On April 26, 2022, after reading in the local papers that almost 5,500 dengue cases were reported in high-GDP Singapore, exceeding last year’s total, I posed and posted the following quiz:
“Covid-🇸🇬: A True or False Quiz: “In living-with-Covid Singapore, people are more afraid of contracting the dengue virus (dubbed the ‘rich man’s threat’) than the coronavirus (coined the ‘poor man’s dread’).”
A Tale of Two Vectors
Last November, I’d somewhat asked a similar question: “What are the odds that in Singapore the wealthy are more likely to go to hospital due to a mosquito bite rather than due to a viral infection? The delta goes for the poor; the dengue targets the rich.”
A month earlier, I’d postulated the following scenario: “In the Singapore 2021 infection contest, the dengue is no match to the delta. Even with more biting opportunities to target potential work-from-home victims, the 🦟 blamed the 🦠 for failing to meet its target.” https://lnkd.in/d5TeNdUA
In fact, way back in 2020, I’d pondered about “Singapore’s double whammy: The dengue (9,261 cases) is catching up fast to give the coronavirus (36,405 cases) some fight. Which one will win the 🇸🇬 infection contest: the mosquito 🦟 or the virus 🦠?” bit.ly/36YIzbh
Fight for Your Life
Today, in a number of war-stricken or terrorism-sponsored countries, the battle cry is: “Be a peace fighter.” In SE Asia, the rallying cry is: “Be a dengue fighter.”
It’s an unwritten or unspoken fact that other than local Singapore parents and homeschoolers, both local and foreign math students and teachers are equally kiasu, with the extreme ones being conferred the ignoble title of “Ugly Singaporean.”
In the age of the pandemic, how would you redefine the word “kiasu” in math or math education? Below is one such attempt to relook at this Singaporean “negative trait.”
Singapore’s CPDD’s Primary Math One Textbook
Are we guilty of “mathematical kiasuism” without even being aware of it? Or we think that no one would notice it!
It’s never too late to stop and ask ourselves every now and then whether our actions (or inactions) have made us more or less kiasu.
Are we prone to rationalizing our “selfish” behaviors because after all few folks are really “hurt” or “inconvenienced” by our doings (or “wrongdoings”)? Isn’t it a thousand times easier to spot a “mathematical kiasuist” than reluctantly admitting that we’d be one ourselves, knowingly or unknowingly?
Parents are generally blamed to be super-kiasu. Teachers are über-kiasu. Students are kiasu. What about math editors, writers, or consultants? Are they less so?
For math-anxious or mathophobic folks, mathematics is more terrifying than being attacked by an army of vampires, werewolves, and zombies. For the health-conscious, Covid-19 is a thousand times deadlier than Halloween and Donald J. Trump combined. And for those on the far-left of the political spectrum, Trumpvirus is a googol times more lethal than the product of the coronavirus and Halloween. So, it looks like it depends what really matters to you to rationalize which is more frightening: Halloween, Covid-19, or Trump-45.
For conservatives or evangelicals, who recognize the dangers posed by the dark spiritual forces, Halloween is a festival of the devil, because ghosts or evil spirits are real and dangerous. How do math educators navigate through the occultic maze to leverage on a spookacular festival to promote numeracy and creative problem solving?
When Halloween is a multi-million-dollar fear-and-fun business in secular societies like China, Japan, and Singapore, math educators regardless of their religious affiliations have to recognize that Halloween is here to stay.
Yellow Halloween
When Asians too feel like celebrating a Western fright-wear festival like Halloween—the spooky business worth millions of dollars is too good to give it a miss.
The yellow Halloween provides an opportunity for rich Chinese and Japanese participants to show off their creative elaborate costumes, bringing much joy to organizers and dozens of tailors cashing in on the event.
by MathPlus November 03, 2016
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Yellow+Halloween
Let's look at a sample of Halloween math questions.
1. A Horror Movie
Thou shalt not dabble in numerology!
The screening of Covid-19 v. Trump-45 ended at 1:19 AM. If the horror movie lasted for 1 hour 31 minutes, what time did it start?
A poster outside a Singapore bookstore
2. The Ghostly Time
What is the acute angle measure between the hands of a clock at 10:31 p.m. on Halloween?
3. Horror-scope & Bat-man
#PumpkinSpice from Edel Rodriguez (@edelstudio on 19/10/17)
Today is Friday, and Trump’s numerologist tells him that he will have to drink the blood of a bat 666 days from today to continue to lead a “normal life” after he leaves the White House. What day of the week is Donald expected to do that task?
4. TrumpMath, Anyone?
5. A Grave Calculation
Not all sins or bad habits are treated equal!
Assuming that most people would live up to three scores and ten years, how long will it take before the whole world is covered in gravestones?
6. Operation Vampire
The Power of the Cross
If a vampire were to feed once a day and turn each of his victims into a vampire, show that the entire human population of the planet would become vampires in just over a month.
The Ghost Month and Halloween
Long before the East imported Halloween from the West, superstitious Asians have been celebrating their one-month-long version of Halloween, known as the “Ghost (or Seventh) Month”—a far more scarier festival than a mere evening of horror fun.
My hypothesis is: Halloween is no more than one-seventh as frightening as the Ghost Month, a festival celebrated in many parts of Asia every August or September, depending when those spiritual vagabonds from hell decided to descend on earth.
The coronavirus pandemic and the Seventh Month provide math teachers with new math terms to coin, and allow them to pose a number of deadly guesstimation problems. Below are a few of these Covid-math terms.
On August 8, 2020, @SingaporeLite tweeted the following:
Covid-👿
Corona Math: What are the odds that hungry ghosts from Hell who’d roam Earth during the Ghost or Seventh Month—Aug 19–Sep 16—are corona-proof? Besides instilling fear on superstitious folks, aren’t they also a source of infection? todayonline.com/node/8269421 #Singapore #Covid-19 👿🦠
On July 1, 2020, @SakamotoMath tweeted the following picture and text.
Happy Math-O-Ween! from @MrHonner
Corona Math: Given that the coronavirus is empowered to infect both earthlings and celestial beings, guesstimate the no. of infections among the fallen angels that colluded with Lucifer to challenge the Throne of God in the heavenlies. #Covid-19 #heaven #hell #angel #math #humor
Halloween vs. Coronavirus
Which is scarier to you: Halloween or Covid-19? How are you remembering those who would still be around if not because of the coronavirus? Is fake political leadership responsible for their premature departure to the other side of eternity? #Halloween #Covid-19 #death #leadership (@SakamotoMath on 30/10/20)
Covid-19 Goes Green
The coronavirus doesn’t discriminate against believers, nonbelievers, or agnostics—it infects or kills people of all religions or philosophies with the same intensity.
From Paranormal to Trumpnormal Distribution
Q: What do you get when you cross Covid-19 and Statistics?
A: The Trumpnormal distribution.
A “ghost distribution” from @wilderlab
Political Engineering: Stop flattening and start trumpifying the curve to open up more businesses across the US—more testings and tracings don’t win an election! #statistics #coronavirus #Covid-19 #business #lockdown #distribution #Singapore #math #infection #death #curve #humor
Coronavirus’s Nineteen Names
Just as President Trump has been conferred so many notorious titles, the coronavirus has been given all kinds of racist labels.
7. Not All Corona Prayers Are the Same!
A Shaolin Buddhist abbot can pray for a Covid-19 patient to be healed in 8 days and a Baptist bishop in 2 days. How long would it take them to get a patient who is twice as sick to fully recover, if both leaders prayed together?
Selected Answers: 1. 11:48 PM 2. 129.5° 3. Saturday 5. Over a million years 7. 3.2 days
References
Correl, G. (2015). The worrier’s guide to life. Missouri: Andrews McMeel Publishing.
Lloyd, J., Mitchinson, J. & Harkin, J. (2012). 1,227 QI facts to blow your socks off. London: Faber and Faber.
Santos, A. (2009). How many licks? Philadelphia: Running Press.
