…and most want to come to the US. Look, up in the air. There go our real estate valuations. (I kid, I kid.) (Sort of.)

I’m sure the Chinese government is trying to keep their millionaires there, but it’s interesting that education for their children is their top reason for emigrating, with capital preservation and politics right behind.

Admittedly, I know very little about the education system in China. So I called upon my trusty search engine and found some glowing reports about 15 year-old school students in Shanghai scoring higher than US students on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). That sounds pretty positive, right?

There is a lot of debate over the validity of relying on standardized testing scores, however.

Then there are some opinion pieces that suggest the higher education system in the US is “better,” or even “the best in the world.” Ah. Perhaps that’s the impression these Chinese millionaires have as well.

Education is traditionally a top priority for Chinese families. If these millionaire families have the means and desire to uproot and move to the US, I can see the appeal.

Think someone should tell them they’ll be part of the 1% though?

This is amazing:

One hundred years ago, American teachers established the English-speaking public school system of the Philippines. Now, in a striking turnabout, American schools are recruiting Filipino teachers.

Even more amazing: these Filipino teachers are leaving their families to teach… in the impoverished, public schools of Baltimore.

Filmmaker Ramona Diaz, who won an award from the 2004 Sundance Film Festival for her film Imelda, just released her latest documentary, The Learning.

From now until October 20, 2011, you can watch the full film online. This documentary follows the experiences of four Filipina educators:

• Dorotea Godinez (high school science teacher)
• Angel Alim-Flores (7th grade math teacher)
• Grace Amper (9th grade math teacher)
• Rhea Espedido (special education elementary teacher)

They are assigned to Harlem Park Middle School, Renaissance Academy, Lockerman Bundy Elementary School and Baltimore Polytechnic Institute (one of the highest-ranked public high schools in the state). The four women brave the culture clash and disorderly classrooms because of the opportunity this presents to their families: they will be making 25 times their salary teaching in these schools, not because Baltimore is flush with cash, but because the economic realities in the Philippines are even more harsh.

As you can imagine, the struggles they face are immense. Yet:

Slowly, the students’ curiosity gets the better of them and they begin to be impressed by these foreign women who are so determined to teach them. Indeed, the very unfamiliarity of these Asian women helps their American students open up. For the Filipinas, a window also opens: They let go of their cultural expectations and begin to work with the students on American terms.

Three of the four Filipina teachers are still in Baltimore and one, Grace, has brought her family over to make a permanent home here.

The Learning is an uplifting film you’ve got to watch, not only for the courage and compassion of these Filipina teachers, but for the message of hope for the U.S. education system. It’s a nice complement to Waiting for Superman.

Hat tip: TS

We latched onto this topic and did a few Google searches. Perhaps this was our own ignorance and there are plenty out there that just haven’t made it into the general business news. But our searches were fruitless. We found plenty of Filipino entrepreneurs in the Philippines, but no Filipino American entrepreneurs. Though we started our searches in the high tech industries, we expanded them to include restaurant owners and shopkeepers, anyone who owned his/her own business, such as this article referred to me by 8Asian’s very own Jeff.

Next, we went through our own contact lists. He knew of only one other who also owns his own business. And that was it. “Why are there so few of us?” he asked. We didn’t know for sure, so I decided to dig deeper.

In the last few months, I’ve tried reaching out to colleagues to look for and interview Filipino American entrepreneurs. I even reached out to my co-founder’s friend. Sadly, none of them ever came through for an interview; perhaps they were all too busy. Then fate gave me a hand. This past weekend, I randomly met a Filipina American who co-founded a large IT services company with her husband. I spoke with her at length and got some great insights.

Below is a list of possible reasons given to me by my co-founder, the IT services business owner I met, and Jeff. Please note that there’s no scientific research to back any of this up; I simply couldn’t find any.

• Lack of press. Perhaps there are a lot of Filipino American entrepreneurs and they simply aren’t getting much press from both the mainstream media and social media. Or, they are being reported in non-English articles that don’t show up in English web searches. This article could all be a moot point because I simply can’t access the right information.
• Less tolerance for risk. Everyone I spoke with cited this reason. They believe there’s a culture of risk-avoidance in Filipino culture, especially from older generations. Failure is seen as a major taboo. “Add to that Filipinos’ love of criticism of any apparent flaw,” added Jeff, “and you get Filipinos who would rather get a job working for someone else rather than risk starting a business that could fail.”
• Less emphasis on education. Jeff said this best: “Many businesses, particularly tech businesses, are started up by professors, researchers, and grad students, of population which contains few Filipinos.” Also, “Filipinos tend to be conformist and have a deep anti-intellectual streak. As an example, ‘pilosopo’ (or philosopher) is considered an insult.”
• Lack of historical business owners. During the colonial history under the Spanish, most businesses in the Philippines were owned by ethnic Chinese Filipinos (Chinoys) or Spanish rather than Filipinos. With a lack of role models and an absent supportive environment, a culture of entrepreneurship never quite flourished. This may be changing, though most of the well-known Filipino restaurants were started by Chinoys or Spanish, like Goldilocks and Jollibee.
• Lack of persistence. There’s a culture of great initial enthusiasm, followed by a rapid drop in interest. Someone even pointed me to the Tagalog expression, ningas kugon, meaning “the flame of dry kugon grass, which burns hot and furious at first but rapidly burns out.”
• Strong family obligations. The family is the most important unit in Filipino culture, as is the obligation to put them ahead of anything else, especially a risky entrepreneurial venture that may require a significant investment of time, focus and money. In this sense, starting a business is seen as a selfish move, rather than one that is ultimately best for the family.
• Work visa restrictions Many Filipino immigrants arrived to the United States as nurses and Navy crew members on work visas. Those immigrants risked deportation if they left their employers to go start a business, therefore being an entrepreneur was hardly an option. ADDED 5:00pm PDT, HT TienVNguyen

Do you know of any other possible reasons why there are so few Filipino American entrepreneurs? Leave a comment and let me know.

I expect this post to be unpopular. Everyone I spoke with had strong feelings about this, as well as strong viewpoints. One criticism of this list is that other Asian American cultures share some of the traits, such as strong family obligations. Another is that this could apply to other Pacific Islanders as well, which I can certainly see. Others found this list offensive, and I apologize if this comes across as an insult to anyone. That is not my intention. Some of these items come from two books on Filipino American psychology by Kevin L. Nadal, PhD.

It appears that serious research has yet to be done on this topic. I don’t have the resources or know-how to do such a study myself, but my hope is that this post prompts someone to go do one – perhaps as a dissertation. If you do, please let me know. My co-founder and I, as well as many others I’d imagine, would be very interested in your conclusions. My co-founder has even considered forming a Filipino American entrepreneurship association to foster such a community.

What do you think? I would love to hear your feedback. Thanks!

[Flickr photo credit: burgermac]

Who’s that baby-faced guy up there? Why, that’s Brian Wong, the youngest entrepreneur ever to receive funding from a venture capital firm. $4.3M from True Ventures at 19 years old, to be exact. What were YOU doing when you were 19?

From Vancouver, Canada, Wong has always been ambitious. He skipped a grade in high school. Then he attended the University of British Columbia and co-founded the web marketing firm Aer Marketing during his last year there. After graduation, he founded followformation, a tool that finds the top Twitter accounts by city and interest, and Rocketkick, a couple of iPhone utility apps. I told you he’s ambitious.

Then came his invitation to Silicon Valley. Digg offered him a business development position. He accepted and gave his mother the worst Mother’s Day present ever: he moved away from home. Cool as I’m sure that opportunity was, it’s hard to keep an ambitious entrepreneur down. Six months later, he left and started Kiip.me, a rewards network for the mobile gaming market. And got $4.3M. Damn son.

If you’re not impressed or jealous yet, he’s also won a few notable awards: Mashable’s 5 Young Entrepreneurs to Watch Award, Canada’s Top 20 Under 20 Award, and the Impact Young Entrepreneur of the Year award (couldn’t find any info about that though).

The video is chock full of insightful tips and interesting anecdotes about this up-and-comer’s career. He’s a true hustler. If Wong was a stock, I’d be bullish on $WONG.

Hat tip: AsiansOnYouTube

Khan’s father is from Barisal, Bangladesh and his mother is from Calcutta, India. He himself was born and raised in New Orleans, LA. And he is anything but a bad boy.

After becoming the valedictorian of his high school, he went on to get three degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: a BS in mathematics, a BS in electrical engineering & computer science, and an MS in electrical engineering & computer science. As if that’s not enough, he also earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and did a brief stint at Xerox PARC at the same time. He finally graduated into the lucrative hedge fund industry and worked for a Northern California-based investment firm. Tiger Mom, eat your heart out.

Almost two years into his hedge fund career, he began tutoring his cousin Nadia in mathematics. Khan used a Yahoo! Messenger feature called Yahoo! Doodle, where he could draw on the screen to illustrate his lessons. This worked out well. As other relatives and friends sought his help, he decided to scale his tutelage. Thus began YouTube channel The Khan Academy.

Then one day, he got an email thanking him for his useful videos. Then another. And another. The number of views shot up. Students everywhere were discovering his video tutorials. They allowed students to learn at their own pace, stop & rewind when necessary, and clarify misunderstandings on particular topics while outside the classroom. It didn’t hurt that Khan’s manner was engaging and humorous too. Even his cousin said she preferred his videos to him in person.

As his views grew, so did the number of his videos and topics covered. Requests poured in for more topics. Physics. Organic chemistry. Differential equations. Khan happily obliged. Finally, after about six years in the hedge fund industry, including an attempt to create his own investment company Khan Capital Management, he quit to focus on the Khan Academy full-time. Bill Gates later said about this move, “We’ve moved about 160 IQ points from the hedge fund category to the teaching-many-people-in-a-leveraged-way category. It was a good day his wife let him quit his job.”

Since then, the Khan Academy has grown significantly. There are over 2,100 video tutorials, all made by Khan himself. Part-time volunteers have helped translate some of the videos too. And his vision is lofty. He explains it well in a recent TED Talk:

I feel like swooning. I love that vision. Education is one of my personal passions. I’m a fervent believer in education reform. Although I’m in the high-tech industry, I don’t believe technology is the only answer – it’s one of many tools. And Khan, in my opinion, has created a wonderful tool.

It should be noted that the Khan Academy is not a business. It is a non-profit organization. Their current full-time team of eight (how lucky!) are compensated by donations given generously by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a $2M award they received from Google’s Project 10 to the 100.

Whether you like his vision of education or not, he’s certainly had a positive impact on a lot of people. Even I found it helpful to brush up on statistics and valuation & investing myself. When the time comes, I look forward to using his tutorials to augment my children’s education too.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Life is hard enough as an Asian. Not all of us can get perfect SAT scores, graduate from medical school or trick out a Honda Civic. The pressure to embrace our culture remains but sometimes, we just don’t want to. How To Be A Bad Asian is an ongoing series of personal essays by the 8Asians writers about what sets us apart from the API community, how we deal with the stereotypes that we put upon ourselves and why we all can’t be that perfect Asian. It’s time to be bad.

Nothing scares little old Asian ladies as much as guttural growls and double-bass drum blasts. Except, perhaps, Tila Tequila. When my Mom first heard me playing a Metallica tape, she asked me if I was getting a headache. Then she asked how I could listen to people screaming and banging around furniture. This, as you can imagine, is not what she had in mind when she threw me into music to take violin lessons.

Asian Americans are not a common sight at heavy metal shows. I think I counted three at the last Slayer show and just one at All That Remains. Otherwise, it’s typically a sea of homogeneity.

(All bands are linked so you can check out some of their delectable tunes. I’m rocking out to Chimaira as I type this.)

I tell my Mom to blame it all on MTV. Faith No More’s video for “Epic” was on heavy rotation back in the day. The flopping fish was kinda sad, but the tunes were catchy and addictive. Then I discovered Headbanger’s Ball. HFS. What an awesome barrage of energy. Before all this, I didn’t have much of a musical taste. I listened to whatever pop song was on the radio. Madonna, Phil Collins, that sort of thing.

Now, I’m into a range of guitar artistry. From the psychedelic purrs of Pink Floyd to the pounding percussion of Pestilence, and most everything in between: Paul McCartney, Pearl Jam, Paradise Lost, Pain, Pantera, etc.

Most Asian Americans I meet are into pop, hip hop, or some kind of Asian-pop (J-pop, K-pop, C-pop, whatever-pop). I’m generally greeted with blank stares or, “Oh…” replies whenever I tell them what I like. A few will echo my Mom: “How can you listen to that noise?”

To be fair, there are those into hard rock and metal too. They’ll head-bang to a Megadeth song right alongside me. There’s always a fair number of Asian American fans at Linkin Park shows too, though they’re not as common at similar acts like Crazy Town or Stuck Mojo.

Rare as Asian American metalheads are, I know of a few and we’ve bonded over this fact. Even traded a few mix tapes (back in the day) and MP3s with them.

The extreme end of metal is remarkably empty of Asian Americans, however. I’m talking about sub-genres like death metal, black metal, grindcore, deathcore, etc. Understandably, this isn’t music for everyone. There are sub-genres in every form of music. Many thrive on their obscurity. They revel in being difficult to consume. And woe to the bands that go mainstream – they get labeled as sell outs.

Why are there so few Asian American fans? I don’t know, but maybe it has something to do with one’s childhood environment. I grew up in a mostly-white town. The popular genres of music here were rock and pop. No country or electronica. And hip hop was just emerging and considered to be too “black” by the popular kids.

Death metal wasn’t popular either. Metalheads, or “dirtbags,” as the other kids would call them, were the misfits and outcasts. Being a minority as one out of three Asian Americans in my school, I was also a misfit and outcast.

I started listening to death metal before falling into this crowd though. In many ways, I got along with this crowd because I listened to the same music. They were more into Black Sabbath than Bold Thrower though, more Led Zeppelin than Lamb of God but it was close enough. I liked Sabbath and Zeppelin, too. We got along with our shared tastes in killer riffs and catchy hooks.

Once I hit college, I stopped hanging out with that crowd. Gone were my heavy metal t-shirts and denim jackets. (I never had spiked leather pants though. I was into the music, not the fashion.) As a result, no one could tell I listened to death metal by my appearances – and hey, like Mom always said, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” right?

I still try to catch a show or two though and I still enjoy discovering new bands. Old school death metal acts like Death and Obituary still grace my MP3 player just as much as rockers of the newer genres, like nu metal (Saliva) and metalcore (Killswitch Engage). Yes, I do love me some crunchy guitars and growly vocals.

This is all very far from the Bach and Beethoven that my Mom wanted me to play on my violin. That’s what you get for not forcing me to practice everyday, Mom!

P.S.

Didja know there is a metal scene in Asia? Check out these Asian rockers:

• Sigh (Japanese)
• Chthonic (Taiwanese)
• Overload (Chinese)
• Vyson (Japanese)
• Moss (Chinese)
• Shadow (Japanese)
• Infernal Chaos (Taiwanese)
• Lunar Eclipse (Chinese)
• Hydrophobia (Japanese)
• Suffocated (Chinese)
• Disconformity (Japanese)
• Purgatory (Chinese)

Rock on! For more headbanging, check out Popcast88′s interview with guys behind the documentary, GLOBAL METAL.

[Photo courtesy of here]

One heart-wrenching byproduct of disasters like this one has been missing in Japan, and that’s looting and lawlessness.

Looting is something we see after almost every tragedy; for example: last year’s earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, the floods in England in 2007, and of course Hurricane Katrina back in 2005.

Then he poses the question: Why is there no looting in Japan? Here are my $0.02:

UPDATE: There clearly IS looting in Japan. So take this piece as a wannabe-academic exercise to explain a false phenomenon. Hat tip to commenters oh_snap_its_tom and ErikaHarada for pointing these links out.

It’s the Japanese culture.

The Japanese culture tends to value societal collectivism over individualism. It’s also a highly honorific society that favors rational-secular values, though the latter probably doesn’t have much to do about the lack of looting. Allow me to explain:

Societal Collectivism vs Individualism

Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania publishes a comprehensive cultural study called the GLOBE Study, which is an analysis of cultural, societal, organizational, and leadership differences between 62 different societies around the world. Similar to personality tests such as Myers-Briggs and Keirsey, the GLOBE Study breaks their analysis down into nine cultural dimensions, among other things. The nine are:

• Performance orientation
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Humane orientation
• Societal collectivism
• In-group collectivism
• Assertiveness
• Gender egalitarianism
• Future orientation
• Power distance

Japan is among the highest-rated for societal collectivism and in-group collectivism.

Societal collectivism is:

The degree to which organizational and societal institutional practices encourage and reward collective distribution of resources and collective action.

In-group collectivism is:

The degree to which individuals express pride, loyalty and cohesiveness in their organizations or families.

Japan also rated among the lowest for assertiveness.

In general, collectivist cultures tend to be “we” and “us” cultures. They rank shared goals higher than individual desires and goals, preferring to subordinate personal wishes to those of the relevant social unit.

The United States, in contrast, is on the other end of the spectrum. We have an individualistic culture that is more about “I” and “me.” Priority is given to individual freedom and choice over the collective unit.

In the GLOBE Study, the U.S. also rated among the highest in performance orientation, assertiveness.

Japan’s culture of collectivism is part of the story of why looting is lacking. Looting is a selfish act that improves your well-being at the expense of another’s. On a fundamental level, that’s not in their cultural grain (though I’m sure exceptions exist).

However, I don’t think collectivism is the full story. Reports about looting in the aftermath of China’s Qinghai earthquake in 2010 are sketchy at best. (According to that link, sparse looting did happen, but are further reports of looting being covered up or really did not happen? I haven’t been able to find reports from other collectivist countries.)

An Honorific Society

You can tell a lot about a people by their language. The words in one’s vocabulary subtly influence one’s frame of mind, both in the limits of the vocabulary and grammatical structures and idioms of the language.

Japanese is an honorific language. You use different words in different contexts. Japanese has three main categories of contexts:

• Sonkeigo: respectful language
• Kenjogo: humble or modest language
• Teineigo: polite language

In other words, you could say the same thing in three entirely different ways, depending on who you are addressing. Each has its own vocabulary and verb endings. It is considered disrespectful to use the incorrect form. Not speaking politely enough can be insulting. Speaking too politely can be distancing or seem sarcastic.

With such a fundamental form of communication, it’s not a surprise to see the Japanese culture imbued with respect, politeness and formality. Perhaps this nature saved many lives as well.

The honorific traits of Japanese culture is the other part of the story. But I think it goes a little deeper than 1 + 1 = 2.

Harmony and “Wa”

The word “Wa” is the oldest recorded name of Japan, according to ancient Chinese texts. In the 8th century, Japan change its meaning to be “harmony, peace & balance.” I think that’s a telling change. Also, Wa may have been used in a derogatory way by the Chinese, so it’s not a surprise that it was changed. But it’s the new meaning that I think has some significance.

If you take a culture that holds the group above the individual, and places an importance on respect and politeness, you get a culture that strives for harmony, peace & balance. One could also say you get a culture of “don’t rock the boat,” but every trait can be a double-edged sword.

The international blog Global Sherpa relates several interesting stories about how Wa translates to everyday behavior in Japan:

While visiting and living in Japan, I had several occasions to marvel at the inherent trustworthiness of Japanese strangers. I once accidentally left a book at a Kinko’s near Tokyo station on a business trip. By the time I got back to my hotel down the block and realized the book was missing a short while later, the Kinko’s staff had already returned the book to the hotel’s front desk.

On another trip to Japan, I somehow managed to leave a shirt and the equivalent of about $20 in change in my hotel room. When I returned to the hotel on another trip about six months later, the front desk person promptly pulled out a neatly wrapped plastic package containing everything I had left behind last visit.

It turns out my experience is far from unique. Mikako Kato, a Tokyo magazine editor, lost her wallet five times in 14 years according to a CNN article by Yuki Oda. Every time, the wallet was returned to her, complete with her credit and identification cards and even a “good deal of cash.”

His article is a fascinating account of the Lost and Found collections in Japan.

So why is there no looting in Japan?

Societal collectivism, an honorific nature, and Wa are what I see as the reasons for the lack of looting in the wake of Japan’s earthquake & tsunami.

There are pros and cons to these traits of course. I don’t mean to hold them up as models we all need to follow. The assertiveness and individualism in the U.S. has lead to numerous innovations and advances, arguably leading to our rise as a global superpower. So we must be doing something right.

But to answer Cafferty’s question: It’s the Japanese culture.

[Photo credit: Daily Mail]