XPost: soc.culture.china, soc.culture.usa, soc.culture.iraq   
   XPost: alt.politics, soc.culture.hongkong, rec.sport.tennis   
   XPost: soc.culture.taiwan   
   From: acoustic@panix.com   
      
     "The 17-year-old student leader said he's not smart enough to go   
     abroad to study".   
      
   I hope he didn't say that because a) it is not true that, for HK, the   
   class of people who go abroad to study is smarter than the class who   
   stay back in HK for college and b) he might already be talking too   
   much like a slimy politician who equips himself with a collection of   
   ready-made half-truths and deceptive sound bites.   
      
   The guy - his name is Joshua Wong - is only 17 and he is already a   
   college freshman.  Kids of college age in HK who go abroad for college   
   are the rich ones.  Their parents can afford to pay for their   
   education abroad - tuitions, room and board would cost no less than a   
   couple of hundred thousands in the US today.   
      
   And quite a few from this group begin their studies at a community   
   college.   
      
   Is a college education beginning with a community college better than   
   one from the Chinese University of Hong Kong or Hong Kong University?   
      
   So, you have to wonder whether Joshua was speaking with false modesty.   
      
   Indeed many smart high school grads stay back in HK to their college   
   education.   
      
   The mathematician Yau Shing Tung (his last name is Yau) - a Fields   
   medalist and a geometer/analyst at Harvard - did his undergraduate at   
   the Chinese University of Hong Kong.  By definition a Fields medalist   
   has to be smart in the sense that you have to show that you're really   
   really smart before age 40.  (And you don't show how smart you are to   
   a reporter - but rather those who you will have a very hard time   
   trying to pull a fast one on.)   
      
   Yau is known to many physcists in association with the Ricci-flat   
   Calabi-Yau manifolds.   
      
   Yau is quite influential as some of his students have turned out to be   
   first rate mathematicians also.  Rick Shoen of Stanford is one and Gan   
   Tian (Tian being his last name) of Princeton and the BICMR in Beijing   
   is another.   
      
     Tian Gang is known for his contributions to geometric analysis and   
     quantum cohomology, among other fields. He was born in Nanjing, and   
     was a professor of mathematics at MIT from is known for his   
     contributions to geometric analysis and quantum cohomology, among   
     other fields. He was born in Nanjing, and was a professor of   
     mathematics at MIT from 1995-2006 (holding the chair of Simons   
     Professor of Mathematics from 1996), but now divides his time   
     between Princeton University and Peking University. His employment   
     at Princeton started from 2003, and now he is entitled Higgins   
     Professor of Mathematics; starting 2005, he has been the director of   
     Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research (BICMR).   
      
   Tian Gang, literary mean "steely" field did both his college study and   
   a masters in China before he went to Harvard to study with Yau Shing   
   Tung.  Tian (Tian Gang's last name) is an expert on the geometrization   
   conjecture and the related Poincare Conjecture that was proved by   
   Grisha Perelman of Russia this century.   
      
   So, when a 17-yo says "I am not smart enough to go to college abroad"   
   while he is telling his buddies to think of each battle as the last   
   battle (like the Bolsheviks did in the last century), you better check   
   the number of fingers on your hand after a handshake with him.   
      
   Beware!  That's what a wise Arab tradesman in the old days would   
   advise you to do.   
      
   lo yeeOn   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)