It is kind of funny. When you are a child, you think of what it is like to grow up and be independent, and then once you become an adult you realize how short and precious childhood really is. A lot of people find my blog by searching terms relating to Asian parents pushing their kids. Today I want to address a few things about parents who push their children because they consider their children to be gifted.

I am not a parent, so I can only speak from the perspective of a child. My mom taught me to read Chinese at a very young age. My parents and their neighbors tell me that I was three when I started to read newspapers and books. I only have vague memories of those times. Anyway, I do remember people calling me a “sheng tong”, which means “god child” or “genius child”. So as a result my dad decided that I should go to elementary school early. In China you are supposed to enter first grade if you are age six by June 30th of the school year. I was born in the latter half the year, so I wasn’t supposed to enter elementary school until I was almost seven. As a result, my classmates were 1 to 2 years older than me. When you are five years old that age difference is huge. I was the puniest child in the class and I had trouble with holding a pencil and copying Chinese characters over and over again. Nevertheless I did pretty well in class, and beat out the older children in math and language tests.

I was a bit weird socially, though. I remember that none of the girls wanted to play with me for some reason and my best friends were boys. Maybe it is because my maturity level was the same as boys since it’s generally accepted that boys are 1 to 2 years less mature than girls. I liked bugs, dirt, and running around. I finished 4th grade in China, and all the friends I remember are boys. I also distinctly remember that one of the popular girls hated me because I did better than her academically.  It’s kind of funny how passive aggressive most girls are.

After 4th grade, I moved to America, and I didn’t know any English.  At first I was put into the fifth grade class.  Since I didn’t understand anything it was pretty tough.  So my mom decided that I should move down to the fourth grade class.  This turned out to be a good choice because they put me in an English as a second language class and I was with children my age.  After a year or so I was able to catch up in English and I was really glad to be with kids the same age as me.  I wasn’t a super popular kid, but it felt like I was on equal ground as everyone else. I have pretty fond memories of secondary school in America because for the most part I was normal, and I had plenty of friends.

When you are a kid, you really don’t want to be a freak, and being younger than everyone else sort of singles you out.  Life is especially tough for a teenager who is quite a bit younger than everyone else and sometimes the results are quite tragic.  For example, during my freshman year of college a boy jumped from the tenth floor of the math building and killed himself.  From his blog I found that he entered college at the age of 16, and was isolated for his whole life because he was younger than everyone else. Loneliness made him jump. It is great to be academically gifted, but I think we are such social creatures that we all want to have friends and be loved.

I think what parents should do is to foster their kids interests, but don’t push them into a social environment they can’t handle. I know a couple real geniuses who never skipped a single grade.  They took advanced classes in the fields they were interested in, but they chose to finish school at a normal age.   I also have a brilliant friend who skipped a grade and is now a PhD candidate at MIT, but her emotional IQ is quite above average and she is fine.  Each person is different, but everyone has  less than 20 years to be a child, and so many more years to worry about annoying things such as finances, jobs, and relationships. Why would anyone want to  rush into adulthood? So here I say to the parents out there, let your kids be kids just a bit longer even if they are gifted.  An extra one to two years of childhood is really priceless and I sincerely thank my mom for letting me flunk 4th grade and be normal.

Several years ago, many of my classmates and had hard times finding jobs. It seems that this situation may repeat itself again in the next couple years. There have been studies that state graduating in a recession sticks with a person’s career for a long time. Those who start off their careers in a recession generally has lower pay because they started at a lower point. Here are some tips for my younger friends who may suffer the misfortune of getting a diploma in an economic downturn.

cialis medication dosage- In a recession, I have seen people accept jobs at firms who paid very little or jobs completely outside of their field of study just because it is the only jobs they could find. I don’t think it is necessary to devalue yourself just because the general economy is in the ruts. Your time could be used to learn things or start your own ventures. If you are not desperate for money it is probably best to continue searching for a job that you want and a company that would value you for your services.

cialis medication dosage – Recessions are popular times to get more schooling because jobs are scarce. However, a full graduate school program can be extremely costly and you need to It may be cheaper and quicker to get professional certificates. I know there are many different certifications in IT and finance that could enhance a young person’s career without costing an arm and a leg.

cialis medication dosage- A lean economic period is probably the best time to learn to be frugal and use your money wisely. You may have to and move back home with the folks or , but you may be unemployed for a while and learning to survive on a shoestring is essential.

cialis medication dosage – Make sure you keep yourself informed about the general economy. The reason is that if you did accept a lower payrate during the recession you should know when your pay should be adjusted to the market rate. Otherwise, new grads who graduate after you may be paid more than you, and that may seem unfair, but you need to be aware when this happens and ask for a change. Otherwise, companies are happy to pay you less.

cialis medication dosage – There are some people who started their own businesses and never needed to find a job. For example, Ben Chui of was class 2002 or 2003 at my school, and he never needed to find a job amidst the recession because of the success of his website. If you want to start your own company you should go for it while you are young and have nothing to lose. It takes a lot of work to succeed and make a living, but it is definitely possible.

The bottom line is, don’t let what you can’t control discourage you and cut down your future. As long as you are flexible about what you want to do and have a drive to improve your life, you will beat any economic downturn and graduating in a recession would not matter at all.

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Our best man’s wife is giving birth this week. They are expecting a girl named Grace and we all can’t wait to meet her. On the note of childbirth, today I saw an extremely eye opening documentary called This is a film made by Abby Epstein after her friend Ricky Lake (yes, the talk show host) didn’t have a good experience with having her first child in the hospital. It explored the history of childbirth in America and how as a society America has phased out natural births in favor of hospital births with various interventions. It also reveals a startling fact that America has the second highest infant and mother mortality rate out of the world’s developed countries even though 99% of American women give birth in a hospital. In contrast, developed countries such as Japan has a home birth rate as high as 70% and have a lower death rate. Here are some things I learned about the business of childbirth from this film, and it is really amazing. If you don’t want any spoilers or if you feel queasy about this subject you can stop reading right here.

cialis medication dosage – When you see women have babies in hospitals on TV you often see their legs up in stirrups and ten people telling her to push really hard. The film explained that this is the most unnatural position to have a baby because there is no way for the baby to come out when a woman is lying down. A doctor always has to use a clamp, hands, or a vacuum to extract the baby. It is much easier for a woman to have a baby standing up or squatting because gravity helps her do her work and the baby’s head will be lined up with the vaginal opening making the process natural. This made a lot of sense when a childbirth coach showed a fake hip and a baby trying to get out. When the hip is sideways the opening of the hip is angled in such a way that it is pretty much impossible for the baby to fall out. The baby also receives more stress in the horizontal position because it would be pushed up against the hip bone.

cialis medication dosage – This makes sense for the hospital. They want their beds available so they could serve more people and make more money. The result is a great increase in Caesarean section procedures and the administration of drugs that speed up the delivery. They also say that the number of C-sections is higher during 4pm to 10pm because doctors just do not want to stay around. The average vaginal delivery takes 12 hours, but a C-section takes about 20 minutes. So when the doctors and hospitals want women out, they schedule a C-section. The fact is that C-sections are much more risky than vaginal delivery.

cialis medication dosage- A midwife said that her fees are about $4000 for all of her services. Keep in mind that many of these midwives are highly trained and qualified to deliver babies. The main midwife they featured on the film is a certified nurse who graduated from Columbia and had been delivering babies in hospitals for five years before she became a midwife. In contrast, a vaginal birth in a hospital costs on average $13,000 and a C-Section is major surgery that often costs more than $30,000. The documentary also shows that in a hospital they often pump the mother with various drugs that eventually puts the baby in distress and require a C-Section. The caveat is that insurance companies rarely cover home births and midwives because they think it is crock and the hospitals are part of the institution that shun natural delivery.

cialis medication dosage- The film listed the type of drugs they typically use in a hospital and what each of those drugs do. One is the epidural, which takes away pain but also slows down contractions, then there is Pitocin, which is used to speed up contractions and causes pain. So the two drugs work against each other and the hospital would keep on adding drugs until the baby comes or the baby is distressed so they have to do a C-Section. It is pretty scary and there were other drugs used in the past that caused erupted uteruses and babies without arms and legs. The body itself naturally produces hormones that make the birthing process easier and less painful and these artificial drugs really screw it up.

Despite the film having scenes of several extremely explicit home births, it made me less afraid of having a baby because the births seemed less painful and stressful than what is usually shown in TV. In one woman’s birth she just seemed to lay back and sigh and moan a bit and then her baby slipped out into her tub. Then her older child came by and touched the baby and said “eww” like it is extremely natural and cool. There wasn’t any crazy screaming or large amounts of blood covering the sheets and the whole experience seemed beautiful and calm. The film’s message is that women should have a choice to have a natural birth, and it is completely safe as long as it is planned well and the woman doesn’t have any complications. If a woman is enduring a high risk pregnancy, the hospital is still recommended. I don’t know if I would have a natural home birth because it is still pretty scary to me, and I know my health insurance would cover my hospital care. I will try to refuse all those drugs in the hospital, though, but I don’t know what will happen. Anyway, I think a lot of the information presented in this movie made sense, and I will never look at a pregnant woman the same away again. I highly recommend this film, and I think anyone who wants a child in the future should watch it just to see what childbirth is really like.

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My success in Duke’s Lane strengthened my self esteem, but I knew that I couldn’t be a salesman at a souvenir shop forever. I was in America, and I was an alien. If I wanted to stay, I needed to go to school. In China I studied agricultural economics, and then changed my focus and studied economical law. My English skills were quite horrible, and law school in America required extremely high linguistic skills. I could not even understand the test to get into law school. So as I worked I tried my best to study English. I copied vocabulary words onto cards and tried my best to remember them. When I rode the bus or had extra time at work I would study vocabulary. After three months in America, I took the TOEFL and got a score of 540. This score was 10 points below the lowest requirement of the University of Hawaii’s economics department. Shortly after the test, I received a letter from the department informing that I was rejected. The letter also indicated that in addition to the TOEFL, the GRE was also required as of the spring semester of 1993.
When I read this letter, my heart sank to the floor. I thought that I have expended the effort of nine bulls and two tigers and I still didn’t qualify. Now I needed to study for the GRE, and I had no idea how long it would take for me to be able to get into graduate school. Actually, at that time I did qualify for Hawaii’s Pacific University, which is a private school that charged over $5000 per semester. There was no way I could afford the fee.

During this time, I took a day off from work. I helped Popo clean her yard and then fed the dozen or so red eared turtles in her backyard. Then I started to study. At this moment Popo’s third daughter Gloria came to visit. She is a highschool teacher and she takes turns with her siblings to take Popo out for strolls. Gloria is almost 50. She married a Japanese American many years ago, but he passed away more than ten years ago. She doesn’t have children, and so she visits quite often and is quite attentive to our family. Whenever she comes she would drive us to get groceries and sometimes she brought treats for my daughter.

This day, she saw that I was at home and asked about how I was doing. I told her that I was just rejected from UH, and I could not afford a private university. I was quite anxious and disheartened, but she told me to calm down, and told me that there is a community college named Kapi’olani Community College very close to the house, and it wouldn’t hurt for me to take a look.

I followed her directions and walked south on 16th Avenue for about ten minutes. Then I saw a beautiful campus surrounded by coconut trees and other tropical plants. When I walked into the campus I was pleasantly surprised. Due to a construction project that blocked the southern end of 16th Avenue, I didn’t see the campus when I first moved to Popo’s house. I didn’t know that there was such a beautiful place close to the house. I was mesmerized by the campus’ modern architecture, neatly landscaped gardens, and its grandiose backdrop of the ocean and Diamond Head. Nearly every building on the campus is named after a tropical plant native to Polynesia and Southeast Asia. For example, the cafeteria where I worked is named ‘Ohi’a, which is a small Hawaiian plant with bright red flowers. Another example is the art building, which is named after a very fragrant Hawaiian flower called Maile which is used in leis quite often. Basically, this college’s buildings and Hawaiian plants reflect the roots of Hawaiian culture.

If people say that Hawaii is paradise, then I would say that Kapi’olani Community College is like a small paradise inside paradise. When I first saw this beautiful campus, I fell deeply in love with the place.

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Recently I read an article about financial planners talking with their clients about their childhood.  The point is that events that happened in childhood often shape how we manage our money.  So I thought about it, and I took a trip down memory lane. Here are a couple of my most distinct childhood memories about money, and how they relate to how I manage money now.
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When I was 4 or 5 my mom sent me to the corner store to buy a box of crayons.  I think it cost about 8 fen (1 fen is 1/100th of a yuan, the official currency of China).  So I clutched the coins in my hand and walked to the store. When I got to the store I laid down my money and asked for the box of crayons, and the storekeeper told me that I didn’t have enough money!  It seems that I lost a couple coins on the way. So I walked home with the coins I had and told my mom.  My mom gave me a couple more coins and told me to try again.  So once again I skipped and hopped to the store.  I put down my coins again, and unfortunately I didn’t have enough money again.  So I sulked a little and went home.  My mom laughed at me a bit, and decided to come along.  She asked me where I walked and I showed her, and she found the three or four coins I dropped.  Finally I got my box of crayons with my mom’s help.

I still sort of remember the fence I walked by and the grass I hopped on, and my mom repeats this story ad nauseum to whoever would listen because she thinks it’s hilariously cute.  I think this is an incident that made me wary of carrying cash in my hands. It has been twenty years since it has happened, but I still don’t like carrying a lot of cash because I fear I would lose it. Another habit instilled by this event is that I look at the ground .

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When I was about 12 my family lived in Hawaii, and we were quite low income because my parents were both immigrant graduate students. My dad tells the story of being a minimum wage souvenir salesman .  Anyway, we needed some photos developed and my dad went to the supermarket and dropped off the film. They had an advertisement that said if you choose express developing and they don’t deliver the film by 9am then they will give you the photos for free.  My dad fell for the advertisement and ordered express development.  Then the next day he sent me to pick up the photos.  Usually it cost $4 to $5 to develop a roll, but because of my dad’s folly the final bill came out to be $11.29 or something.  I handed over the money on the verge of tears because it just felt like I lost something.  Then I went home with the photos and cried.  Then my mom asked me why I was crying and I said that dad made us pay extra money for photos.  She kind of laughed at me again, but chided my dad a little bit for falling for the supermarket’s ploy and making me cry.

Of course, these days my mom makes fun of me for this incident, too.  I cried because I felt tricked, but also because I knew that money was hard to come by in my family at that time.  This was a time when we bought the overripened produce and clipped every coupon to survive, and $11 was a lot of money. Because of this incident I am very against paying for extras tacked on by stores and anything that is “express” or “premium”.  For example, I don’t buy extra warranties offered by stores, and I always just get the cheapest or free shipping.

Anyway, this post was very therapeutic for me and I hope you were amused by it. It is kind of funny to look back, but these memories do explain why I have such a cautious and frugal attitude towards money.  What are some of your childhood memories about money? Do they explain how you treat money now?cialis medication dosage