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There was this BBC report recently on a child prodigy from Singapore, nine-year-old Lim Ding Wen who is fluent in six programming languages. His newest creation, an iPhone drawing game called Doodle Kids which he wrote for his younger sisters, reportedly, racked up over 4,000 downloads in just two weeks. Doodle Kids allows players to sketch with their fingers on the iPhone's screen and someone commented that it was awesome that such creation would come from a nine year old. Now, I wonder if Lim Ding Wen is a product of the Kiasu culture said to be prevalent in Singapore. Kiasu is a Hokkien (a Chinese spoken variant) word which literally means fear of losing and is used to describe the social attitudes and values of South East Asian.The kiasu attitude is afraid of losing out in a highly competitive society that people go to the extent of accumulating too much food on one's plate during a buffet lunch in case there is no more later, joining a queue many days in advance just to ensure that one successfully gets hold of the limited free tickets to events, promotions and shows or imposing heavy study labour on children so that they are at the very top of all other students. Lim Ding Wen, as you can see, is at the very top of many other students not just in Singapore but the whole world!
There was this BBC report recently on a child prodigy from Singapore, nine-year-old Lim Ding Wen who is fluent in six programming languages. His newest creation, an iPhone drawing game called Doodle Kids which he wrote for his younger sisters, reportedly, racked up over 4,000 downloads in just two weeks. Doodle Kids allows players to sketch with their fingers on the iPhone's screen and someone commented that it was awesome that such creation would come from a nine year old. Now, I wonder if Lim Ding Wen is a product of the Kiasu culture said to be prevalent in Singapore. Kiasu is a Hokkien (a Chinese spoken variant) word which literally means fear of losing and is used to describe the social attitudes and values of South East Asian.The kiasu attitude is afraid of losing out in a highly competitive society that people go to the extent of accumulating too much food on one's plate during a buffet lunch in case there is no more later, joining a queue many days in advance just to ensure that one successfully gets hold of the limited free tickets to events, promotions and shows or imposing heavy study labour on children so that they are at the very top of all other students. Lim Ding Wen, as you can see, is at the very top of many other students not just in Singapore but the whole world!
Comments
Kids simply know how to construct things as long as you give them the correct environment to do their best.