Cross-Cultural Geography Experiment

So I ran "English Corner" today, and go to play a little experiment.

I (and some of my friends) wanted to know relative tests of education between the US and China--history, geography, etc. My sample is a bunch of 20-somethings with Master's degrees and years of English class... a sample far more learned and intelligent than the averge Chinese and average American.

I have been talking to many of them about Western history, and for some of them, their Western history is at least as good as my Far Eastern history, which is pretty darn impressive. For some of them, they are... not quite as good (the Chinese words for "parliament," "constitution," "Napoleon," "medeival," etc, mean almost nothing to them). My good buddy Chris is probably the most knowledgable--we had a debate as to whether Rommel or Patton was the superior tank commander (he was shocked that Americans might not know someone as titanically awesome as Patton. "I thought he was a national hero."), and talked about the relative value of the T-34 to the Panzer IV to the Sherman. Anyway, my case studies have shown a great range of historical understanding of the West (though most have a pretty good idea of US presidents--probably about as good an idea as the average American).

We also wondered what they expected of US people with respect to Chinese history. Interestingly, most of them ignored ancient Chinese history, often saying "not much happened." My general impression of expectations, by what people have mentioned:

Kong Zi (Confucius), Lao Zi (Lao Tzu), Sun Zi (Sun Tzu), Emporer Qin (who united the 7 Chinese states-- watch "Hero" for this), Emperor Qianlong (famous Qing emperor), Cixi (the "Empress Dowager"), Lu Xun ("father of modern Chinese literature," and May 4th revolutionary), Sun Zhongsan (Sun Yat-Sen, "father of modern China"), Jiang Jieshi (Generallisimo Chiang Kai-Shek), Mao Zedong, Lin Biao (maybe), Zhu De (maybe), Deng Xiaoping (definitely), Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao (maybe). They also expect us to know about the Qin unification of China, the fact that the last 2 dynasties were Ming and Qing, the poly-colonization of China, the Opium wars, the Boxer rebellion, some internal rebellions (like Taiping), the May 4th revolution (which called for modern government, self-strengthening, some democracy stuff), the fall of the Qing in 1919, the establishment of Republican China, the end of the Warlords (team Communists + Nationalists took them down), the first Sino-Japanese war (Japan takes Manchuria and Taiwan), the first civil war (Communists vs. Nationalists), the full-scale Japanese invasion (WWII), 2nd civil war (Communists win), establishment of PRC, Great Leap Forward, alliance with Russia, Cultural Revolution, rapproachment with US, opening and reform.

ANYWAY: That experiment. I was looking for something a bit more concrete, though halfway through realised I was sortof failing.

I took a blank map of Asia, and an alphebatized word bank of English country names, broke them into seven teams of two, and said "Go!" and awarded Oreos to the winner (competitions with sweets as prizes are popular at Horizon). Remember these guys have had years of English, so I expected their English to not be so great--but they certainly knew the English names of many countries, and still managed to get a fair number of these wrong. Of note (for interest's sake only, there is not much value to be assigned to these):

One group put Russia in Kazakhstan's place.
They all got the Koreas, China, Japan, and Mongolia perfect.
Half the groups got Vietnam wrong (I did tell them beforehand that Vietnam was "Yuenan" in Chinese), and Laos/Cambodia/Thailand/Burma were a struggle.
One group nailed 20 out of 37, which is probably better than most Americans would do on the same English test, but the group included the manager, whose English was excellent (and this is her home continent).
No group knew the proper locations of Iraq or Iran, though many put them somewhere nearby (the names were very familiar from news, and sound a lot like the Chinese "Yilake" [that's "yeelahkuh" for those that don't know pinyin] and "Yilang" [that's "yeelahng"]).
One group got Afghanistan right, and one Pakistan.
All but one got India right.
In general, the groups knew China's Northeast perfectly, it's Southeast moderately well, it's direct south okay, and its western areas relatively poorly.

It was all very interseting to see what they knew. One really can't scientifically compare this to Americans at all--the test was 10 minutes, with a sample size of 12 Masters' students with varying levels of English (from bout my level of Chinese to near-fluent). I am thinking about giving them a map of Europe and no word bank, and saying "fill it in with whatever language you want," see how they do, and then get a few of you to do the same thing to get a better idea.

But my general impression is that while Americans may be pretty lousy at geography, even well-educated Chinese aren't perfect, either.

Apologies of this pseudo-science post offends anyone.