Rony Gao's answer to: Survey Questions: What disappoints you the most?
My greatest disappointment is when I lose interest in things that I used to be passionate about.
For example, I was very good at math in elementary school. Not really the "genius kid" type, but my math was good enough to secure 90+ in exams, for which I would be considered a fairly smart boy. Thanks to my parents' early education, my math skills and instincts were always one or two years ahead of the school curriculum. I enjoyed all sorts of brain teasers, mental arithmetics, participating in maths competitions, and other opportunities that allowed me to use math-related skills. One of my proudest childhood memories is when me and my twin drew a circle around a plastic wash basin on the floor of my grandma's place using chalks, and cut it into 1-cm segments with a ruler to measure its circumference. We would then compare the circumference with the diameter in order to come up with a value of π! There you go: Two third-graders, without any instruction, designed a project to empirically verify a geometry theory and even using some basic calculus thinking! So you can imagine our genuine interest in math.
Things began to change after Grade 8. In China, we faced standardized Entrance examination for high school and college admissions (Zhongkao and Gaokao). Math, of course, was an important subject to be tested. So we had enormous pressure of getting good marks in math. The pressure turned my passion into indifference, then lack of passion, then dislike. In Grade 9, I found myself getting inconsistent marks in math, often because of careless errors I made in exams. The real reason was because I didn't practice enough compared to my classmates - or maybe I was always a careless person. Anyway, my worsening scores dragged my passion away from math classes and homework. This lack of practice, again, hindered me from getting good marks. Vicious cycle... :(
Anyway, the story is, I stopped being interested in math, and I was disappointed about it. I knew my disappointment was not only from my bad performance in exams, but from the fact that I lost interest in math.
I know as a matter of fact that the transfer of interest is just inevitable in everybody's growing-up. Losing passion in one thing usually means finding a new love to compensate and comfort this loss. For example, after my interest in math faded away, I discovered my passion in languages. From high school to college, English was one of my favorite subjects. I happily put in more time exploring this new territory. I think this change was constructive. But it's just the first stage when you realize you lost interest in your old love, that is really disappointing and discomforting.
P.S.: I do not hate math now. In fact I am very thankful that I came from Asia where academic foundations are taken seriously. I'm also lucky to have grown up in a family that valued early education (my parents both work for universities). Good math foundations and quantitative reasoning skills opened many doors for me. It only annoys me when, knowing how badly I once wanted to be a mathematician or natural scientist, I accept that I'm not that interested in it any more. I guess this self-discovery can be rather disappointing for anyone. It has nothing to do with money, achievements or inter-personal relations. It's purely a disappointment about how your enthusiasm changed.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Thursday, February 28, 2013
My parents' first apartment (1)
One of my earliest and happiest childhood memories was when our family visited our new home for the first time in March 1989. This was the apartment we lived in later for 10 years, seeing me and my twin grow up from 3 to 13.
My parents got married in 1984. Me and my twin were born in 1986. My parents did not come to own their first house (which was technically a 60-square-meter unit in an apartment building) until 1989.In between these years, it was the era for most Chinese households to see a whole new lifestyle coming up-close.
When I say they owned their first apartment, it is not the same concept of ownership as we define it today. To be precise, the apartment would be owned by my dad's school. We were just given the privilege to live in it.
The first three years of my life (1986 - 89), our family lived in a shared apartment with another working class family. It was given to my grandpa by his danwei (unit of work), which was a major steel mill that employed almost half of the city. I still have some memory of the dark (and tiny!) room and shared bathrooms that we could barely call home. Not a fun place to be. But since everyone else was almost living the same way, no one seemed to complain.
In fact Dad was with his job in Ningixa, 200 kilometres from home, until 1987. When he was finally transferred back to Baotou, he had to begin from scratch and work all his way up in the new school we called DianDa, or Radio-Television University. It is a distance-education college where he ended up working for 20 more years. It might sound like an improbable idea today how distance-education colleges could even exist before the age of the internet. But they did. Students learned through recorded video courses, radio broadcasting, and of course lots of traditional correspondence.
Anyways, by 1989, two years into his new danwei, my dad was in a solid enough standing in the school to secure him a unit in the apartment building the school decided to build. A college builds an apartment building on his own campus and accommodates its own staff? Yes, this is what Socialism is about. The money would be collected among the staff themselves. My family chipped in 7000rmb. I won't bother doing an inflation calculation and tell how much it would have equal today, but basically, this amount was more than their total savings at that point. They borrowed from their parents of both sides.
The school then does what's called Fen Fangzi (分房子), distributing the apartment units. All 50+ staff members were to receive a unit each, but the size of your unit depends on where you rank amongst your colleagues. All employees on the payroll were ranked by their hierarchy and seniority, mainly depending on how many years you have worked in the school. My dad earned some extra credits for making sure of the construction quality of the building, as he was the only employee that had an architecture background. Thus, he was given a pretty decent 一室半 (1.5 rooms) unit, consisting of a living room that we called the "big room", a small bedroom, and a nearly-non-existent corridor that we called living room. But still, having our own little nest with separate kitchen and bathroom was totally a dream come true.
As soon as they got the keys, my parents moved in happily despite not having much furniture at all. The day we went into the room for the first time as a family, I could vividly remember how my parents were filled with joy and excitement about their life.
Moving into the campus of my dad's school also meant the commuting distance was much shorter, both for my parents' own work and sending us to kindergarten. It was a big relief of burden. My dad could spend lots of lots of time playing games with me and my brother. To this day, I am more thankful about this than anything else they did for us in our early years.
On our 6th birthday in the DianDa house, 1992 :-)
My parents got married in 1984. Me and my twin were born in 1986. My parents did not come to own their first house (which was technically a 60-square-meter unit in an apartment building) until 1989.In between these years, it was the era for most Chinese households to see a whole new lifestyle coming up-close.
When I say they owned their first apartment, it is not the same concept of ownership as we define it today. To be precise, the apartment would be owned by my dad's school. We were just given the privilege to live in it.
The first three years of my life (1986 - 89), our family lived in a shared apartment with another working class family. It was given to my grandpa by his danwei (unit of work), which was a major steel mill that employed almost half of the city. I still have some memory of the dark (and tiny!) room and shared bathrooms that we could barely call home. Not a fun place to be. But since everyone else was almost living the same way, no one seemed to complain.
In fact Dad was with his job in Ningixa, 200 kilometres from home, until 1987. When he was finally transferred back to Baotou, he had to begin from scratch and work all his way up in the new school we called DianDa, or Radio-Television University. It is a distance-education college where he ended up working for 20 more years. It might sound like an improbable idea today how distance-education colleges could even exist before the age of the internet. But they did. Students learned through recorded video courses, radio broadcasting, and of course lots of traditional correspondence.
Anyways, by 1989, two years into his new danwei, my dad was in a solid enough standing in the school to secure him a unit in the apartment building the school decided to build. A college builds an apartment building on his own campus and accommodates its own staff? Yes, this is what Socialism is about. The money would be collected among the staff themselves. My family chipped in 7000rmb. I won't bother doing an inflation calculation and tell how much it would have equal today, but basically, this amount was more than their total savings at that point. They borrowed from their parents of both sides.
The school then does what's called Fen Fangzi (分房子), distributing the apartment units. All 50+ staff members were to receive a unit each, but the size of your unit depends on where you rank amongst your colleagues. All employees on the payroll were ranked by their hierarchy and seniority, mainly depending on how many years you have worked in the school. My dad earned some extra credits for making sure of the construction quality of the building, as he was the only employee that had an architecture background. Thus, he was given a pretty decent 一室半 (1.5 rooms) unit, consisting of a living room that we called the "big room", a small bedroom, and a nearly-non-existent corridor that we called living room. But still, having our own little nest with separate kitchen and bathroom was totally a dream come true.
As soon as they got the keys, my parents moved in happily despite not having much furniture at all. The day we went into the room for the first time as a family, I could vividly remember how my parents were filled with joy and excitement about their life.
Moving into the campus of my dad's school also meant the commuting distance was much shorter, both for my parents' own work and sending us to kindergarten. It was a big relief of burden. My dad could spend lots of lots of time playing games with me and my brother. To this day, I am more thankful about this than anything else they did for us in our early years.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
be the next to change these kids' life
If you ever thought about doing international volunteer work, please do consider this program! Locations include Bolivia, Peru, Thailand, Nepal, Ghana, and more..
I volunteered with uVolunteer Thailand last year teaching English at a local elementary school. An absolutely enlightening and fun experience! :-) Just got a message today from the project manager that they are in need of more volunteer English teachers. The kids keep asking - When are we going to get a farang (foreign) teacher again? - that makes me feel sad..
Maybe you or your friend can be their next teacher! Please pass the word around!
I would be happy to answer questions about the program if anyone is interested. (Ask me at rony.gao@gmail.com ) I spoke about my teaching experience in this video, and there are many more on the uVolunteer website. :-)
Wish everyone a Happy 2013!
Thanks,
Rony
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