Yay Frogs!

So Pine Magazine issued a challenge to its readers a couple of weeks ago: take the Frog Leap Test (an exercise they say is used to test spatial reasoning, it seems), pass it, take a screenshot, and send it to them. I did it on the second try.

Now, this program may be used with Chinese students, but I doubt that their ability to solve it at a young age means “smarter than” compared to at least the Pine Mag. editors. It’s probably just a matter of how much training you have in spatial reasoning. Perhaps the students get a focus on this earlier than students with other nation’s curricula.

Still, I cringe at the thought of someone to suggest that my being able to solve the puzzle (see below) is due to my being Chinese American. Paranoia? Perhaps. But this twisted logic is hardly absent from discussion in an American society that seems to be experiencing an upswing in xenophobic thought. As usual, I’ll slough off this thought, though.

In my case, years of learning according to the NYC specialized math and science curriculum probably helped condition me to find this a rather straightforward exercise.

Whatever the case, I’m pleased! Woohoo!

Here's my screenshot:


S
O
L
U
T
I
O
N
S

The solution is:
Y (yellow)1 - R (red) 1 - R2 - Y1 - Y2 - Y3 - R1 - R2 - R3 - Y1 - Y2 - Y3 - R2 - R3 - Y3

INT'L:HUMAN INTEREST: One Country, Many Friendships, Many Memories

Beijing teens give quake survivors warm embrace - World Blog - msnbc.com

Source: worldblog.msnbc.msn....

By Stephanie Himango, NBC News Producer
"It's the first time for us to come to Beijing!" exclaimed sixteen-year-old Su Man Ye, eyes smiling through her tiny glasses. Petite and energetic, she appeared younger than her years.

How fantastic an experience and opportunity for these girls. I dread goodbyes myself, even when reuniting is almost guaranteed.
So much of our opportunities are the result of our own social mobility and arena in which to make choices, get on a plane or bus with our own money, and steer our own future.

These opportunities are so few and far between for these young women.. thank goodness it was given.
They need more opportunities like this one - more long-term possibilities and cause for hope for something beyond occasional moments of happiness. We all need that.

INT'L: HEALTH: POLITICS: The Implications Of China's One-Child Policy

(previously published here as part of the special On Human Life edition of www.thebulletin.us)

By: Heather Chin, The Bulletin

07/25/2008

The People's Republic of China's one-child policy has impacted two generations, simultaneously strengthening the economy and challenging long-held social and cultural norms.

It was introduced as a short-term measure in 1979 to improve living standards and economic performance by controlling population growth. In this, it has been successful.

Between 1970 and 1979, when families were simply encouraged to think small, the fertility rate dropped from 5.93 to 2.66 children per woman.

After the policy took effect, the rate was reported as 1.94, even lower for women under 35. In 2003 the UN Population Fund explained these results through the near universal - 83 percent - use of contraception.

Compliance has been encouraged by the establishment of state-run Family Planning Centers throughout China. Eighty percent of villages have a family planning clinic and 99.3 percent have at least one professional family planning worker. In addition, economic incentives are given for compliance, and punishments, for having additional children.

The most notorious mechanism for the reduction in births is coerced abortion, but long-term contraceptive methods such as IUDs (intrauterine devices) and sterilization are most common. Another constraint is legally mandated minimum ages for marriage, 23 for women and 25 for men.

A 1993 article by Dr. R.E.J. Ryder in the British Medical Journal describes Natural Family Planning as a possible alternative to such measures. "Indeed a study of 19,843 poor women in [Calcutta] India had a pregnancy rate approaching zero. Natural family planning is cheap, efficient, without side effects and may be particularly acceptable to and efficacious among people in areas of poverty." The women in this study were mostly illiterate, but they had been trained in Natural Family Planning by Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity.

In the PRC, the one-child policy is strictly enforced in cities and for government employees, but there are exceptions. A second child is sometimes allowed in rural or less populated areas, if the first child has a disability, or if both parents work in high-risk jobs such as mining.

Still, the ability of parents to choose the sex of their child through selective abortion has resulted in a gender gap. The male to female ratio has increased, from 1.06 in 1979 to 1.17 in 2001, a universal phenomenon exacerbated by underreported female births and unreported adoptions of baby girls.

China's economic empowerment is indisputable, and those girls who survive the cultural preference for sons may net particular advantages in parental attention, education and marriage. However, the overall social costs have been tremendous.

While Americans are familiar with the practice of foreign adoptions, a heartbreaking trade in children has emerged within China itself.

Every year over 70,000 Chinese children are kidnapped, or sold by parents who cannot afford to care for them or cannot afford to pay the fines incurred by their "illegal" births.

Even if the one-child policy is ended, there may still only be moderate growth since most women asked by the Family Planning Commission say they want small families.

China's current population is 1.3 billion. Whatever hopes anyone may have for the policy to end immediately, the Chinese government has stated that the One-Child Policy will continue in effect for at least a decade to accommodate a "surge in births" expected among the 200 million people who will reach child-bearing age.


Heather Chin can be reached at hchin@thebulletin.us

©The Evening Bulletin 2008

A personal Chinese American reaction to the earthquake in China

Coming on the heels of Cyclone Nargis's devastation to Myanmar, the 7.9 magnitude earthquake that hit southern China filled me with anxiety. For the people hit, the families affected, and the Chinese throughout the world who wondered as to the safety of their families and friends, yes, but also an anxiety as to the reaction - or lack thereof - of the rest of the world. I worried that no one would care. I worried and believed that Americans in particular would see this as an opportunity to add to their arsenal of anti-Chinese rhetoric. I thought that donations of aid (although not as needed with this more open government than in Myanmar) and even condolence would not come because of anti-Chinese sentiment.

Thankfully, I was proven wrong on all these counts. But is my plummeting faith in the goodness, open-mindedness and even-measuredness of the human race when it comes to putting single-mindedness, ignorance and institutionalized prejudices aside really so surprising?

The sympathies and concerns of the world did come, although mainly from individuals and non-governmental organizations, since the usually common remarks of condolence were notably absent from U.S. leaders; while an admittedly meaningless token when not backed up with genuine action, it's become an expected response to any large-scale tragedy and its absence speaks volumes.
Still, good intentions can easily be premature, distorted and manipulated, or both. Take for example the report from Britain's The Independent that according to international aid org. Save the Children, China has been inundated with requests, offers and applications to adopt newly orphaned children in the last few days. The Chinese government is unlikely to bend to this pressure as they have already been staunching the constant flow of foreign adoptions of Chinese children, but the fact that these offers are being made when parents and children are still being searched for in the rubble... when parents who work in far-away factory towns are scrambling to get back to the countryside to find and hopefully identify their surviving children... when families are still coping with enormous loss, is, quite frankly, incredibly thoughtless. A cynic might comment that it figures that well-off couples in the West would immediately respond to another nation's tragedy in savior's clothing, as if the afflicted nation is incapable or unwilling to cope and care themselves. But it doesn't take a cynic to recognize the absence of both human empathy and reason in such impetuous actions.

I was born in the United States, raised here immersed in a mixture of American and Chinese values. I have never been to China and do not even read, write or speak any dialect of Chinese fluently. And yet the strong bond forged with my grandparents, as well as the millennia of fascinating and remarkable Chinese history, has given me enough pride in my heritage to make me hug it closer; make me more apt to defend it and more likely to sense it as being under attack. To be sure, ever since my elementary school days, I have been wary and critical of anything I could see as preluding a colonialization, imperialistic and assimilationist mindset, but I do not believe that this wariness is misplaced. And I still desire for this reaction to somehow effect change in the rash, impetuous, unthoughtful actions that others take towards China and foreign nations and peoples in general. Is it truly possible for this kind of transformation to occur? If so, can it happen before we destroy one another?