Chuck Allanson's Chinglish Handbook

A popular English learning guide on Chinese Internet community was attributed to Chuck Allanson, who claimed to be on faculty of Zhejiang University. The article was supposed to clarify some misuses or casual wordings that were frequently found in translating Chinese into English. However, some obvious misinformation were mixed in.

At the beginning, when explaining the motive of writing the article, Mr. Allanson said he found many Chinese didn't know the native way of referring dumpling was ravioli. I hope he can't be too serious on this, unless he just descended in a tardis traveling from civil war time America. Later he said the correct way for calling noodles were pasta, with a annotate of using noodles being childish.

Among the 20 some 'Chinglish' mistakes which were listed side-by-side with presumed correct way of saying them as natives, about half of them were false or misleading.

Chinese	Chinglish	English	Seagull Comments
欢迎你到...	welcome you to ...	welcome to ...
永远记住你	remember you forever	always remember you(nobody can live forever)	While you do hear 'always' more often, people do use forever. It's just stronger feeling, so that we often say we will love you forever.
祝你有个...	wish you have a ...	I wish you a ...	Mr. Allanson must have been listening too many Christmas songs, but I digressed. I hope you have a good day.
给你	give you	here you are	Among a thousand ways to convey the same message, 'here you are' actually is somehow a creepier one.;-)
很喜欢...	very like ...	like ... very much
黄头发	yellow hair	blond/blonde(there is no saying of “yellow hair” in Western Countries)
厕所	WC	men's room/women's room/restroom
真遗憾	it's a pity	that's too bad/it's a shame(it's a pity is an old way)
裤子	trousers	pants/slacks/jeans
修理	mend	fix/repair	How about mending your fences with fellow expat English teachers?
入口	way in	entrance
出口	way out	exit(way out means crazy in oral English)
勤奋	diligent	hardworking/studious/conscientious	Nothing wrong with saying 'diligent'
应该	should	must/shall	nothing wrong with 'should'
火锅	chafing dish	hot pot
大厦	mansion	center/plaza	This will be determined by the context
马马虎虎	so-so	average/fair/all right/not too bad/OK(so-so is seldom used by Western people)
好吃	delicious	good/nice/tasty/appetizing(“delicious” is used to much in China)	It's crazy to suggest a perfect word be given up because it is used in China
尽我最大努力	try my best	try/strive(“try” means “try my best”)	'Try my best' is good.
有名	famous	well-known/renowned/legendary/popular(“famous” is used too much in China)	These words have different meanings than 'famous'.
滑稽	humorous	funny/witty/amusing/entertaining	Again, the suggested words are of different meanings.
欺骗	to cheat	to trick/to play a joke on/to con/to deceive/to rip off	Is this a Chinglish lesson or a thesaurus exercise?
车门	the door of the car	the car's door	Car doesn't own doors, thus 'car door' would be enough. Or if you want to precise, use 'driver side door' or 'passenger side door'.
怎么拼?	how to spell?	how do you spell?
再见	bye-bye	bye/see you/see you later/later(“bye-bye” is a little bit childish)
玩	play	go to/do(“play” is used too much in China)
面条	noodles	pasta(“noodles” is a little bit childish)	The seagull is horrified by this one. The facial expression will be priceless when you find pasta in the plate, expecting noodles with an empty stomach.
据说	it is said	I heard/I read/I was told	Suggested sayings are of different meanings, and there is nothing wrong with 'It is said'.
等等	and so on	etc.	You 'speak' English like that?
直到现在	till now	recently/lately/thus far	Nothing wrong with 'till now'
农民	peasant	farmer	This can be a tough call, and Mr. Allanson must be very brave to pick them. However, he should not have.
宣传	propaganda	information	Propaganda is not information. In Chinese context, 宣传 really means propaganda. Until recently, the top ministry within CCP named themselves the Propaganda Department for official English name. They have since changed the English translation to Publicity.

The 'handbook' had gone viral through Weibo/WeChat among other mobile platforms. Some could be found on the Internet. It is even listed by the Baidu Collection. It is also re-imported to Canada and the US by Chinese who are learning English.

A little investigation suggested Mr. Allanson was an American, and that he knew how to write English, as demonstrated in his letter to PBS and his self description on promotional materials. The Seagull suspect the aforementioned article was not penned by Mr. Allanson himself. It is probably an excerpt of notes from classroom, with essential context left out, by one of his students--perhaps a student who really hates him.;-)

The Bad Guys

Chinese students do not have rights to protest government policies. However, they have every right to protest a bad cafeteria. As a compromise and interests exchange, Chinese students are usually permitted to show their anger on 'minor' issues, such as bad food in their school cafeterias.

Oct 27, A senior high school in Sanya of Hainan province launched a strike to protest food price at the school cafeteria.

Oct 24, students at Dongfang (Oriental) College in Hebei Province destroyed the school cafeteria.

Sept 13, students at No. 2 senior high school in Shangqiu of Henan Province destroyed the school cafeteria.

The outcome of these kind of conflict usually favors the students, which in a way encourages the frequent protests. The undertone is that except politics, everything is negotiable. Students were told that the reason for bad food were greedy catering companies, and that the Party would take care of their needs.

Oct 25, doctors and nurses in a hospital in Wenling of Zhejiang Province armed themselves with surgery masks protect from tear gas attack while they were holding a funeral service for a doctor who was killed at work by a patient. Medical personnels, like catering staff, are strategically deployed as the vent for people's resentment, and have been treated as such. Doctors and nurses were painted as the reason for high healthcare costs, the public enemy.

Starbucks' Trouble Might Have Been Planted One Year Ago

In the past few days, Starbucks have been under heavy bombardment from the propaganda branch CCTV. The official national television station blamed Starbucks for charging higher price in China. The TV program claimed that Starbucks charge a high price of $4.5 for a cup of Latte while the cost of coffee and milk was only $0.80.

Starbucks quickly responded that the material cost only contributed 18% of the price, and that there were other cost involved. In particular, Starbuck said, customers in China used to stay in the coffee shop longer than those in the west, thus increased expenses in store lease.

Customers in China reacted overwhelmingly in favor of Starbuck. The next day, many Starbucks stores find long line of customers waiting for a cup of coffee, partially in support of the coffee store, partially as a public defiance to the Propaganda mouthpiece.

Professor Wang Ye of University of Pittsburgh at Bradford suggested that Starbucks' trouble might had been planted when their CEO Howard Schultz visited China in April 2012. It was believed former Chinese President Jiang's influences were severely diminished at the once-a-decade power transition in March. Jiang's successor Hu Jintao announced that he would withdraw from decision-making entirely to pass the power to new President Xi Jinping. It was viewed as a public humiliation to Jiang's effort to stay in power even after he stepped down from the top position in China in 2003.

Jiang reacted with a news of his meeting with the visiting Schultz to reassure his base that he was still around. The Starbucks was accidentally caught in a crossfire between Jiang and Xi, who understandably would have wished that Jiang had gone away forever and for real.

As professor Wang pointed out, unfortunately, Starbucks stood on the wrong side.

In the meanwhile, Xi Jinping praised Wal-Mart and Coca-Cola for their contributions to Chinese economy.

English Learning Downgraded in China

The Beijing government just announced a plan to downgrade English learning for Chinese students. English test which used to be a 150 points component of the College Entrance Examination is downgraded to 100 points. Also, English testing is moved out of the National College Entrance Examination. Students can take English tests at local test centers multiple times a year and submit their highest test grade to be used as their English score for college entrance consideration.

Because the entire Chinese education system is fully geared towards the once a year National College Entrance Examination, this change essentially discourage students to spend as much time in English as before.

The move has legitimate rationale: most college graduates in China do not need English in their work. Studying English is a waste of time, which can be better used in learning other more useful skills.

Critics are concerned that the change may further hinder Chinese's capability to communicate with the outside world, which is blocked by the Great Firewall. The next generation Chinese will rely more on Chinese edition of knowledge and facts, which is often subject to surveillance, censorship and propaganda. It is considered more troublesome for kids from poor families, as those from well-off families will learn English no matter what.

Dinosaurs Birthday Dance

The common trait among the three words is that they are all banned by the Education Department of the New York City.

Modern mayors not only have a good idea about how much coca-cola is bad for your health: 12 ounces okay, 16 criminal (mayor of NYC banned selling large beverage city-wide); they also assure you that beef is better than chicken (mayors of Boston and Chicago ordered Chick-fil-A to be kicked out of city limit because of its owner's donation to religious family value groups).

The list of inappropriate words was assembled by the Education Department to be banned from textbooks and exams, because they might stir controversy among students. Other words include Halloween, poverty, divorce, disease, etc. Also a detailed guideline spelled out 50 topics that should be avoided, for example: ".. shouldn't include items that are potentially disrespectful to authority or authority figures or give human characteristics to animals or inanimate objects.

A spokesperson Robert Pondiscio stated that the intent is to avoid giving offense or disadvantage by privileging prior knowledge.

Across the Continent in the great state of California, schoolers gained rights to decide what gender they want to be on the day in school, when using restroom, etc., regardless what gender they put in the registration forms. Previous rules allow students to choose their gender, but require them to pre-register with the school. The new rules eliminated the inconvenience to update school records.

Cartoonist Taken Away by Police

Girlfriend warmheard1984 of famous cartoonist Spicy Pepper aka Wang Liming posted on Weibo that the visual artist had been taken away from home by police 11 o'clock pm. The charge on the warrant was 'inciting public disturbance'.

The cartoon on the left was created by BWRLG32.

Although Spicy Pepper's drawings are often inspired by social events, he is considered a moderate, restraint, reluctant and hesitate criticizer of government and policies. Readers often find more helplessness than criticism and more cynicism than anger in his otherwise humorous cartoons. Those who enjoy his drawings are mostly wealthy middle class who prefer a smooth and progressive evolution rather than any violent revolution which may trigger social instabilities. It would be real troublesome for the society if government push people who had sitting in the middle to the other side.

Spicy Pepper is arguably one of best known cartoonists in China today. Many western media's outlets in China have been closely observing the developing of this saga. Yuan Li, chief editor of Wall Street Journal's Chinese edition, also retweeted, and asked for legal input from her readers.

Having witnessed the unprecedented nationwide mass crackdown of online speech in the past few weeks, Spicy Pepper published this drawing on Oct 13. Two days later, he became the newest victim himself.

A few hour later, a Chinese e-business pioneer Laorong went missing after a last post of hearing someone knocking his door at 1:57am. Laorong, aka Wang Juntao, is a busy businessman, but sometimes makes comments on quasi-sensitive issues online.

Rumors had it that both arrests were linked to public mocking of the propaganda article 'Lee's Ten Crimes'.

Update: Laorong resurfaced, but would not elaborate his whereabout in the hours when he was missing.

Update: the next morning, Wuyuesanren aka Yao Bo, Spicy Pepper's friend, went to the police station to turn himself in because he believed he must have committed the same crime. Wuyuesanren was briefly detained then released. People who care about their reputation are feeling ashamed when they were not arrested by police for something, especially after their close friends had been rounded in. Wuyuesanren forecasted and broadcasted his self-submission in high profile style on social networking sites.

Professor He Weifang, researcher Yu Jianrong, writer Li Chengpeng, commentator Zhao Chu, real estate mogul Pan Shiyi all called for release of Spicy Pepper.

Searching of 'Spicy Pepper' is blocked by Sina, "because of law and policies".

Update: evening the same day, about 21 hours after Spicy Pepper was taken away, he was released.

1:2,000,000

After a magazine under the CCP's Central Propaganda Ministry (CPM) published an editorial in which Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, a renowned scientist, entrepreneur and angel investor was accused of committing ten horrendous crimes (Lee's Ten Crimes), the CPM had given a green light for mass attack.

A screen shot, via Ranxiangmm, circulated in Chinese blogsphere read: All websites and networks should aggressively forward or post the Lee's Ten Crimes article in the form of user-generated-contents (forums, comments). In the mean time, strictly moderate posts attacking the author of the article.

At RMB 769 billion ($130 billion), China's expenses on interior oppression, aka maintaining stability or Weiwen in Chinese, surpasses national defense according to national budget published in March. This ratio made China the first major power to spend more to defend against its people than to defend against outside threats. An Oct 3 article published by official media New Capital revealed that there were over 2 million Chinese working as online speech monitors and inspectors. The figure also shadows the 2 million strong active duty military personnels in the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Armed with his PhD in Computer Science from CMU, and senior executive experiences at Apple, Microsoft and Google, Lee had been fighting smartly, utilizing Big Data tools such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and data mining to amass a fans (avid followers) base of over 51 million on Sina Weibo.

It will be difficult to foretell the outcome of a battle in which one free soul leads a community of 51 million to fend off aggression of an army of 2 million. It may be even more difficult to assess the long lasting impact regardless who is the winner on the battlefield.

Ten Crimes Committed by Kai-Fu Lee

Taiwan born and US educated Kai-Fu Lee made himself top in the list of targets for China's propaganda machines, after he started tweeting about free speech and civil rights issues in China. As it always happens, when they can't deny what you said, they tried to bury you with lies.

Lee survived the first wave of attack from Dr. Fang Shimin 'Fang Zhouzi' who accused him of cheating on resume. Dr. Fang, a Michigan trained biology postdoc who married an official Xinhua News senior reporter, claimed Lee wrongfully bolstered his academic title at Carnegie Mellon University from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor. The second wave of attack came from a internationally renowned biologist Rao Yi, who took the Dean of Life Sciences Institute at Beijing University. Rao boldly claimed Lee did not even receive an offer for Assistant Professor at CMU.

Extremely nuances as they might look, they are prelude of a classical smear campaign which had been mastered by Big Brothers to silence a criticizer of the regime. Otherwise it would be perplexing to read Dr. Fang and Dr. Rao's blindly evilization of Lee. Dr. Fang had repeatedly stated himself, that AP in the US should not be translated to AP in Chinese, because the two systems were very different. He even claimed that any AP in a Research I university qualifies as academician in Chinese system. In Dr. Rao's case, with his background, training and experience in the US academia, it will be totally crazy to accuse someone having cheating on academic title without a single thread of proof, especially when Lee was such a big shot in the CS, whose contribution in Natural Language Processing, a branch of Artificial Intelligence has lasting impact till today. Lee left CMU to become a senior executive in Microsoft and later Google.

Dr. Fang and Dr. Rao's participation of this smear campaign is a reflection of the infiltration of Party in the Chinese academic world.

The drama ended when Lee posted his diploma, offer letter, and the President of CMU wrote a letter to clarify Lee's position was indeed associate professor level.

Lee was recently diagnosed with Cancer, and the Party's propaganda team smelled blood. This time, they accused Lee of pretending cancer patient to advertize for pharmaceutical companies among other horrific crimes in an all-out bombardment.

The official Party Organization (Dang Jian, aka Building Up CCP) published a 9,000 word editorial, accused Kai-Fu Lee of ten crimes:

1. Sexuall harassment to minors both in the US and in China;
   Seagull Comment: Someone should tip the D.A. in the US instead of lashing out on an official Communist Party publication in China.
2. Using backdoors and trojan horses to steal Chinese users's financial information as former Google executive;
   Seagull Comment: Google watch out, you are the next
3. Giving inspirational talks to youth while being a loser in life;
   Seagull Comment: Who would claim himself a winner, if Lee were deemed a loser?
4. Fabricating history to glorify murders and advocate killing;
   Seagull Comment: What else is this guy capable of?
5. Running a business, in reference to Lee's angel investing firm, like a charity;
   Seagull Comment: Is this really a crime?
6. Cultivating hatreds among the youth towards government;
   Seagull Comment: Looks like this piece of editorial had achieved more
7. Spying for the US government;
   Seagull Comment: Hang him, after you finished creating the evidence
8. Launching ideological war against Chinese government;
   Seagull Comment: A modern day Don Quixote? Way to go!
9. Slandering official government agencies such as the Central China TV (CCTV) and Xinhua News Agency;
   Seagull Comment: Bravo!
10. Faking cancer to sell drugs.
    Seagull Comment: A gifted plot, precious!

When Lee announced his lymphoma diagnosis in September, he was already named by the official Xinhua News Agency as a public enemy number one in the height of cracking down of online speech. Chinese-American venture capitalist and Berkeley graduate Charles Xue 'Manzi' was arrested on spreading anti-government rumors online. A gray hair Xue in tears and running nose was brought to appear on the CCTV to tell people how he had cheated on payment to prostitutes and how he had married to a woman, who was ex-wife of a son of a corrupted official. China observers had thought that God was helping Lee with a death sentence to deflect the inevitable incoming train of propaganda, so that he could be left alone, and die with a good name. It's evident that even God cannot help Lee, facing off with a Party who does not believe in God, morale, ethics, value, or anything that matters.

Flooding of Yuyao, How the Chinese Government Created Enemies In a Natural Disaster

Yuyao is a county-level city in Ningbo Prefecture, Zhejiang Province. Due to Typhoon Fitwo, much (over 70% of downtown) of Yuyao had been underwater.

Natural disaster like this is often seen as God-sent for western politicians, as this set a great stage with free and unlimited camera time for them to demonstrate how much they care about their constituents in need. Mayor Giuliani, Governor Christie and President Obama all had their political lives saved or elevated from major disasters. However, in Chinese politics, where it is mysteriously held that even a natural disaster could be the fault of top officials, the No. 1 priority of any level of government officials was to bury any negative news as much as they could.

So it was not surprising that there had been little media coverage for this flood, even though Yuyao was one of most prosperous cities in one of most prosperous provinces, and that it was within an hour's drive from most major cities in eastern China, including Ningbo, Hangzhou and Shanghai.

Three days after the beginning of the flood, and while over 50% of its downtown still submerged in water, the local government broke the silence and denounced that water had receded, and that nobody had died despite floating bodies nearby.

Angry residents asked the official reporters of Ningbo TV to turn their camera away from the only dry place in town, and tell the outside world the need for disaster relief assistances. The journalists were offended, and cursed the residents of being mentally sick in failing to recognize that they were on official propaganda mission. A brawl ensued.

For the first time since the flood began, many local resident saw police SWAT team on the street. Not to help with the flood, but to beat people with batons. More people rushed to argue with the police, and even larger group of people joined the battle.

A recent crackdown of online rumor spreading might have caused the initial delay in rescue and relief efforts. The government recently announced through a joint memorandum of judicial interpretation by the Supreme Court and the Supreme Procuratorate that any misinformation would be prosecuted with criminal code. The legal recognition of 'misinformation' had been exemplified by a series of cases in the past few weeks. For example, when 5 cars were involved in an accident, if someone posted online that 4 cars were involved, then it would have broken the law. A Henan women was arrested because she posted these language (a literal translation: "I heard there was a crime took place in the neighboring village last night, was it true?") A middle school student in Gansu Province was arrested when he questioned why didn't local police act to track down the criminal of a homicide case. In a sharp contrast to the busy online mobilization and coordination of rescue and relief after previous disasters, such as the Sichuan earthquake and the bulletin train accident, almost nobody talked about the unprecedented flooding in Chinese online media for days.

A hundred and four years ago on October 4, 1909, a famous minister Zhang Zhidong passed away. Zhang was deemed that last capable minister in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). In his last days Zhang had a conversation with the Prince Regent Zaifeng. Knowing it would be his last opportunity to pass his concerns to the rulers, Zhang tried to point the Prince people's resentment to the Court. Zhang cautioned Zaifeng that he should listen to what people were complaining. The Prince stopped him, and assured him that nothing should be worried about because 'we had soldiers'. Later Zhang recounted the exchange in utter disgust, and labeled the 'we have soldiers' phrase as a sign predicting collapse of government. Zhang died in three months, and one year later, Qing collapsed in a sudden when a few soldiers in Wuchang rebelled.

Their Sorrow Shadowed by their Glory: Chinese Graduate Students in the US

A recent article looked into 16,000 PhD graduate students in 161 US chemistry departments, and showed that Chinese students outperformed their peers and were as well as awardees of the NSF doctoral fellowship program, in terms of scientific contributions (Patrick Gaule, Chinese Graduate Students and US Scientific Productivity, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 95, No. 2, Pages 698-701, May 2013). The study for the first time confirmed with scientific methods what people in the field had long known.

On the other hand, without green card on a short visa (shorter than most international students), and surrounded in sometimes unfriendly working environment with uncertain in their future life, the sorrow of Chinese graduate students had long been overlooked.

They have to battle with discrimination from those privileged and resentment from the bottom, and often take the least paid job, in additional to battling with a often conflicting culture. Systematic repression is abundant, too. In some labs, a Chinese student will be paired up with an American student, with the Chinese student works the work, and the US student press the button when it is necessary due to regulations put into place to prevent foreigners using certain lab equipments. In other occasion, Chinese are the only nationals who are forbidden from working in certain field. Many had quietly complained unable to graduate while being exploited as academic slavery, other were threatened of retaliation the moment they found a job offer.

With the rise of China economy, it should not be a surprise to see more Chinese graduate students returning to China, at the same time while less top level students coming the US, if the trend continues.

Two Chinese Scientists Arrested on IP Theft Charges

Indianapolis based Eli Lilly and Company sent two of its former employees behind bars and a third one, being referred to as 'individual number one', under further investigation.

Cao Guoqing and Li Shuyu were arrested last week in Indianapolis, possibly visiting families during the week long Chinese holidays, on charges of theft and conspiracy to commit theft. Both are currently working for a Chinese Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine based in China.

In a statement, Lilly said the trade secrets allegedly stolen all involve early-state research, with no significantly impact. The stolen information is valued $55 million by Lilly.

Lilly had been having problems to produce market worthy research.

It is very difficult to assess the value of an 'early state research', especially in medicine development.

Hengrui had been aggressively,sometimes appearing boldly, recruiting talents from overseas. The current deputy general manager Zhang Lianshan also joined Henghui after left Lilly in 2009. Another senior executive Zheng Yuqun who departed Henghui recently was also a former Lilly employee.

This is not the first time the two companies went to court. Lilly lost an earlier patent claim against Hengrui in 2000.

Insiders see Lilly's most recent move a retaliation on crackdown of business bribery charges brought up by Chinese authorities. Lilly was found to spent $5 million a year to bride Chinese doctors to subscribe its drugs rather than its competitors.

Intern Lost in Claim of Workplace Sexual Harassment Case Against Phoenix TV

A federal judge threw out a case filed by a former intern at the Phoenix Satellite Television's US Office against the bureau chief Mr. Liu Zhengzhu. The intern had accused Liu of making suggestive sexual comments luring her to his hotel room, where he kiss her and groped her.

The judge decided that unpaid interns and volunteers was not protected from sexual harassment under federal laws because they were not considered employees.

In one secretly recorded video, Liu could be heard speaking to a woman, 'You look pretty good, let me hug you...', while the woman was moving towards the door, Liu was heard saying, 'Don't move, don't move, I like you so much...no one will come in.. let me have a look, let me fuck you.' The music for Phoenix's morning broadcast can be heard playing in the background.

Other interns told stories Liu broke in their apartment to rape them, and groped them in the office, kisses on job interviews, etc.

Hong Kong based Phoenix TV is known to be backed by the Chinese government. Ruper Murdoch also owns 12 percent of it.

Phoenix TV released a statement, claiming that the lawsuit is full of inaccuracies and false statements.

Wang Lequan Rumored in Trouble

Sina Weibo had circulated intel that Wang Lequan, a former member of the CCP Politburo had been under investigation for corruption. Once confirmed, this will be the first Politburo level senior official brought down by the Xi-Li administration. It has been a custom and tradition for a new leadership to sacrifice a politburo level senior official to various causes as part of the once a decade power transition. Jiang Zemin took out Chen Xitong. Hu Jintao took out Chen Liangyu. The public had been speculating on which one would be picked this time.

Wang Lequan was the top Party chief in Xinjiang, before named the deputy chief of the Party's politics and law committee.

The Effort Points

Elementary schoolers in some states across the US found a new components on their score sheet: the effort points. It works this way: the correct answer of a question no longer worth a full grade. Instead, for a 100 points question, you earn 50 points for correctly answering it, and the next 50 points are assigned based on how hard you tried. If you failed to demonstrate that you were struggling, you would get nothing.

For example, if a student turn in his sheet 20 minutes into a 40 minutes test, even if he correctly answered all questions, he will only earn 50 points because he did not make 'efforts'. On the other hand, another student who only answered 5% of the questions, but stayed to the end will receive 50 points of effort points plus 2.5 points, thus a higher grade of 52.5 points. In the end the student who knows 5% of the answers go to a better college than the one who solved 100% of the test.

The 'Effort Points' is yet another attempt to make sure every child educated to equal stupidity, if their parents can not afford private school education.

In addition to wide range policies, some schools and teachers are becoming creative to accomplish their mission of ultimate equal stupidity. One teacher discovered that the reason her student did not score well was because they did not do homework, which is a component in the whole evaluation. Her decision was to stop assigning homework, so no student in her class will lose points on homework. This method was praised as a successful model and encouraged by policy makers and education leaders to other teachers.

The Chronicle of Higher Education published an article, Employers and Public Favor Graduates Who Can Communicate, Survey Finds. It's such a relieve to realize the problem started from the society, when even employers care less about productivity.

And we will win the global competition with countries such as China, India, Korea and Japan, where students are assessed on their scientific and engineering capabilities. Yeah right, as long as we communicate it in the right way, people will believe in it.