Undead Astronauts

so the PISA scores which compare 15 yr olds in 65 different countries came out today, and shanghai earned the top spot in all sections (including reading). it would be a no brainer to predict shanghai would be very high, but it’s a bit eyebrow raising that they’re #1. the first thing that i would have thought is sampling bias introduced by gov’t direction, but international experts oversaw the testing and made sure the sample reflected the general school population of shanghai. that’s pretty interesting b/c steve hsu says, “this means that the top 10 percent of Shanghai math students are all above the 99th percentile for the US.”

some commentators in the US had already positioned the PISA test avgs as irrelevant b/c even though the US avg is low, it has 25% of the highest scoring students in the world b/c of uneven score distribution and it’s large population. but this was before the actual scores came out showing shanghai’s placement. even though shanghai is not representative of china as a whole, i’m guessing ppl here in the US are going to be less sanguine about this result if only b/c china is at the top. considering china’s population and the scores of shanghai students, suddenly maybe the US’s percentage of the highest scoring students isn’t quite what they thought it was.

the article mentions that shanghai students typically spend less time on non-academic activities, which may explain the scores. i wonder if flare could provide some insight. if chinese students play fewer sports, could a large portion of that time simply be swapped for gaming?

the interactive database w/ scores and student variables is here.

So I havent posted in a while. The last few weeks have been very busy for me. I’m switching jobs, out of this Chinese law firm into a British risk management company. The nature of the new work seems very interesting, its call business intelligence and investigations. Essentially what that means is that they look into a company to see whether or not they are doing bad things. The bad things may include fraud, bribery, forgeries, falsifying documents, nepotisim, stealing company assests, etc. The clients the company would serve would usually be foriegn companies who wish to do business in China. They might not trust their Chinese business partners, or their suppliers, or even their own China branch managers and employees. The methods the company uses to investigate may include conducting interviews with relevant parties, doing audits on their documents, going through their emails, chat logs, other communications, visiting their facilities. Sometimes the client would be a country government who believes that the company has violated some kind of anti-corruption or anti-bribery law. The biggest example would be the US Foriegn Corruption Practice Act (FCPA). Last year the FCPA fined Siemens over 1 billion dollars. Apparently siemens had an elaborate system set up to bribe foriegn official. When they were discovered, Siemens cooperated to disclose all their actions, the discolsure along costed another 1.5 billion in attorney and consulting fees, all absrobed by Siemens. Apparently even though Siemens is a German company, the fact that their corruption scheme at one point funded some money in USD through a US bank, it was enough to give the US jurisdiction over the matter.  So basically a lot of international firms are now worried because its very easy to fall under the big umbrella of the FCPA. And as China is filled with corruption, the business has a lot of potential here.

That being said, I have been trying to negotiate the contract with the new place while keeping it a secret from my current firm. Sometimes it gets awkward because I always have to sneak out during the middle of the day to meet my headhunter or attend a meeting with managers from the risk management firm. But the final signing should be this Friday. And from there I will inform my current firm next week. That will be a giant mess as well.

Speed Dating

Last saturday I went to a speed dating event with Manuelo and another female friend who was Dutch Chinese from Holland (“dc girl”). The event rules stipulate that you have 8 minutes to talk to a girl, after 8 minutes, you rotate to the next girl. from 7:30 to 10, you should be able to talk to about 20 girls. I got there at around 7 and met my dc girl to first have a light drink while waiting for Manuelo to show up… (more…)

The typical Shanghainese weekend for an expat generally concludes inside a quiet coffee shop. Sitting across from you is most likely a stranger you met Friday or Saturday night. Because you probably first met this drifter in a very loud and dimly lit environment such as the local club Muse, this second meeting, over coffee, is really the first opportunity to listen to and observe this stranger.

You probably came to this meeting with excitement and enthusiasm, hoping to meet someone you can really connect with. But you also realize that your track record hasn’t been very good ever since you moved to this city. New relationships form quickly and easily here, especially for an expat. Whether they are locals and foreigners, people want to meet you and connect to you. Bonds are created in the first night, and just as often, broken after the second.

Too many people to meet, too many opportunities to pursue.

So here you sit, sipping another over-priced coffee, smiling, and looking upon her unfamiliar face. You reproduce your life story for this stranger, and are once again, totally and unwittingly, absorbed into the culture of the city around you.