春节年夜菜：红红火火好多福

Jan 18th 2011, 21:52 by M.S. The Economist.

FRANCIS FUKUYAMA'S 1990 article "The End of History" profoundly shaped my political identity: I thought it was so completely wrong-headed that I spent weeks working out the many ways in which I disagreed. I found it extremely implausible that Friedrich Hegel had simply figured out the direction of human political evolution in the early 19th century, and that everything else had been a matter of slow progress towards that goal, culminating in the Reagan-Mitterand-era spectrum of Western welfare-state capitalist democracies (with a preference for the Reagan end). Worse, Mr Fukuyama's thesis seemed like a strange right-wing version of the complacency of Soviet ideologues: the arc of history has already been mapped, and we are its apotheosis. It seemed a recipe for intellectual stagnation and a likely excuse for all sorts of foolishness and misconduct. After all, if we're the goal of history, how can we do wrong?

I never would have imagined that I would read a Francis Fukuyama essay 20 years later about the current direction of world history, and agree vehemently with every single word of it. Mr Fukuyama's Financial Times piece yesterday, headlined "US democracy has little to teach China", is brilliant. It's not the first time anyone has expressed these ideas, but Mr Fukuyama puts it all together in a fashion that's close to perfect. As he writes, America "managed to fritter away" the immense moral capital it held in 2000 "in remarkably short order", due to foreign-policy missteps such as the invasion of Iraq and, later, the American-centred global financial crisis. (It didn't help that American treasury and central-bank officials, who months earlier had been lecturing China on the need to decrease state involvement in the financial sector, found themselves feverishly doing just what Chinese officials were doing—funneling money to state-champion companies, hectoring large banks to cut profits and lend more—but with less success.) Meanwhile, China is "riding high", increasingly confident that it has nothing to learn from America. Here's the catch:

Science Hill, Yale University

Photo by Jane Long

With a new program in February, Yale is hoping to attract more science and engineering students who will one day walk up Science Hill.

Tiger Moms: Is Tough Parenting Really the Answer?

Zurich, Switzerland, Photo courtesy: Fishville 

Fiville’s Notes: We were so amused by the whole thing played out at White House about a song that Lang Lang performed for President Hu's state dinner. A popular song in China similar to the status of "God Bless America" or "America the beautiful" in America was from a movie on Korean War. For few generations, Chinese work so hard and finally they were able to bring this song to the White House, and America has the state department and a star president to welcome it. In the end, we should give the credits to the musicians who created the song and Lang Lang who did a superior job in performing it. Just like Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, words for religious or political purposes could be interpreted differently but the beautiful melodies will stay forever.

Lang Lang’s Performance at the White House: Display Of Harmony Or Subtle Dis?

By Cathy Yan, Jan 22, 2011, Wall Street Journal.

On Saturday, Review ran an excerpt from Amy Chua’s new book “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.” The article, titled “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior,” attracted a lot of attention, generating more than 4,000 comments on wsj.com and around 100,000 comments on Facebook. Below, Ms. Chua answers questions from Journal readers who wrote in to the Ideas Market blog.

 WSJ Blog, January 13, 2011, 10:51 AM ET

Do you think that strict, “Eastern” parenting eventually helps children lead happy lives as adults?

When it works well, absolutely! And by working well, I mean when high expectations are coupled with love, understanding and parental involvement. This is the gift my parents gave me, and what I hope I’m giving my daughters. I’ve also taught law students of all backgrounds for 17 years, and I’ve met countless students raised the “tough immigrant” way (by parents from Pakistan, India, Nigeria, Korea, Jamaica, Haiti, Iran, Ireland, etc.) who are thriving, independent, bold, creative, hilarious and, at least to my eyes, as happy as anyone. But I also know of people raised with “tough love” who are not happy and who resent their parents. There is no easy formula for parenting, no right approach (I don’t believe, by the way, that Chinese parenting is superior—a splashy headline, but I didn’t choose it). The best rule of thumb I can think of is that love, compassion and knowing your child have to come first, whatever culture you’re from. It doesn’t come through in the excerpt, but my actual book is not a how-to guide; it’s a memoir, the story of our family’s journey in two cultures, and my own eventual transformation as a mother. Much of the book is about my decision to retreat from the strict “Chinese” approach, after my younger daughter rebelled at 13.

  怀念苏莉，在你曾经走过的地方

Fishville's Notes: The author Amy Chua is an endowed professor of Yale Law School who got her undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard. I got to know her when she was interviewed by UC Berkeley's Conversations with history program after her book was published a few years ago. But this article published today at Wall Street Journal was related to her philosophy of how to raise a child as she tries to compare the distinct approaches between what she called "Chinese Mothers" and "Western Mothers". Her observations on social phenomenons are indeed first-class, but her methology in parenting her two daughters and her subsequent conclusion are quite disturbing for her readers including me. In the early years when we were getting to be familiar with American society, we were not allowing our son to have a sleeping over. But that rule in the family has long been overturned for our daughter. I can comfortably say that none of our two kids were raised like the ways Amy Chua has described, sometimes, I would think that our ways seem too liberal. In the end, it is an article worthwhile to be recommended for a weekend reading.

作者蔡美儿在哈佛获得了她的本科和法学学位，而现在是耶鲁法学院的讲座教授。我对她的认识是几年前她的一本书发表后她参加加州大学伯克利分校的“有关历史的对话”的节目时。但今天发表在“华尔街日报”上的这篇文章是有关她如何教育孩子的，因为她在试图比较所谓的“中国母亲”和“西方母亲”的诸多教育理念的不同。她对于社会现象的观察的确是一流的，但她在养育她的两个女儿时的方法和随之得出的结论，却令她的包括我在内的读者不安。当我们还不熟悉美国社会的最初几年的时候，我们的确不允许儿子在同学家里过夜。但是，这条家规却早已不适用于女儿了。我可以很肯定地说，我们没有像蔡美儿所描述的那样去抚养我们的两个孩子，有的时候，我倒觉得我们的方式显得过于自由。当然这是一篇值得推荐在周末阅读的文章。（夏尔摩斯译）

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior  

By AMY CHUA, January 8, 2011. Wall Street Journal.

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. Well, I can tell them, because I've done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

• attend a sleepover

• have a playdate

• be in a school play

• complain about not being in a school play

• watch TV or play computer games

• choose their own extracurricular activities

• get any grade less than an A

• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama

• play any instrument other than the piano or violin

• not play the piano or violin.

Washington University in St. Louis, Photo Courtesy: Fishville

Fishville Notes: Just more fuels on the debate whether it is worthwhile in sending kids to Ivy League colleges. Through the following list on the high public officer of their graduated universities, we could easily reach a conclusion that the elite college graduates are running the government of the United States.

Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.

Fishville's Notes: Is Stanford having an identity problem? You would probably say so at least for the Chinese World as Stanford in Taiwan or Hong Kong was called 史丹佛; but in mainland China it was translated into 斯坦福. Two names do not share a single Chinese word. It was indeed odds for such a wonderful university, part of reasons for this is probably due to its relative short history. Stanford’s president might have a duty to make its Chinese name straight by taking a similar action that South Korea’s government did for Seoul’s Chinese translation. In addition, Early last year (2010) from collegeconfidential, I saved this post presumely from a Stanford student commenting their school, it is hilarious as he said that "Apple laptops, organic food, and Barack Obama. If you don't love all three, you won't fit in.", any Stanford kids or their parents could verify if any of these comments was true? I don't know the true identity of this student as he claimed he is a Stanford graduate student but someone said he is from UC Berkeley. Making no mistake, Stanford is one of our most favorite colleges in the United States. Yale's current president Richard Levin and provost Peter Salovey were all graduated from Stanford College before they got their PhDs from Yale. Harvard's former president Derek Bok was also graduated from Stanford College before he got his degree from Harvard Law School. In some perspectives, Stanford is even more comprehensive than Harvard considering the later does not have a sizable engineering program or school.

 女人最重要的品质是智慧和修养

   温暖的底特律雪夜(1)

Washington University in St. Louis, Photo Courtesy: Fishville 

Application Inflation: When Is Enough Enough?

By ERIC HOOVER, NYT, November 5, 2010.

This article is the first of a collaboration between The New York Times and The Chronicle of Higher Education, a daily news source for professors and administrators. Eric Hoover is a senior writer for The Chronicle covering admissions.

THE numbers keep rising, the superlatives keep glowing. Each year, selective colleges promote their application totals, along with the virtues of their applicants.

For this fall’s freshman class, the statistics reached remarkable levels. Stanford received a record 32,022 applications from students it called “simply amazing,” and accepted 7 percent of them. Brown saw an unprecedented 30,135 applicants, who left the admissions staff “deeply impressed and at times awed.” Nine percent were admitted.