A lot of parents are simply MENTAL about this test. You need to score 500+ for the sake of your family’s dignity (or you are an epic failure), 600+ to be considered smart. The irony is that while the school system is okay-ish, universities are insanely corrupt – teachers will ask you for money to give you a grade, and will fail you if you don’t pay (no exaggerations here). But this is not a concern to parents and relatives who care so much about your school performance and this test – you HAVE to get a high score, or you are a loser and a disgrace (never mind that all it will offer you is a chance to attend a crappy corrupt university). In other words, from the very childhood children are strongly encouraged to study, study, and study. In university, one needs to study even harder because the corrupt teachers don’t teach you crap – all they want is money, so you are left alone with all the textbooks to digest. Now this doesn’t mean that students are ‘not creative’ – for example there are a lot of sickly talented math and physics students who can apply abstract thinking and find creative solutions to very very hard problems (for a country with a population of 8 mln people students here are doing quite well on IMOs and IPhoS). I believe that the creativity mentioned in this thread so often (the one that was hard to define) is not the creativity great physicists, mathematicians, and so on use. I think you guys have been talking about ‘Western creativity,’ which I would define as an ability to find/‘see’ easy/simple (sometimes) solutions to everyday-ish/more real life problems, or come up with a simple idea that has a lot of potential behind it (facebook anyone? Google?). These students who have been focused on academics whole their lives are not very capable of spotting the things that might be an instant hit in our world. In other words, being so consumed into academics, it’s hard for them to ‘un-focus’ and apply their ‘academic creativity’ to the real world (in general, I think one needs to be extremely talented to be able to go deep/focus intensely in/on several unrelated areas.) It is related not only to the culture of studying 24/7, but to the mentality in general. Here, in most of the casses you can’t argue with a teacher/parent even if s/he is logically wrong. If you ask why you can’t, you will get ‘shut up and mind your business.’ It is very dangerous to say something against what is being propagandized by the government (for example there is a currently ‘frozen’ military conflict with Armenia, and nationalist messages such as “All Armeanians are terrorists” are quite acceptable. Going against the stream and trying to explain that generalization is stupid and makes no logical sense will most likely backfire, and you will be told to SHUT UP if you are lucky. If not, well…) You can’t argue against social norms. For example, it’s considered improper to cuss near girls, but it’s perfectly fine when one does it around boys. Don’t you even try to ask what’s the point of this sexism, you will be told to **** and mind your business. Or, boys are supposed to ‘look’ after their sisters, ask who they date with, approve the date and so on. If you even try to ask why, how does that even make any sense, try to explain that this is sexist and unfair, you will get the same infamous SHUT UP from majority of the people. If you try asking in school what’s the point of preparing to the very hard 700 point entrance exam if all you can get as a result is an acceptance to a corrupt university, where you will be studying by yourself anyways (something you can do alone), you will be told that you think too much by majority, and that you should go study instead. If you are a boy wearing earrings = GAYYYYYYYY. If you are a boy wearing shorts = hahaha, what a loser? If you hear some widely accepted view and want to logically challenge it, you will often get “Look, so many people have heard this and never said anything, do you consider yourself some smartass, or what? Don’t waste your time, go study instead.” The examples I listed above obviously do not apply to all of the people, but to the vast majority (~90-95%). Creativity is being simply slaughtered by rejecting any innovative ideas (even if they are logical), old>young (ALWAYS, even if the ‘old’ is logically wrong), and so on. All you are encouraged to do is studystudystudy, even if it is pointless in the end. Freedom of speech is only on the paper too, so I guess that doesn’t help the cause of creativity either. Now I am not saying that studying so much is ‘wrong,’ but in my opinion students should have a choice, and more of a balanced life. If you want to be a professor, then yea, maybe you should follow a path promoted by the vast majority here, except here pretty much EVERYONE is nearly forced to do this, and going against the stream can be pretty dangerous. I went to the U.S. for one year and was able to compare the cultures, and what I liked about U.S.A. (in general) was that there were much less dogmas. Parents are not ALWAYS correct. They are human beings just like you, and everyone can make a mistake. Sisters are not your property, and while you should take care of them (reasonably, as of sisters, not a piece of furniture), they is as humans just like you you, and can make their own choices. The school often featured lively discussions, clubs, organizations, no strict clothing guides, oft road trips and outside-of-classroom lessons and other ways to be creative. All this freedom of expression, opinion, speech etc. creates the environment where one is not constantly yelled at “shut up and do what you have to.” I have also noticed that in the U.S. one is usually encouraged to achieve something even if it is viewed as something impossible/hard. Here, it would often be the opposite – unless it’s something related to academics, that is. I cannot imagine a person growing in this environment with all this “you talk too much, go study” pressure on him/her who could manage to be ‘real-life creative.’ I myself was pretty much a zero in real-life creativity before going to the U.S. and seeing ‘the other side.’ Before that, my lifetime goal would have been a lucrative job, an apartment, and like. Now I have much more global outlook and goals, and can’t believe that I considered those trivial things as ones of the most important. I have talked to some recruiting offices of Western companies here, to ask what they thought of the situation here, and the general reply was “Oh we love it, young men and women here are very hard workers who always do what they are told to, and never argue.”</p>
<p>Now comparing cultures and education systems is probably pointless – it all depends on what you want to do, and what are your aims. If you want to become a mathematician/scientist, you might choose 24/7 studying. I would personally prefer to get a good education without being strangled and told how and what exactly to do, having no room for freedom/creativity, and then open my own company (a la Apple for example) producing products which would be in high demand and bring instant profits (iPod?) I think that going into both of the extremes is probably not the best thing to do – neither watching TV whole day instead of studying, nor being forced to study and not to ask any questions 24/7, that is. Looking at it globally, you could say it is kind of balanced – West emphasizes real-life creativity, East – academic excellence and dedication… But I think that it should be more balanced on a personal level – I don’t want to get good grades just because everyone does so, and if I won’t then I will disappoint my family. I want to study for the sake of all-round knowledge which I could use when solving problems in real life. It’s like the eternal debate of what’s better – holistic admission process employed by most of the U.S. colleges or CalTech’s meritocracy. I think it depends on a person – if you are very very into math/science, then it’s Caltech for you (which doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to ‘see’ easy solutions for everyday life, but I would think it would be harder considering your focus on math/science subjects.) If you are a more balanced person with interest of applying the learned knowledge directly to everyday life (as opposed to, say, theoretical science) then you could go to Harvard and become a president. :)</p>
<p>I am not sure if this was relevant at all, it’s just that when I described our post-Soviet mentality/culture a number of my Asian friends said it is similar to theirs, so I thought I might share.</p>
<p>tl to the dr</p>
<p>Thank you Alone. That was very insightful, and put into a (long) post exactly what I was trying to explain in short posts throughout this topic.</p>
<p>Yet what we still have failed to do here is define creativity. And define a set of objective standards. And also explain how creativity is relevant at all to the original post.</p>