The Survival Instinct

“You Chinese are so good at math!”

The first time I heard it from an American, I wanted to hug and kiss her, on behave of all fellow Chinese—Taiwanese included. Only my inherited virtue of modesty downgraded it to a mere nodding; but after hearing it million times, I always do the math mentally.

Statistically, with 6% of error margin, I can tell that half of those who said it are true admirers; they are genuinely awed by Chinese’s math might; “No wonder your ancestor invented abacus first”. Another half are true sympathizers. They can't help but pity on Chinese’s language deficiency. They meant to say “You Chinese so suck at English!” but chose to be responsible global citizens.

Either way, let me set the record straight: Chinese is neither superior in math, nor inferior in second language, to any other ethnic group.

For those admirers, the math myth can dissolve easily. Picture this: starting from the first grade, in school and at home, teachers and parents drill you with the discipline only marveled by the People’s Liberation Army, remind—no, threaten—you of dire consequences for failing the tests, and punish you—the threats were often delivered—in public for maximum humiliation and drama.

You don’t have to be lucky me, who actually went through this, to get the idea.

For those sympathizers, the language myth does have some smokes. After all, we Chinese get the same royal treatment at school when studying English. But why no language wizard?

With 96% of confidence level, I’d say that studying language has little to do with logic and abstract concept, but a lot to do with psychological experience and social environment.

Here is my wild guess: when our ancestors first got off trees, walked by two feet, and hunt as a group (bingo! the social environment), they had a need, or a desire, to talk with one another.

Before they did, nobody tried first to memorize 2000 words, or study any grammar—there were none; they just made them up as they went along.

In the beginning, it's no more than a few sounds uttered out, but an instant pleasure of conveying a message sparked. In turn, such pleasure drove out more sounds and exchanges, which sparked more gratification (Aha! psychological experience). Overtime—we might talk about million of years here—they developed a language skill that separate them from apes.

If Darwin is right, then such process was deeply ingrained into our human genes. It became the most effective way, if not only one, for our brain to pick up a new language. What made us math wizards in China—fear, dreariness and rigidity—contradicts directly to that survival instinct, thus, made us language idiots instead.

Being a modest person, I might win a Nobel Prize in neuroscience someday for coming out with this plausible theory.