Why do we China people want to take a foreign language test?

The ancient imperial examination and the present foreign language examination have a common feature, that is, forcing people to spend too much energy to learn too many useless things!

There is such a short message joke:

Mother mouse warned the mouse in the hole: "When you hear a cat barking outside the hole, don't look out of the hole, or the cat will eat you!" " "

One day, there was a dog barking outside the cave. The mouse poked its head out of the cave curiously to see the strange thing. As a result, it saw two cats instead of dogs. Just then, a cat reached out its paw and caught the mouse, and ate it in a few bites. After the cat swallowed the mouse, it licked its mouth and proudly said to another cat, "These days, knowing a foreign language means taking advantage!" "

This joke is a joke after all, but it actually tells us a strange landscape faced by China people-everything has to be tested in a foreign language! Isn't it? Technical promotion must pass the foreign language examination, and university, master's and doctoral entrance examinations must participate in any major. Even if you apply for Chinese, China history and Chinese painting, you must take a foreign language exam. Many people who are not good at foreign languages but have expertise will be rejected. Chen Danqing, a former master of Chinese painting in Tsinghua University, resigned angrily because a talented candidate failed to recruit anyone because of his poor performance in the foreign language exam.

In fact, our foreign language teaching efficiency is the lowest in the world, so I can make a bet with readers: if you can find evidence to prove my assertion is wrong, I can pay you a dollar! Isn't it? We started to learn and choose foreign languages at least from junior high school until middle age. In order to get promoted, we had to choose and learn foreign languages, but not many people can skillfully use foreign languages. Why is this happening? I thought of China's imperial examinations since the Sui Dynasty. A major feature of China culture is the examination. It is really heartbreaking to see primary school students (even kindergarten children) carrying heavy schoolbags and wearing a pair of big glasses all day. Children in China have no childhood, and childhood is the age when a genius is born. Our culture is killing genius! Why are there no Newton and Einstein in China? The answer is here!

I know a university teacher, who is very knowledgeable and thoughtful. However, because he failed in the foreign language exam, he repeatedly failed to apply for doctors in many universities. This phenomenon can be found everywhere. I've been thinking for many years. We China people always spend a lot of time reading, but why is our understanding of the universe still "a round place?" In the19th century? Why didn't modern science come into being? In fact, the culture of China is the same as that of ancient Egypt. A long civilization has produced brilliant scientific and technological civilization because of "learning by doing", but it has not produced systematic pure science. Pure science comes from independent thinking and observation, not from reading dead books. We read too many books and lack thinking, especially independent thinking. Even a thinker like Qu Yuan who put forward Tian Wen is actually regarded as an alternative in China culture. Originally, writing was a tool for communication, but China's writing system was the most complicated and inefficient. There are more than 80 thousand Chinese characters alone, and Guo Moruo, who knows the most Chinese characters, can only know 40 thousand of them with the support of scientific research, and no one can know half a number. The ancient imperial examination and the present foreign language examination have a common feature, that is, forcing people to spend too much energy to learn too many useless things! In ancient times, the imperial examination was nothing more than testing candidates' literary talent, historical knowledge (not necessarily real history) and even opportunistic minds. It can't be said that these things are useless at all, but compared with their investment in study time, the efficiency is very low. Perhaps the only useful place of imperial examination is that it provides a tool for feudal rulers to select bureaucratic candidates who are familiar with the rules of Confucian games, and its role is similar to that of western churches. The imperial examination in the late Qing Dynasty died, and it was all gone. But now, we are stuck in the foreign language exam.

The author has long liked to use game theory tools to decipher social problems, and it is almost impossible to try! Here, the author once again uses game thinking to answer the reason why everything should be tested in a foreign language.

China (including ancient China) is characterized by a large population, so the per capita resources are few (China is actually "thin" rather than "rich"). In addition, China culture lacks legal tradition, and there is no mechanism to protect personal property and even personal interests since ancient times, so extortion has become a "hidden rule" without rules. In such an environment, the order formed by social spontaneous organization and determined by game equilibrium becomes the key mechanism to stabilize society. I remember the year before last, an Italian female master student came to China from Italy to discuss a problem. She was educated in Italy, and religion is the mechanism to stabilize society. But she found that China culture lacks religious tradition, but China society is super stable. Many ancient civilizations no longer exist, only Chinese civilization still exists. She was shocked and puzzled by this. She asked me what my answer was to this question. My answer to her is: Although China is not bound by religious norms, the social stability of China is guaranteed by self-organizing game equilibrium, and only by relying on game theory can we understand the phenomenon of ultra-stability in China society. Because the stability of social organization from game equilibrium is more stable than that from religious norms!

So, in thousands of years of China culture, what mechanism is stabilizing social order? China culture has two characteristics: a large population and a lack of legal tradition. These two characteristics determine that the allocation of resources must be carried out in a unique way in order to ensure social order. The large population leads to fierce competition in resource allocation, and the lack of legal system leads to extortion becoming a recognized "rule". However, there is bound to be a rule of the game to restrict this rule, that is, the "first come, first served" rule.

In China, even in the whole East, it seems to be a tradition to respect the authority of the elderly, but the formation of this "tradition" comes from an invisible game. If there are no rules to restrain young people, the elderly will be at a disadvantage when competing with young people for social resources. Young people are strong, and old people are no match for young people in force. But the old people come to this world before the young people, and they will first make a rule that is beneficial to the old people and let the young people "wait". The elderly occupy social status and control social resources. This rule requires young people to spend a lot of time waiting, "queuing", and the old people will have a chance to occupy the position of society when they withdraw from the historical stage. At this time, the original young people have become old people, and they have become vested interests, asking the young people behind them to wait in line. This mechanism is a norm to stabilize social order. In this mechanism, the elderly are vested interests and they support this mechanism. Although young people are victims of this mechanism, due to the well-known "collective action dilemma", individual young people have no motivation to challenge this mechanism. Therefore, this "queuing" mechanism becomes a Nash equilibrium.

Obviously, it is important to have a mechanism for young people to wait and queue; That is to say, if there is a mechanism that allows young people to spend time, so as to give the elderly enough time to dominate social resources without competition from young people, this mechanism may become a balanced mechanism in a society with a large population and a lack of legal system. The past imperial examinations and today's foreign language examinations all meet such conditions.

Both the ancient imperial examinations and today's foreign language examinations have some reasonable contents, but their greatest function is to allow young people to spend a lot of time in them, thus giving the elderly a lot of time and avoiding competition among young people. For example, from the point of view of the function of learning itself, it is entirely possible for college students to take mathematics instead of foreign languages, or to let college students choose between mathematics proficiency test and foreign language proficiency test. But why not take the math test? Because, compared with foreign languages, mathematics does not need to spend a lot of time to master, and for people with higher IQ, mathematics exams can be studied and passed in a shorter time; However, even people with high IQ can't master a foreign language in a short time. In the past, stereotyped writing in the imperial examination also took a lot of time to read classics. Therefore, as a unique way to alleviate the pressure of social resources competition in China, the ancient imperial examination system is essentially the same as today's foreign language examination-forcing young people to spend time and giving the elderly who first came to this world enough time to control social resources, until the elderly retire or even die, young people begin to have opportunities (pass the examination, and for this kind of examination, they have spent enough time to occupy the position that the elderly gave up. At this time, young people are also old people. After they became vested interests, they changed from the original victims to the beneficiaries of this mechanism, so their attitudes changed and they also supported this mechanism. Because the master of social resources is more decisive than the empty-handed young people, this mechanism will continue to be maintained and endless.

Of course, both ancient imperial examinations and today's foreign language examinations have certain effects. Imperial examination trains candidates who are familiar with Confucian rules, and foreign language examination is also conducive to the internationalization of the country. However, these functions of these two methods are almost insignificant compared with their inefficiency. Their greatest role lies in their "queuing function", and this mechanism can become a long-term popular norm in society, because the social strata who become vested interests through this queuing are also the masters of social resources, and they will support and maintain this mechanism, thus making this mechanism a Nash equilibrium supported by all vested interests who control social resources (because young victims have no right to speak and cannot affect this equilibrium). Now, instead of taking the imperial examination, I take the foreign language examination because the imperial examination was abolished in the late Qing Dynasty, and the emptiness and absurdity of stereotyped writing can no longer be used as a tool to "fool" young people in modern society, so the foreign language examination has replaced this role. This kind of foreign language examination, which causes people to spend a lot of time dealing with foreign languages that they can't use, just plays the same role as the ancient imperial examination: let young people go aside to cool off first-a unique social queuing function.

Excerpted from Chinese and Foreign Digest No.2, 20 1 1 [Pu Yongjian]