SubscribeIn the weeks prior to my LSAT exam this summer, I broke the monotony of analyzing logical arguments to read Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. For those who haven’t read, it’s a fascinating look at what drives success — the kind achieved by those we’d call society’s standouts. Gladwell wrote that he became frustrated with simplistic explanations of successful people like “he’s smart” or “he’s ambitious.”
Anyway, he says a lot of achievement has to do with things beyond the individual — as you’d imagine — and I found chapter eight particularly fascinating. It was about the culture of education in Asian societies where rice cultivation is prominent. Without blowing a really great read that you ought to consider… he shows how various societies’ agrarian roots tend to influence how school is scheduled for kids. Wheat can be planted in the spring, harvested in the fall and the farmers can sit around all summer in some countries… hence the American three-month summer break. (I know, that’s very simplistic, but think about it.) But rice is tended daily — a constant battle. Gladwell quotes this old saying: “No one who can rise before dawn three hundred and sixty days a year fails to make his family rich.” Asian countries tend to keep their kids in school more days a year.
I thought at the time, “a-ha!” There’s an advantage that I’m sure has helped my dad rise above various challenges. Anecdotally, it rings true, too. My dad has incredible work ethic (workaholism?) and it must come from his youth spent in and around the rice paddies of old Yulong.
But then again — my dad didn’t complete much school growing up in China. Only about three years’ worth, he says. And that wasn’t his choice. So that whole rice paddy thing only applies to my dad to a point. He works incredibly hard. But someone or some people short-changed him on the true advantage that phenomenon is supposed to foster: a stronger education.
And an education is something I know my dad is heart-broken over never getting. Last night, we must have talked about a hundred different things ranging from business to health care reform to President Obama to the American way. My dad is curious and he knows a good deal about a lot of things despite not reading English. And I think he’s proud of his curiosity and the knowledge he has managed to acquire over the 30-plus years he’s been here.
But he said, “I’ve stayed in this country long enough to know a teeny little bit more and more [about a lot of things], but I don’t know how to manage it.”
I asked him what he meant by that. He held up an envelope and said, “Daily life, I don’t know what [this] is.” He told me the world is seen in two completely different ways: the way educated people see things and the way the uneducated see things. Yes, he’s been able to pull himself up in many ways. But he can’t “manage” what he knows — or, connect the dots, so to speak.
Isn’t that sad? It’s a crime. And that’s why education is so important. I loathe to think that there are people in this world (this country!) who still have to endure this sort of blaspheme against humanity. My dad — with so much curiosity and interest in the affairs of the world around him — is constantly bedeviled by a limitation right before his eyes. An inability to fully understand. Dad says it’s enough to cause nightmares.
I’ve always asked my dad why he’s never pursued English classes — the answer is justification enough: he’s always worked too many hours. Maybe when he retires. Someone tell me how to help him understand it’s never too late.
Luckily this doesn’t have to end as some sort of sob story. My dad doesn’t go around feeling sorry for himself. And everyone I know who’s ever met my dad sees him as a huge success. And he certainly is. Look at me, my brothers, the restaurant’s long list of happy and grateful customers. In my eyes — my old man will always be an outlier.
