Culture Everywhere

    At chapter 8,  now Malcom gives more amazing and seemingly unrelated evidences of the culture's power. Malcom has argued unseen factors such as a culture, one's backgrounds and historical legacy decide one's success, not one's effort. This chapter is clearly the extension of his argument. It is a common belief and scientifically proven fact that Asians are much good at mathematics than western people. The reason behind this Malcom suggests is shocking. It's not because Asians study harder or Asians are intellectual by nature, but it's because the superiority of Asian's numerical language system. It is scientific, clear and easy to pronounce. This simple and inherent difference has leaded a whole gap between Asian's mathematics ability and Westerners'.
    The most deciding factor in the difference of Asian's mathematics ability and Westerner's was Asian tradition of rice farming. It has taught Asian to endeavor ceaselessly and never to forgive, which are highly required to learn Mathematics. It is not us who have farmed the rice. It is our ancestor from more than ten thousands years ago and we even don't know their faces. However, it is them who made the distinction in Mathematics. It seems unbelievably unfair that one's birthplace mostly decide one's grade in Mathematics. That's the secret, Malcom says.
    But, most of important progress in Mathematics has been produced in Western. Calculus, probability and  many other geometric/algebraic/number theorems are made by Westerners. It is almost impossible to find Asian name in the math book. How is it possible, if Westerners start with a huge demerits in Math by nature? I learned the mathematics history before, and I think the answer is because Westerners had their own traits helped developing mathematics a lot. That is, their logicality and discussion culture performed a role. Those helped proving and developing theorems, and this leads broadening the horizon of westerners' mathematics.
   Always, Malcom's lesson is simple. Factors you can't control can control your success. In this chapter, that was culture. However I would like to say, you never know what traits of your culture will help you so give it a shot, always.