“High education record is not everything!” ——High Education & Success

Informative and Surprising Essay

English 100

 05/05/09

Before I came to the United States, a lot of my friends had already been abroad, and many of them are preparing to do it now. I asked a few of them why they wanted to study abroad—one thought Gaokao(Chinese SAT) was too hard, she didn’t think she could get into the best university even if she tried her best; another one said his current college was too average, he felt himself a loser if he stayed. And they asked me, “and you?” I smiled and replied to them by something conventionally vague and much more the same. Though it’s not the answer I want, it’s true that we all agree on the unspoken theory—high education record is the top priority in life! But why is that?

There’s an old saying in China, “To be a scholar is to be the top of society”. Apparently, high education record, as a symbol of success in Chinese culture, means a decent and high-paid job which leads to a perfect mate and a comfortable life, which is everything we are going after. Professor Xin remarked in his essay that in Chinese traditional thought, it was supposed to be the start of “a bright future” when someone gets a foot in the door of a prestigious academic institution and is dignified with a Master or Doctor’s degree; especially to some poor farmer’s kids, this kind of achievement even glorified their family name --the parents must entertain lavishly for celebration like a big feast, only feel more honored (Xin).

However, in the money-oriented society, not judging the value of “success=money”, the convinced belief that “high educational qualification=good job=high pay=success” doesn’t necessarily apply anymore. This doesn’t happen by chance. In theory which is already proved in statistic, the more education people receive, the more relative income they will get (Xin); everybody knows that. But we don’t know the differences between incomes among these people are not as big as we expect. What’s more, this theory is just “an overall trend”, which doesn’t adapt to everyone; also, a so-called “high income” is measured in individuals’ life (Xin). In practice, people also start to be aware of the new equation—high academic qualification=high unemployment or underemployment. 

The DGBAS (Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics) of Taiwan showed, “from January to November in 2008, the average unemployment rate of young people between 15 to 29 years old has reached 8.25%”, and the rate of people who “have university education or above” is 9.33% (Zhong). How could this phenomenon happen? The basic cause is—“Oversupply of labor market” (Zheng), in other words, there’re too many well-educated people to get limited jobs. Imagine one day, everybody gets a university diploma, most people are graduates, what do you think will happen?—The society will apparently be out of order, no one wants to do the cheap labor work because they think they deserve better. It will only result in waste and worthlessness of the education qualification. This imagination is growing nowadays; high education is losing its upper hand.

China mainland is more or less the same employment environment as Taiwan. The hype of “A Beijing University[1] graduate selling candied haws stick”[2] event in 2006 may have passed, but similar news keeps popping up, and the complaints from students and parents won’t stop (Xin).At the same time people start to think about a concerned question—Is prestigious university out of date?

It has become a common and terrible belief that if you want to go to college, you have to go to the elite college. As I remember in my high school in China, every year during the graduation season we can see a lot of posters and banners hung between buildings and walls say “Cheer for X’s admission to Beijing University ”or “Congratulations on X’s being the top in Gaokao in our Province”. What we hear are all praises about how many students have gotten into the best colleges, and the teachers always ask us to learn from those very few top students. Besides, students from different schools often compete which school has more students enrolled in prestigious university even if it has nothing to do with them. It seems like, in people’s subconscious, only going to those elite universities means being useful and getting “a golden passport to success” (Easterbrook). In Alan Krueger and Stacy Berg’s research in 1999, they found that students who were able to get into an Ivy but chose a “less sexy” one, had “the same income twenty years later as graduates of the elite colleges” (Easterbrook).Apparently, success is not so relevant to a school’s brand or fame, it’s up to you, your ability and talent. And it’s not the top college make the students capable; they’re already elites even they don’t go to the elite schools.

During Loren Pope’s writing of Who’s Who[3] in 1990, he found out the fact that “the glamour schools were losing their status as the gatekeepers of accomplishment”. And today, as the “non-elite school” have greatly improved their quality of academic input, more and more employers don’t value applicants’ above their famous school background, “some may even avoid candidates from the top school, on the theory that such aspirants have unrealistic expectations of quick promotion”(Easter). The people who have that “expectation” are over-reachers, they think themselves above the business and aren’t easily satisfied with what they have; this often happens in China, that’s why even elite students from top colleges ending up with “underemployment”. Chinese’s “elite college complex” is not realistic, and it could be even harmful for students--they could repeat year and year in school with extreme pressures and hard work just to make their “top school dream” come true, and after that, there’s even no guarantee for them to get a good job!

Not only the “elite college complex”, but also advanced degrees gave Chinese students a mistaken idea that it’s never hard for graduate students to get a well-paid job. In old days, a Master or Doctor’s Degree means knowledge and respect. However, there’s an ironic phenomenon called “high degree discrimination” in employment today. To employers, high degree means “high cost” (pay), “high age”— aiming at women Doctors, who have possibilities of giving birth to a child, and “zero experience”—aiming at students who attach more on theory but lack of practical skills (EOL). Now a lot of graduates have descended to an inferior position, choosing the job they thought too cheap that a Bachelor or even a college student can do; the advanced theory they have learned were completely left behind. It’s just how the society works despite the cruelty.

From theory to practical situations, and from “elite university effects” to “advanced degree discrimination”, indications showed one fact that a high education record doesn’t necessarily bring money and success. In addition to money, what about the well-educates’ inner life, does the high academic qualification bring them a successful emotional life?

Here are two news titles--“More and More highly educated people use drugs in Beijing” (Beijing Daily Online). “Highly educated women become obsessive-compulsive disorder of the ‘susceptible’” (Oriental Today). We don’t even need to talk about serious drug problems or psychiatric disorders; we just need to see some pop words in the media to know how the true life of well-educated people and how they are considered and biased in this society. For example, “The Left” or “3S” (single, seventies, stuck) is used to describe those elder unmarried girls who were born during 1970s and highly educated. A lot of them from elementary school to graduate school, basically never had a deep relationship with anyone of the opposite sex. That long-term isolation makes them have a “love phobia” (Bl.gov.cn)—being afraid of falling love or not knowing how to love. With “3 high” (another pop word, indicates high education, high position, and high pay) but with no love or confidence, are they successful? I don’t think so.

The headmaster of Qinghua University [4] gave his graduates five advices on their life road:

“Direction is more important than efforts,

Ability is more important than knowledge,

Healthy is more important than achievement,

Life is more important than qualification,

EQ is more important than IQ” (Gu).

I think these golden sayings are the most important meanings of this research paper.

At last, on the whole, my conclusions are--Education record is a study experience, and high education record is just a reflection of one’s academic attainments. It’s nothing but a proof of the past. There’s nothing wrong about going after high education record, but it shouldn’t be everything we’re going after-- If you do, it’s not only success you lose, but also yourself.     

---

[1] the top university in China

[2] “candy fruit on sticks”, a very cheap traditional snack on street in Northern China

[3] “a direction of American distinction”

[4] one of the best university in China

Works Cited

Easterbrook, Gregg. "Who Needs Harvard?" College Admissions 2004 October 2004 Atlantic Oct. 2004. The Atlantic. 3 May 2009 .

"Graduate students facing employment problem--'high degree discrimination'" Graduate studies news. 4 Nov. 2008. Eol.cn(China Education Online). 03 May 2009 .

Gu, Binglin. "The headmaster of Qinghua University gave advises to his graduates." Education Campus. 5 Sept. 2005. Aweb.com.cn(China Agriculture Web). 03 May 2009 .

"Highly educated people have 'love phobia'" Psychology science. 11 Sept. 2008. Bl.gov.cn. 03 May 2009 .

"Highly educated women become obsessive-compulsive disorder of the 'susceptible'" Obsession. Ed. Huaiqi Wang. 4 Aug. 2005. Linzi Counselling. 03 May 2009 .

Xin, Lijian. "High Academic Record? High Income." Lijian Xin's blog. 16 May 2006. Usors.cn. 03 May 2009 .

Zhang, Weina. "More and more highly educated people use drugs in Beijing." Legal news 29 Oct. 2004. Hbfz.gov.cn. 3 May 2009 .

Zheng, Juanfeng. "High level of education = high unemployment?" Work 26 Aug. 2008. The Liberty Times, Taiwan. 3 May 2009 .

Zhong, Lihua. "Dim future of pay/ highly educated youth unemployment rate 9.33%." Life 21 Jan. 2009. The Liberty Times, Taiwan. 3 May 2009 .

Cliques in My Schooldays

English 100

Educational Narrative

Feb. 1^st, 2009

       If not because of this paper, I may never think about the question “do I ever have a clique before?” which occurs to me—“what is a clique?” Clique is a word from old French. Wikipedia defines it as “an exclusive group of people who share interests, views, purposes, patterns of behavior, or ethnicity”. If we translate it into Chinese, it could be “Xiao Tuan Ti(小团体)” which means small group , but lacking of group cohesion in a sense; or “Bang Pai(帮派)” which means small faction, but it sounds too serious to get the factional fighting involved. Then Professors Fengbin Wang and Wenpin Tsai, two Chinese scholars—call cliques “Xiao Ji Ti(小集体)” in their book[1] , which means small collectives. As you may have noticed, there is “small” in all of these three translations, which implies a kind of negative meaning “exclusive” in Chinese; at least when the adults hear it they may frown slightly and judge it by the first impression. From this point, I suddenly understand why most of us Chinese students don’t realize that we were in cliques but call them all friends or buddies instead. Under the influence of the CCP(Chinese Communist Party) culture, what we have always been advocating, is collectivism; as it said “Unity is strength”, that’s also what we learned from books and in school. We started to cultivate our team spirit since we went to kindergarten, we must act collectively and stick together through thick and thin, and we would be blamed for engaging in “some cliques”.
 
      However, who doesn’t have a clique anyway? As humans, we do have our very own social circles; it changes as time goes by, from kids to teenager to adults, especially when we were students. And those circles were exactly cliques in some ways. Looking back to my interpersonal experience in schooldays, cliques did play an important role through my lifetime. 

      I lived in a small city in the east of China which was relatively conservative compared to big cities. I had always been to key (top) schools in my city, where they offered better teaching quality, study environment, and more hardworking and excellent students. In my memory, there were not too many different types of cliques in my school; in contrast to western countries, I can say the amount was very little. As I mentioned, this is about culture, about some stereotyped thoughts-- Chinese are used to following the mass, so being cool or unique is not always good. Chinese have the traditional virtues of “working hard and living plain”, so students spending time on clothes is meaningless. Chinese students are just kids in ivory tower, so they should just devote themselves to studying, blah, blah, blah... For example, my school had the rules of wearing school uniforms everyday or as much as possible, if a girl didn’t follow that rule, but dress up very pretty instead even wearing make-up, she would probably have a tough school life—being judged by other classmates esp. girls, lecturing by the teachers, and changing back to the uniform eventually—who would be so brave to do that? Apparently, cliques on clothes were out of the question in my school. So what do Chinese students care about and make us a clique? It really depends. In my experience, from primary school to middle school to high school, my cliques changed a lot, from several to less, explicit to tacit, along with the development and changes in this great country. 

     If there’s really such a clique culture existing in China, I believe it pops up mostly in the primary school. Because kids are frank and straightforward, they won’t hide their feeling whatever good or bad ones, and they don’t use tricks. That’s why it’s easy for them to hook up or split up. I had quite a few cliques back to that time. The main two groups were “playmates” and “leaders”.

     It is quite easy to get what the two cliques are. The “playmates” group was primarily my playmates. As a kid, I was fond of playing with my girlfriends. I was very good at rubber band skipping, rope skipping and shuttlecock kicking, kind of queen among the girls on these. And these entertainments were also extremely popular among girls; we were obsessed with them, and also enjoyed them so much. We would play together as long as we had a chance, during the class break, or in the PE, or after school, maybe at weekends. Most of these group members were just classmates, but a couple of them are more than that. We lived near each other, so we spent more time together--walking to school and back home, hanging out at weekends, many visits to each other’s apartment on holidays, and we became very good friends. We almost did everything together except studying.

     The “leader” group was much simpler ; the members were just my work partners. I was the class monitress and Chinese course representative throughout the six years in primary school and there were quite a few subordinates below me, which made us a class leader system. We might have different assignments, but we often get together to discuss all kinds of class affairs. We might not know each other very well, but we understood each other for taking the same responsibility as leaders. During the 5^th grade, I became one leader of the Young Pioneers group committees in the school, which means I had another “leaders” group then. I also had meetings with them to deal with some school events. 

      It was an honor to be a leader, but at that time, I was just a kid too, not all of the classmates would obey an equal peer. I worked a lot and still offended many classmates because of this position, which made me sick of being subordinate and having powers. Then things went quite different in the coming years--middle school. I always kept myself a low key dealing with everything. During this early period of adolescence, I once had one or two close friends; we almost told each other everything. However teenager girls were just insecure and fickle, we thought we knew and believed each other, but it was not true. The friendship was gone very soon. So precisely speaking, I was not in any cliques during the middle school. I had classmates to talk to, but no intimate friend. With increasing pressures on study, I was automatically keeping distance from the others, focusing on study. If “lonely nerd” can be a clique on one’s own, I think I belonged to that minority. This situation lasted for a while; I maintained an unconcerned attitude to surroundings. It was not until the second year in senior high school that I started to have a clique again. After coming back from one exchanging-year in Switzerland, I felt myself more mature after experiencing a lot in another country, especially on relationships. Maybe we didn’t have to have a close friend in a short term. Maybe we just need to know more interesting people making us feel better in the life stream. That’s what I thought, then the clique came up; I call it “bus fellows”.

       Apparently, high school was far more different from primary school. In my school, you could barely see or feel cliques. Everyone was so independent even we still went to the same classroom and meet the same class everyday. People were kind of cold and incommunicative. We didn’t really care about anything else except for studies, since studying took up most of our time. We might always have someone around, but that person could just be a companion; we might know everyone in our class, but it’s possible we had never spoken to some of them. In circumstance like this, “bus fellows” and “basketball boy” became two typical cliques. And I was in the former one.

      “Bus fellows”, were always my classmates or schoolmates. We took the same bus to school and back home, we were chatting all the time, about everything, the homework or test, a movie or a star, news or gossips, and so on. We didn’t have to have similar interests or personalities, we didn’t even have to care about the topics we were talking; we just need to have free talks, to get rid of the study stress, to get to know other people’s mental world, to promote ourselves. It was also a chance to find a bosom friend by accident among these familiar faces, which could be quite a nicety of life …

        So now, looking back to that question again--“what is a clique?” I get some different answers .Throughout my schooldays, I think, not only did cliques work as small social circles, but also they tell the choices we made as we become mature, choices to what kind of people we want to be and what kind of life we want to have. There are no regrets but learning from the past and looking to the future. Second, cliques are more part of culture, they see from generation to generation growing up. Time flies, culture changes. People are becoming more and more open-minded, even non-mainstream could become popular and that’s what is happening, isn’t it? So cliques, as an important part of teenager or popular culture, what will happen to them in the future? Will they still exist at that time? I just hope they will not confuse us, because we will be already very old and out of time then.

---

[1] Fengbin Wang is the translator of the book Social Networks and organization written by Martin Kilduff (U.S.) and Wenpin Tsai(China)

Concert Report

Concert Report      MUSIC 250 

October 13^{th, 2008}  Guest Artist. Solon Pierce, Piano recital.  AFC 7:30pm

Repertoire

From Moments Musicaux, D.780…………………Franz Schubert(1797-1828)

  No.2 in A-flat

  No.5 in f minor

  No.6 in A-flat 
I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise…………………George Gershwin(1898-1937)

  Swanee (from Songbook)

  Rialto Ripples (with Will Donaldson)

  The Man I Love (transcribed by Percy Grainger) 
Graceful Ghost Rag………………………………William Bloom(b.1938) 
Menuet…………………………Georges Bizet-Sergei Rachmaninoff(1873-1943)

(From L’Arlesienne Suite No.1) 
Prelude in G-flat,Op.11 no.13……………………Alexander Scriabin(1872-1915) 
Liebesleid………………………………………Fritz Kreisler-Sergei Rachmaninoff 
Nocturne-Impromptu(1985)………………………Nathaniel Pierce(1969-2007) 
Carnaval,Op.9……………………………………Robert Schumann(1810-1856)

I hadn’t been to too many recitals before, but this was definitely one of the best to me. Since European classical music and Chinese pop music has taken up most of my entertainment time, I have very little knowledge of American modern music including Jazz and Blues. While in this recital, the pianist played mostly jazz piano (except for 3 pieces of Romantic works) which led me into a completely new music world and expanded my limited horizon of jazz. It was a feast of listening, brilliant and fantastic. It was also very emotional as the dedication in memory of the pianist’s brother. I was quite touched by this musical experience.

After making some searches and clearing my mind, here I am going to make a brief description about my feelings of some compositions.

Schubert :Op.94 D.780 Moments Musicaux

No.2 A flat — Slow and peaceful. Very quiet throughout the piece except for a small middle part showing up with a dramatic forte. The whole piece feels much like a barcarolle, with free rhythm and floating melody.

No.5 f minor — Short and fast, like a small march which was done at a dish

No.6 A flat — Longer and slower. The pianist looks like a thinker or a poet losing himself in thought. The melody transferred from sharp to flat from time to time, displaying a subtle mood, sometimes sounding like sighing. I wonder if the pianist was thinking about his dear brother~

George Gershwin:

Swanee — After a long slow and quiet piece, the pianist's emotion suddenly became bright, with music style changing from Romantic into Jazz, fast and jumping. Well, I guess there was not only sad memory but also happy things~

Rialto Ripples — Fast ,similar rhythmic pattern and theme repeated, humorous, allegramente, and funny which reminded me of Broadway ,ended with a sudden stop.

The Man I love — Allegretto, beautiful romantic melody with fanciful grace notes. We can feel an in-love woman’s heart; affectionate and dreamlike. 

William Bolcom :Graceful Ghost Rag

It was one of my favorite compositions in the recital.

Rag, short for Ragtime ,which I thought was part of the title but later figured it out to be a 19^th-century dance form characterized by highly syncopated melodies, contributed to early jazz. And that’s the charm of this composition—the melody seems like unbalanced but compact to make a conflicted mood.

It was played as Moderato. As the title says ”graceful ghost”, the theme was so graceful with a kind of gloomy beauty, gentle and blue, I can imagine that a ghost was circle dancing on tiptoe again and again, freely but lonely, dropping itself into memory. When the music came into the middle part, the melody became unrestricted, it looked like the ghost was relieved from itself, sort of “American dream” feelings. Later when it came to the theme again, the speed was a little faster and there was less of a maze than before.

Fritz Kreisler: Liebesleid

It was the composition I like most in the recital.

When the melody firstly came into my ear, I felt it so familiar that I must have heard it somewhere. Then I realized that it was recomposed into a Chinese pop song called “half cigarette” which was one of my favorites. It’s kind of weird to hear the same melody but in complete different styles. And later I found a third version and the original version—violin version. And I got to know that the composition was often played by Trios.

The comparison of the piano and pop version:

The piano version

Fast, free rhythm, emotional, dreamlike.

The theme is so graceful with fancy gloom. It was repeated about four times and reached the peak at the two minutes 20 seconds. Every time I could feel the heavy mood in the main melody, but then that the music subtly changed into a flowing and gorgeous part. The listener may think they have passed the sad part in this piece of composition, but the tension and dissonance just came into their ear again when they haven’t realized it. I guess that’s why this composition was called “Liebesleid”, which means “love’s sorrow” in German, because sorrow was everywhere even presented in bright way, but it’s also true that I felt more elegance than sorrow in the music.
 

The pop version

Moderato, steady rhythm, more gentle and graceful, blue beauty with imaginative lyrics which is quite suitable. It is a perfect combination of post-modern and classic and mixed with a little Latin.

The prelude at the very beginning is very interesting, with funny descending leaps; it sounds like someone sneaking around on his tiptoes which matched to the lyrics. The interlude of violin may be the most wonderful part of the song, making the music more dramatic. 
     According to the singer's comprehension to the lyrics— the second hand just made one round when I passed by the hallway on tiptoe and turned around, the time of waiting for her(my lover) was up when half cigarette burnt away.

Here are the Chinese lyrics and my translation (may not catch the Chinese charm)

半支烟                   Half cigarette

秒针究竟转了几圈      How many rounds has the second hand turned ,
已过去了多少时间      how much time has already gone ?
我悄悄地进了房间      Quietly I went inside the room,
转过回廊的脚尖        turning around on tiptoe at the end of the hallway.

打不开熟悉的唱片      I couldn’t play my old CD,
我猜因为作祟的指尖    I thought it was my annoying fingers.
踩着飘过去的音乐      Sliding with the floating music,
向着她吐一口烟        I puffed out a smoke at her.

燃掉吧 半分感情的烟   Burning it up ,the cigarette with only half love

that’s been left!

一段在嘴边            part at the mouth,
一段在空空荡荡的房间  part remained in the empty room.

想着她哼出来的歌      Thinking of the song she hummed,
舞步像掉进了旋涡      my dance step were as if falling into a swirl.

散落在空中的烟灰      The cigarette ash that fell down in the air
是等待过的滋味        tasted its waiting.

写下我来过的便签      I dropped the note saying I was once here,
在我离开她到来之前    before the time I have to leave her comes;
等待是半支烟的时间    Waiting counted the time of half cigarette,

你转过脸就发现        But you wouldn’t notice unless you turn around

燃烧吧 半分感情的烟    Burning it up ,the cigarette with only half love      that’s been left!

慢慢消失               It’s fading away,

留给我的是苦滋味       leaving me only the taste of bitterness.

All three version audios had been put on here (my Chinese blog):

http://www.mtime.com/my/lanxinwu/blog/1495330/

socialization—A story from 3 years ago in France

This week we move into socialization...the idea that reality is socially constructed. Last week I facetiously asked you when you learned that it wasn't okay to eat dogs. This week, I am going to ask you to think back in your life. You may think about a toy, a tv show, a conversation with a family member...anything really. What did it teach you? How were you socialized? Did you know it at the time? How has it affected/impacted your life? ——Prof.

     Three years ago, my father was in Lyons, France on a business trip. So I also went there from Switzerland to meet him(I was in Switzerland for one year as an exchange student). We went out with his colleagues one night for French food. We were at a restaurant, it was already very late, around 9pm.We waited for our steak, and spiral shell for a while--Most French eat dinner very late; and they do things slow. So my father and his friends started to drink and talk first. One of them brouhjt a Chinese liquor(Baijiu in Chinese, you can check it here if interested:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baijiu)-- I don't drink wine, so i was only eating my salad. Anyway, it's a long night.
 

     During this dinner, we met some interesting strangers next to our table. They’re Americans, one was an actress, one was scriptwriter or film director, and one was soundtrack musician if my memory was right. When they heard we had Chinese distilled alcoholic beverage, one guy was curious .So my father's friend offered him to try a glass of Baijiu. They also warned him that the alcohol was very strong and intense, he should taste it little by little. But the American guy was quite excited and didn't listen, he drank that glass up in one breath. Our Chinese friends were worried, ask him if he felt OK. He stayed calm for a second saying “I am OK", but one minute later, he said " I think I need to go to the bathroom". And on his way to the bathroom, he fell. Fifteen minutes later, he came back, he said the Chinese wine was amazing that he felt his stomach was on fire, and he threw up; but he was sure if he just drank a sip of it, it would be much better. And we all laughed.

        Later, we continued to have our dinner. And I started to talk to the Americans. And I knew it was their last night in France, they had an early flight the next morning to catch, they were so glad to experience some exotic Chinese stuff before they left. And I also told them my experience as an exchange student, they we were quite surprised by that.

      I learned a lot from that night--

     First some basic culture difference.

     Second, it's easier to talk to a strange on a trip than in daily life. Well, we know that Americans are open, but I was also somewhat opened my heart to talk to the American actress. We even left emails to each other. However, I don't know if I will do it again later in my life. And now I'm in America now, I never spoke to a stranger, I guess that's what people do--they can easily open their heart to strangers because they will never meet each other again.

     Third, I think every behavior from others can influence our lives. I'm in USA but not UK or Australia because I met so many nice American friends (some acquaint some not), but i had unpleasant experience with people with British accent. And I just changed my major to English last week; I may also be a scriptwriter later. I believed it all happened for some reason, or what happened in my life.