The Transformaton of the Chinese Government

"China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will move the world."

                                                                                                       --- Napoleon Bonaparte


I still remember in the eighties, when the Japanese took over the auto and electronic industries. There was a sense of doom in the United States. Angry people smashed Japanese cars on TV, though the TV sets they watched were also made in Japan. If the auto industry, the iconic symbol of American post war industrial prowess, was taken by the Japanese, what else can't they take from us?




With the benefit of hindsight, it turned out the Japanese threat was much less menacing. This also spoke to the dominance of the White Anglo Saxon Protestant civilization. There has been three revolutions that had or will have a huge impact on recent human history, the Industrial Revolution, the Information Revolution, and the upcoming Artificial Intelligence Revolution. The WASP civilization gave birth to all three of these, along with other events such as the explosion of modern music. Everything that we do today, from double ledger accounting to space exploration, owed its origin at least partly to the WASP civilization. After losing the auto and electronic industries to Japan, the Americans simply invented new ones. Computers, internet, Artificial Intelligence, Genetic research, the list goes on. The Japanese, with their more rigid culture, simply were not a strong participant in any of these new ones. At the same time, they have lost virtually all of their electronic industry and part of their auto to the Koreans and Chinese. The Europeans, in the mean time, have gone on a steady relative decline compared to the United States after bouncing back from the devastation of World War II. Such is the power of this single tribe from a once insignificant part of the world, its contribution to humanity in recent history completely dwarfed the contribution from all other tribes combined. While some groups such as Europe and East Asia played catch up, they were not able to follow the lead of of the WASP tribe into new industries. They were the more fortunate ones. Vast majority of the world is still not able to catch up to the Industrial Revolution, still stuck in the dark ages.
Like other East Asian countries, the Chinese are playing catch up to the West. While the jury is still out that they will be able to catch up to the most prodigious tribe in the world, what they achieved thus far is nothing short of astonishing. We all are familiar with the story about the decades long double digit growth which lifted the largest number of humanity out of poverty, but that was just the beginning of the story. The classic economic theories says that after countries climb up the economic ladder, they do more and more sophisticated thing, not before. The Chinese, apparently, did not get the memo. In fact, while they struggle in some traditional technologies like making jet engines, they are quickly moving to the top tier of countries in all areas of emerging technology. In most cases, they are pulling away from the pack and sprinting towards the leading country, the United States. When the "rest of the pack" consists of Western Europe and Japan, this is no mean feat. The Japanese were not able to achieve this even after they became fully industrialized. 

To put some perspective on things, when Deng Xiaoping visited the United States in 1979, China was so poor that a country with the population of over 900 million did not have enough U.S. currency to pay for the trip. Jimmy Carter, who was president at the time, had to ask some rich billionaire to help sponsor Deng's visit. Fast forward 48 years, how things have changed. We need only to look at one industry, the e-commerce industry, to see the speed in which they move. The e-commerce industry was founded by the United States. By the time the Chinese started building their version of the e-commerce industry, there were already a formidable line up of companies such as Yahoo and Amazon in the United States. Starting with nothing, the Chinese now are the only other country with a e-commerce industry that is comparable in size and scope as the United States. This also helps them lay the foundation for one of the emerging technologies, Artificial Intelligence. 

What they have achieved in building up their military industrial complex is also quite miraculous. As late as the nineties, the Chinese military consists of hand me down 1950 era Soviet ware, which they were barely able to license produce. It was said at the time that the Russians can fly their fighter bombers, unescorted, all the way to Beijing, bomb it and return and the Chinese would not be able to do much about it. Today, their Type-52D and Type 55 destroyers rival the best the world has to offer, such as the U.S. Arleigh Burke class destroyers. They are able to build and field multiple aircraft carriers. China is the only other country besides the United States to field a homegrown fifth generation aircraft, the J-20. They have a whole family of missiles that will take out aircraft carrier strike groups. No other country, not even the United States, have this capability. 

In the next few posts, I will be exploring the rise of China. 

The China Challenge

"China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will move the world."



                                                                                                       --- Napoleon Bonaparte





I still remember in the eighties, when the Japanese took over the auto and electronic industries. There was a sense of doom in the United States. Angry people smashed Japanese cars on TV, though the TV sets they watched were also made in Japan. If the auto industry, the iconic symbol of American post war industrial prowess, was taken by the Japanese, what else can't they take from us?



With the benefit of hindsight, it turned out the Japanese threat was much less menacing. This also spoke to the dominance of the White Anglo Saxon Protestant civilization. There has been three revolutions that had or will have a huge impact on recent human history, the Industrial Revolution, the Information Revolution, and the upcoming Artificial Intelligence Revolution. The WASP civilization gave birth to all three of these, along with other events such as the explosion of modern music. Everything that we do today, from double ledger accounting to space exploration, owed its origin at least partly to the WASP civilization. After losing the auto and electronic industries to Japan, the Americans simply invented new ones. Computers, internet, Artificial Intelligence, Genetic research, the list goes on. The Japanese, with their more rigid culture, simply were not a strong participant in any of these new ones. At the same time, they have lost virtually all of their electronic industry and part of their auto to the Koreans and Chinese. The Europeans, in the mean time, have gone on a steady relative decline compared to the United States after bouncing back from the devastation of World War II. Such is the power of this single tribe from a once insignificant part of the world, its contribution to humanity in recent history completely dwarfed the contribution from all other tribes combined. While some groups such as Europe and East Asia played catch up, they were not able to follow the lead of of the WASP tribe into new industries. They were the more fortunate ones. Vast majority of the world is still not able to catch up to the Industrial Revolution, still stuck in the dark ages.


Like other East Asian countries, the Chinese are playing catch up to the West. While the jury is still out that they will be able to catch up to the most prodigious tribe in the world, what they achieved thus far is nothing short of astonishing. We all are familiar with the story about the decades long double digit growth which lifted the largest number of humanity out of poverty, but that was just the beginning of the story. The classic economic theories says that after countries climb up the economic ladder, they do more and more sophisticated thing, not before. The Chinese, apparently, did not get the memo. In fact, while they struggle in some traditional technologies like making jet engines, they are quickly moving to the top tier of countries in all areas of emerging technology. In most cases, they are pulling away from the pack and sprinting towards the leading country, the United States. When the "rest of the pack" consists of Western Europe and Japan, this is no mean feat. The Japanese were not able to achieve this even after they became fully industrialized. 

To put some perspective on things, when Deng Xiaoping visited the United States in 1979, China was so poor that a country with the population of over 900 million did not have enough U.S. currency to pay for the trip. Jimmy Carter, who was president at the time, had to ask some rich billionaire to help sponsor Deng's visit. Fast forward 48 years, how things have changed. We need only to look at one industry, the e-commerce industry, to see the speed in which they move. The e-commerce industry was founded by the United States. By the time the Chinese started building their version of the e-commerce industry, there were already a formidable line up of companies such as Yahoo and Amazon in the United States. Starting with nothing, the Chinese now are the only other country with a e-commerce industry that is comparable in size and scope as the United States. This also helps them lay the foundation for one of the emerging technologies, Artificial Intelligence. 

What they have achieved in building up their military industrial complex is also quite miraculous. As late as the nineties, the Chinese military consists of hand me down 1950 era Soviet ware, which they were barely able to license produce. It was said at the time that the Russians can fly their fighter bombers, unescorted, all the way to Beijing, bomb it and return and the Chinese would not be able to do much about it. Today, their Type-52D and Type 55 destroyers rival the best the world has to offer, such as the U.S. Arleigh Burke class destroyers. They are able to build and field multiple aircraft carriers. China is the only other country besides the United States to field a homegrown fifth generation aircraft, the J-20. They have a whole family of missiles that will take out aircraft carrier strike groups. No other country, not even the United States, have this capability. 

In the next few posts, I will be exploring the rise of China. 

The Doklam Standoff

"The situation in 1962 was different and India of 2017 is different,"
                                                                                   
                                                           --- Indian Defense Minister Arun Jeitley

In June 18 2017, the Indian army moved into the Doklam area after the Chinese started construction of a road there. This started a two and a half month standoff between China and India. The event ended when India withdrew from the area unilaterally. With the Indian and Western media declaring India the winner in this event. 

I detest the idea that the two giant neighbors should go to war over a small patch of land. The Western media's interpretation of the event was so lopsided and divorced from reality that I wanted to bear witness to this event in my blog. If for nothing else, it is to provide an alternative account of what actually happened for the sake of posterity. 

Chronology

First, let me layout the sequence of events as best I can gather them.

• June 4 or earlier, China notified India that they will be expanding a road in Doklam (This was claimed by the Chinese authorities. The Indian side did not refute this. In fact, during the dispute, one Indian official sidestepped the question when asked if the Chinese provided advance notice for the road building).
• June 9, The Chinese again notified India of their intention to expand the existing road.
• June 16, Chinese road construction crew started working on road in Doklam.
• June 18, Indian troops, carrying weapons, armed with two bulldozers, crossed the Indian Chinese border and stopped the construction. Citing concern for the strategically vulnerable area of the chicken's neck.
• June 29, Bhutan protested to China about the construction of the road on disputed territory.
• June 30, Indian minister external affairs stated that by extending the road, China has changed the status quo in violation of a 2012 understanding.
• June 30, in answer regarding Bhutan's protest, China spokesman stated that the area of the road construction is totally under Chinese jurisdiction and ask India to withdraw its troops.
• July 5, China said they reached an understanding with Bhutan and there is no dispute with Bhutan about the territory.
• July 19, China again ask India to withdraw its troops. China also held live fire drill in Tibet.
• July 21, Sushma Swaraj, Indian External Affairs Minister, proposed that both sides withdraw their troops. She also stated that the world is with us on this. When asked which country, she named U.S., Japan and Australia.
• July 25, U.S. State Department said they should seek ways to resolve this peacefully, but did not side with either country. Similar statements were made by Nepal and Bhutan.
• July 27, Ajit Doval, India's National Security Advicer, attended a much anticipated BRICS meeting in China but failed to produce any diplomatic breakthrough.
• Aug 8, China officially rejected the proposal by Sushma Swaraj for mutual withdrawal and stated that the time for peaceful resolution is running out, that China's position is India must unilaterally withdraw from the area as a pre-condition for any negotiation. There has almost been daily tirades by the Chinese with the same message from this point on.
• Aug. 9, Chinese trains were spotted transporting military equipment to Tibet, where an armed incursion into India is expected to be launched.
• Aug. 15, Chinese and Indian troops clashed near Pangong lake. They fought with sticks and stones. Several injured from both sides.
• Aug. 16, China signed deals with Nepal for gas exploration.
• Aug. 24, Chinese missiles were spotted heading to the Tibet region.
• Aug. 24, China issue travel warning to Chinese going to India.
• Aug, 24, China was said to have signed $10 billion package with Bhutan.
• Aug. 24, Large Chinese military convoys were spotted heading to Tibet.
• Aug. 25, Chinese Navy held live fire drills off Indian Ocean.
• Aug. 28, India announced that China and India has mutually agreed to disengage and the Indian troops are in a process of moving out of the area. The Chinese confirmed that the Indian troops and equipment have already moved out, but countered that only the Indian troops have moved back to their side. The Chinese troops have not pulled out and are still patrolling the area. When asked if they will continue to build roads in the area, the Chinese side stated they are "taking into account various factors like weather, we will make proper building plans in light of actual situation".
• Aug. 30, Indian Defense Minister Arun Jeitley, when asked if Modi won in the standoff against China, said, "Given the sensitivity of the issue, there is no need to make multiple statements,". He also announce the government's decision to carry out major reforms in the Army to enhance its combat capability, but said that this is unrelated to Doklam.

It is pretty clear based on the sequence of events that

1. The Indian side started this whole thing. The Chinese were initially surprised by the intrusion.

2. While India picked the fight, the Chinese finished it. However the Indian press or the Western press spin the events, India unilaterally withdrew from the area without any significant concession from China. No mutual withdrawal, no promise not to build the road per Indian request.

3. During the entire event, India, in spite of claim by Sushma Swaraj that "all countries are with us", failed to get a single country to endorse its position. The U.S. did not side with India. Japan, after stating that both sides should return to the status quo, was pounded by the Chinese. After that, it quickly clarified that it was not taking the side of India. Even the traditional allies of India, like Nepal and Bhutan, have not publicly sided with India.

Why did India make this move?

I was puzzled by the move made by India. The purported reason about the chicken's neck did not make any sense. India has two hundred thousand troops in the area, besides, if the Chinese wanted to attack the area, it is indefensible militarily. The Chinese only had to cut off transportation, and two hundred thousand troops would quickly run out of everything, ammo, food. Unless if India was doing this because of Bhutan. A blogger from Bhutan alerted me to this possibility.

Bhutan, a tiny kingdom of 800,000, has been under the control of India. India directs all the infrastructure projects. India provided the national budget. In turn, India has directed Bhutan's interaction with other nations. Bhutan only has diplomatic relationship with two countries, highly unusual for a sovereign nation. When the interest of the Bhutanese kingdom conflicts with that of India's, India always chose to sacrifice Bhutan's national interest to serve India's. Out of all the countries that shares border with China, Bhutan and India were the only two countries that failed to settle the border dispute with the Chinese. Bhutan and China has been negotiating to finalize their border without success for many years. The reason was meddling from India. The Chinese made a very generous offer. Bhutan would get all the northern territories in dispute with China back, if they would cede the territories in the tri-junction that is in dispute with China. India nixed the deal. However, all is not well with the relationship between India and Bhutan. There were rumors that Bhutan was on the verge of breaking away from the grasp of India and pursue a more independent foreign policy. Since India has saddled Bhutan with a large amount of debt, breaking away from India would require some assistance from a country with financial means.

India chose the timing and the location of the escalation well. Due to the rugged terrain and India's numerical advantage in the region, escalation of the conflict by the Chinese would be difficult, costly and protracted. While the Chinese may prevail at the end, the cost and duration of the war may deter the Chinese from escalation. With the upcoming National Congress Meeting, the Chinese leadership may also be distracted and in no mood to fight. If the Chinese do fight the Indians in the area and win, this would give India an excuse to move their troops into Bhutan in the guise of "protecting Bhutan". It would allow India to do a military takeover of Bhutan, similar to how they took over Sikkim(who used to be an independent kingdom like Bhutan). Heads India wins, Tails China and Bhutan lose. In addition, come September or October, India would have an honorable way to retreat by claiming that the weather makes stationing troops in the area impractical.

Since Vietnam also made a similar move in the South China Sea at the same time that India initiated this incident, I believe that there is coordination, which would point to the U.S. as a participant in this behind the scenes.

Some observations

The Chinese, of course, did not play the game so neatly laid out by India. In my opinion, they did a masterful job in handling this event. Initially surprised by the intrusion, they kept quiet for about two weeks, enough time for them to game out all the moves and counter moves. They came out swinging after that. Their message was consistent; India illegally trespassed into Chinese territory, they must withdraw as a pre-condition for any negotiations. China has the following objectives coming out of this. First, they must deter India from ever doing this again, not just prevent this occurrence. Second, they wanted the international community, if not on China's side, at least also not on India side. Third, they did not want to give India a pretax to take over Bhutan like they did with Sikkim. Fourthly, they wanted to ratchet up the cost to India over a period of time, so as to allow India to choose the peaceful if humiliating path over war. Finally, they wanted to use this opportunity to pull all the Indian neighboring countries away from India, to create a more neutral buffer zone.

The Chinese, while willing to give India time to react to their moves, have demonstrated that they are ready to go to war. The location of incursion chosen by the Chinese is far away from Bhutan, in the Indo Chinese border near Pakistan. This area, with better terrain, allows the Chinese to quickly move their armor divisions into India. From there, they can escalate in all directions, and a short distance from New Delhi. If they move east, they will quickly cut off supply for the 200,000 men army in Eastern India. They could even use the Indian transportation system, like roads and rail, to supply their attack. While India has spent a great deal of money on their military, they are no match for the Chinese. China would quickly (within days) control the airspace with their formidable ground to air missiles and better and more numerous fighter jets. Without air cover, Indian ground troops would quickly disintegrate. Apparently, I am not the only one with this view. If you look at my time line, you will see that around Aug. 24th, the Chinese took a big step in military escalation and was ready to invade India. The next step would be a public count down. At that point, China may demand more than the pull back of troops by India. For example, China may demand that India get out of East India, which China also claims. This would dramatically raise the price for the Indian retreat and increase the humiliation. The U.S., before invading Iraq, made similar unreasonable demands on Saddam knowing full well that he cannot possibly comply. I believe this is the reason for the hasty retreat by Modi.

At the end, the Chinese achieve all their objectives. Even if the Chinese were to continue their road building (which I am certain that they will next year when the weather gets better), India would not dare return to the Doklam area again(or make any similar moves). No military occupation of Bhutan took place. Not a single country sided with India. Judging from all the financial deals that happened near the end of the standoff, both Bhutan and Nepal have already moved away from the grasp of India and closer to China, precisely the event that India was trying to prevent by initiating this incident. They did this without firing a single shot at India. In contrast, the Indian side seems to be reacting to the Chinese moves after China went on the offensive. It seems they were looking for a way out but were not able to find it. This speak badly of the Indian leadership, which didn't think through all the scenarios when they initiated this incident.

Predictions

The obvious prediction to make is for Bhutan to establish diplomatic relation with China followed by resolving their border issues. There are other ramifications. Despite the wild spins of the Western and Indian media about Modi winning this incident, India and the West have lost a battle against China. All the small countries involved in the South China Sea, especially Vietnam, would be less inclined to go against China after this incident. India had made a big deal about the Chinese losing the goodwill of the Indian population, I think the opposite is also true. If China decides to give up on India as a partner and play hardball against India, they have a lot of cards to play with. The Indian economic growth, which exceeded that of China's for a few short quarters, has sputtered to 5.7%. Even that number was propped up by government spending. Without government spending, it was down to 4%. Spending even more on military at this juncture, which I think is a likely outcome of this tussle, cannot be good for India. I think it is tacky to declare winner and loser after two giant nations almost went to war. Unlike all the Western Media, I would definitely not call India the winner in this incident. 

The Neanderthal School of Wizardry Part Two, Broad Outline

"Let a hundred flowers bloom"
                                              ---Mao Zedong


My daughter had a terrible math teacher this year. 25% of the time, she simply did not bother to show up for class. Since this is advanced math, it means that the rest of the time when she did show up to teach, she went very quickly. Yet no effort was made to assess if the class understood the material. The test went ahead, even in some cases where a concept was quickly taught just a day before. When she did not understand a theorem, my daughter resorted to typing the theorem on google and learning from the material she found online. In fact, that is a great way to learn new material. There are plenty of material online, like khan academy, that will teach you everything under the sun.

Imagine that the student is ready for the next lesson, she logs on, there are five different tracks on the same subject, all taught by some of the best teachers of the nation. In some cases, for those that are intellectually endowed, a few diagrams and some words of explanation gets the concept across. For most of us, a good lecture by the best teacher in the country makes the learning fun. Still for others, where perspiration is needed, the concept must be pounded in incrementally by breaking it down into several smaller segments and taught with examples and exercises. For each of these tracks, past students give comments and ratings. Having learned other subjects in the same system, the student would know which track generally works best for her. After getting the concept, the student does some exercises found for the track. Once she is confident that she mastered the subject, she takes the test on her own to see if she understand the subject. There is no need to cheat as she is alone, trying to check her own understanding of the subject. If she fails on some parts of it, the test sends her back to some other lectures that will explain those parts in greater detail. More exercises are done to help her understand the subject. She will take a different test to see if she understand the material. Once the student has a basic understanding of the subject ( as indicated by passing the test), she will consolidate her understanding of the subject by thinking about where the concept would breakdown. These are called the boundary conditions. After thinking about this on her own, she would then go to the next step where boundary conditions for the subject are explored. For 99.9% of the time, all the boundary conditions for the subject have already been thought of by others, these are posted and explored by her. for the rare case where she came up with a boundary condition that no one has thought of, she will post her thoughts on subject related forums. Others on the forum will try to help find a resolution to this new boundary condition. For those wishing to have a deeper understanding of this and related subject, there are pointers to other sites that help provide more reading for the related subject. If a student has a question about something, she can tap into the reservoir of Q & A related to the subject, all posed by past students and answered by other students and teachers. If she is unable to find the answer to her questions, she can even pose a question to a forum to ask. Students who learned the subject in the past will answer the question. These are added to the Q & A reservoirs.

What would be the role of the teacher in this system? If anyone ever dealt with kids, he would know that the natural inclination for a kid is to play. If you leave the kids alone, 0.001% of them would catch the learning bug on their own. The majority would be playing games with their iphone most of the time. Teachers in this school system will be there to provide advice, structure and direction. Teachers would organize the group interactions for the kids, including presentations, sports, and games. Teachers would make sure the kids stay on track. They would ensure that a kid who gets mental blockage or emotional issues gets addressed. They would encourage a kid with the intellect and curiosity to pursue extra-curriculum activity of her interest.

The first school that Neanderthal would run would be a boarding school. There are many reasons for this. The first reason is that boarding school minimizes the interference from the parents. In my observation, most of the parents, while well meaning, really ended up contributing negatively to their kid's well being by their meddling. A boarding school can help the kid build good habits and good interactions with others, especially nowadays where many kids don't even have cousins to play with. Being with a group of kids their age help them form bonds and interact with people. Finally, there are many tasks that is required of a boarding school, anything from laundry to cooking and cleaning to gardening to repairs. There are also administrative tasks such as budgeting, purchasing etc. These are tremendous opportunities for the kids to learn to contribute to the community. They learn leadership skills and integrity with the work they do at the boarding school. The students basically would take care of the school and themselves with the guidance of the teachers. It would also make it easy to learn organized sports and games since all the students are at the same place. Finally, older students would help out the young. This help them mature and be caring for others.

While the students are mostly learning subjects on their own, they would gather for reason other than attending classes. The gathering of the students would be much more about learning to interact with others and learn about cooperation and competition. After learning about a subject, a student would gather in small groups to present to each other about their newly discovered subject. They would gather to learn organized sports and play games designed to teach them about human interactions. They would put on shows for each other. For a student who did something really special, the reward would be for her to present to a larger audience her experience and findings. Students also come together to clean the school ground, the bathrooms, their own dorms. They would help cook for their fellow students and teachers. Of course, the teachers and the principle would be there along with the students at doing these tasks. When things break, the student would fix them while others learn from him. This is also a great opportunity to learn about the different subsystems of buildings and structures. Students would also be given some time during the week where they can just go play for fun.

To sum it up, students at the Neanderthal's boarding school would learn their material on their own. They would come together for activities that help students learn interactions with other students. They take care of each other and their school with the help of the teachers and principle.

The Neanderthal School of Wizardry Part One, Motivation For Change

"The first step in solving a problem is to recognize that it does exist."
                                                                                      ---Zig Ziglar

Schools have been around for a couple of thousand years, possibly longer. The idea of mass schooling for every child, on the other hand, has only been about a couple of hundred years old. This is a quantum leap that propelled the countries that practiced them to never before achieved heights. No longer is education restricted to a privileged few. Every kid gets an education which significantly enhanced his/her productivity and effectiveness.

As good as we have it in education today, there are a few drawbacks to the current education system. Drawbacks that could be remedied with today's technology and new approaches.

The biggest issue is the lumping of students of all abilities into a single class room. What this does is that the speed and depth of the teaching is targeted to the middle of the class. The slow ones suffer because it is too fast for them. The smart ones are bored and unchallenged.

Unevenness of the teacher quality is also an issue. Just as a great teacher has the ability to inspire a student, a bad teacher could really ruin the subject for the kids. I know this all too well as my kids have had both.

Kids always want to compare what they do to their peers. Problem is, they get discouraged if they end up at the bottom all the time. My son plays basketball. He is a pretty good player for his size. The problem is that he is small for his age. As a result, he feels that he is not making progress and year by year, he is losing interest in the game. When a kid sits together with his classmates, he can't help but to compare his performance with his peers. If he does badly, this could be pretty discouraging for a young person.

Developing character is the most important job of raising a kid today, but schools are mainly focused on learning knowledge. The teachers are there just to keep the order in school. In some schools, the teachers are afraid of the kids. Some parents also teach their kids things like cheating and bullying. Not only is this very bad for their kids to learn, but there is a echo effect where other kids would see this behavior and pick it up. School should do a better job developing the character for the kids.

Today, schools mainly push the knowledge to the kids. If a kid can pull the knowledge as he is ready to absorb it, then the kid develop discipline, self motivation and self direction. He has more ownership of the learning process. The kids also are used to make more decisions for himself and manage his own affairs at a young age.

Kids today are not given enough latitude to explore and find areas that they are interested. Not only does the school herd the kids into a few tracks, the parents are also imposing their idea of what is good for the kids. In areas where there are high concentration of Asians, parents are pushing the schools to go to overdrive. In these areas, kids don't have enough time to sleep, let alone do any sort of exploration. Parents also have their ideas of what is good for the kids. Unfortunately, most do not try to understand what the kids wanted to learn and try to cram this to their kids just because this is "good for them". For a kid that is already so busy that he does not have time to sleep, taking on extra-curriculum activities that he does not want to do adds to the burden without stoking their interest. Kids need some time to explore, uncoerced, subjects that might be of interest to them. Once they found their interest, they need to have the freedom to pursue it. This also means losing the baggage of learning things beyond the core knowledge that they have no interest or ability in doing.

Finally, while our kids spend the biggest part of their day with their fellow students, the interaction with their peers was a byproduct of having to learn at the same location instead of designed to teach them social skills which they will need when they grow up, and to help them mature. They spend the majority of their time sitting next to other students with minimal interactions while the teacher teaches. In some classes they do projects together with other students, but the focus is to complete the work. In recess and lunch they get together with their friends. Many learn their social skills that way, but it was left to their own device. Most kids did OK, but it could be a lot better. Some kids fall through the cracks because they are a little off. Most young kids do not want to associate with kids that are off. In the past, kids have time to play with other kids after school, but with the high intensity of after school learning and after school programs, kids don't have much time to play with their friends the way we once did.

Raising Kids, Some Observations

"Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.”
                                                            ---William A. Foster

One thing we in the West are good at is our ability to thoroughly understand something and professionalize it. Every endeavor has been crafted down to a science. Running a business used to be something that gets passed from father to sons. Now there is a whole groups of professionals looking at every aspect of running a business. With MBAs, finance and economics, nothing is left to chance, no stone left unturned. The same zeal is applied to raising dairy cows. From breeding to gestation interval to every aspect of a cow's life is controlled. The average American cow produces 21,000 lbs of milk. In contrast, a cow from China only produces 6600 lbs of milk.

If only this ruthless efficiency is applied to raising kids. When it comes to raising kids, there seems to be left to each set of parents, who is new to the game, to figure this all out. There are no owners manual when you have a kid, no training program. What is more, the best practices do not get spread out like the other professions. This is the last frontier ripe for applying some of the professionalism we have developed for our other endeavors. 

The biggest issue has been that people raise kids were doing things not for the kids but for themselves. For example, nowadays many have adapted a very soft way of treating the kids. They will not doing anything to get the kids mad because they want to be the kid's friend, they want their kids to like them. If we are doing things for the kids and not for ourselves, we would not care if the kids are mad at us, if this is for their own good. Another example is found with tiger moms, they drive their kids to the brink. Often times, there is a competition between adults to see whose kids got into the best colleges, or who went to the best summer camp. This is the same competition as who has the best handbags, or who drives the best car. It is for the parents. Though they will couch this as for the kids own good, if a kid did not do well, it is the parents that "lose face". The well being of the child is lost in this competition. 

The other issue is that we follow what is trendy. History is repleted with example of trends that seem sensible at the time but looks completely foolish in retrospect. The Tulip mania is an example, but when your relatives and your friends are all doing it, you feel that you will miss out if you don't join in the action. Not only do we follow what our friends do, the best of the lot will up the game and take it to the next level. In my kids school, there is so much work that they both stay up until at least 11:00 pm. This is crazy for kids who are 10 to 14 years of age, but most of their peers are doing the same. Some stay up until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. None of the parents are concerned of the harm that this does to their kids. In fact, they are the reason why the school drive their kids so hard.

There has to be a better way. In my next few posts, I will discuss a new model for schooling the kids.

Raising Kids Part Five, Character Building And Good Habits

"If I take care of my character, my reputation will take care of me".

                                                                         ---Dwight L. Moody

As I pointed out in my previous posts, we as parents don't have much control over how smart our kids turned out. It seems by the time they turn 17, up to 85% of their IQs are genetically determined. The remaining environmental factors were mostly not related to how parents raise their kids. If, at the end of the day, all the work to enhance their abilities have come to naught, perhaps we should focus our effort on something that we could influence.

In my life, I have seen many cases of smart people that are so flawed in their character that their intellect simply did not matter at all. Take the case of Fanny(not her real name), a first generation Chinese immigrant who grew up in San Francisco. When she was young, her family lived with relatives. Her family did not have good relationship with the host. She developed a victim mentality at a young age. Fanny got into one of the U.C. schools and later into a medical school. While in school, Fanny always try to minimize paying for anything, to the detriment of her friends and roommates. Before she leaves for home, she would write down the reading on the watt meter and again when she returns. She would argue that she is not responsible for that portion of the electric bill. When it was her turn to provide toilet paper, she would go around the campus and steal the cheap toilet paper that was in the campus bathrooms. However, when the shoe is on the other foot, she would never be shy about asking people for favors, again, totally disregarding the well being of the person she is asking the favor. When school ended, she asked one of her roommates to take her home, but she had not packed, so she made them wait for four hours while she packed up her stuff. In addition, it was very out of the way for the roommate since she was not going to San Francisco. Fanny even asked to move into the parents of one of her acquaintance during her medical internship and ask to use their car! The end result? Fanny went through her life without any friends. People, once they knew her, avoided her. She went through a bout of depression and needed to consult a psychologist for her depression. If Fanny was an anomaly, it might have been funny, but based on my experience, she was just an extreme example of how many Chinese immigrants behaved. Some of the enmity White people have for the Chinese were due to racism and jealousy, but some of their anger were directed at the behavior of people like Fanny, who shows complete lack of respect or concern for other people. Many of the Chinese from China, who were raised as a single spoiled child, are equally flawed in their characters. Character building, not learning more knowledge, is the number one job for the parents. I would say that it is also the number two and number three jobs of the parents.

Of all the character traits, by far the most important is integrity. Integrity means keeping your promises and treating others like you want to be treated. Integrity is the basis of all human transactions. As we meet people, we are learning who we can trust and who can get things done. Treating others as we like to be treated help us form that bond in knowing that we could be counted on to help our friends in good times and bad. Keeping our promises, under promise and over deliver shows that we can get things done. Opportunities in life come to us because people know they can count on us to get things done.

Sports are supposed to teach kids about cooperation and competition. However, many parents have taken this to the extreme. I have seen parents bribing coaches to get their kids more play time or play a more important role in the sport. One of the girls even trampled on her friends to get ahead in her sport, citing her dad who taught her that "friends are there to be used". In a modern society, in order to compete, we form groups, companies, political parties, churches, circle of friends. To be an effective competitor, we need to work well within the group. That means having integrity within our group and even toward the competition, because your competitor today maybe your group tomorrow. To cheat and to trample on your friends is precisely the wrong lessons that the kids should be learning. They will go through life cheating and trampling on people that they know. I have known many people in high place in a corporation. My kids were playing sports with their kids. They were CEOs, CFOs, VPs and directors in small companies, large corporations and important start ups like LinkedIn. None of the people who made it to high places in a corporation teach their kids to cheat or trample on their friends, or treat their friends as someone to be "used". They all teach their kids to have integrity and to treat their teammates well. Some of them coach the team. Instead of giving more play time to their kids, they mostly assign play time and roles based on ability of the kids. What they teach their kids speaks volumes on what it takes to get ahead in the work place.

Tenaciousness and follow through are also important traits to have. To get anywhere in life, we will experience our share of failures. The important thing is to get up after you failed and do it again. Follow through means when we start something, we should see to it that what we started gets completed. Many of the angel investors who fund start ups have expressed that even more important than a good idea, they are looking for a team that is tenacious, because they knew that the start up process is full of setbacks and disappointments. It is how the team handles them that determines if they will succeed.

We Chinese are a practical people, but intellectual curiosity is not our strong suit. Take Chinese medicine, There were a few pioneers like Hua Tuo, the father of Chinese herbal medicine who tried to find out what impact different plants have on the human body, but most who practice Chinese medicine just took what they learned as gospel and not investigate further about how the human body works. It was the West that had discovered the workings of different organs. The Chinese had a lot of inventions early on, but with something like compass and gun powder, we never tried to understand why it worked. Interestingly, in American college campuses today, there is also a stifling lack of intellectual curiosity. Charles Murray was to give a talk at Middlebury College the other day, a bunch of thugs just prevented him from making the speech. They are not interested in a debate as a college should be doing, they just want to shut people up when they encounter views that are different from theirs. Intellectual curiosity is the engine of new discovery and human progress. We need to teach our kids to get into the habit of always asking a lot of questions. When we encounter something that we don't understand, don't just pass it by. Try to understand it. When we half understand something, ask more questions until we completely understand it.

Self direction is another trait that the Chinese can do more of. Perhaps due to our heavy handed style of parenting, many of our kids just know to study, but do not have an internal compass and know what they want to do with their own lives. This goes back to making kids do things on their own and making more decisions early on.

Many people are not very punctual. However, if you ask them to examine their lives and see how many important meetings they were late to, they will be the first to admit that they were on time for these important meetings. Being punctual is showing respect for the other people involved. It goes back to having integrity. We should have integrity with every person that we deal with, not just the important ones.

Finally, exercising regularly and having discipline are important. Exercising keeps our body in prime condition. Discipline helps us control our behavior. both are prerequisite for everything else that we do in life.

We don't have much control over how smart our kids are, but we can shapes their character and their habits. Things like integrity, learn to compete and cooperate with a team, tenaciousness, follow through, intellectual curiosity and self direction are characters that we can teach our kids. In addition, they should get into the habit of being punctual, exercise regularly and have discipline.