Korean Job Discussion Forums

[nathanrutledge]

like adventurer said, not many americans or koreans can count change. Everyone, next time you have a bill of 2600 won, give them 3100 and see what happens. Obviously, they should give you 500 back, but I'd bet that 9 times out of 10, they'll look at what you gave them and either give you the 100 won back and then grab 400 more, or they'll have to think really hard for a second to know what to do. It doesn't matter what country you're in either, every cashier has become dependent on what the register tells them. It's pretty sad.

[thurst]

koreans SHOULD be able to calculate change easier since they only deal with large whole numbers and multiples of 10 (usually only multiples of 100).

being able to calculate stupidly large numbers in your head isn't a particularly beneficial characteristic once you realize that any time you'll be forced to multiply large numbers there will almost certainly be a calculator nearby.

and what kind of discrete math are they doing in school? i find it hard imagine teaching non-college kids anything beyond maybe boolean operators. oh yeah, i got my BA in math =D

[re:cursive]

I recently finished reading the book 'Outliers' by Malcolm Gladwell and there was an interesting chapter in there entitled 'Rice Paddies and Math Tests'. I found it to be a very convincing argument. You can read a short excerpt here that gives the basic idea:
http://www.gladwell.com/outliers/outliers_excerpt3.html

[Privateer]

That's very interesting and makes a lot of sense, but what about Asian Americans and others who grow up speaking English and still do significantly better than average at math? That's not a myth, right?