Measured Success

Recently, among my circle of friends and family, I found this little article circulating.  Today, a friend of mine (one who had linked to the article in her GChat status), linked to this response.  I suppose this is my take on it, though I don't know that I can fully put myself in that situation, as I can never be a Chinese mother, though I do have one myself.  I'm not going to go on and say who is right and who isn't, not going to go into the psychology of child-rearing, and I'm not going to tell anyone how to raise his/her children.  I'm not a parent myself, and perhaps I didn't have the most typical of Chinese parents, or at least according to Amy Chua, I didn't.  However, I just find it very interesting the scope of the article and all that.

I just noted that in the headline of the article it reads:

Can a regimen of no playdates, no TV, no computer games and hours of music practice create happy kids?

And then the first line of the article suddenly jumps into:

A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it's like inside the family, and whether they could do it too.

Hm... I don't know, there seems to be something of a dichotomy here.  At least to me there is.  What is this dichotomy?  First, happiness and success.  Are they one and the same?  The second, math whizzes, music prodigies and success.  Same question.  Okay, so maybe dichotomy is a strong word, but I do find the immediate juxtaposition that Ms. Chua strings together within her article somewhat... well... hard to swallow.  Of course, who am I to say anything?  Relatively speaking, I'm hardly a typical "Chinese success story".  I didn't get straight As in school, I didn't go to an Ivy League university for undergraduate, I didn't go to a "West Coast Ivy" like Stanford or Cal Tech, I didn't even go to a top 5 state university in the nation.  Sure I played piano when I was younger, classically, my teacher lamented at my practice habits and called me her student with the most "unrealized potential", which essentially is an offhanded way of saying I could've been good if I tried or worked harder, so no, I never played in Carnegie Hall, or performed with some orchestra on tour.  Biggest thing I've done is play in a couple of local competition recitals, a couple of local piano teacher showcase recitals, a master class, and a personal recital when I graduated from high school, oh, and I got paid once to play for a Unitarian church service.  Now, I have a job, maybe I'll stay at it, maybe I won't.  For one, I'm not a doctor, nor a lawyer, nor an engineer.  By my schooling, I'm supposed to be an accountant (which I'm not right now vocationally), and I'm not even too sure I want to be that either.  Does this mean I have failed to succeed?  In other words, does this mean I'm a failure?

I have a job (in this economy), I feel I'm living a well adjusted life, full of loving friends and family, and I'm happy with where I am, I'm content.  Now, am I successful?  Hard to say.  It sort of begs the question: what is success?  Is it based on what I have?  If that's the case, then I'd say I'm moderately successful.  I mean, I have nice apartment, a car, a job, a computer, some decent pieces of musical equipment, a my fair share of toys and gadgets, a bachelor's and a master's, then again, I also have debt from school.  On that same note, there are a lot of things I don't have, a girlfriend, a house, lots of money, etc...  Still, then, the question of success eludes me.  I can only suggest that I am not unsuccessful.  This inclines me towards the notion that success then, is a subjective and relative term.  To me, success is measured by an end goal, therefore, the phrase "successful person" doesn't really hold much water.  Think about it, realistically, what is the end goal of a person?  I can say an experiment was either a success or failure by its results.  I can say that a basketball coach is successful or not by how his/her team plays, by the team's record, are they winning more games?  Are the players getting better?  Yet what is that measure in a person?  Wealth?  Acclaim?  Character?  I posit, that at best, we can simply point out those that are "not unsuccessful".  While the question is the same, the nature of what we measure is different with happiness.

I'm not here to say that it's bad to have/be a math whiz or musical prodigy, but I think everything needs to be put in an appropriate context, and ultimately that is the context of life.  Chinese parents will spend tens of thousands of dollars (I'm not kidding) and hours for the musical and academic enrichment of their children, and for what purpose?  As an aficionado of music, I'd be the first to tell you that I think children should all be given the opportunity to appreciate and make music, yet Ms. Hsu, in her response brings up the very legitimate point that Chinese (Asian) parents will often be displeased if music were to inspire their children to become a professional musician (or, as an ongoing joke, any profession not inclusive of doctors, lawyers, or engineers).  Contextually then, what is the purpose of learning a musical instrument?  Generally in the case of Chinese children, piano and/or violin.  While perhaps that is asking a lot of a child, I don't know that I would condone asking one to do something he/she cannot answer why he/she is doing it (even if the answer is as simple as, "I like it").  One thing I've noted about Chinese culture, is that it's all about appearances, but to me, it frankly is a horrible reason to do something because every other Asian child is doing it or so that you can brag to your friends about your child.  I'm sorry, but being able to play Rachmaninoff's Variations on Paganini at age 8 is hardly indicative to me of "good parenting", and yes, when you tell your friend how much your son/daughter studies/practices you're really saying, "Look at how well I discipline my children."  While I don't doubt that every single Chinese parent has a picture of who/what he/she would want his/her child to become, there remains an issue; is the child on board?  My personal experience, as well as my observations fellow 2nd generation Chinese children around me, has shown that generally, Chinese parenting is very short sighted.  Ms. Hsu points out a lack of drive in Chinese children growing up, and I attribute that to above-mentioned short-sightedness.  It's hard to get anyone really motivated about something if the driving reason behind doing it is being told by someone else to do it.  You ask the question "Why?" enough times and you'll quickly realize that a lot of things these kids do simply because their parents have programmed them to be like that.  Why get good grades?  To go to a good college.  Why go to a good college?  To get a good job.  Why get a good job?  To make money to support a family.  While none of these things are undesirable, I certainly don't see those as the purpose of existence.

Ms. Chua is to be commended for her perseverance in pushing her children to achieve, but again, we have to ask the question "to what end?"  Certainly I believe in a degree of regimen growing up teaches us responsibility, but to essentially obliterate any "frivolous" childhood activity?  Perhaps, I'll be accused of becoming "too American" but that hardly seems healthy.  The Atkins diet is good, but that doesn't mean that's all you do for the rest of your life.  We are to enjoy in the people, the places, and the things that God has placed around us, so living a life where what you "like" is irrelevant and "having a good time" is wasteful hardly seems like something God would want for us.  In the case of music, the children are often asked to "grow out of" whatever they spent all that time, sweat, and dollars getting this stuff hammered into them.  Isn't that frivolous?  Certainly there is something other than music that can teach discipline.  So, that begs the question, why have them learn music in the first place?  The grand scheme of things, ultimately, I believe is for your children to grow up into productive, well-adjusted adults.  How do painful hours of sitting in front of a piano either practicing, performing, or in lessons help?  I'm not ungrateful my mom had me learn piano, and sometimes I do wish she pushed me harder, on that same note though, it's because in retrospect, there are a lot of things I would enjoy doing now had I been a better pianist as a child, in other words, I'm still playing piano.  My father once told me after I graduated, "Now you can play well enough to play for praise in church, to me, that means the piano lessons were worth it."  Context.  Not that playing for church was the goal of my piano lessons, but, there needs to be something beyond that last recital if your child isn't going to become the next Lang Lang, even if it is the simple appreciation of music.  I'm not accusing Ms. Chua of ruining her children's childhoods, no, it sounds like her husband does take them out to fun stuff, movies, baseball games, etc...  Nonetheless, this no-nonsense style of raising her children is exactly that, a style, there's no basis for her to posit that hers is better than others, to do so is simply arrogance. 

I suppose what makes this article somewhat intriguing, is this concept of superiority, that one is better than the other.  Certainly, Ms. Chua brings up very good points in not allowing her children to give up, and I applaud her for her tenacity and her dedication, however, under what presumed authority can she say that what she is doing is "better" than the next parent who is perhaps by her standards more "lenient" on his/her child?  I would posit the following broad generality based on the sort of broad sweeping generality that Ms. Chua has illustrated in her article: while Chinese parents may know (or at least think they know) what is best for their children, they don't know their children all that well.  In her article, Ms. Chua all but writes off the concept of self-esteem, and sure, she's entitled to her opinions and her thoughts, and thus, she's very hard on her children when it comes to results.  I posit this though, and perhaps Ms. Chua is different, but most Chinese parents aren't aware of how hard their children are on themselves.  Going back to the music example, since that is one of the more understandable examples, "you played it wrong" is probably the most useless piece of feedback anyone can give/get.  While the parent has spent the money sending the child to music lessons, the child is the one who has spent the time and effort studying the music, so therefore, the child probably knows more about music, or at the very least more about whatever piece he/she is practicing than the parent does, and generally will know if/when it is played incorrectly.  It's kind of like telling someone who's parking he/she is close to the curb AFTER the car has run up on the sidewalk.  While it's nice of Ms. Chua to think that there are no natural limitations in regards to what her children can do (at least musically and academically), can she affirm that the way she does things works for both of her children exactly the same way?  No.  While the intention may be good, a lot of times the comparison of one child to another comes across to the "lesser" child as simply, "Why are you so dumb?" or "What's wrong with you?" rather than "You can do it too".  Calling your child "garbage" can be a learning implement, but as with all implements it must be properly used to be effective. 

The more I think about how I want to proceed with this, the more I realize how this can exponentially bubble into any number of long-debated topics, from positive versus negative reinforcement to nature versus nurture.  Now, I'm no psychologist, so I'm not going to get into all of this, so I suppose I've touched upon everything that really kind of irked me about this article.  Maybe a Chinese kid can score higher on a math test or play some remarkably difficult piece at a younger age, but is that really all there is to it?  If it is, then life is dumb.  I'm all for giving children opportunities, but they have lives too, at some point in time, they need to live it.

Not enough...

I find it intriguing that we often complain we don't have enough of things.  Maybe it's a sign of the modern era of discontentment.  I mean, we always say, "Grass is always greener on the other side."  Though I'm not here to really talk about how we are a very instant-gratification generation, how we have to have things now.  I'm in a sort of contemplative mood, I suppose, so now I'm going to do some contemplative ranting.  So here goes... I don't believe the statement, "I don't have enough time..."  This is something that's a little difficult for me to articulate, but it's something that I frankly don't believe is really the case a lot of times when people say it.  How should I put this?

Time, I think is like money.  The primary difference is that everyone has a fixed amount whereas our earning potential has some flexibility.  There are things we need to spend our money on; food, clothing, rent, bills, etc...  What money we have remaining we can spend on the remaining things that we want or in some cases to improve on the niceties of such things we spend our money on.  Likewise, we have things we ought to spend our time on; work (be it vocation or school), family, sleep (seriously, we do), etc...  We were given 24 hours in a day for a reason, I'm sure that it's not impossible to get by with just that amount, otherwise we'd have more.  I think I'm sort of at a loss as to where exactly I was going with this...

It's basically along these lines, we spend on what we find to be important.  Generally, we spend in sequence of descending importance, the things that are important get first priority, as our resources are limited, it's uncertain as to when we're going to run out at any given point in time, thus it's only natural that we want to get the most important things out of the way first.  So I guess the first point would be to really take time to recognize what you're spending (time and money) on.  Maybe I'm just overly-sensitive, but this I feel becomes extraordinarily important especially when it comes to relating with other people.  I suppose I wouldn't really think of things this way if I didn't first come up with this perspective on spending, so I only really have myself to blame.

In terms of relationships, we can spend both money and time as well.  Generally, spending a ton of money I don't think works very well.  Thus, I think more indicative of how seriously a person takes a relationship is the time spent "invested" into the relationship.  Naturally, there are things we absolutely have to spend our time on, but I think too often we blur the lines between need and want.  Simply put, since we only have 24 hours to the day, at some point in time, something is going to have to give.  Oftentimes people forgo meals or sleep in order to do the things they find to be important.  What I'm ultimately saying is that we MAKE time for what's important.  Isn't that how we do things already?  We allocate a certain degree of relative importance to our tasks on hand and then accordingly allocate the time we have available appropriately.  While we may not find something as mundane as meeting and catching up with a friend to be "unimportant" it certainly would fall low on a scale of relative importance.  Thus the question falls back to one of perspective.  We measure not only tasks but also hobbies and even relationships and determine what things are worth spending on.

I suppose the direction I'm going here is a call to introspection, figuring out what really is important.  We certainly say a lot of things but is it true?  Think about it this way, in the event of a schedule conflict, what takes precedence?  While the whole process may be very similar to asking yourself in a schedule conflict, which you would rather do, the difference is there.  What takes precedence really is a mirror of what you hold to be important.  As calloused as it may sound, if, in the event of a schedule conflict, I found that going to open gym volleyball was more important than meeting my friend for dinner, then the reality of the situation is that I find volleyball to be more important than that dinner date.  This isn't to say that I can't schedule things around when I play volleyball (dinner included), but when push comes to shove something has to give.  When I cannot accommodate a friend who really wants to meet but can only do so on a specific date, then in some sense, I have put whatever it is I'm doing (volleyball, work, school, other friends, etc...) in front of that friend in terms of importance.  We make time for what's important, that's how things are.  I understand that we all weigh the varying factors of life differently, some of us think work is more important, some of us friends, some of us school, etc...  My thing is this, just take an inventory now and figure out what's important and if that's what you want to be important.  When I don't have "enough time" for something, I think it ultimately means this: it's not important enough.

Mac vs PC

This has been a long-standing debate, that recently has been revived with the new purported "Mac revolution". I'm going to be completely honest here, I am a PC user, but I've used Macs and can appreciate the product that Apple puts onto the table. So the debate remains which is better, Macs or PC, which ultimately boils down to whether the Mac OS is better than Windows (though now that Macs can install Windows on them the it's not a huge issue). My longstanding position has been that Macs are inherently more stable (less prone to crash) and overall better for multimedia/artistic endeavors, whereas PC is just simply the more practical. While the proprietary software available with the Mac OS may be far superior to those offered by Windows; iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes, and GarageBand to Windows Movie Maker, Windows Picture Editor, Windows Media Player, and some proprietary Windows audio recording device, there are enough available freeware software that are equally if not more powerful than the basic software offered with either OS (Picasa, Winamp, and Audacity for example, leaving only a sufficiently powerful movie maker unavailable via freeware, at least as far as I know).

While it appears that more and more people are using Macs, and with the advent of the ever-popular "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" commercials, Apple still remains fifth in the US computer market and is a non-factor in the global scheme of things. The problem for Apple? Simply put, they cost too much. What's the difference? Well, let's take a look:

Let's say we look at a standard 13" MacBook Pro, the specs are as follows:

2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
2GB memory
160GB 5400-rpm hard drive
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor
1280x800 13.3-inch widescreen display
2 USB 2.0 ports
1 firewire 800 port
Mini display port
iSight camera
SD card input

I didn't include a lot of the physical builds of the Mac, but I hardly think that makes a significant difference. The price you pay for this is $1199, at least.

Now let's look at Dell, the number 2 producer, I pick Dell because I can pick specs to match as close as possible the specs the MacBook Pro has:

2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6600
2GB shared dual channel DDR2
160GB 5400rpm hard drive
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
1280x800 13.3-inch widescreen display
2.0 megapixel camera

I'm not sure on the number of ports, if there's a firewire or SD port, but honestly, those are rather tertiary when deciding whether or not to get a laptop. That being said, this model ends up being $599.

So what in the MacBook Pro warrants doubling the price? Hardware-wise the only difference I see is possibly in the video card, where the Apple product has the superior NVIDIA GeForce card to the Intel graphics accelerator. While it's hard to price out laptop video card specs, the most expensive onboard desktop video card runs at $300, and I'm inclined to believe that it performs better than any integrated laptop graphics card, and even if Intel gave away it's integrated graphics card, it doesn't account for $600 price difference overall. So what's the other difference, well, if we consider the difference between the number of USB ports and the like are rather negligible (you can get convertors and hubs and the like for about $20 if you look hard enough), the only major difference then would be the OS.

Windows runs for anywhere between $100 and $200 depending on what you're looking for. Mac OSX runs for $99. Wait, what? So the Mac OS, at least on its own costs less than Windows? Hold on, how does that work? Well, for that we'd have to look a little into the construction of the computers themselves. The chipsets that are built for each computer company (that is, HP, Dell, Acer, Apple, Toshiba, Lenovo, etc...) are designed to be able to support a specific OS design. If you didn't know (don't try this) this is the reason why Mac OS cannot be installed onto any non-Apple computer. The chipset for Apple (now made by Intel) were specifically designed for the Mac OS (and more recently enabled to be Windows compatible) whereas the other PC chipsets are designed more generically with no specific OS in mind, though Windows is the primary use. What the chipset gains with versatility in the ability to work with Linux and Windows it loses out in the stability that an OS specific chipset (like those in Macs) provide. So in short, Mac OSX is completely useless to you except as a coaster unless you already own a Mac, which in turn is more expensive than its PC counterparts.

Now I'm not here to bash Macs, seriously, my point is this, it really depends on what you're trying to do. For the average layman/non-computer person, you're paying a hefty premium, almost double the price on basically everything (let's not even begin to discuss accessories) for a few less blue screens and forced system reboots, let's be honest with ourselves, that's about it. Some might pull out the argument that fewer people try to hack Macs and therefore you're less prone to viruses and worms and the like, but fewer hackers on Macs also entails fewer programmers on Macs, meaning a vastly smaller number of software compatibility. My point is simply this, figure out what you need your computer for. I'll admit that the Mac OS is sleeker and probably has a lower learning curve than that of Windows.

Since a lot of Mac users are PC converts, and if you're reading this, you're probably using a computer of some sort, this is my point, if it's worth it to you, to pay twice the amount of money and relearning a new OS for fewer blue screens and possibly crashes and forced restarts, then by all means, get a Mac. Most gamers probably already know this, but most games probably aren't Mac compatible, and if they are, the patches and updates for Macs are often released much later than the actual release. So who can use a Mac then? Well, as I mentioned earlier, one thing that improved OS stability definitely aids with, is multimedia projects. In my opinion, Macs are artists' computers, they have the graphics capacity and stability to make movie-making and special effects things that make Macs most effective, additionally, Apple also exclusively offers for Macs possibly the most powerful consumer movie-making software in Final Cut Pro (while I think Adobe CS series is good enough, that's another discussion for another time). Additionally, for the more amateur multimedia hobbyist, Mac software is much more friendly and versatile than the Windows equivalents (iMovie vs Windows Movie Maker), having an effective tool without having to look to a confusing third-party product (honestly, I haven't really used anything outside of iMovie or Adobe Premier that I've really liked).

I'm not going to get into the desktop discussion right now, because regardless of how nice a Mac is, people can always buy parts and make a better computer for cheaper if they feel so inclined for the performance. Since Microsoft makes the office software for both Macs and PCs nowadays anyways, the availability and compatibility of general work-related products (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) is fairly universal and doesn't really play into the argument. I'm not going to tell anyone to buy one or the other without hearing any more about his/her specific computer needs, but this is my take on the long over-drawn Mac versus PC discussion.

Something bothering me about Superbowl ad

Sorry haven't posted anything here for a while... if you watched the Superbowl, however long ago it was, you probably vaguely remember an Audi commercial starring Jason Statham (see below) where it's like The Transporter and he gets into a bunch of cars trying to get away from other people. If nothing else, Jason Statham is known as the action guy with a lot of cool if unrealistic driving scenes. Now if you notice, he gets first into a Mercedes-Benz, then later he jacks someone's BMW. Now, maybe it's me, but does it bother anyone else that he refuses to even get into the Lexus (the only Japanese car in the commercial)? Then gets into the Audi and gets away clean. I mean, maybe it wouldn't have been a big deal if it had been like a Peugeot or something (ok so it's a commercial in America, and Americans don't drive Peugeots, but you get my point), or even like a Volkswagon (ok, not really in the same "class" of cars, being more of an economy brand). Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but then I remember the quote, "Nothing goes into commercial advertising on accident." Audi doesn't like Lexus?

Contemporary Influences in "Classical" music?

So I had been listening to KDFC (the Bay Area classical station) for a little bit and they introduced me to a modern Italian composer named Ludovico Einaudi.  Einaudi's compositional style actually reminds me a little of George Winston, who I don't really construe as "classical", but since the station thinks it is (I guess he does more chamber stuff?) we call it that.  Einaudi does all forms of composition but I think primarily does piano stuff with maybe some strings on the side.  When I first heard a Ludovico Einaudi song though, I was reminded not of classical, but of a rather modern pop song... Perhaps Einaudi enjoys listening to that sort of thing...?  Dunno.  You see for yourself.

Pay attention to the main theme at 0:38, though it recurs throughout the piece.  Now compare:

Pay attention to the intro... 

Maybe it's me, but the resemblence is uncanny.

Mathletics: The Bane of Simple Reasoning

Maybe it's just me, and the fact that I didn't go into a math related field of study or profession. As a young child, I was subject to a lot of various math competitions, such as Math Olympiads, and I went to a lot of various classes ("summer programs") which my parents enrolled me in to improve my math and problem solving abilities. The word problems hence were designed to be tricky and convoluted in the methodology of solving it. It's effective in enabling the student to handle high capacity mental challenges, and complicated calculations and logical trains of thought. However, the problem with that is, that it conditions the student also (at least it did for me) to always look for the complicated answer first. The nature of the problems always encourages students to try the complicated or "hard" way first because the painfully and obviously "easy" way is always wrong or doesn't work. Better to start with the convoluted method that almost always guarantees a sensible answer of some sort than the simple method that potentially could result in a dead end.

I don't know, this is sort of an epiphany to me I guess... It is I suppose in the light of taking the GMATs, the math isn't really very difficult, but I feel like I would be doing better on it if it were. The problem that is created is that Math Olympiads and problems of the sort promote over-thinking of exceptionally simple problems. This perhaps explains why some exceptionally brilliant mathematical minds seem to always underperform when it comes to standardized testing. I'm not by any means saying that my mind exudes mathematical brilliance, far from it, I believe I have a very average notion of mathematics and things of the sort. However, having grown up with this kind of problem solving training, I definitely believe that my initial reaction or move to solve any problem is to make it more complicatd than necessary.

In conclusion: mathletics isn't necessarily bad, certainly there are merits to being a mathlete, and benefits in scholastic achievement. However, make sure you supplement it with simple problem solving too. Otherwise, don't be overly surprised if the SATs or something sometimes seem like its jipping you out of something.

I Don't Get "Professional Writing"

So, I don't mean professional writing in the sense of like authors who write books, or journalists who write news columns or anything in the sense that your writing is what makes you money. What I do mean, though, is the whole idea of how to write a professional looking document with all the fancy language and the non-use of personal identifiers, and how it has to "sound professional". Basically, like all those papers we had to write for school. This comes in light of my studying for the GMATs and doing a review on the essay section.

Maybe there's a certain merit to looking all polished and such, but given the context of the GMAT the purpose is primarily for communication anyways. Sure, I'd be less inclined to utilize slang, and such terminology, but I'm a little baffled by all this pretense. Why can't I write it like I write this blog? I probably communicate just as if not more effectively this way, and if people were to come talk to me about whatever it is I'm writing about, then I'd probably explain things the way I'm explaining them now. I don't get it.

That's my gripe for the day, I'm done. It's just how things work, and I suppose I have to deal.