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Given how knowledge is supposed to be just world knowledge---not Korean, Japanese, British, or American knowledge---it is impressive how much gets written comparing to those in the West the sheer numbers employed in Chinese science and technology, or the levels of expertise in Indian engineering. How long will it be, it is implied, before Chinese knowledge or Indian knowledge overtake Western knowledge?
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Why hold back? Why not hire only the best?
The other story making the rounds is how in many Western firms now, annual prize ceremonies
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LSE has long been and continues to be far more international than any other university I know. Of its student population of 8,000, half come from more than 120 countries outside the European Union. Last year, for the first time ever, China and Hong Kong fielded over 950, the highest number of foreign students at the LSE. Malaysia and Singapore, even when added together manage only a tiny population at home. Yet, somehow they routinely send the LSE almost as many students as does the Chinese mainland now, and one-third more students than does all of Germany.
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I figured I was doing well. I only had 240 names that morning; some graduates had decided to go home or had had to start work, and couldn't attend.
I could see the finish line. I headed towards it with "Adrian Zhi Da Wong", "Sukjai Wongwaisiriwat", and "Zhi Jia Yap". I was on the final straightaway now with "Jiaqian Chen", "Ilja Boelaars", "Kun Lung Wu", "Vasileios Gkionakis", and "Nuarpear Warn Lekfuangfu".
Then I messed up.
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These people I have named and others in the Peacock Theatre that morning are friends of mine. Of those who graduated BSc from the Economics Department, three years back I had given them and their classmates, all 850 of them, the very first lecture they ever attended at the LSE. Not by coincidence, that had also occurred in the Peacock Theatre; it was the first lecture on Introductory Economics. These people are members of an amazing and accomplished class. I wasn't pleased to see them leave that July morning. But I was proud I got to announce their names as they left.
World knowledge it is then.
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4 comments:
Hahahaha... what an amazing post! DQ you *have* to blog more often.
Hi DQ,
nice graduation photos, if there's any malaysian - pls ask them to come back and "save" us :-)
I enjoyed rreading this
Thanks for this blogg post
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