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I can explain where your astonishing comes form(maybe off topic): there are something to do with how China built the nation yet not quite visible to westerners.

by jjcc 8y ago

I can explain where your astonishing comes form(maybe off topic): there are something to do with how China built the nation yet not quite visible to westerners. There are many factors. One important factor which amplifies other factors is related to big number theory: quantity is translated into quality. Average Chinese are not quite different from other nationals.(Let's put down controversial conclusion for now) . However China has 1.3 billion people. With such a big number , a small shift of the average on the IQ bell curve doesn't matter. What you have met are a vary small portion of top talent from China. As analogy, you can image a typical top NBA athlete would be black. But with 1.3 billion people there exists a Yao Ming who is not a typical Chinese. Then why it happened recently? That's related to last 30 years rapid development.But that's invisible part. China not only build road , bridge, bullet train, etc. more importantly which also matches Chinese traditional value: China invest heavily in Education. In 80's (i.e. my generation ) only 5-10% of high school graduate can be accepted by limited universities at the time. But money poured into Education increased year by year incrementally like crazy. Today there are enough universities to provide any qualified students an opportunity for education. The consequence is there's a big change on human capital. This is not limited to what you observed but also in other areas. For example, China is exporting the infrastructure building expertise all over the world. Quite often the builders have to bring whole teams from China because qualified teams are only available there. Those are experienced skill construction workers but not academically competitive students. The significant increase in human capital is less visible than infrastructure improvement, yet it has a bigger impact

Foobar8568 8y ago
And also the competition to get into good school etc. Basically a student life doesn't start at 18, 16, or 12, but 2years old, if not one and half (interviews for kindergarten). Constant ranking, placement exams, number of school hours etc makes western education pathetic. At the end of P1, Chinese kids are supposed to read something like 800 Chinese words, write 60% of them (if my memory serves me well), in France/Switzerland, most kids can barely read at that age. And poor them if you even think to enforce that. We are destroying generations if the parents don't realize how fucked up is our system: education is a building process, with layers and layers of foundation.
- rqs 8y ago
  Meanwhile in China, people are bashing the education system hard as well, saying it "Teaching to the test" (a Wikipedia term [0]), "Serving political purpose" and "Like a factory". In my opinion, a successful education system is the one which can produce people who are capable of learn new knowledge my themselves, resolve problems by themselves and create new things by themselves. So maybe, reading 800 Chinese words in a very young age is impressive, but there is more important things to do. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaching_to_the_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaching_to_the_test
  - Foobar8568 8y ago
    And in France people are saying the same bullshit over bac and classes préparatoires. Same in Switzerland. It's lieing to students, reality is a harsh one. If you don't perform during your studies, your life will be tough unless you are an outlier.

by jjcc 8y ago

Foobar8568 8y ago

And also the competition to get into good school etc. Basically a student life doesn't start at 18, 16, or 12, but 2years old, if not one and half (interviews for kindergarten). Constant ranking, placement exams, number of school hours etc makes western education pathetic. At the end of P1, Chinese kids are supposed to read something like 800 Chinese words, write 60% of them (if my memory serves me well), in France/Switzerland, most kids can barely read at that age. And poor them if you even think to enforce that. We are destroying generations if the parents don't realize how fucked up is our system: education is a building process, with layers and layers of foundation.

rqs 8y ago
Meanwhile in China, people are bashing the education system hard as well, saying it "Teaching to the test" (a Wikipedia term [0]), "Serving political purpose" and "Like a factory". In my opinion, a successful education system is the one which can produce people who are capable of learn new knowledge my themselves, resolve problems by themselves and create new things by themselves. So maybe, reading 800 Chinese words in a very young age is impressive, but there is more important things to do. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaching_to_the_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaching_to_the_test
- Foobar8568 8y ago
  And in France people are saying the same bullshit over bac and classes préparatoires. Same in Switzerland. It's lieing to students, reality is a harsh one. If you don't perform during your studies, your life will be tough unless you are an outlier.