Why do Asians really get straight A's? - Project Gutenberg Consortia ...

Theorem Number 2: Status; because it's cheap— Asian Pride Theorem Number 1: Money;
and it gets them attention from people— Asian Pride Theorem Number 3: Power.
Getting attention is a personal power that really means nothing to anyone else, but as
long as they can impress their friends and family, then that's the only power that they need—
just like Asian parents with personal power to control their kids; it means nothing to anyone
else, but it means everything to them. You can see how all of this goes back to my Asian
Pride Theorems; I really can reveal the truth about Asian culture with just my three Asian
Pride Theorems.
I completely check off everything on my shopping list so I head back to my car without
haste, since my parents always get on my case for taking too long. As I approach my car, I
can see a short, old man with whitish-gray hair, wearing a shirt with the acronym CIA and
below it: Chinese In America. I giggle a little, thinking to myself, What a FOB, then opening
the trunk of my car to put the groceries. He's proud to be Chinese in America— that's cool; I
have no problem with that. In fact, I think that's great!
This reminds me of a job fair that I attended last summer at UCI. I saw a group of
Chinese students handing out flyers and pamphlets, which proclaimed the burgeoning surge
of Mandarin, the traditional Chinese language. They even had a huge banner with the title:
Mandarin, The Language of the Future. How is Mandarin the language of the future when it's
already been here for thousands of years? I understand what they mean about the growing
importance of China politically and economically, thus, the growing importance of Mandarin,
but how many people do you know— that are not Chinese— who actually speak Mandarin?
And I'm sure that the Chinese students at UCI are proud of the fact that Mandarin is the most
spoken language in the world— well, duh! There are over a billion people in China alone!
Mandarin is localized to Chinese people. I don't see how it's the language of the future when
only Chinese people, and maybe a few missionaries in China, speak Mandarin.
It's like with Yao Ming, a Chinese-born NBA basketball player; every person in China
claims that he's the best center in the history of the NBA, yet he's never won a NBA
championship, let alone winning even just one playoff series. Chinese people just jump on the
bandwagon, only if it's something Chinese. If Yao Ming wasn't Chinese, people in China
wouldn't say the same thing about him; if Michelle Wie wasn't Korean, people in Korea could
care less about her; same with Paradorn Srichaphan if he wasn't Thai. Asians love to follow
based on their own ethnic skin color. But following "yellow" doesn't necessarily mean it's good.