My Dentist
I've just had a good conversation with my dentist. By that I mean, I got to listen to her talk while she was working on my mouth. :( It's really said because I rarely meet a person whom I'd like to carry on an intellectual conversation with, but I couldn't talk! You see, before today she is just a good dentist, today she actually earned my respect. (Yes, I believe respect has to be earned. Just because you can legally put "M.D." behind your name doesn't really mean anything.)
She's originally from Burma, lived in TW for many years, so she can also speaks fluent Chinese (Mandarin), and of course now that she's in US, she can also speak English. There's a school of thought that if you raise your kids multilingual, it'll allow them to be able to think outside the box. Well, I can speak two languages, spent almost exactly half of my life in Hong Kong, yet I can barely think inside the box, let alone outside. I think to truly be able to think outside of the box, one would need to be exposed to very different cultures -- by that I don't mean going to a Chinese restaurant and ordering orange chicken. To truly gain an objective point of view, one sometimes would need to look at the issue from an outsider's point of view, i.e. what does Asia think about the war in Iraq? What about the Europeans? In the short 10 minutes that my dentist was in the office with me, she broadened my mind. It was a shame that we couldn't have a true conversation. :(
Did you know that they do not have private schools in communistic or socialistic countries? Despite many different people that I've asked, no one has yet to be able to give me a good picture of what communistic or socialistic countries are and how they differ from us. She seems to dislike the idea that people are not allowed to obtain better education even when they can better afford it. I thought on the surface it seems like a very good idea to balance out inequalities, with all the discussions about segregations that still exist in our school systems -- the differences in achievement level between different ethnicities. Again, I was unable to discuss with her why that is a bad idea.
She also told me that the gap between the wealthy and the poor widens more and more overtime. The governments do NOT like their citizens to have too much money in the bank. If you have too much money in the bank, they'll find fault with you and investigate how you obtain them. It's very sad that the entity that is suppose to protect their citizens are doing exactly the opposite.
Last but not the least, she said she is going to vote for Bush, even though she thinks the chances of him getting re-elected is slim. Of course I have to ask her why. I'd ask anyone who would vote for Bush with reasons other than the fact that they think Al Queda and Sadam Hussein are one and the same. She said, because when you are in a mess (war in Iraq) like this, situations tend to get worse when you switch the head person. Now that is an argument that has never crossed my mind. Knowing that she has seen and heard more, perhaps there are merits to her viewpoint.
She's originally from Burma, lived in TW for many years, so she can also speaks fluent Chinese (Mandarin), and of course now that she's in US, she can also speak English. There's a school of thought that if you raise your kids multilingual, it'll allow them to be able to think outside the box. Well, I can speak two languages, spent almost exactly half of my life in Hong Kong, yet I can barely think inside the box, let alone outside. I think to truly be able to think outside of the box, one would need to be exposed to very different cultures -- by that I don't mean going to a Chinese restaurant and ordering orange chicken. To truly gain an objective point of view, one sometimes would need to look at the issue from an outsider's point of view, i.e. what does Asia think about the war in Iraq? What about the Europeans? In the short 10 minutes that my dentist was in the office with me, she broadened my mind. It was a shame that we couldn't have a true conversation. :(
Did you know that they do not have private schools in communistic or socialistic countries? Despite many different people that I've asked, no one has yet to be able to give me a good picture of what communistic or socialistic countries are and how they differ from us. She seems to dislike the idea that people are not allowed to obtain better education even when they can better afford it. I thought on the surface it seems like a very good idea to balance out inequalities, with all the discussions about segregations that still exist in our school systems -- the differences in achievement level between different ethnicities. Again, I was unable to discuss with her why that is a bad idea.
She also told me that the gap between the wealthy and the poor widens more and more overtime. The governments do NOT like their citizens to have too much money in the bank. If you have too much money in the bank, they'll find fault with you and investigate how you obtain them. It's very sad that the entity that is suppose to protect their citizens are doing exactly the opposite.
Last but not the least, she said she is going to vote for Bush, even though she thinks the chances of him getting re-elected is slim. Of course I have to ask her why. I'd ask anyone who would vote for Bush with reasons other than the fact that they think Al Queda and Sadam Hussein are one and the same. She said, because when you are in a mess (war in Iraq) like this, situations tend to get worse when you switch the head person. Now that is an argument that has never crossed my mind. Knowing that she has seen and heard more, perhaps there are merits to her viewpoint.
posted by cahalan @ 13:04
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