One at a time, I made the mistake of dunking down an oreo mocha frappe last night, I lack sleep and hence only have time to reply 1 poster at a time
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Hey, Perry Link, his adviser, wrote my first year Chinese textbook! Brings back fun memories. (Example sentence: “狗是我的朋友，我的朋友是狗.”)
On the overall article, though, I'm more or less going to agree with the_fell_bat, but I think from a slightly different angle. I understand the idea that's being conveyed by the story, that success can come in many different forms, and that as constituted the Singaporean system (among others) has issues with providing no more than a somewhat distorted proxy for talent and success, leaving some, like Mr. Lim, out of the opportunities to pursue and be rewarded in spite of what is in retrospect indisputable talent
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The answer to these questions is important if you're going to start comparing scales, otherwise you have no basis of comparison. Pardon me for broad generalizations, but I tend to find that these kinds of questions are too rarely asked in Singapore, and more generally among supporters of meritocracy (two populations with a noticeable overlap). Distinguishing by merit might be worthwhile, and probably often is, but before you do so it's important to ask what the purpose of the distinction is, otherwise you fall into the trap of believing that the scale itself is what matters. And maybe it might, in some systems, but in my opinion that's pretty rare: I am currently unaware of any political or moral philosopher who has made explicit the assertion that smarter (richer, stronger, more attractive) people should run society because they inherently deserve more than other people. The more justifiable argument is the efficiency argument, that those more talented (wise, strong, wealthy, etc) people have advantages which will permit rule by
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Dave, hey! So what are you doing now? :D Interning or what?
I was about to craft a response to this when my mom yanked me away to get me to get ready for lunch - interesting thoughts I'll get back to you when I get back home!
Well, almost. It seems the places I applied to just didn't recognize my "outstanding talent," so I spent the summer doing "research" (i.e. loafing and surfing the internet). XP But yeah, it is senior year now and I'm in the full swing of studying and planning for grad school and all that and occasionally managing to squeeze in some personal time for fun things as well (like reply to blogs with long philosophical rants, haha).
One thing which we can learn from this example is also to see how he pitch himself. He is in Oxford and Princeton doing East Asian stuff, Chinese studies at Oxford and East Asian Studies in Princeton. That is a good positioning … his chance is likely to be more diminished if he is attempting to study English Literature or Shakespeare studies in Oxford
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But you're not quite right there. I don't think Oxton (since I'm lazy to type Oxford & Princeton out) is a measure of success in its own right (ie: getting into Oxton means attaining godhood or something).
Rather, I see it as a measure of success for LWG in his own right, an honor that is finally conferred upon him and something that recognizes the sheer genius of his mind.
Where IL schools (Ivy League) are concerned for me, it definitely isn't a love-hate relationship, it's about trying to see things in perspective. It's about understanding the limitations and possibly dangers of going into one (I still expect my kids to go to IL schools in future :p The issue for me then is - what can I then do as a parent to teach my child to 'top up' to the experience he/she will have that an IL school cannot prepare adequately for).
Another thing I disagree with is this "what so great about a Chinese educated Chinese (he do Higher level in "A" level) doing well in Oxford in Chinese studies??" - I think
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Eh... regarding the Chinese thingy... I think penguin is making a very valid point.
You see similar things happening in the field of academia. Asians go Oxford, even if they're better than the ang mohs at say, 18C English Lit, they won't get positions, the ang mohs will get. But talk about postcolonialism, Asian literature -- we rule the field! More or less anyway.
So I missed this point the first time round, actually -- Wah Guan's doing Chinese studies, and as penguin points out it's really good *positioning* on his part. Doesn't necessarily take away from any evaluation of his talent, but I think we have to recognize, it's actually to be expected that he'd outperform the ang mohs *in this particular well-chosen field*.
It's all ang mohs doing grad studies in Princeton meh?
But even so it doesn't make the earlier points we discussed less valid. But OK even if WG pwned the ang mohs cos he's Wah Guan, not William Graham, the fact that he could still get into Oxton is still a feat in itself.
I mean, I'm sure other Chinese educated folks have applied to Oxton as well but didn't get in?
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On the overall article, though, I'm more or less going to agree with the_fell_bat, but I think from a slightly different angle. I understand the idea that's being conveyed by the story, that success can come in many different forms, and that as constituted the Singaporean system (among others) has issues with providing no more than a somewhat distorted proxy for talent and success, leaving some, like Mr. Lim, out of the opportunities to pursue and be rewarded in spite of what is in retrospect indisputable talent ( ... )
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I was about to craft a response to this when my mom yanked me away to get me to get ready for lunch - interesting thoughts I'll get back to you when I get back home!
Reply
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But you're not quite right there. I don't think Oxton (since I'm lazy to type Oxford & Princeton out) is a measure of success in its own right (ie: getting into Oxton means attaining godhood or something).
Rather, I see it as a measure of success for LWG in his own right, an honor that is finally conferred upon him and something that recognizes the sheer genius of his mind.
Where IL schools (Ivy League) are concerned for me, it definitely isn't a love-hate relationship, it's about trying to see things in perspective. It's about understanding the limitations and possibly dangers of going into one (I still expect my kids to go to IL schools in future :p The issue for me then is - what can I then do as a parent to teach my child to 'top up' to the experience he/she will have that an IL school cannot prepare adequately for).
Another thing I disagree with is this "what so great about a Chinese educated Chinese (he do Higher level in "A" level) doing well in Oxford in Chinese studies??" - I think ( ... )
Reply
You see similar things happening in the field of academia. Asians go Oxford, even if they're better than the ang mohs at say, 18C English Lit, they won't get positions, the ang mohs will get. But talk about postcolonialism, Asian literature -- we rule the field! More or less anyway.
So I missed this point the first time round, actually -- Wah Guan's doing Chinese studies, and as penguin points out it's really good *positioning* on his part. Doesn't necessarily take away from any evaluation of his talent, but I think we have to recognize, it's actually to be expected that he'd outperform the ang mohs *in this particular well-chosen field*.
Reply
But even so it doesn't make the earlier points we discussed less valid. But OK even if WG pwned the ang mohs cos he's Wah Guan, not William Graham, the fact that he could still get into Oxton is still a feat in itself.
I mean, I'm sure other Chinese educated folks have applied to Oxton as well but didn't get in?
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