China's Other Challenges

Mathematician, control theorist, and retired Harvard professor, Dr. Larry Yu-Chi Ho moved around a lot as a child, following his Nationalist Army (Guomindang) father to various places in the interior of China during WWII. (See post one.) At the end of the war, Larry and his families escaped to Taiwan. When he graduated high school at age 15, he came across the Pacific to attend MIT.  He met many helping hands along the way. (See post two and three.) He graduated, found a research position in one of the first-ever washing machine companies, and won the immigration lottery. (See post four.) He returned to school, this time to Harvard where he was one of a handful of students.( See post FiveIn 2001, Larry tried to retire. Instead he was asked to provide guidance to the MIT of China. (See post SixWith one foot in each country, I asked Larry what he saw as some of the challenges. He mentioned that while China is trying to woo students home, many of them remain in the U.S. to enjoy freedom. (See post Seven.)
Some other challenges he noted facing China: severe pollution, water quality, and a population problem. “Too many old people and not enough young, because of the one-child policy. Even though they (China) have relaxed that (law), most people choose not to have a second child because they want to enjoy life.” Not only are there too many old people and not enough young, but not enough young women."

“You know the old Chinese custom, male is very important, female is not. There’s actually like—last statistic I saw—120 available males to every 100 females. That’s a terrible ratio.”

In addition, he noted income inequality. “Even though lots of rich people, there are still vast amounts of people who aren’t as rich as they would like. And now they’re exposed (via the internet) to what’s impossible. Everybody wants to become rich And here not everyone will be able to do that. And that will become a problem."
(To be continued. Next: The Main Three Problems Facing U.S.)

The Taste of Freedom

Mathematician, control theorist, and retired Harvard professor, Dr. Larry Yu-Chi Ho moved around a lot as a child, following his Nationalist Army (Guomindang) father to various places in the interior of China during WWII. (See post one.) At the end of the war, Larry and his families escaped to Taiwan. When he graduated high school at age 15, he came across the Pacific to attend MIT.  He met many helping hands along the way. (See post two and three.) He graduated, found a research position in one of the first-ever washing machine companies, and won the immigration lottery. (See post four.) He returned to school, this time to Harvard where he was one of a handful of students.( See post Five.) In 2001, Larry tried to retire. Instead he was asked to provide guidance to the MIT of China. (See post Six.)

Having grown up in China til he was a teenager, and then returned to China once a year for the past seventeen, I asked if he’d noticed any changes in attitudes towards the U.S.

“Oh, yeah. A lot of change. But, basically, the U.S. is still the promised land for most educated Chinese.  They all want to come here. About 70% of Chinese who study here remain in the U.S. despite lots of attractive offers from China should people return.  The majority of people—once you taste the freedom of the United States, it’s something very difficult to give up.” 

What freedom is particularly important?

“As one Chinese official once very perceptively told me, ‘In the U.S. you control 80% of your life. The reverse is true in China.’ Even though you may be doing very well in China, the government basically controls 80% of your life—what you can and cannot do. So, once you taste this kind of freedom it’s very hard to give up.”

(To be continued. Next: China's Numerous Challenges.)

Influencing MIT of China

Mathematician, control theorist, and retired Harvard professor, Dr. Larry Yu-Chi Ho moved around a lot as a child, following his Nationalist Army (Guomindang) father to various places in the interior of China during WWII. (See post one.) At the end of the war, Larry and his families escaped to Taiwan. When he graduated high school at age 15, he came across the Pacific to attend MIT.  He met many helping hands along the way. (See post two and three.) He graduated, found a research position in one of the first-ever washing machine companies, and won the immigration lottery. (See post four.) He returned to school, this time to Harvard where he was one of a handful of students.( See post five.)

Larry tried to retire in 2001, but Harvard asked him to stay on as a research professor, and Qinhua University in Beijing --the MIT of China--asked for his guidance. He said that hardware at Qinhua was not an issue, and his office in Beijing was better equipped than the one at Harvard. “I was helping them to upgrade their software, so to speak, how to behave in international science dealings. They have come along quite well. (Today) they are quite well known.”

For the past 17 years, Larry has been going to China once a year, and staying for about a month each time, teaching  Systems’ Engineering/ Automatic Control. “How did we go and land on the moon accurately? That’s all under control, guidance and control. System Control is the major thing—but that’s applied not just to landing on the moon, but military, commercial, guiding the national economy, everything.  Everything is control. That’s my field basically—the methodology of control. It’s a subject matter that permeates all kinds of disciplines.”

Larry established and obtained funding for a  center called CFINS—Center for Intelligent Network Systems. "It was a tremendous deal for China. (Now), they are on the map in the scientific world.”

(To Be Continued. Next:  The Taste of Freedom.)

Chinese-Americans Held to Higher Standard

Mathematician, control theorist, and retired Harvard professor, Dr. Larry Yu-Chi Ho moved around a lot as a child, following his Nationalist Army (Guomindang) father to various places in the interior of China during WWII. (See post one.) At the end of the war, Larry and his families escaped to Taiwan. When he graduated high school at age 15, he came across the Pacific to attend MIT.  He met many helping hands along the way. (See post two and three.) He graduated, found a research position in one of the first-ever washing machine companies, and won the immigration lottery. (See post four.)

Larry and Sophia, 1959

Four years after he started doing research for Bendix, Larry decided to go back and get his doctorate. He was accepted at Harvard, and remembers being one of a few Chinese back then.

“Of course, nowadays, the Chinese-American students in top schools are way above the population average (of about 6%). Harvard is about 18% (Asian) last time I checked .”

He said that Harvard has been sued twice for discriminating against Asian students, and holding them to a higher standard than anyone else to get admitted. He admitted this was true.

“It’s a fact. I served on the Admissions Committee for both graduate and undergraduate. I know they have to jump a higher threshold.”

Yet, while he admits this negative bias takes place, he thinks that only looking at test scores isn’t the way to go.  “You want to work towards diversity of the student population. There are many dimensions. So having a perfect SAT score is only one of the 20 factors.”

Larry doesn’t agree with the students filing the lawsuit. “I think there are so many ways in the US to succeed… But Chinese think they have to get their kid into Yale or Harvard or Princeton.”

Still, Larry was fortunate to get into Harvard, and that top education influenced the rest of his career. 

“I got a graduate degree in Applied Maths, and stayed on. I was one of the few to stay on and become faculty. I was there for 45 years. I taught applied maths and engineering.”

Along with being tenured, he received many honors. In 1987 he became a member of the National Academy of Sciences and Engineering, the ultimate honor for a scientist. Later, he was invited to be a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Science. 

"I’ve gotten all the highest honors in my profession.”

(To be continued. Next: Influencing MIT of China)