Outliers as confirmation for Chinese Education Ethos

Outliers, a book by Malcolm Gladwell, discusses the underlying pattern beneath success. How "self made success" are not self made, but a person presented a opportunity and took it.

I think that the lesson to be learned from the book is that, while having opportunities will not necessarily guarantee success, but without them success would not be possible. This meshes well with much of Chinese value on education (and many other Asian too, but I can only speak for Chinese).

Chinese have the story of Mencius, whose mother moved three times in order to find a good environment to raise her son. Basically, an environment that would surround Mencius with people who like to study. Much like how Silicon Valley, with its large number of engineers, became a cradle for the internet boom. How UIUC was cradle for vast number of important people for the internet age

As an aside, this is precisely how an environment that de-emphasizes manufacturing will lose ability to compete in production. You no longer have a kid who can get access to machine shops that can hone their talent, the society become crippled in providing opportunity