http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010crat_atlar...
I forget what Gladwell is copying from, but I know that there is an earlier article that goes into even more detail.
In this case, Jerome Karabel writes in “The Chosen” how the Ivy League started to look for "manliness" to avoid too many geeks and Jews. Alan Krueger and Stacy Dale did the economic study on the selection effect vs. value added. James L. Shulman and William Bowen wrote "The Game of Life", on athletes getting an easy ride.
"In the nineteen-eighties, when Harvard was accused of enforcing a secret quota on Asian admissions, its defense was that once you adjusted for the preferences given to the children of alumni and for the preferences given to athletes, Asians really weren’t being discriminated against. But you could sense Harvard’s exasperation that the issue was being raised at all. If Harvard had too many Asians, it wouldn’t be Harvard, just as Harvard wouldn’t be Harvard with too many Jews or pansies or parlor pinks or shy types or short people with big ears."
Of course, maybe it's because I've spent so much of my life in silicon valley, and there is a strong prejudice against people who appear shy, I believe that this prejudice is much stronger than any ethnic prejudice, at least in this area.
It's interesting, as speaking as a tall and apparently confident white male,[1] I definitely agree that I get a "white guy bonus" - I mean, part of it is the completely rational fact that I have a fairly neutral American accent- when dealing with groups consisting of people with diverse accents, quite often having someone around with an accent everyone can understand can add real value.
But really, I think it goes beyond that. Even when I was in the central valley and dealing mostly in groups of people with accents as American as my own, I think I've been offered opportunities beyond what you'd expect from my intelligence and my educational background.
Another aspect of this is just regular old confidence.[2] I present much better than I am. I interview very well, but once it's time to actually do the work? to be honest, I'm not as good as I look. I mean, I'm certainly not without value, but I'm not as good as I present. Of course, this is true of most confident people, and yet confidence is still seen as a positive rather than a negative, for some crazy reason.
The weird thing to me is that as far as I can tell, this effect is even stronger when working for foreigners. I mean, I guess part of it is that they want to exploit other people's racism, and certainly if I'm interacting with customers, having me on staff can make you look more American, but the effect seems to exist even when I'm in a purely technical role that doesn't interact with customers.
[1]My dad's family was catholic, but my mother's family was 'protestant American' and I'm not religious at all, but I guess I ended up with a more protestant look, if there is such a thing. My outward confidence is an affectation; I mean, inwardly, I believe in myself the way a catholic believes in god, but my natural personality is much less aggressive. The outward confidence is there because I've noticed that other people vastly prefer that sort of thing.)
[2]The most shocking example of being picked over someone more qualified I can remember was when I got picked over someone who was also white, male and also did not identify as jewish (but he was shorter and dramatically less confident.)
I'm trying to find a similar - likely the same - earlier article too. I'd be much obliged if you could post the link if you find it.
What is it with you anyway? I found your comment earlier today about "the US does it too!" re the Dalai Lama almost odd enough to comment on but this is the second comment in a row where you found an angle to bash the US. Do you think every negative comment about a country is a secret thumbs up to the US? And you just can't be having that?
It's like not recognizing Taiwan as a country. Offensive.
In any event, they certainly consider themselves to be a country. A rather large one.
The ROC considers Taiwan part of China. The PRC considers Taiwan part of China. The ROC and PRC are rival governments of this one China. The ROC controls Taiwan and a couple other islands, the PRC controls the rest.
The one thing both states agree on is that Taiwan is not a country; Taiwan is part of China. If you're going to be lazy and sloppy about it, you can call the ROC "Taiwan", but neither side actually sees it that way.
Millions of Taiwanese people consider Taiwan a country. I have yet to meet even one in my generation who believes Taiwan to be a part of China. This really is a case of might vs right.
Maybe most Taiwanese people think Taiwan should be an independent country (despite electing the Chinese Nationalist Party to a majority). But by matter of policy and law, it simply isn't. And no one seems willing to change the status quo.
The 國民黨 (which you call the "Chinese" nationalist party) has been losing support in each election cycle since 2000. Also, I don't think it's an accident that Ma's impressive results in the last presidential election coincided with his abandonment of the 國民黨's usual platform of unification with China. He campaigned almost purely on economic issues. Similarly the legislative victories came on an economic platform.
The guomingdang's victories have put the brakes on a few localization initiatives such as name changes of formerly state-owned businesses (e.g. 中華電信). However, the bulk of pan-green efforts have remained intact. Taiwanese is now taught at elementary school and children are no longer forbidden to speak it. History classes now focus on Taiwanese rather than Chinese history. Identity polls published by the politically-neutral Apple Daily now find a smaller than ever ratio of people consider themselves to be Chinese and a majority consider themselves to be Taiwanese only. This flies directly in the face of your claim that "No one considers Taiwan a country, aside from a minority party in Taiwan".
You're right that I don't read Chinese or Taiwanese, and that I've never been to either country, and the only second-hand knowledge I have of the situation is decades old.
I do know that the pan-blue coalition has abandoned the idea of unification for now. I also understand (if I'm not mistaken) that the pan-green coalition has also abandoned the idea of formally declaring Taiwanese independence. So despite whatever side either party is notionally supposed to be, both sides have accepted the status quo and campaign on how they are to govern Taiwan.
In any case, this is a matter of some interest to me, and I appreciate you sharing all of this. I wonder, is there still an ethnic division between Taiwanese and the descendants of the Chinese that escaped from the mainland?
The referendum is an especially key piece of the strategy. They've been pushing for at least the past 7 years for public referendum on topics that are politically benign, at least on the surface. However, once there is a precedent of a referendum, the possibility exists for private citizens to start collecting the necessary signatures to put independence (or far more likely, baby steps towards independence) to a national vote. This sort of action would be very difficult politically for the PRC to punish.
Thus far, the Guomindang (aka KMT) has defeated referendum attempts by campaigning for a boycott of the referendum. Chen put two issues forward for referendum in 2004 (coinciding with the presidential election he narrowly won against a united Soong-KMT ticket after surviving a gunshot on the eve of the election). Voters agreed with both referendum questions by margins of over 90%, but the result was invalidated due to the final turnout being less than 50%.
To answer your question, I'd say that ethnic divisions between the Min and the mainlanders have died down. The issue is politics more than ethnicity. Traditionally, Hakkas have voted pan-blue, but that's much less consistent than it was before. At this point it's more of a division between the business people, those with ties to China or HK and the more local people.
Because that's the only reason Taiwan could be said to agree with mainland China.
Literally. As in, "If you formally declare independence we will kill you all in an invasion."
That's slightly different than "Nah, let's drop this pesky independence thing."
As far as recapturing the mainland, they're waiting for the mainlanders to throw off their illegal and oppressive government and welcome them back - if not as leaders, then as brothers.