WEI, Jian’s blog

I came across a blog mentioned about why Chinese students got good GRE physics scores. http://incoherently-scattered.blogspot.com/2008/01/graduate-admissions-acing-gre-physics.html

Some suggested that they practiced a lot with previous exam problem sets, and think that might be considered as cheating in American standards.

I just want to point out one obvious reason that many people in US might neglect. That is, for most physics majors, all the textbooks they used are in Chinese. So if one student does not study those previous GRE physics problem sets. He or she has no other way to quickly master all those special terms in physics.

If the exam problem sets were translated into Chinese, the level of difficulty is not a problem for advanced Chinese undergraduate students. About 10 years ago, I myself was preparing GRE physics while also preparing GRE general exam, TOEFL, and doing my experiments as a master degree student in Beijing University. I scored 970 (the maximum is 990) and was still laughed by a bunch of my classmates who got 990 without much effort. It was rare at that time to see someone got GRE physics score below 900 if he or she prepared for it seriously. I agree with those commented in the aforementioned blog that GRE physics score doesn’t have much correlation with future success in physics, which seems to be more about opportunities/luck to work in a productive group/area, and maybe the ability to manage research group. Otherwise we would see more successful Chinese PIs. And as a matter of fact many of my classmates left physics (for a richer life etc) and only a few are still struggling (as far as I know only one is exceptional and got an AP position in a good place).

People from Russian and many other European countries seem to have no problem with English literature. I learned to speak Russian during my college years. At that time Russian literature still had a strong influence in China for historic reasons, and I was too ambitious / naive and thought I should learn a second foreign language besides English. Today, I forgot most of what I learned, but one impression is that most scientific words are pronounced very similarly in Russian as in English. Also for Russian students, they usually have a very strong physics education and many of their textbooks, like the Landau theoretical physics series was translated into English and is considered one among the best textbook series.

Other countries/regions in Asia, like Korea, Taiwan, and Hongkong have a different situation than China. I leaned from a new Korea graduate student in our group that in Korea, they are using textbooks in English, and he says that he is more familiar with physics terms in English than the words translated into Korea, and most literature he read are in English. I also heard from a Korea laundry shop owner that she can teach her ABK (American born Korean) kid basic Korea in half a year, probably because Korean language can be spelled like English, while Chinese characters are more difficult from her experience. That could also explain why many ABC (American Born Chinese) have difficult to learn Chinese.

Right now in most Chinese universities textbooks in Chinese is still the only choice. Chinese people tend to follow traditions and resist changes. It is kind of a dilemma: if we use textbooks in English our own language might be consider inferior, which is not something people can be proud of; if keep Chinese as the working language, that means for most of the researchers they are disconnected from the rest of the world. China is a large country, in principle it is possible to develop our own system and keep using our own language. Historically, we have done that before in the Ming and Qing dynasties, when the empire of China had the largest GDP in the world. But in recent centuries, the scientific development happened so fast, and closing the door was proved not the choice. Recently my former MS degree advisor in Beijing University, now a retired professor, told me he is spending time on a committee in charge of translation between English and Chinese words in physics. I think that is a really meaningful effort.

In the future, when there are more and more returnees with PhD degree from US and other English speaking countries join the faculty, those young professors may start using textbooks in English, like what happened in Korea, Hongkong, and Taiwan. Hopefully then, the language barrier for Chinese students is not a problem any more.

On the making of word first-rate universities in China

On April 2, 2008, GuangMing Daily (one major newspaper of the China government) published an article by professor RAO Yi and SHI Yigong on how to transform China’s top universities into the world’s best (a short summary in English).

The solution by them can be summarized to two measures: 1) Recruit more top scholars from abroad to form a critical mass (see also an old NYtimes article ). 2) Make new rules so faculty members have more academic freedom and have more say on management.

Apparently the second one is more difficult, since as many people doubted, it is hard for the universities to be independent and have the right atmosphere for academic freedom while everything is under control of the government.

I searched the internet and to my surprise, there are not too many discussions after this article. There seem a lot people in China think democracy and political reform is the penicillin for everything, and without that nothing could be done even for higher ed. For my point of view, that is not true and there are still concrete things that can be done even in current situation:

1. In the long run we need to cultivate the spirit of science from the earlier age of our students so later they will do research because of their interest in pursuing science, not just to get a degree. Only with long-last interest and self motivation, can we have great scientists and thinkers, not just good ones. For this purpose, one important and concrete thing that the government can do is to build more public libraries (and fill them) for each town or village, as those in the United States.

2. Open a few universities to the world and make them the central portals for knowledge and training center for more faculty members. By open to the world I mean the working language should be English, and the recruiting is open to any people in the world, not limited to Chinese. These universities should be similar to those in Hongkong and compete with the best in the world. I believe this is the fastest way to become competitive in this English dominated environment.

3. Make use of the internet. For example, in the states many students use wiki/google to search useful information and use the department homepage to find interesting research project and faculty member’s publications etc, in China, however, wiki can not be accessed, and even for the best universities there are not much to see on their department homepage (I once inquired the webmaster of the department I was in, but got no response, which is natural since the webmaster has no power at all to make the changes). Plus, making things available online (also in English) enhances the transparency of management and may even help to prevent scientific misconduct, which is a serious problem for many universities in China now.

That is all I can think of now. I hope the policy makers, deans and professors in China can have more discussion on this topic. In US, there are in fact a lot interesting stories about higher education on Chronicle of higher ed and http://www.insidehighered.com/.

Recently my wife and I watched online a few episodes of a sitcom from China called “My own swordsman” (Wu3 Lin2 Wai4 Zhuan4), which is something similar to the mix of “Friends” and “Buffy the vampire slayer”. It was very popular in China among young audience when it was first aired in 2006, and we also laugh a lot watching it.

The playwright of this show (http://blog.sina.com.cn/ningcaishen) is almost at the same age as me, but he is kind of “star” (Wuan4) now and has many fans. Many plots of his show were initially from online novels, and online jokes which the playwright was very familiar as a website content editor. From this show and his blog, I can see why this sitcom was so popular: there are a lot in common among him and others at my age group, e.g., the attitude towards kids’ education, and the general attitude towards happiness etc, which the playwright intertwined with traditional swordsman stories into this 80-episodes sitcom.

Interestingly, from the sitcom it is possible to characterize the typical thinking of young people in China and that may even tell us about the future of the country, here are some of my thoughts:

This sitcom was again put in a historic background and adopted a lot from those novels and plays of swordsman/ martial artist (by the famous novelist Jing Yong and others, see e.g. http://www.spcnet.tv/readingrooms/default.php ). Although the playwright mixed a lot materials from modern society and even some foreign elements, but it is still a very traditional Chinese story, in the sense that eventually it comes back to the idea that after all the struggles people realized that the best life is to live is the life of an ordinary people, an honest worker, and there is nothing you can gain by competing/fighting with others. This is probably very comforting for most people, and helps to build a harmonious society. But for a country, it will definitely leads to failure of competition in world market.

There is also nationalism, or ignorance of the outside world. This is especially clear in one episode where a young guy who chosen to immigrate to other country was made fun of, just plain jokes without any deep meaning. This actually reflects some general sentiment toward people who have overboard experience. There are many reasons for this, I believe one of them is related to the depreciation (or lost of trust) of the foreign degree holders because many of them brag a lot but couldn’t deliver real results. In his blog, the playwright also mentioned that he does not like the aggressive style of Japanese sitcom where the hero always vows to be the best. He and probably many young people in China may think that aggressiveness is too narrow-minded, and want to avoid such cruel competition.

The problem is, in the 21^st century, we can not avoid the competition (there is a bestseller book: the world is flat). Why in China we lack the healthy spirit of competition, I do not know the answer. Some general reason could be that we do not have the right rules for competition, and it could ultimately relate to the old question: why it is not China, see also another bestseller: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. Whatsoever, I do believe it is useful to import/project a healthy spirit of competition to the young audience, e.g., try to be the best of yourself, earn a lot experience even from your losing, make friends during competition, and understand that healthy competition (like in sports) can actually leads to a win-win situation, and is crucial for the development of a country. It is easier said than done, but I wish that those playwrights, especially those with overboard experience, can come up with something in this direction.

Another observation, a little annoying, is that the police officers (or government officials) were always made fun of. They were always depicted as stupid and heartless, e.g., they eat in the hotel/restaurant without paying money, and they kiss ass of their boss, although they are not very bad. One sad thing is probably most people may agree it is close to the real situation in China. This is probably similar to the old American “Godfather” movies, where policemen are usually bad/stupid people. One might worry the quality of future policemen/government officials in China if such impression prevails.

In fact, it is noticeable that this kind of “unhealthy” sarcasm towards specific groups is popular in Chinese culture. Even in the national grand gala of the spring festival, some people pointed out that some talk shows (Xian4 Sheng1) and short comedy shows (Xiao3 Pin3) are made funny due to the sarcasm/discrimination towards poor people/uneducated people/handicapped people etc, which should be considered as “politically incorrect” in US. However, probably like talk shows in US, if you do not make fun of yourself or others, then there is no fun. There might be a subtle line between political correct and incorrect. In this sense, the sitcoms with historic background have advantages because there is no direct complicit with current administration. In those Hollywood style films, there is also a similar problem about demonization of the administration. Since in China most imported films are those Hollywood style, while those more realistic programs like PBS etc were rarely imported, the audience in China may not have enough comparison to distinguish the exaggeration from reality, which is not good.

Our own movie directors in China like ZHOU Xinchi (or Stephen Chow) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0159507/, who is very popular among young people, we see that they were struggling to present something different and deep. However, probably because there is no good novels, or no such culture background for asking deep questions (or for healthy competition in that matter), it seems hard for them to come up with something resonating deeply, and something close to a masterpiece, even if they are rich and do not need to worry about the box. Sometimes the playwrights and producers are just making some story up from nowhere or probably from their day dreaming (stories like Kill Bill), which can not be much different from what they already familiar.

Since I am a physicist, I noticed a remotely related discussion about the influence of media on Science education. In one of last year’s Physics Today, there was some column saying that right now since the Cartoonists in U.S. always portrait bad/mad Scientists, probably fewer and fewer kids would be interested in Science career. For me, I think the situation is not that serious in U.S. because there are still a lot public TV programs like Discovery, history, Animal, NOVA etc besides the cartoon networks, which many kids would like to watch. But I do think this is a problem for the developing countries like China (and India maybe), where there are not many interesting programs for kids. So again, I wish there are stronger governmental supports and maybe more private foundations for this sort of programs. We can’t rely on commercial program producers for this purpose (probably we can think Yang2 Lan2’s sunshine satellite TV program as one unsuccessful try in this direction).

In summary, people at my age in China, many have the good will for a peaceful society, but may be haven’t thought too much about the balance between the competition and collaboration, and about improving the relationship between people and the administration, etc. And as always, I am hoping the government can do better.

A good recommendation letter is one of the most important supports a student can get when they apply for graduate school. However, it is unclear whether the student is ethical or not to write the initial draft of the letter by himself/herself. Now here is the answer from the one expert in American Physics Society:

http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200712/asktheethicist.cfm

Basically, it says it is ok the student write the first draft, and it is the teacher’s problem “ if your reference was unwilling to scrap a ghostwritten letter when necessary”.

In my opinion, this will cause unease to the students and teachers who insist to hold higher standards since the disadvantage of not doing so is obvious. Maybe, it will be fairer if there is a special remark in the beginning of the recommendation letter that states it is based on the draft written by the student himself/herself.

Recently, in Beijing University, one of the most prestigious Universities in China, there were some discussions about student cheating on term papers initiated by the criticism of a visiting professor from Yale:

http://fangzhouzi-xys.blogspot.com/2007/12/yale-professor-criticizes-wide-spread.html

During this time, professor Yi Rao, dean and vice president, also expressed his opinion about writing recommendation letter:

http://fangzhouzi-xys.blogspot.com/2007/12/rao-yi-professors-should-write.html 

I am happy to know that he “agrees that there should be no reason for professors asking their students to write their own recommendation letters. They should write themselves, or at least ask their secretaries or assistants for help.”

However, although I am impressed by professor Yi Rao’s attitude, I am not sure how much influence his words will have. I don’t see there is any way to “force” professors to write the letter by themselves. Maybe, at best, it will end up with the same situation as that exemplified in APS news. 

In fact, rl for all kinds of application, or even president’s speech, are probably ghostwritten.

More interesting links about rl:

http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2006/MJ/feat/scha.htm

http://philosophersplayground.blogspot.com/2007/12/ethics-of-letters-of-recommendation.html

This is not only for students in physics major. 10 years ago, my wife was studying international corporation management in a prestigious University, she and her classmates had problem reading those Chinese Textbooks, which are no more than just translation and editing of standard textbooks in English. However, the translation is very difficult to understand and most of the students were just confused and lost their interest.

That was 10 years ago but I am pretty sure the same thing happens now as long as there are no enough professors who can teach with the textbooks in English.

The situation probably is better for physics major because it is somewhat dissociated from the society context. However, although students had no problem learning most of the fundamental courses in the undergraduate level, but later on it is a big obstacle when they do research since English is the communication language, and mostly people will refer to textbook in English if they need.

Not only that affects the learning process, it also makes interdisciplinary research quite difficult. For example, I am doing condensed matter physics, if I want to do something related organic thin films, or bio-related experiments. Reading related literature will be difficult since I do not know the specific terms in English. Of cause you can say if I am very determined I should spend time to re-learn these, but everyone knows the life of a researcher nowadays is busy. Another example, I’ve a friend in biology department doing some research with stem cell project and he uses some equipment with amplifiers, and he found it a problem to understand all the electronics since he already forgot those things learned in college. If the manual is in Chinese, probably he can still understand something, but since it is in English he felt it is too time consuming to understand it at all.  

I am not saying I do not like Chinese language. In fact, I do believe Chinese characters have their own beauty and can express much more feelings than alphabet characters. However, as when the center of science moved from Europe to American, the communication language is changed from German to English, the only way to catch the progress is to learn as much as possible with the current communication language. For China, it is an easier choice to teach things in Chinese, but later on the students have to pay more to be able to do real research. Many Chinese textbooks are just a concise version of the English textbook (or Russian textbook), although similar but lost the favor of original text. And sometimes, the historic context is omitted which makes the book very technical and the students do not know where the stuff comes from.

Recently, when coming back to China in 2005, I noticed improvements that new “auxiliary” books with more historic backgrounds are available, and the English names of the theories are included within parentheses. This helps since at least students can recognize the corresponding English names of the theory. But I still prefer to use the current original textbooks, and if the professors do have their opinions they can publish some notes. The bad thing is some professors just consider publishing a textbook as a big achievement and can be used to get higher salaries etc.

One more step ahead, is to utilize the resource in this Internet era. There are online videos courses taught by some first-class scholars (e.g. linear algebra http://web.mit.edu/18.06/www/Video/video-fall-99.html ). I can’t see any reason why not use this as the standard “class material” and the professors are just responsible to answer questions and provide more specific guidance to the students. That would be a big change of the classroom, but I believe that is far more efficient for spreading knowledge.

For future students exposed to English textbooks earlier, I believe they will have more interest and more contributions later.

Right now there seems to be more and more successful people coming back from U.S. to china, e.g. the former MS VP Kai-Fu Lee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai-Fu_Lee) moved back in 1998; and recently, many well-known professors from U.S. moved back to top Universities in China, Chi-Chih Yao  (http://www.answers.com/Chi-Chih%20Yao), Yi Rao  (http://www.nibs.ac.cn/english/index.php?act=view&id=16).

Not only do they bring their experiences and perspectives from U.S., what is more important is that they provide role models for young people. In my college years, mid-nineties, most friends and myself did not have a role model to follow. Even in the highly respectful Universities, there weren’t many professors that can be the role model and provide useful guidance for the new generation. Of cause there were historic reasons, but that probably indeed caused a narrow-minded generation. The role models set up by the government, mostly were too pale to be true, or just kind of fake. People want not only sacrifice and spiritual satisfaction, like in a religion, they also want a colorful life, and to be themselves. The government just can’t, and probably not supposed to provide all role models.

So at that time, it seems what is real is just power and money, which brings high social status. There is not much space for culturing one’s own interests like pursuing basic science, democracy, public service, helping the poor, and protect environment etc. Those responsibilities belong to the government, people think, not themselves. But when nobody really thinks about those things, the government, which is run by the same kind of people, can’t be serious about those issues. So even if the few elite people on the top of the power pyramid have the will to change the situation, there are not enough officers qualified to do this. We can image that in the near future, people will still complain that the government is bureaucratic and is not really functional well.

Today, the situation is better, besides some of those successful people in China; we also have successful people coming back from aboard with their experiences and more importantly, different perspectives, many of them determined to make a difference in China. They can really make good role models for young generations. Those people are usually confident, are leaders in their field, some of them even publish their autobiographies and use the Internet to promote their thoughts and opinions (see e.g. the blogs by Y-C Ho http://www.sciencenet.cn/blog/user_content.aspx?id=7579 and H-F Wang http://www.sciencenet.cn/blog/user_content.aspx?id=477 ). By opening themselves to the young generation, they may help to shape the thinking of the younger, and may even help to shape the future of the country.

The government, or more precisely the department of education, should use its means to help the young generation, the majority of them, including those in the countryside, to know and learn from these role models (for example by distributing free books etc). A fact is, although many of the current officials at the department of education are probably themselves foreign degree holders, most of them only learned things in their own special field instead of how to be a leader and policy maker. They should consult people who have more experience abroad when making new policy. So far from what the department has done, like increasing the fee for higher education, asking money for primary education, seems not very constructive. That is a different topic though.

I think that democracy requires active participation of qualified citizens.

In U.S., the middle class majority, not the elite minority, dominates the policy making process.

In China, so far we do not have such a well developed middle class, so pursuing the ultimate democracy will only leads to riots and setbacks of the society. This has been proved by the history of ancient China.

However, I do think the government should be responsible to educate and encourage the future middle class, since that will make a better society eventually. Right now, since we are a developing country, we can still kind of benefit from the experiences of those developed countries, but eventually China needs to face a lot challenges by itself and democracy will help for making the right decision.

Democracy is like an expensive musical instrument. You do not benefit from it a lot when you just started to learn it and at the same time you are a poor guy and struggling for a living, but eventually it will lead you to a higher level of peace and enjoy.

The current situation in China isn’t pleasing. I do not have too much hope for my generation, i.e. those born in middle 70s. For most of my friends and myself, I do not see the necessary elements (experiences and ambitions) that are important to propagate democracy. One example, of the many students in U.S., only very few is willing to service in the student association. For the even younger generation, especially those in China right now, materialism seems to be prevailing.

Although the increasing usage of Internet, could be a chance to educate more people and make people aware of the policy making process. But it seems that will only happen when more open-minded leaders come into the play, and some of them could be from the current students in U.S.

The best solution, as once said by one of our famous leader Deng Xiaoping, is probably to start from kids.  To educate the younger generation and make more of them willing to be a leader, like to collaborate with others, and respect each other’s choices etc, would be one of the most useful things a government can try. In this respect, I do think that lots of money invested by China in higher education and research can be more meaningful if spent in elementary education. Private school might be another choice, but again, it is like chicken and egg dilemma: without the majority middle class, there wouldn’t be many private schools.

In short, I believe that the road to democracy in China will be rough but the government can play an important role.