Recent content by Haowen Wong

But Singapore is very cookie cutter--just look at how homogeneous the HDB flats are! Not to mention that at least 80% of the population lives in the HDB flats--all masterplanned by a single corporation, the HDB! Just like TIC and the "villages!" Singapore is also the country with the highest...

Please don't be nitpicky and say that big cities will never feel like suburban Irvine. Just name some big cities that feel more like Irvine. What major cities are there around the world that feel most like Irvine? Masterplanned, sterile, efficient, family friendly, cookie cutter, green...

Why not Singapore? It's got a convenient, cheap, efficient, and uber-modern subway system. It will double in size by 2030. The congestion is much milder than LA. Over 80% of the people live in high-density apartment complexes, so it sure is compact. The downtown is constantly expanding, with...

Asian immigrants are famous for being overachievers, the model minority. Historically, this is due to America's success in allowing even the poorest of immigrants, from China and Japan to work hard and achieve success. But nowadays, as Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc. rival the U.S. in...

Well, actually Japan's "sexism" is quite strong in Korea and among Taiwan's ???. Most Asians in Irvine come from one of these three countries. So why aren't they holding on to the "sexism" of their homelands and actually turning feminist in promoting STEM among their daughters? Even more so...

It does seem like, though, that this year more homebuyers are white vs. last year.

Well, why aren't more Chinese playing their own instruments? They learn the piano to put something on their college applications, not for culture. Playing the Chinese dulcimer seems very un-prestigious compared to the piano, after all. If they were really intrested in cultural appreciation...

Though Irvine has a large Chinese population, it is hardly Chinese culturally. One can hardly get around in only Mandarin. The Sam Woo's at Culver Plaza features a Roman-style colonnade. And while any Chinese schoolchild in Irvine can play the violin or the piano, hardly any can play the erhu or...

Sadly, Irvine's Chinese are so obsessed with Westernization that they are less interested than the westerners are in Chinese culture and language. That's why you can never get around Irvine with Chinese only, and the Chinese in Irvine can hardly speak, much less read, Chinese. So, no demand...

But if females in STEM is Westernization, then why is it that among white STEM workers, men still vastly outnumber women?

Strictly speaking, feminism means equal rights for men and women, NOT aggressive women trying to subvert society. So feminism could just be encouraging women to adopt male gender roles/ venture into male-dominated professions. Well known it is that STEM majors are male-dominated. Well known it...

While Irvine's official Asian population is 43% of the city (2012), many citizens give inflated figures, i.e. that 98% are Asian. Yet whites are still the majority. Will this always be the case? What is the highest proportion the Asian population will reach? It also seems like recently whites...

Very few office buildings? There's tonnes in the IBC and Spectrum. Irvine is an edge city, after all, with many commuters coming to it. Besides, look beyond the fact that Singapore is urban and Irvine is suburban. The question is: Is Irvine the American version of Singapore (in terms of quality...

In case if you thought Irvine was the only bubble in the world, check out Singapore. It is safe, imacculately clean, affluent, a thriving commercial/financial center, with a competitive educational system, master-planned, is famed for its diversity and has a lot of Asians, and is lushly...