From Gunpowder to the Next Big Bang
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: November 4, 2005
BEIJING – There is a techie adage that goes like this: In China or Japan the nail that stands up gets hammered, while in Silicon Valley the nail that stands up drives a Ferrari and has stock options. Underlying that adage is a certain American confidence that whatever we lack in preparing our kids with strong fundamentals in math and science, we make up for by encouraging our best students to be independent, creative thinkers.
There is a lot of truth to that. Even the Chinese will tell you that they’ve been good at making the next new thing, and copying the next new thing, but not imagining the next new thing. That may be about to change. Confident that its best K-12 students will usually outperform
America’s in math and science, China is focusing on how to transform its classrooms so students become more innovative.
“Although we are enjoying a very fast growth of our economy, we own very little intellectual property,” Wu Qidi, China’s vice minister of education, told me. “We are so proud of China’s four great inventions [in the past]: the compass, paper-making, printing and gunpowder. But in the following centuries we did not keep up that pace of invention. Those inventions fully prove what the Chinese people are capable of doing – so why not now? We need to get back to that nature.” Nurturing more “creative thinking and entrepreneurship are the exact issues we are putting attention to today.” But this bumps head-on against Chinese culture and politics, which still emphasize conformity.
But for how much longer? Check out Microsoft Research Asia, the research center Bill Gates set up in Beijing to draw on Chinese brainpower. In 1998, Microsoft gave IQ tests to some 2,000 top Chinese engineers and scientists and hired 20. Today it has 200 full-time Chinese researchers. Harry Shum, a Carnegie Mellon-trained computer engineer who runs the lab, has a very clear view of what Chinese innovators can do, given the right environment. The Siggraph convention is the premier global conference for computer graphics and interactive technologies. At Siggraph 2005, 98 papers were published from research institutes all over the world.
Nine of them – almost 10 percent – came from Microsoft’s Chinese research center, beating out M.I.T. and Stanford. Dr. Shum said: “In 1999 we had one paper published. In 2000, we had one. In 2001, we had two. In 2002, we had four. In 2003 we had three. In 2004, we had five, and this year we are very lucky to have nine.” Do you see a pattern?
In addition, Microsoft Beijing has contributed more than 100 new technologies for current Microsoft products – from the Xbox to Windows. That’s a huge leap in seven years, although, outside the hothouses like Microsoft, China still has a way to go.
Dr. Shum said: “A Chinese journalist once asked me, ‘Harry, tell me honestly, what is the difference between China and the U.S.? How far is China behind?’ I joked, ‘Well, you know, the difference between China high-tech and American high-tech is only three months – if you don’t count creativity.’ When I was a student in China 20 years ago, we didn’t even know what was happening in the U.S. Now, anytime an M.I.T. guy puts up something on the Internet, students in China can absorb it in three months.
“But could someone here create it? That is a whole other issue. I learned mostly about how to do research right at Carnegie Mellon. … Before you create anything new, you need to understand what is already there. Once you have this foundation, being creative can be trainable. China is building that foundation. So very soon, in 10 or 20 years, you will see a flood of top-quality research papers from China.”
Once more original ideas emerge, though, China will need more venture capital and the rule of law to get them to market. “Some aspects of Chinese culture did not encourage independent thinking,” Dr. Shum said. “But with venture capital coming into this country, it will definitely inspire a new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs. I will be teaching a class at Tsinghua University next year on how to do technology-based ventures. … You have technology in Chinese universities, but people don’t know what to do with it – how to marketize it.”
A few of his young Chinese inventors demonstrated their new products for me. I noticed that several of them had little granite trophies lined up on their shelves. I asked one of them, who had seven or eight blocks on her shelf, “What are those?” She said the researchers got them from Microsoft every time they invented something that got patented.
How do you say “Ferrari” in Chinese?
1
By boo
Really? The best students in my high school class went on to be mostly corporate drones. So much for that encouragement. It’s the delinquents that everyone hated who went on to do creative things with their lives.
As someone who has run small businesses both inside and outside the US, I think it’s the financial services and relatively open markets that matter. In the US I was able to open credit lines and get financing even without financial knowledge, and without banking connections. As that becomes easier in China, watch the explosion of natural creativity.
Of course this will be fought tooth and nail by the banks, who are comfortable in their current arrangements.
November 4, 2005 @ 7:02 am | Comment
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By dishuiguanyin
“Marketize” ? That’s a word?
Nit-picking aside, I don’t have enough experience to know how easy or difficult it is to get venture capital in China. Are you sure the situation is improving boo?
There’s lots of creativity sloshing around this place, but I think the culture of conformity and fear is still going to stifle it, possibly with the exception of a few hot-houses like Qinghua.
November 4, 2005 @ 8:23 am | Comment
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By boo
All I meant to say was that I believe the “creativity” of the US market is directly related to all the advanced financial services available to almost anyone there, even if you don’t have connections. And I think the situation can be duplicated anywhere. albeit not easily. Whether that will actually happen is anyone’s guess.
November 4, 2005 @ 8:38 am | Comment
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By davesgonechina
I dunno about this statement. You can create new things without knowing everything that’s already there. Did anyone read about the Pentagon’s desert robot race? Only four of the robot 4x4s made it to the finish, and one of them was from some guys at an insurance company. They didn’t read about Carnegie Mellon’s entry, they just assumed it was like a big video game and that’s how they programmed the pathfinding. Meanwhile some DARPA funded SUV ended up upended in a ditch halfway through.
Creativity isn’t simply about making the most cutting edge thing ever, either in the classroom or the patent office. And I don’t think it’s “trainable”, I think it’s innate – you either discourage it or encourage it. Ironically I think Dr. Shum is reinforcing Microsoft’s hierarchical conformity, and I’m sure it will do well in a lab where they can skim off the 20 highest IQs. But that’s not what is needed in the average Chinese classroom.
Once again a Friedman column leaves me feeling like he wasted an opportunity. Why didn’t he ask some of the young guys in the Beijing lab xbox graphics dept. about their high school experience? The teacher droning over the lectern and getting angry if you ask a question? The li upon li of standardized testing? The conformity demanded in mandatory marxism classes? My biggest complaint was the monopolization of time. Students never have time to pursue their own zany, or not so zany, idea. School, extra English lessons, test prep, piano lessons – that, plus dorm curfews regardless of age and the like.
Just like Friedman’s visit to the Ministry of Science and Tech’s green building, he’s showing us the lonely pinnacle of Chinese innovation. It’s great it’s there, and there will be more, but he’s leaving out the fact that the bottom of the pyramid is very, very fat, and very, very different. At least in this case, it’s more appropriate. One green building will not solve China’s environmental issues. But one badass laboratory could change the landscape on IP.
November 4, 2005 @ 11:23 am | Comment
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By nausicaa
“Just like Friedman’s visit to the Ministry of Science and Tech’s green building, he’s showing us the lonely pinnacle of Chinese innovation. It’s great it’s there, and there will be more, but he’s leaving out the fact that the bottom of the pyramid is very, very fat, and very, very different.”
Good point. China’s secondary education system is still largely as stifling as ever. There is still too much emphasis on test-taking (i.e. the ever-dreaded “Black July” of college entrance exams that trumps the SATs a hundred times over) and rote memorisation, on students being “quan tong” (“all-arounders”) which ultimately leads to them being “zhong yong” (mediocre). And even post-secondary ivory towers like Qinghua and Beida, I’m not sure are such hotbeds of creative activity. Are students who manage to gain admission into these hallowed institutions really brilliant, or do they just know how to play the system?
I mean, I’m not sure how it is in engineering and the sciences, but certainly when it comes to the arts and humanites, China’s best and brightest aren’t anywhere near these institutions.
So who knows if Xsoft Research Asia signals a new generation of innovators and creators or if it is merely an anomaly?
November 4, 2005 @ 12:49 pm | Comment
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By HongXing
So who knows if Xsoft Research Asia signals a new generation of innovators and creators or if it is merely an anomaly?
I think it signals new generation of innovators and creators. But of course many people here hope that it’s just an anomaly.
November 4, 2005 @ 3:38 pm | Comment
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By HongXing
Mr Friedman is a very insightful journalist, and clearly has intimate and friendly feelings towards China. Of course that may make some people very angry, but I support him and I can responsibly tell you that most Chinese people support him as well. I hope he continues his trips in China and continues his investigations, and he should also try to investigate some negative things in China as well, because China is not perfect and has many negative sides as well.
November 4, 2005 @ 3:41 pm | Comment
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By xing
HongXing,
You are at it, again. Can you grow up and be open to different view points?
November 4, 2005 @ 6:17 pm | Comment
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By Thomas
Hahaha….of course he can, Xing. As long as you are friendly to China that is…………..(wicked grin)
November 4, 2005 @ 8:43 pm | Comment
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By Ray
What the US does well is appreciate the ability to fail and succeed. This is true especially in Silicon Valley, where it seems to take about three times to get it right to do a successful start up.
On the comment about taking 3 months for China to learn from MIT. Remember that MIT student may be from China or India. Most higher education students in the Sciences/Engineering in the US are not US born.
I have been impressed by the entrepreneurism I have seen come out of China and willingness to take risk, as well as a good K-12 education for many students.
Silicon Valley I read somewhere was about 30% of hte Engineers were ethnic Chinese.
What I am seeing is a lot of the tech work is being outsourced to China/India due to cost, with the company HQ staying in the US.
November 4, 2005 @ 9:36 pm | Comment
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By ACB
I would counter this by saying that I see western culture putting too much emphasis on what I tend to think of as being ‘fancy Bullsh*t’. People putting style before substance and talking something up rather than building it up.
It’s all very well to be able to sell something or create an idea, but without the grass root skills needed to build it, its still a picture on the drawing board.
It also means that people in the west are being encouraged to think too far ahead and not to build up their ideas from a sound base and is leading to wackos popping up and saying ‘its like this because I think it is like this’ rather than ‘here are the numbers’.
November 5, 2005 @ 5:11 am | Comment
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By ZHJ
xing, you ask HongXing to “grow up and be open to different view points”. I wish you could also have been more open to other viewpoints in that Hukou system topic and been more open to suggestions for improvement. You only comdemned the system, but I have not heard from you how to make things better.
November 5, 2005 @ 6:20 am | Comment
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By richard
HongXing has been truly immature and incendiary. Xing has been polite and intelligent, even if we don’t always agree. Please don’t equate them. HongXing is an aberration. a disturbed and dangerous person. For proof, go see what he wrote yesterday in this thread. There is now no debate – HX is sick.
November 5, 2005 @ 6:45 am | Comment
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By davesgonechina
Don’t forget Richard, in the Malkin picture thread HongXing also said he supported Japanese internment in World War II, because “there was indeed intelligence that there were many Japanese intelligence officers living civillian lives in the USA. So I don’t think interning all Japanese was too strong an action to stop those intelligence officers” and that the Japanese weren’t treated as badly as the Jews in Germany, so it’s not a “big deal”.
If he really is Chinese, then he’s no poster boy for creative or critical thinking in China. Maybe Thomas Friedman should talk to Hong Xing to provide contrast to the sharp thinkers he’s been cherrypicking.
November 5, 2005 @ 3:20 pm | Comment
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By Shanghai Slim
Like any complex phenomena, there are a number of factors involved, in my opinion the education system is number one.
Also, in some ways, it just doesn’t pay to be innovative in China. Here, it’s much more profitable to copy someone else’s success than to come up with your own idea, and Chinese business culture and (lack of) legal system encourage this.
Another culprit is having an economic system based more on connections than on merit, so the “wrong” people are rewarded.
Of course, social conformity is a big factor as well.
It’s hard for me to tell how much things are changing. Young people I work with are more imaginative, but then again, young people usually are. I feel sorry for some of my adult students who couldn’t imagine their way out of a paper bag with one end marked “exit”.
IMO it’s not just business innovation which has suffered — across the board Chinese culture has paid a dear price for the undervaluing of creativity.
Sometimes when I ponder why Shanghai has so little culture for a megalopolis of its size, I wonder if a big part of the explanation is that the suppression of imagination has led to a near-complete atrophying of the arts in Chinese culture.
An example that puts it in a nutshell: a Chinese art student may spend their first ten years of study in copying old masters. Only after ten years of copying is the student allowed to create something of their own.
Ever wonder why every art store in China sells the same pictures, such as the runaway grain barge passing under the bridge, or the stylized galloping horses? Can you think of a uniquely Chinese style of music created within the last 200 years? Exciting new Chinese dish? A Chinese novel or television series popular outside of China? These things are all rare, remarkably so given the enormous numbers of Chinese people.
If Chinese wish to remedy this situation, I suppose the natural place to start is the schools. But it will take some strong national willpower to make these kinds of fundamental changes. I am hoping for the best, and meanwhile trying to do my tiny part in my own classrooms.
November 6, 2005 @ 9:45 am | Comment
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By davesgonechina
Exactly, Slim, I think that’s the problem – in other societies too, but more pronounced in China. But look back at this statement from Microsofts Dr. Shum:
It’s the same idea; we must study others ideas for another ten years. For science and tech, fair enough, but eventually catching up is a matter of diminishing returns. I think China is practically already there as far as the top echelon of sci/tech research goes. In tech ultimately its about solving a problem that exists in your society. If you’re spending all your time studying what others are doing, you’re too busy to do that. How much do you want to bet that the papers delivered at Siggraph were almost all about some new way to do vector rendered graphics or pixel shading or some such thing? Great, solid maths, but earth changing its not.
And even if not world changing, why must you first jump through all those hoops? Again, I point to the example of the guys who came in 4th in the DARPA desert race. These guys worked in insurance, and said “why not build a robot SUV?” In their free-time, they spent about 20-30 grand, built a robot car and programmed it using computer game algorithms. The only other finishers of the race were 3 4x4s from Stanford and Carnegie Mellon.
Can you imagine a few Chinese insurance company bosses deciding to build that? For one, Chinese business culture has even less patience for extracurricular activities at work than US companies. And there’s the question of why they would want to do it in the first place (we’ll assume they do). But the biggest difference is trying something without bothering to check if it is possible or not, and I think in China today its very hard for anyone to not immediately worry about whether or not someone else says you can or cannot do it.
November 6, 2005 @ 10:42 am | Comment
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By HongXing
I agree that innovation is a big bottleneck for China’s development. Many new ideas these days are from the West.
I think the reason is due to history. China has 5000 years of deep and rich history, while America has only 200 years, almost no history. But China’s rich history and culture can sometimes serve as an obstruction as well. When a Chinese comes up with a new idea, he/she always try to compare it to everything in the past, and since there are so many “authoritative” things in the past, that person will be afraid to break with tradition and advance. While Americans do not have much culture or history to rely on, so new ideas are not always compared to tradition and therefore easily advanced.
An analogy is like China is a 80-year-old wise man with full of life experiences and full of knowledges. But that wise man also tends to be less open to new ideas like sex parties or ipods. While America is like a 18 year old young energetic student, and he has the energy to accept new ideas and may even sometimes look down upon the old man. So I think the old man can learn some things from the young boy.
November 6, 2005 @ 10:47 am | Comment
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By davesgonechina
Americans, however, do draw from the histories of their ancestors – in other words, everybody.
Why can’t we all be drawing from human history, instead of these histories based on imaginary lines in sand and blood?
BTW, well done Hong Xing. You said something that wasn’t stupid. Keep up the good work. That “authoritative” past is exactly the obstacle. You even picked the perfect adjective to describe it, since another place China could use some creativity is in history, finding more than one way to look at the past. For example, in the U.S. you have history as seen from an elite perspective, powerful men and the like. On the other hand, we also have Howard Zinn.
November 6, 2005 @ 1:07 pm | Comment
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By xing
The conditions and rewards for creativity and innovation are not good in China. I think the biggest problem is the social and political environment. The best college students often go abroad. I last read that about 75% college graduates in engineering of Tsinghua University go abroad to study, most to the US. For those that stay in China, they try hard to get a job in government because that is the place where money comes from and the reward is better. In silicon valley, a good engineer probably earns more money than the city mayor. Because of corruption, a low-level official can make huge amount of money.
With the right environments, the Chinese can be as creative and innonative as any other people. I see this in silicon valley and universities in the US. The environments are getting better in China. The government is puting more money in research (but what I said above is pretty much there); and many western companies have set up R&D centers in China. This has a lot. These companies pay well and offer an alternative to the jobs in government for local talents.
November 6, 2005 @ 1:55 pm | Comment
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By xing
On the another hand, I believe a country doesn’t have to be very creative and innonative in order to be successful. East asian countries, Japan, South Korea, are much behind the US in innovation, but they are quite successful. For China, it is important to get most poeple well educated.
November 6, 2005 @ 2:34 pm | Comment
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By davesgonechina
Japan, not innovative? Whuh? South Korea isn’t doing badly either. It’s not just about patents, Xing, its about creating something the world never saw before. Like Tamagotchi, or 大长今.
November 6, 2005 @ 5:22 pm | Comment
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By xing
Please pay attention to the word ‘very’ before innovative that I used in my previous post. Japan is often percepted not to be a very innonative country in the US media.
By your definition, China is not very bad either. Even the Chinese government is not too bad, for exampl, in censoring the Internet -:). I like Tamagotchi, I am sure one can find a few movies or TV series in China that are as good as Tamagotchi.
November 6, 2005 @ 6:06 pm | Comment
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By nausicaa
Contrary to popular opinion, Japan is very innovative, but Tamagotchi is sooo not the right image you want to have in your mind when you think of “Japan” and “innovation”. Tamagotchi is, quite simply put, the spawn of the devil. Or, Japan’s revenge for the nuclear bombs (in fact, much of the anime exported overseas is, I think, Japan’s revenge for the nuclear bombs. I mean, Pokemon, anyone?)
*raises silver cross* Devil, be gone! *shudders*
Ever wonder why every art store in China sells the same pictures, such as the runaway grain barge passing under the bridge, or the stylized galloping horses? Can you think of a uniquely Chinese style of music created within the last 200 years? Exciting new Chinese dish? A Chinese novel or television series popular outside of China? These things are all rare, remarkably so given the enormous numbers of Chinese people.
Bah. Art stores are for tourists. They peddle kitsch. Go to an actual art gallery in Shanghai (preferably the ones tucked away on obscure streets and slightly scuzzy) and tell me there ain’t a little ferment of creativity happenin’.
As for a style of music created within the past 200 years…well, Chinese propaganda songs are uniquely Chinese, innit? >;-P
Exciting new Chinese dish? What. the. hell? Is this a trick question? Exciting new Chinese dishes are constantly being created. Just stick out your tongue.
Novels…hmm. You got me. The first ones I thought of were “Shanghai Baby” and “Balzac and the Little Seamstress”, and those don’t count. Ha Jin’s “Waiting” sort of counts. Gao Xingjian’s “Soul Mountain” definitely counts. But that’s not really a fair question, because most Westerners would be more familiar with midbrow stuff like Rowlings or Tom Clancy or Bushnell than “high” literature to begin with. (Ask anyone in the States what Mishima or Haruki Murakami or Banana Yoshimoto wrote and you’d likely also get a big, “HUH?” Doesn’t mean Japan doesn’t crank out its share of brilliant authors, though.)
And no Chinese television series have made it across the pond because, frankly, Chinese miniseries are the suckage. They’re either sappy melodramas (well, not as bad as the Korean “girl meets boy, girl dies by fatal disease” hanky-drenchers, but still), or quasi-historical costume dramas set in the Qing dynasty. (Tres ironic. Back then we wanted the Manchus out because they were icky barbarian invaders and now they’re the source of an entire entertainment industry.) But Chinese films are pretty popular out West, I’d say. Everyone and their grandmother has heard of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, many know Gong Li and Zizi and Chow Yun Fat, and some can even rattle off a few fifth-gen directors’ names. Speaking of populous nations…when’s the last time an Indian film made it big abroad? Offhand I would say way back in the 70s, with the “World of Apu” trilogy.
So eh, it’s a tossed bag. So I wouldn’t say it’s so REMARKABLY rare. The education system is still all fucked-up, yeah, but creativity (especially in the arts and entertainment industries) is on the ascendant.
November 6, 2005 @ 7:52 pm | Comment
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By davesgonechina
I did mean Tamagotchi in a tongue in cheek kinda way.
But there is the difference between the government being creative, say in internet censorship as Xing suggest, and having a public sphere of creativity.
I don’t know where you get the idea of Japan not being creative in the US media, Xing. Every time there’s a robot from Honda, new anime movie from Studio Ghibli, or next gen mobile phone, the US always heres it from Japan.
For godssakes, haven’t you heard of Gwen Stephani’s new Harajuka Girl tour? Granted, she’s gotten ripped for “neutering Japanese street fashion” in Salon, but clearly Japanese pop culture is having an impact on US pop culture – which means its seen as a source of inspiration and creativity. And Japanese street fashion is all about funky new ways of expressing yourself.
November 6, 2005 @ 8:15 pm | Comment
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By nausicaa
ETA: You know, sometimes I even think creativity and innovation don’t need encouragement in China. I think it just doesn’t need stifling.
November 6, 2005 @ 8:19 pm | Comment
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By davesgonechina
do you mean ETA or BTW?
November 6, 2005 @ 8:22 pm | Comment
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By xing
>But there is the difference between the government being creative, say in internet censorship as Xing suggest, and having a public sphere of creativity.
Dave,
I said it creative in a negative way. But one has to admit the government is quite good at that, quite creative.
November 6, 2005 @ 8:30 pm | Comment
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By nausicaa
do you mean ETA or BTW?
Well, does it matter? Just think of it as, uh, the epigraph to my previous post.
BTW, dave, I agree with you that Japanese popular culture has become very influential, and deservedly so. I just wish Japan would spare us its Cult of Cute, along with its polar opposite, the Cult of Perversions.
Xing, unfortunately the Chinese government chooses to use its “creativity” for evil, not good. ;-P
November 6, 2005 @ 8:34 pm | Comment
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By xing
Dave,
By the way, when I talked about creativity and innovation, I defined it in the very narrow term: doing cuting-edge research in science and technology. I think that ‘s what Thomas Friedman talked about in the article.
November 6, 2005 @ 8:35 pm | Comment
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By HongXing
davesgonechina, you seem to imply that in China, only those at the “top” are creative, like those in Qinghua and Microsoft reasearch labs, and you say the “base” is too uncreative.
But I think this is the same way in the USA. Are there a lot of creative people in the USA? Of course. But they are in MIT, in NASA, in Intel. But what about regular Americans? I talked to them often, and they only know about Hamburgers and Cheese, and certainly is not even as creative as an ordinary Chinese. America does have a bigger “top” than China, but that’s due to America’s economy, investment in RD, ability to attract foreign students, etc. And that’s a whole different topic.
Also, I don’t believe having too many creative people is good for a society. An ideal society should have 5% of its population being very creative, and the rest being just hardworking and honest.
November 6, 2005 @ 8:52 pm | Comment
31
By richard
Also, I don’t believe having too many creative people is good for a society. An ideal society should have 5% of its population being very creative, and the rest being just hardworking and honest.
It’s so nice to have a social engineer in our midst.
November 6, 2005 @ 9:14 pm | Comment
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By davesgonechina
Hong Xing, my point is that the environment at Microsoft Labs and at a university in Xinjiang is pretty much opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of attitude. Never mind resources, just how things are taught.
I never said the problem doesn’t exist in the US. I think its a common problem throughout modern education around the world. But I think it’s a particular problem for China due to the problems nausicaa pointed out: exams, rote memorization, and I’d throw in a classroom environment that doesn’t allow students to ask many questions or come up with their own ideas. We had a Shanghai professor over on sabbatical who told me “They teach these students not to think!” I’ve heard similar tales from various provinces, and get the impression that outside the biggest eastern cities best and brightest, and I’ll grant you thats no small number, everybody else is discouraged from asking questions. There’s also the students lack of independence, having little choice in how they use their time, to the point that students in their early twenties have a dorm curfew and extra classes on weekends, so they have little or no time to pursue their own ideas.
In America we give students more opportunities and time to pursue their own ideas. Not that there aren’t risks to that, like students spending all their time doing f**k all or appearing on Girls Gone Wild.
Then again, they are creative in those Girls Gone Wild Games.
As for your assertion that a society shouldn’t have too much creativity, I don’t get it. Since when is having too many new ideas a bad thing?
November 6, 2005 @ 9:18 pm | Comment
33
By xing
HongXing,
You are humorous. That’s why I said a country doesn’t have to be very creative in order to be successful. But it is important to get most of its people well educated. Again, by creative, I mean stuffs like cuting-edge research in science and technology.
If you look at the US educational system, it is the best in the world. California alone has 6 of the top 20 universities in the world. The small percentage of people at the top are among the very best. But that’s not enough, most people are in the middle segment. To maintain the number one position, the US needs to make sure that those people are better educated than most people in China and India. It is true for now. But as people in China and India are becomming better educated and wages there are much lower, people in that segment are going to feel challenges.
November 6, 2005 @ 9:33 pm | Comment
34
By xing
Dave,
Ironically, tests seem to be more and more common in the US too.
November 6, 2005 @ 9:36 pm | Comment
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By davesgonechina
Don’t I know it Xing. I think we’re going to end up overdoing just as China is getting out of the habit.
November 6, 2005 @ 10:34 pm | Comment
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By Lao Lu
Seems like the times they are a’changing after all. When I was in China as a student, I had as teaching material “River Elegy” (He Shang), the 6-part documentary that was broadcasted twice on national television in 1986/1987 and got banned after that, making the authors Su Xiaokang and Yuan Zhiming having to flee the country. One of their criticisms was that yes, China had invented great things in the past, like the compass and gunpowder, but what had the great Chinese empire done with it: China, except for the times of Zeng He, had never really taken to sea, like the other great nations, but had confined itself within the Great wall and the invention of the gunpowder had resulted in not much more than some firecrackers that would go off in the air.
About 20 years later, now the vice-minister of Education is practically taking over the same discourse. There is hope indeed !
November 7, 2005 @ 5:55 am | Comment
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By Oh Please
Even as a casual lurker, I’ve caught wind of Hong Xing’s unique argumentation style. Wowza … who says he’s not creative? He strings English words together in ways that are not only (mainly) grammatically correct, but would never occur to a native speaker! Like, “too much creativity in a population is bad.” Or that “creativity” is somehow in opposition to “hard-working” and “honest”.
I certainly don’t know enough Chinese people intimitely to make the sweeping generalization that Americans or Chinese are individually “more creative” than their counterparts. Certainly, there are many unimaginative Americans … but creativity is something that our culture aspires to or professes to foster, even if sometimes we don’t get that result. “Creativity” comes out in many forms, and not just in the arts. People’s everday ingenuity in solving problems at work or at home, or even in relatively small things like redecorating your house according to personal taste instead of following the latest fads or being “told” what your tastes at a certain income level should be, are all examples of creativity.
I’ll speculate here that creativity relates to other concepts like: risk-taking, granting freedom to others to think for themselves or devise their own solutions, individualism, and questioning received wisdom and authority. To think of a new or better way to do something often pits you against something established or long-lived.
HX’s point about China’s “5000 years of history” being a burden is well taken, but to phrase it like that is only part of the story. No person has experienced 5,000 years of history; the most we each get is about 100 years, if we’re lucky. It’s the Chinese cultural insistence that you must look to the past (heck, even Confucious yearned for some Golden Age) and follow all the models that puts the straightjacket on. I’m sick of “America” being characterized as a brash young child and China as a wise old man, as if you could anthropomorphize an entire culture. Chinese could still celebrate their “5000 years of culture” (that always sounds like it should be solemnly intoned, with a gong at the end) without being hamstrung by it.
November 9, 2005 @ 11:55 pm | Comment