While catching up on the ABC series “Lost,” earlier this year, I remember an episode where Yunjin Kim’s character, Sun, is being introduced to a prospective “boyfriend/husband” , Jae Lee, and her mother is being defferential that Sun only went to “Seoul National University” and not “Harvard,” where Jae Lee went. Well, apparently according to this recent New York Times article, “Elite Korean Schools, Forging Ivy League Skills,” going to an “elite” university in the United States is increasingly becoming more popular:
“South Korea is not the only country sending more students to the United States, but it seems to be a special case. Some 103,000 Korean students study at American schools of all levels, more than from any other country, according to American government statistics. In higher education, only India and China, with populations more than 20 times that of South Korea’s, send more students. “Preparing to get to the best American universities has become something of a national obsession in Korea,” said Alexander Vershbow, the American ambassador to South Korea. Korean applications to Harvard alone have tripled, to 213 this spring, up from 66 in 2003, said William R. Fitzsimmons, Harvard’s dean of admissions. Harvard has 37 Korean undergraduates, more than from any foreign country except Canada and Britain. Harvard, Yale and Princeton have a total of 103 Korean undergraduates; 34 graduated from Daewon or Minjok.”
Daewon and Minjok are the two private schools in Korea, and their students, that are profiled in the Times article. The schools themselves are very hard to get into, so those high school students are an elite group in themselves. The article continues to describe the heavy workload and intensity that these students bear as they pursue their (and their parents’) dreams of attending a top notch university in the U.S.
It’s this kind of thinking that I think only re-enforces the negative aspects of the “model minority” stereotype. I wonder though - is there anything inherent in Asian culture that emphasizes education over other cultures? I was having dinner with an older out-of-town white executive friend of mine who described to me his astonishment that the CEO of his company, and Indian immigrant, was going over his son’s classes that he might be taking next year as a freshman in high school. My friend said that when his kids were going to high school, it wasn’t until maybe his son’s junior year that he knew what an Advanced Placement (AP) course was. What do you think - do you think Asians over-emphasize education. Americans under-emphasize, or a little of both?
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G wrote:
I think it’s hard to objectively classify Asians as over-emphasizing education, or perhaps I’m just biased because I came from a family that thought it was a big deal
I don’t know too much about other people but the reason my mom really pushed the education thing for me and excelling in school had a pragmatic base and went like this, and keep in mind that this was her kind of a raw, blunt, overgeneralized sort of thinking:
— in order for her son (Asian male here) to be successful in America, we pretty much have to create some sort of niche for ourselves in American society. High-end careers that arguably rely more on buddy-networks and connections are out of the question, so entertainment and politics for example, are out of the question. She told me that America is mostly white and they don’t want some funny looking Asian kid on the cover of a magazine, or in office as a politician.
So given that we can’t compete on equal grounds in those areas, being brainy is the way to go. Getting a perfect score on your SAT doesn’t require those connections or anybody to know what you look like, and we can pretty much become an asset to American society in general and out-compete people of other races by being brainy.
Now that I’m older it sounds sort of dumb, but it kind of makes sense, no?
Posted on 27-Apr-08 at 2:29 pm | Permalink
SC wrote:
is there anything inherent in Asian culture that emphasizes education over other cultures?
Of course there is, east Asians have had this in cultural history for over 1000 years I mean the Chinese have been studying and taking standardized tests since Sui Dynasty in 605, in fact they are first to use standardized tests based on merit to determine who would become government officials. At the time this was the best and most prestigious jobs in the land and more importantly guaranteed family well being for many generations. This influenced even Korea, Japan with a similar systems.
So it is not surprising that Asian Americans parents value education since this system was in place until the end of the Qing dynasty in 1911 well within the range of our grandparents age.
The job types in America many have changed but education none the less creates better opportunities in recent immigrants minds based on historical content. Sometimes I even feel bad for other cultures that don’t value education, i mean it seems like they are competing against a stacked deck with over 1000 year of tradition and experience..
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Posted on 28-Apr-08 at 3:21 pm | Permalink
Lana wrote:
G, I’m sorry dude, but that makes sense and sounds VERY dumb, not ’sort of’ dumb.
Posted on 28-Apr-08 at 5:25 pm | Permalink
Xxxtine wrote:
I think what G’s mom really meant was that education was the foot in the door - and as long as your education was top notch and impressive and you excelled on that level, potential employers would be stupid not to at least give you an interview.
Posted on 28-Apr-08 at 6:14 pm | Permalink
G wrote:
Haha yeah I need to learn to be succinct like XXXtine
Posted on 28-Apr-08 at 9:13 pm | Permalink
John wrote:
SC - I was wondering if anybody was going to bring this up :-). Although my impression was that civil service exams started before the Sui Dynasty in 605, like shortly after Confucious’ time (i.e. after 479 BC)
Posted on 28-Apr-08 at 9:15 pm | Permalink
sc wrote:
that’s correct the civil service exam did start around 479 but it wasn’t standardized and merit based until the sui dynasty, it was kind of like the SAT of the times higher scores meant better placement. the basic exam started in 115 on based on the six-arts.
So in essence the Chinese actually have been studying and testing for over 2000 years, it’s no wonder they are damn good at school in general, it’s part of the cultural heritage after all. In fact if you go to many schools in h.k, china and taiwan they still use the same studying/cramming rote learning methods of 2000 years ago, which according to Americans is better suited for exams taking than for pro-active learning according to Americans who of course score poorly when taking these exams against the rest of the world.
Posted on 28-Apr-08 at 11:18 pm | Permalink