bloody gaijin

Malcolm Gladwell, an author and contributor to The New Yorker, forwards a theory that people of a southern Chinese background have a highly developed work ethic focused on problem solving from thousands of years tending to rice paddies. He says caring for a rice paddy created a tradition of hard work ubiquitous in Chinese culture. Chinese proverbs encourage working 360 days a year to become rich, and school is practically year-round.

- SMH article here

Wow...out of the arse of which retarded cattle did the guy pull this bullshit from?

How about:

1) Starting with China having had a meritocratic hierarchy for a few thousand years, and therefore academic achievement is one of the basic judgements of worth? A hardworking farmer is nowhere near as well-respected in society as a lazy academic. Sad fact of life.

2) Then going on to how the population crush in China has made getting a respectable job increasingly difficult (especially if you don't have a) good academic results and far more importantly b) good connections), and this terror of bringing their kids up to be nothing more than cleaners motivate Chinese parents to drive their children to study harder and harder.

3) Then putting forward the archetypal migrant's culture, which is prevalent in a lot of other ethnic groups that migrated somewhere for a "better" life but found instead the language barrier meant they could never achieve quite as well as someone born here but having similar qualifications. Instead they're consigned to doing work and getting paid far below their qualifications, and turning all their attention on their children so that their kids don't end up like themselves.

4) And perhaps rounding off with the general parental "my kid needs to be better than their kid" mentality, as well as the fact that kids in year 2 in China were doing what kids in year 7 are doing here in Australia for maths, and therefore kids who migrated in primary school had a HUGE head start on their peers, and they're going to keep on working that advantage if they find it hard to get an advantage in Humanities subjects like English or history.

Rice paddies culture my ass. Tending to rice paddies is a full time and thankless work (especially if you happen to have an Emperor that taxes you an arm and a leg for every harvest). It's unlikely that many families could afford an education at the same time. And how exactly does caring for rice paddies in southern China somehow translate to ubiquitous Chinese culture? What about people in northern China??