Has nothing to do with genetics, it's communist "brainwashing" (they had it quite a bit before communism but it became more evident with the rise of the PRC) - personally I'd call it social realism - the fact you amount to nothing if you aren't a good worker - something their parents make sure they are very aware of. Pretty much the only good thing to come out of the block as far as I'm concerned.
You can see the same tenacity and work ethic in most slavs. Only difference is they're from the same race as you, so you don't notice it and you think he's the odd hard working american. And that's the reason it dies out by the third generation, eastern europeans integrate into the american way of life easily, they are white so they have white friends - so they start acting like their friends, pretty normal response.
Asians on the other hand still somewhat keep to themselves, so they are somewhat able to preserve their own values.
Yeah, I know blaming your low productivity on things you can't control like genetics makes you feel better, but it's a lie.
And thats why Japan and South Korea generally perform at the same level as the communist Chinese?
If by Slavs you mean Eastern Europeans, I wouldn't say they are on the same level as the Asians. I have seen some really smart Russians and the like but the frequency is similar to what you'd see in Western Europeans... ie. most of them are pretty lazy.
And what about south Asians like the Vietnamese? Same enviornment and same communist brainwashing. Yet nothing like the Chinease/Koreans. Low and behold they have different genetics!
Any time I raised the question I was told its not genetic but cultural. I don't find this explanation satisfactory for several reasons. The main one is I know of a white family who adopted a Korean and he came out over-achieving and dominating school, where as the white kids didn't do as well.
Sorry but your theory based on a sample size of one seems a little weak.
I beleive it has a lot to do with family pressure. I know where i went to school alot of the Asian kids were sent there by their parents from China. They had to pay alot more than Australian kids anyway, plus obviously the cost of flights back to China every term break, probably would have cost shit loads. I imagine these kids parents would have been all over them to get good grades spending that amount of money.
As far as Asian families living in western countries go, i'd say it just carries over from the fact that the parents no doubt had to work exceedingly hard to establish what they see as a new and better life in a western country and no doubt expect their children to work just as hard.
I agree that family pressure and involvement go a long way. A lot of the people I gave tutoring lessons to were in fact Korean with very pushy parents. Still, I don't buy into your cost theory. There were several Indians with similar circumstances, usually rich parents sending them here to Canada for education... higher costs etc, yet they did not perform as well. In fact, I would say any immigrant group from outside of Europe has to work exceedingly hard to avoid the piss poor circumstances they left and yet it is consistanly only a select few groups who have the ability to get far.
You all are speculating a lot. I see no science in your arguments, only "it's quite evident', ''probably', and personal experience. We need science !
If your dopamine pathway is massively different from another, it's not random and has some meaning (you've read the article, right?). But I don't want to speculate too:
Let's have two groups: asian/non-asian, with asian/non asian upbringing. And Make them take personality test, novelty seeking test etc... Then we'll know. If someone finds that on Pubmed...
I'm not saying we'll develop a strong scientific theory that explains this. Neruo-psychology is still in its infancy and I doubt we could raise money to run a proper study. Still, given that a lot of readers here know about genes it may be possible to deduce a somewhat tentative relationship between the hard work ethic some groups posses and the chemical factors involved. Frankly, its an amazing ability they posses and it would be great if it could be replicated for less endowned groups like us lazy whites.
