Malaysian Races are Stuck in Prisoner's Dilemma

Let's talk about prisoner's dilemma and how this relates to Malaysia's interracial relationship.

You and your partner-in-crime are arrested and imprisoned. You are both in solitary confinement with no means of communicating with each other.

Each of you is given the opportunity either to betray the other by testifying that the other committed the crime, or to cooperate with the other by remaining silent. The offer is:

• If you betray each other, each of you serves two years in prison 
• If one betrays another but the other person remains silent, the traitor will be set free and the silent partner will serve three years in prison. 
• If you both remain silent, both of you will serve only one year in prison. 

Think about what you would do, and what would have been the best self-serving strategy.

• If you think your partner was going to betray you, then your best strategy is to betray him (as you would serve 2 instead of 3 years) 
• If you think your partner was going to stay silent, then your best strategy is still to betray him (as you would serve 0 instead of 1 year). 

Therefore, if both you and your partner are "smart", the most likely outcome would be that you both betray each other, and you both end up with two years. This unfortunately is non-ideal, as it turns out that both people remaining silent would have been the best case scenario, however the lack of information and the mutual distrust has driven you to choose the worst options.

Let's talk about how this relates to politics in Malaysia. Many of the more politically conservative Malays are holding the sanctity of the Malay special rights as the key to the race's survival and success in the country. Politicians continue to toy with this sentiment and encourage the continued affirmative action and discrimination of non-Malays in matters such as scholarship, business ownerships and other policymaking. They are keen to keep most non-Malays out of MARA and UiTM.

Chinese, on the other hand, have long had the besieged mentality. They fight to keep the vernacular school, and many continue to practise racial discrimination in employment and trades. Some major Chinese-owned companies discriminate against the Malays, citing "government already helps them, we have to protect our own people". On the topic of separate schooling system being a source of racial segregation, they say "you have to abolish UiTM and religious schools first before we even think about it".

Both Malays are Chinese are choosing the suboptimal strategy due to the distrust of each other. Any clear-thinking person could see that the best strategy for everyone is for all of us to abandon our own shields and mutually pointed spears, and start helping each other regardless of skin colour. However, almost every single day we continue to be disillusioned by betrayal of our leaders - people continue to speak of DAP's failure to protect the Chinese interests or PPBM's ability to protect the Malays.

In other words, we are like the two prisoners who choose to betray each other, unable to recognise that cooperating with each other is in fact the optimum strategy that we need.

Unfortunately mutual attack and "tit-for-tat" remains the "optimum" survival strategy in this racial game in Malaysia. Until a huge revolution or a brave leader is able to get us to play a different game altogether, it’s hard for us to leave this age-old game of survival between races in this country. This is the disappointing reality I have come to witness

6 ÷ 2 (1+2) = ?

Personal Note: It's been more than a year since I last wrote on this blog, and let's just begin by stating that, YES I AM ALIVE. It's been an interesting fifteen months, where I transformed from a sheepish new intern with a quavering voice while saying "Hi it's Yang one of the... doctors" to a more confident doctor who is still humbled everyday by the nature of the amazing job. Oh and I also got engaged in the process. :)

You have seen it before. Yes, this is a reincarnation of the infamous 48/2(9+3). 

If you have not seen it, take a few seconds to work out the answer. In fact, even if you have seen it, try to solve the equation again in your head. 

Now that you have got it, let's check the answer. The "correct" answers are 288 and 9 respectively. Now, I will explain the quotation marks in a second.

When the original 48/2(9+3) question was released into the World Wide Web, it cooked up a storm as people hotly debated whether the answer should be 288 or 2. The "correct" answer is derived based on the strict interpretation of the "BODMAS" rule, which stands for Brackets, Order (Exponent), Division and Multiplication, Addition and Subtraction. Based on this rule, the operation should be

48 / 2 (9+3)
= 48 / 2 (12)
= 24 (12)
= 288

On the other hand, the proponent of the answer of 2 works it out this way:

48 / 2 (9+3)
= 48 / 2 (12)
= 48 / 24
= 2

Evidences have been thrown about in support of each argument. WolframAlpha and Google's default calculators both give the "correct" answer of 288. [1][2] However, different scientific calculators give either versions of the answer depending on brands and models. 

So which answer do I think is correct? I think the first one is technically correct, but the second one is not wrong either. The biggest mistake is in fact the person who wrote such an ambiguous expression in the first place. 

Before we go any further, let me introduce you to this video by vihart (starting from 2:32)

"I would like some juice or water with ice - do you mean you want either juice with no ice or water with ice, or do you mean you want either juice with ice, or water with ice?"

Essentially this argument is pointless. It detracts from the true spirit of mathematics which is to derive and discern fascinating pattern and relationship in nature based on a set of axioms. All this argument does is to delve into syntax which evolved arbitrarily in the evolution of mathematical notation  - it has NOTHING to do with whether the maths is right or wrong.

The conflict comes from the fact that "BODMAS" is taught in primary schools when we still use the sign "X" to mean multiplication, and the sign ÷ to mean division, and if you wrote out this equation 6 ÷ 2 X (1 + 2), then no one would have gotten it "wrong" based on the simple BODMAS rule. 

However, as we progress in our mathematical education, X is replaced by simply having two entities written next to each other, and ÷ is replaced by writing out the expression as a fraction. Because of this, when first presented with this writing of 6 ÷ 2(1+2) [also note the very intentionally misleading spacing in the original photo], the intuition in anyone who have become familiar with the advanced mathematics notation would automatically translate this into:

especially due to our natural instinct of grouping the multiplication together when a bracket is involved. So this is where the mistake came from. 

Just throwing a last question here to illustrate my point: what is 1/2x? Is it half of x, or is it the inverse of 2x? The answer is, it is neither, it's just a poorly constructed mathematical expression, and the debate on semantics is just a waste of time.

Of Poking, Sucking and Bumming Around in a Shanghai Hospital

As you may have read from my previous posts, I did my elective work in Shanghai for four weeks last December and January. Overall, my elective term in Rui Jin Hospital has been a bit of a mixed bag. While there have been intriguing, interesting and eye-opening moments, there have also been hours of boredom and frustration.

Acupuncture:



I did the first two weeks of elective in the acupuncture unit. The opportunity to see the coexistence and cooperation of both Western and Traditional Chinese Medicine has been one of the greatest reasons for my choosing to go to Shanghai. Eye-opening it has indeed been. Much as we were shocked to see the depth the needles go into (up to 2-3 inches in some areas), we were also quite impressed by the acupuncturists' firm knowledge and understanding of Western medicine. In fact they devote a good proportion of their training years in Western medicine alone. A patient presenting with fatigue would first be examined for thyroid function and blood sugar among others, by the acupuncturists themselves! They can also order X-rays, CTs and interpret them. So it's been both comforting and surprising to learn that Chinese medicine practitioners are not as ignorant as some might believe them to be - in fact the irony is on us to not know more about them.



Despite the novelty, we found that we couldn't do much in the unit and soon enough it became a drag to spend time day in day out. As the needle insertion involves a level of dexterity and special techniques, we were not allowed to perform it on the patients. So all the time we only got to stand and observe the procedure, and occasionally we were called upon to remove the needle after the treatment. The only other thing we got to do is applying and removing suction cups, which is a procedure where a heated glass jar is applied onto acupuncture points and left in place for a few minutes via vacuum suction.



Overall it's an interesting experience, despite the lack of practical opportunity, I would recommend medical students with an interest in Chinese Medicine to spend some time in the acupuncture unit. However, we found that two weeks were a tad too long for the purpose, so a one-week stint would have probably been a better option.

Cardiology:



I chose cardiology due to my interest in the specialty. I was assigned to an attending who was stationed at the CCU, which I later found to be simply a fancy term for post- and pre-operative observation area for pacemaker insertion. There were also some occasional paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation patients who were there for either pharmacological or electrical cardioversion. But basically that's all the patients I got to see in the 10-bed unit.



Unfortunately the experience over the two weeks have been rather uninspiring, to put it mildly. The unit (and I suspect the hospital as a whole) is not familiar with the concept of elective terms, and I was treated as a transparent passive spectator of the department most of the time. In my two-week stay in the department, I only got involved with the daily 20-minute ward round with zero to little teaching, as well as observing a few angiography, an EP study from afar and a couple of permanent pacemaker insertion. Most of the other time, I was left to my own device sitting in a room with some junior doctors and research students. My attending was hardly within sight at any time.

In general medical students don't get to do much ward duties or get involved in any active patient management, so all this made the experience very bland. By day three I was already looking forward to the end of it.

General:



If you are looking for an action-packed or highly educational elective then this hospital is the last place you want to be. However, it did offer me a very personal insight into China's healthcare system which is sophisticated and chaotic at the same time. If exposure is what you value in your elective then it's not too bad a place. Shanghai is a shopping haven and food paradise, and the surrounding cities such as Hangzhou and Suzhou are all very captivating.

If you want some better teaching and more enthusiastic staff who speak better English, I heard that Huashan Hospital (also in Shanghai) is better in these regards. Choosing surgery units is also recommended as you do get to see a lot of cases including the rare ones - remember, even if a rare condition has a prevalence of one in a million, China has 1,300 of them.

A Nightmare

I had a nightmare the other day.

I was sitting in the back row of a maths class in my high school. It was a classroom of about 40 students. As usual, at the front was a maths teacher who was rambling on some basic principles nonchalantly. He was also making some random irrelevant political remarks.

The air was as stale as last week's white bread. It was so boring that I was staring blank into the space. Some people were taking notes of what the teacher said. Some copied it verbatim. I couldn't be bothered.

As if realising the staleness of the air itself, the teacher suddenly decided to stir up the air by running a spot-check on our notebooks. With raised eyebrows he inspected our notes, barely giving any appreciation for those who jotted down his excellent political remarks word-by-word. You just can't expect him to do that.

Then he came to me. And my book was blank.

"HOW DARE YOU not paying any attention in my class. You are so disrespectful. You will be deducted five points from the final maths exam for your conduct!"

I was absolutely horrified.

Flushed with indignation, I retorted,

"You were just teaching basic things, why should I copy down what you said? If you said one plus one equals two, should I copy that down too?! Give me back my five points!"

He ignored me. I sat down trying to contain my pent-up anger.

Ten minutes later the class went on as usual. I continued to not take any note and the girl in front continued to write down everything.

And then he decided to do another spot-check.

He came to me.

And I woke up.

Image Credit: Teachers happy to get more work, responsibilities for Teachers’ Day « Nose4news

p/s: This is a real dream. And for some reasons that teacher is En. Ilias for those who know him :P

Big Boob Blooper - A Story on FAIL Journalism

This is about a news article in The Star (published on November 12, 2009) that turned out to be a fake news fabricated by a supermarket tabloid 6 years ago.

To save myself the trouble of telling the whole story again, let me attach the complaint letter I wrote to The Star here:

Dear The Star Editor,

I am writing with regards to the news on  "a study in the US showing that women with bigger breasts were found to be smarter". For your information, this is a fake news which was reported in World Weekly News back in Nov 4, 2003. Yes, from six years ago. The original news is available here. You can verify that this "news" is identical to the one reported in The Star.

Evidence that this news is fake:

1. World Weekly News is a supermarket tabloid renowned for its outlandish cover stories often based on supernatural and paranormal themes and an approach to news that verged on the satirical.
   
   
2. Note the informal language this article is written with.
   
   
3. Read the previous and subsequent pages. Note the trivial and exaggerated writing.
   
   
4. A search in Google Scholar (Google's academic journal search engine) for published articles by Rossdale in chicago returned no matching result. Google Scholar is a comprehensive academic search engine so the lack of matching result implies the non-existence of the study.
   
   
5. A search for "yvonne rossdale" in Google shows only copies of the original article from World Weekly News. If you browse through some of the results, there are many websites in which people have pointed out that Dr. Yvonne Rossdale does not exist.
   
   
6. A search in Google News for "chicago breasts" shows that only The Star and Hindustan Times (which in turn copied The Star I believe) are reporting on this news. No other major news outlet is picking up on this "study".

I am absolutely appalled by The Star's negligence in verifying the authenticity of the news before the publication. This fake news has now been disseminated widely over the Internet, and your company's negligence is responsible for the misinformation. It is mentioned that this news is compiled from Sin Chew Daily which in turn is quoting from a Singaporean paper, but I have not been able to find the articles in Sin Chew or any Singaporean paper. I would like you to point me to the original article in these papers, so that I can forward this email to them as well.

More importantly, I would like The Star to publish a correction in a conspicuous corner as soon as possible. I fervently hope that in the future your employees remember to verify all news with primary sources (isn't that in Journalism 101 by the way?) before publication lest your reputation deteriorates.

Thanks.

Regards,
Chang Yang Yew

Let us see how The Star responds to the hoax story they have published.

Of Learning in Medicine (1)

I enrolled in medicine in the most unusual yet not unexpected circumstances.

Since I was little, I have always been a maths and physics guy. I read popular science magazines, I read my dad's old Chinese maths textbooks (they ARE interesting). I have never picked up a Biology textbook with much enthusiasm, neither have I ever been attracted by the animal or human body documentaries in National Geographics Channel.

Throughout my high school years, most people expected me to go on to study maths, engineering, actuarial science and the sorts, and I kinda took up the expectation as my own goal too. At one point I was considering MIT as a goal, seeing that participation in the IMO could be a useful line in the CV. However, my procrastination and lack of motivation eventually reigned over my temporary ambition. I never got beyond reading the university brochure.

Eventually, I enrolled in medicine. You could probably argue that I was just following the footsteps of my sisters, and I can't deny that it did play a huge part in my decision. But beyond that, I chose medicine because of the satisfaction I thought I could derive from medicine in terms of intellectual fulfillment, job satisfaction, social status and monetary stability.

Besides, I chose medicine over the other aforementioned options because I thought that those paths offer less satisfaction, and that I don't want to be doing maths in a cubicle forever. That could be just an excuse, I don't know. Even today, I still suspect whether this line was a lie I obstinately hold on to, just so that I could justify my not pursuing paths in alignment with my interest and talents.

But I thought it didn't matter.

[To be continued...]
Image Credit: Vagus Surgicalis

The Fifth Year

From tomorrow onwards, I am going to become one of the "fifth year medical students" in the hospital.

While the sound of  "a fifth year medical student" might inspire a considerable amount of confidence in the laymen, embarrassingly I find the confidence unfitting for my knowledge and skill. After four years of studies, all I could command is some bare grasp of the most common diseases, and little to no knowledge of the rarer conditions. All I could do is to insert an IV cannulae (even this was last done quite a while ago), shove a tube up the urethra of an anaesthetised patient and feel blindly inside a man's anus. That doesn't sound like too much but it's enough to overwhelm me.

It's going to be one of the more challenging times. Kicking start tomorrow at 7am - Gastrology, Hepatology, GI & Hepatobiliary Surgery, General Surgery. Stay tuned to Austin Hospital, at various places. Be on time. Pray that Connex doesn't break down. And hopefully, just hopefully, everything will turn out fine, or even enjoyable.


Image Credit: The Royal Women's Hospital - Biographies

The Time of the Year Again

It's here again. After 18 weeks, this hectic semester has finally come to an end. I am going to have an exam on next Friday.

In our exams, there are going to be four stations, each one lasting for 9 minutes. In two of these, we are supposed to take a history from a patient who present with a complaint like a stomach ache. In another two of these, we will be asked to examine a certain body system of the patient. For all stations, we have to give our differential diagnoses i.e. possible diagnoses for whatever we found through history or examination.

After the exam, I will have three weeks in Melbourne, and then fly home. I am so looking forward to it. :) Till then, I might just have a break in this blog. See you later!

Waking Up in a Surgery, Paralysed

Yesterday I came across this article titled "Awake During Surgery" in MX during my ride home. A 24-year-old patient in Northern Territory of Australia woke up during gall bladder surgery, felt every single cut by the surgeon, but couldn't do anything because she was totally paralysed.

Read the news below.

Woman wakes up during surgery
12:00 AEST Tue Nov 18 2008
By ninemsn staff

A Northern Territory woman has endured a nightmare operation at Alice Springs Hospital after she became conscious during stomach surgery but remained paralysed by the anaesthetic.

Rebecca Jones, 24, told the Northern Territory News she could feel every cut of the surgeon's knife during the operation last month but was unable to scream for help as the anaesthesia had paralysed her.

Ms Jones, who was being operated on for gallstones, said she could not open her eyes but could hear and feel everything.

"I thought the doctors had woken me up because the surgery was over — I quickly realised that was not the case," she was quoted by the Northern Territory News as saying.

Ms Jones realised her predicament when she took a breath and found she couldn’t move, but eventually moved her hand to get the attention of surgery staff — to no avail.

"(Someone) said, 'she's just moved her hand' but they kept going," she said.

The hospital's general manager Vicki Taylor admitted to the NT News that Ms Jones had been awake during the operation but denied medical staff knew of her pain.

Ms Jones is now considering legal action against the hospital.

Awareness during anaesthesia may sound like the worst nightmare to most people. Just imagine this. You are helplessly wired up like a spaceman outside a theatre, wheeled into the threatre full of fear of the unknown. Within minutes, the anaesthetist injects some anaesthetic agents into your body, and soon you drift into unconsciousness. Some time later, while you slowly return from the oblivion of anaesthesia, instead of having someone tell you "the operation was successful" like what you see in drama, you actually feel the surgeon cranking and churning your stomach and the anaesthetists discussing today's Sudoku puzzle. Worse, the surgeon might be commenting on your humongous intra-abdominal fat. You lie there, full of fear, wishing this is just a dream but it isn't. Worse, you couldn't move.

Everyday awareness during anaesthesia is experienced by about 100 people in the theatre in US alone. Having had some experience with anaesthesia (I spent one year doing a research in the Anaesthesia department), I am glad I have never come across any horror stories in the theatre. While horror stories like this may deter some people from ever having a surgery in the future, allow me to allay your fear by assuring you that this is very uncommon (only 1 in 1000), and you shouldn't feel any pain even if you wake up.

In the theatre, here are a few things that anesthesiologists / anaesthetists could rely on as an indicator of patient's anesthesia status (from the trivial to the more technical):

1. Patient is not moving. But this is not reliable especially when the patient is given muscle relaxant, as is the case for abdominal surgery like in this woman.

2. Patient's vital signs are not showing sympathetic outflow (BP, heart rate, sweating etc). This could possibly be masked by the other drugs given during surgery. Even if the vital sign changes are noted, it could have simply be perceived as an autonomic reaction towards pain, and interpreted as inadequate analgesia. (Yes your body still react to pain when you are under GA). So the anesthesiologist could have simply given her more IV analgesics instead of checking her consciousness status.

3. The concentration of the volatile agent (gas used to put you under) in the lung, called MAC (minimum alveolar concentration). In most modern hospitals, this is continuously monitored through the anesthetic monitor. Judging from the concentration of volatile agent PLUS opioid analgesics PLUS/MINUS other sedatives (sometimes used), the anesthesiologists have a good indication of whether the patient *should be* asleep.

The problem with this method is that sometimes people have idiosyncratic reaction or tolerance towards particular types of agents, so while statistically a particular combination of MAC and opioid and midazolam could anesthetize 99.99% population, there's no telling who that 0.01% is going to be.

4. Last but not least, an optional (but expensive) monitoring called BIS is used to detect the "brain activity" during anesthesia. This is a series of electrodes attached to the forehead to monitor the electroencephalography (EEG, the "brainwave"). It gives a number from 0 to 100 which roughly translates to the spectrum of consciousness from total brain silence to fully awake. It is not used all the time because of the cost, occasional inaccuracy and the fact that the monitoring above (3) is deemed sufficient.

Regardless of all monitoring and precaution, awareness during anesthesia is a recognised complication during surgery, which, although minimizable, is not 100% preventable. In addition to the idiosyncratic responses mentioned above, in certain surgeries (e.g. in major trauma, elderly patients or pregnant woman) the anesthesiologists in fact go for minimal anesthesia due to their fragile cardiovascular system. So in these population there is a higher risk of awareness, but even for them the risk is about one in a few hundred operations.

Anesthesiologists routinely inform the patients about the risk of awareness when they give consent for the operation. Therefore, though the lady endured a horrifying experience, as long as the anesthesiologists did not make any mistake, she could have simply been unlucky and has no case to make against the doctors.

So go ahead and have your surgeries if you need them. You *should be* in good hands (if you *are* in good hands).

Image Credit: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/article899011.ece

The Nerve Stimulator

So I was in the theatre another day with an anaesthetic doctor. The doctor was a very enthusiastic and informative teacher. He was good looking too, but of course that's not a huge concern for me.

This is a rather informal kind of learning environment, so we kind of just touch on random topics about anesthesia as the doctor goes on doing his stuff. That patient in the theatre was having an appendicectomy (removal of appendix in appendicitis), and he was given a general anaesthesia together with muscle relaxant to aid the operation. The muscle relaxant works by paralysing all skeletal muscles in the body, but there is one problem: they could wear off. So how do you tell when to top up some muscle relaxant? There is a very simple trick they use - they shock the nerves and look at the muscles jerk in response to the electric pulses. In this particular case, the doctor attached the wire next to the patient's right eye, and the eye muscle flickered when the electric was delivered.

As I was watching the doctor shock the patient's eye, curiosity had the better of me.

Me: "Just wondering, if you do this on a conscious patient, will they hurt?"

Doctor: "What do you think? Do you want to try?"

Doctor: * Take the wire off the patient, and attach it to my right forearm *

Nerve Stimulator: * TICK TICK TICK TICK *

OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH. It hurts. Thank you doc.

How It Feels to Have a Stroke

What does it feel like to have a stroke? No one can tell the experience better than Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. A brain scientist by profession, one day she woke up with a pounding headache, and over a few hours she felt her mind deserting her slowly but inexorably. Immediately she knew she had a stroke. She tried to call for help, but she couldn't - she lost the ability to talk.

Nine years later, she stood forward and gave an inspiring lecture in the TED conference. It's tremendously insightful and touching at the same time. Towards the end I kind of felt that she's getting excessively emotional and pretentious - but probably that's only because I can't empathise what she's been through.

This is a video you don't want to miss. If you have 18 minutes to spare, you will not regret watching it.

Watch Your Heart

A very intense but educational video. Watch it - this is two minutes that could save your life. Or the life of someone you love.

Last night's curry!

The Abused Probability (4)

This post is a pseudo-continuation of a previous post.

Do you know that an athlete's astrological sign is correlated to his or her achievement in the Olympic Games? After comparing the birthdates of every Olympic winner since the modern Games began in 1896, a statistician discovered gold medals really are written in the stars. And the news is published in Reuters, one of the most recognised news agency in the world!

Now, if you have some five minutes to spare, go ahead and read the news article in Reuters. Ponder about it for a while, and take a stand on the issue. Then read this reply in Good Math, Bad Math.

You would be amazed by just how easily we could be misled by abused probability, especially when it comes from some crackpot "authority" and published in the mainstream media.

After One Week

I am exhausted. After one week, all I realise is that my time management skills is virtually non-existent.

Will fill in more details when I have time. I am gonna spend more than two hours travelling on trains and buses everyday for the next six week.

I am optimistic, but I am still learning how best to learn.

Back to School

The long, careless holidays are coming to an end, and I am going back to "school" today.

I am now officially a clinical student, and this is the stage where everyone starts to get a taste of the real medical life. This semester I have a grueling 19-week timetable without a break in Austin Hospital and Northern Hospital. My travel time is going to be 40 minutes and 60 minutes respectively via buses and trains.

I guess I am about to know how true all those "Melbourne public transport sucks" complaints are.

Image Credit: Major Projects in Victoria - Austin Hospital

Mathematics in Malaysia (2) - Overemphasis of Practice

Note: This post is adapted from my comment in ReCom, and I think it is an apt continuation of an earlier post.

From my personal experience and brief scanning of math threads in ReCom, I observed that many teachers advocate "practice makes perfect" philosophy in the teaching of mathematics. And as someone who loves maths and wishes to see higher mathematical aptitude in Malaysia, the prevalence of such mentality in our schools disturbs me profoundly.

Maths is about understanding, logical reasoning, critical analysis and creativity. NOT rote memory and algorithmic drills. Among all our subjects in secondary and primary schools, maths is arguably the subject that requires the highest degree of comprehension. Ironically, among all subjects, it also tends to be the subject where the most number of teachers give their students a daily drill of "do more practise and you should do better in it", instead of "think and learn more about it to understand it better".

Now, I fully understand and empathize that not everyone is able to fully understand all mathematical concepts taught in school, as each and every one of us are born with unequal talents in different fields. You may be a fine artist but flunk your math tests on a regular basis; I may ace math tests but draw like crap. So in this regard, I understand that it's indeed necessary for teachers to make practice an essential component in mathematical education, as it is indeed the easier, if not the only way for many people to do well in maths exams.

However, I have a feeling that practice has been overemphasized in our schools, to the extent that it has now supplanted understanding which is the essence of mathematics. You often hear people giving advice like "do more, more and even more practice until you are sick of it, and that would be the highest level you could achieve in preparing for maths tests". But you don't often hear, "hey my friend, let's work together to understand what this formula actually mean, why it is true and how it actually works". From my personal experience, when faced with such approach of teaching, many people simply turn it down and say "hey skip the crap, just tell me how to do it from the first step to the last". It seems that understanding is now relegated to something that only Olympiad maths participants should be interested in, the rest of us should aim more at buying more practice books.

Practice is good for SPM exams, this fact nobody can deny. However, when understanding is being increasingly perceived as an unnecessary evil, and practice being supposed to be the most economical approach for good exam scores, I fear that we will do badly when it comes to "real world maths". When you go to university, you would realise that "step by step" and "practice" is no longer relevant - understanding is the key. With years of incessant practice and scarce attention to understanding, I fear that many people, even those who actually have the intellectual capacity in the first place, would have been blunted in their creativity and comprehensive faculty, and consequently face hindrance in their further studies.

I hope that this post doesn't come down as being elitist, but this is something I care deeply about so I would love to hear from others about this.

Ridiculous Indeed

I was chatting with a friend about history (called Sejarah in Malay language) in Malaysia a while ago. As we shared our thoughts, I am reminded of something that happened to me in Form one.

Form One was the first year I came to learn Sejarah "academically". I remember that for almost the whole year, the only thing we learned was the history of the Malacca Sultanate. Founded by Parameswara, a prince from Palembang, Malacca thrived as an entrepôt where traders along the East-West route converged for trading.

Our teacher was a great narrator. She always had a great way of making Sejarah interesting for us. At the same time, however, she had the tendency to aggrandize the greatness of the Sultanate, to the extent of describing Malacca as the world capital and the leaders as flawless statesmen. She also has this ludicrous way of punishing us - she got us to run around the school as the punishment for not doing her homeworks.

So there was one day that she said something ridiculous. I can't remember exactly what she said, but I think it was something like, if the Portuguese had not used some unfair magical tactic to distract the Malacca troops, the troop would have been able to fend off even ten Portuguese marine troops. Or China during 15th century would have had to bow to Malacca's greatness. Something like that.

As recalcitrance got the better of me, I yelled out indignantly,

"MUKA TEMBOK"
["Shameless"]

The teacher's jaw dropped. She hurled the chalk towards the blackboard, then sat down livid with anger. Go figure the rest of the drama with your imagination. Or ask Eric.

That would go down the history as the most ridiculous thing I have done in my life.

Some Questions About Water

When my housemates and I were having dinner yesterday night, someone brought out some interesting questions:

1. There is a boat on a lake, and inside the boat there is a guy and a stone. The guy throws the stone out of the boat. Will the water level of the lake rise, fall, or remain the same? Here the water level is in reference to the land, not the water level of the boat. Also, assume that the total water volume of the lake is constant.
   
   
2. What if instead of a stone, the person breaks a wooden plank from the boat and throw it into the lake? Assume that the plank is less dense than the water.
   
   
3. You are swimming on the lake. You peed. What will happen to the water level of the lake? What if you are diving instead of swimming?
   
   
4. You are sitting on a bath tub with the plug on and some water in the tub. You peed. What will happen to the water level?
   
   
5. Same with 4, but instead of peeing, you poo-ed. What will happen to the water level? What about fart? (Thanks to Thow Kong for the brilliant question. :P)

Question 1 is supposedly one of the questions asked during the Oxford university interview. If you are able to solve number 1, you should be able to do the rest since they are kind of similar. Contact Thow Kong for the answer to the last question.

Of Chinese-Ed, English-Ed and the Many Kinds of Chinese

Note: Adapted from my comment in a ReCom thread.

That was a heck of a long title, but it summarises what I am going to write, i.e. Chinese-educated Chinese, English-Educated Chinese, and the mutual disparagement and aversion between them.

To begin with, let me define the terms in this article. Chinese-ed and English-ed are vague and ill-defined terms; but in the context of Malaysia, Chinese-eds are people who learned Chinese language up to the level of primary school / secondary school / Form 5 (depending on the context); while English-eds are simply any Chinese who are not Chinese-ed. Not terribly accurate terms, but this is how it goes.

If you have been living in Malaysia long enough, I am sure you would have noticed the commonplace prejudice towards people from different education backgrounds. Some Chinese-eds tend to paint a generalised, biased picture of the English-eds, that is, they are often perceived as being more self-centred, ardent admirers of everything from "the West", and most importantly, they "forget their roots". They are often referred to with the derogatory term "bananas" - yellow on the outside, but all white inside. On the other hand, English-eds tend to view the Chinese-eds as being deeply engrossed and obsessive of their language / culture / "root" to the extent of compromising other responsibilities such as the national unity (e.g. the resistance to Vision schools). There is also some counter-aversion by English-ed, stemming from their suffering from prejudice cast by the Chinese-ed.

The rabbit hole goes deeper. Even among the Chinese-eds, you have this stratification of "Chinese-eds who learned the language up to UPSR","Chinese-eds who learned up to PMR but 'betrayed the culture' by dropping SPM Chinese"; and "the TRUE Chinese who took Chinese paper up to SPM without fear for the A2". (See note for more information) The first two groups are deemed to be inferior and more disgraceful than the last group.

I am absolutely appalled by this phenomenon.

Chinese need to wake up to the fact that racial chauvinism is not the way to go in this world, or at the very least, outside China. Yes, written and spoken language are a huge part of a race's identity; but to disparage your fellow friends because of his inability to write, read or speak in Chinese language simply show arrogance and ignorance on your part. Some Chinese in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan etc look down on foreign Chinese who can't speak Mandarin, but to do so is pathetically ignorant of the stories of Chinese diaspora throughout the world.

For the case of "people who didn't take up SPM Chinese" = shameful... why, why, why? Some people might be native Chinese speakers, as they are brought up in a mandarin-speaking family who speak Mandarin and read Chinese papers on a daily basis. Naturally, they will be relatively more fluent and proficient in the language. Some others may have it the harder way, as their family may not be the most conducive environment for learning Chinese, but yet they managed to build a good command in the language through sheer hard work. They definitely deserve our respect. However, some people have never had conducive environment, and had struggled to do well in Chinese language despite continuous effort. In your opinion, are they obliged to take up SPM Chinese just to prove that "they are Chinese", or so that they do not appear to leave out their compatriots who are fighting the cruel grading of SPM Chinese?

I personally know a friend who is from the last category, and he had to go through the ordeal of SPM Chinese as my school makes the subject compulsory. Despite his blood, sweat, and tears, he "only" got an A2 in the end, to much detriment of his scholarship opportunity in spite of his overall excellence in every subject. He only managed to get the scholarship he truly deserved with the help of MCA.

And no, he didn't "become more Chinese", as some claimed SPM Chinese's benefit to be. In fact his aversion towards the language only grew stronger. The only thing we gained from forcing him to take up SPM Chinese, is the false sense of vindication among the overzealous Chinese, who think that "YES, another student has preserved his root and has stood up to the injustice of deviant SPM Chinese marking." But that is also where the benefit ends.

I am all for Chinese learning Chinese language, or for that matter, any foreigner learning Chinese language. It is a beautiful language, it has painted sublime poetry throughout history and adorned the Chinese civilisation. I have always given my wholehearted support for the effort to preserve the opportunity of learning the language in Malaysia and other countries. However, I think that people ought to do away with the systematic discrimination down the "levels of Chinese education", which in turn depends on a lot of factors like opportunity, logistics, interest, and to a huge extent, odds. We need to rethink our obsession of linking Chinese exam papers and Chinese-ness, Chinese identity, Chinese culture or what have you. If there's a single most detrimental effect of the ridiculously low A1 percentage in SPM (with respect to other subjects), in my opinion, it is to widen the divide within the Chinese community.

I must say that I have had enough of it. It ought to be rectified, or there will come a day when I am ashamed to identify myself as part of this racial group.

Note: For the uninitiated, SPM Chinese is one of the most dreaded subjects in the SPM exam, the reason being that only a very low percentage of candidates obtain A1 in it (around 1 - 2% since 2001) compared to most other subjects (around 10 - 20%). Many people dropped this subject in SPM because it lowered their chance of getting scholarships if they did not get an A1. Many people allege that the low percentage is an attempt by the government to deter Chinese from learning their own language, while some claim that this is to cut down the number of Chinese getting the much-coveted JPA scholarship. Read more about this issue in Education Malaysia blog and ReCom (Malaysian Student Forum).

Image Credit: Saratoga News

Two-Thirds Majority

To those who think I am going to write "yet another" grandmother-tale political commentary, please be glad that this is not about politics.

I am talking about my research project.

I started my research project back in late August last year, and it's been going on non-stop since except for my one-month holidays in Malaysia in January and February. For my research, I have to get 70 patients in order to obtain statistically significant result. Or in other words, 70 patients are required so that my finding is going to "hold more water" from the rigorous scientific point of view.

And after 5.5 months of recruitment, I have only got 48 patients, which is barely over two-thirds of what I need. And I have only about 1.5 month left for my recruitment, after which I must concentrate on data analysis and report writing.

I am also the only person in my batch (I think) who has to go in the hospital at 7 every morning (in order to "catch" the first patients having operation), but I am not going to finish my project.

Arrghh. Such is life.