Winning IN America

Nine out of the most recent winners of the american national spelling bee have been Indian, not of the native american variety. people whose parents or ancestors are from india, asian variety.

this might be the least surprising development in recent american competitive culture. anyone who lives in an american college town can tell you that folks from india and pakistan are extremely scholarly, and extremely disciplined in their studies. same with chinese and koreans, for that matter.

hell, you can't get 'em to ever go with you to a good party. and they seem to watch american television only as a humorous occasional diversion, or for cultural comparison studies.

but it may be that they act this way only in another country, like america, instead of their own. it may be that they are studying abroad only by great good fortune and great personal investment in work and money, and so are especially determined to succeed once abroad.

my first semester in graduate school, i had two neighbors from india. great guys who invited me over for genuine, spicy indian food. it was delicious. they told me that if you were to put a show like "general hospital" on indian TV, nobody in the country would ever leave their house.

I didn't believe him then, thirty years ago, and I still don't. however, indian television does indeed have its own flourishing soap opera industry. so we know that the broader, mass indian culture is really not much more intellectually advanced than ours in america.

but when an ethnic group making up less than one one thousandth of the population wins an intellectual competition nearly every year, you have to take notice. it aint coincidence.

as competitive as americans are, its noteworthy when they fail to win at anything. of course, we are, after all, quite busy with our video games and tweets.
maybe americans are simply smart enough to understand how ridiculous competitive spelling is, though you tend to doubt it.

Bb

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