I can’t recall what prompted me to coin “mathemachicken” three-odd years ago. Was it the aftermath of setting or solving an unhealthy number of word problems on chickens or eggs, or both?

Not too long ago, in Organic Chicken Rice for the Rich, I hatched up a meme and offered some math questions on organic and kampong chickens. https://bit.ly/3y1fXvL

Early this month, the world read about Malaysia’s decision to ban the export of chickens (but not eggs) to its frenemy neighbor Singapore. In fact, even before the ban, the prices of chicken eggs were already skyrocketing in supermarkets, which sounds more like a case of synchronized profiteering strategies among exporters, distributors, and supermarkets than anything else, but after some Opposition members had denounced the unjustified inflated prices, things have since stabilized more or less.

Ukrainian Eggs 4 Singapore

During Singapore’s “circuit breaker”—a PC term for “lockdown”—we’re blessed with white eggs flown from Ukraine. I recall that some supermarkets had promotions like “Buy One, Get One Free” or “Buy Two, Get One Free” to lure locals to try Ukrainian eggs. Since the war, the import of these bigger and cheaper eggs seems to have come to a halt.

Probably no animal is more popular than the chicken in math word problems—even the beloved bunny comes a distant second. Be it the use of their heads, eyes, legs, or eggs, the chicken remains the animal of choice among mathematical problem posers.

Tens of thousands of brain-friendly and unfriendly math questions on chickens and eggs around the world make their way into canned and creative math textbooks every year, which makes millions of math-anxious students worldwide to “chicken out” to avoid being given all kinds of labels by peers and parents for their oft-irrational fear or failure to solving them.

Philosophically Speaking

If you were a chicken, would you feel privileged or pissed off by the way your name is being used, abused, or misused in school textbooks and workbooks?

Do you think it’s long overdue that you and your feathery friends and foes sue the publishers and the Ministries of Education around the world for showing disrespect or even disdain towards the chicken community?

On a lighter note, if it looks like a chicken and clucks and counts like a chicken, you never know: it might be a mathemachicken.

© Yan Kow Cheong, June 28, 2022