Tag Archives: Seventh Month

Covid-19, Halloween, and Hell

October 31, 2020Humor, Mathematical Humor, Problem Solving, Recreational Math, Singapore Math, Theomaticscemetery, Corona Math, coronavirus, Covid-19, dark math, Evil Math, fallen angels, Ghost Month, Green Math, guesstimation, Hades, Halloween, hell, Horrorscope, Infidel Math, kung-flu math, Lucifer, mathophobia, numerology, Political Math, politics, Racist Math, Seventh Month, statistics, theomatics, Trump, Trumphobia, Trumpism, Trumpkin, TrumpMath, Trumpnormal, vampire, Yellow HalloweenKow-Cheong Yan

Halloween in Singapore: To Spook or Not to Spook

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

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?

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

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 👿🦠

The Deities & the Deceased The Math of Hell: A politically correct explanation of the burning of hell money: Why the deities like odd numbers, and the deceased like even numbers. https://www.facebook.com/MothershipSG/videos/experts-explain-burning-offerings-in-singapore/336558850793421/ #Singapore #Taoism #hell #Buddhism #ghost #evil #spirit #Chinese #culture #tradition #fear #math #number (@SingaporeLite on 20/9/20)

On July 1, 2020, @SakamotoMath tweeted the following picture and text.

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.

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.

Singh, S. (2013). Homer Simpson’s scary maths problems. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24724635

Yan, K.C. (2012). Halloween Math. https://www.singaporemathplus.com/2012/10/halloween-math.html

The Lighter Side of Innumeracy

November 10, 2014Singapore Mathauspicious numbers, Chinese astrology, Chinese numerology, divination, fear, feng shui, gambling, geomancy, Hello Kitty, humor, Hungry Ghost, idol worship, innumeracy, insurance, irrationality, joke, lottery, lucky numbers, marketing, mathematical literacy, numerology, percentage, percents, promotion, pseudoscience, punters, Seventh Month, Shopping, Singapore math, snake oil, spam mail. self-help courses, superstitionKow-Cheong Yan

Most of us may not admit it, but we’ve all fallen victim to the lure of innumeracy—the mathematical equivalent of illiteracy—consciously or unconsciously. Here are twenty of my favorite innumerate events I often witness among my numerate and semi-numerate friends, colleagues, and relatives.

• Taking a 45-minute train journey to save a few dollars at Carrefour or Walmart.

• Lining up for hours (or even days, if you’re in China?) to buy an iPhone or iPad.

• Paying a numerologist or geomancy crank to divine your “lucky” and “unlucky” days.

• Visiting a feng-shui master to offer advice how best to arrange your furniture at home, or in your office, to ward off negative or “unwanted energies.”

• Buying similar items in bulk at discounted prices, which you don’t need but because they’re cheap.

• Offering foods to idols [aka gods and goddesses] in the hope that they’ll bring you good luck and prosperity in return.

• Offering gifts to hungry [angry?] ghosts to appease them lest they come back to harm you and your loved ones.

• Buying insurance policies against alien abduction, meteorites, biological warfare, or the enslavement of the apocalyptic Beast.

• Filling up lucky draw vouchers, by providing your personal particulars for future pests-marketeers and time-sharing consultants.

• Betting on horses, football, stocks, and the like—any get-rich activities that may cut short a 30-year working life, slaving for your mean or half-ethical bosses 9-to-6 every day.

• Buying lottery tickets to short-circuiting hard work, or to retiring prematurely.

• Going on annual pilgrimages to seeking blessing from some deities, prophets, saints, or animal spirits.

• Outsourcing your thinking to self-help gurus or motivational coaches.

• Going for prices that end in 99 cents, or acquiring auctioned items that are priced at $88 or $888—the number 8 is deemed auspicious among superstitious Chinese.

• Replying to spam mails from conmen and “widows” from Nigeria, Russia, or China, who are exceedingly generous to transfer half of their inherited money to your bank account.

• Taking a half-day leave from work, or faking sickness to visit the doctor, to line up for hours to buy McDonald Hello Kitties.

• Lining up overnight to buy the latest model of a game console, or to secure an apartment unit of a newly built condominium.

• Enrolling for courses that cost over a thousand bucks to learn “Effective Study Habits of Highly Successful Students.”

• Postponing all important meetings, or avoiding air traveling, on a Friday the thirteenth.

• Canceling all major business dealings, weddings, or product launches during the Ghost (or Seventh) Month.

Now is your turn to share with the mathematical brethren at least half a dozen of your pet innumerate activities—those numerical idiocies or idiosyncrasies— that you (or your loved ones) were indulged in at some not-too-distant point in the past.

**Hungry ghosts don’t do Singapore math**

October 11, 2013Singapore Mathalgebra, bar method, Chinese culture, fear, Fraction, ghost, Ghost Month, God, heaven, hell, humor, irrationality, model drawing, prayer, problem solving, problem-solving heuristics, problem-solving strategies, Seventh Month, Singapore math, Singapore model method, Stack method, superstition, visualizationKow-Cheong Yan

In Singapore, every year around this time, folks who believe in hungry ghosts celebrate the one-month-long “Hungry Ghost Festival” (also known as the “Seventh Month”). The Seventh Month is like an Asian equivalent of Halloween, extended to one month—just spookier.

If you think that these spiritual vagabonds encircling the island are mere fictions or imaginations of some superstitious or irrational local folks who have put their blind faith in them, you’re in for a shock. These evil spirits can drive the hell out of ghosts agnostics, including those who deny the existence of such spiritual beings.

Hell money superstitious [or innumerate] folks can buy for a few bucks to pacify the “hungry ghosts.”

During the fearful Seventh Month, devotees would put on hold major life decisions, be it about getting married, purchasing a house, or signing a business deal. If you belong to the rational type, there’s no better time in Singapore to tie the knot (albeit there’s no guarantee that all your guests would show up on your D-Day); in fact, you can get the best deal of the year if your wedding day also happens to fall on a Friday 13—an “unlucky date” in an “unlucky month.”

Problem solving in the Seventh Month

I have no statistical data of the number of math teachers, who are hardcore Seventh Month disciples, who would play it safe, by going on some “mathematical fast” or diet during this fearful “inaupicious month.” As for the rest of us, let’s not allow fear, irrationality, or superstition to paralyze us from indulging into some creative mathematical problem solving.

Let’s see how the following “ghost” word problem may be solved using the Stack Method, a commonly used problem-solving strategy, slowing gaining popularity among math educators outside Singapore (which has often proved to be as good as, if not better than, the bar method in a number of problem-situations).

During the annual one-month-long Hungry Ghost Festival, a devotee used 1/4 and $45 of the amount in his PayHell account to buy an e-book entitled That Place Called Hades. He then donated 1/3 and $3 of the remaining amount to an on-line mortuary, whose members help to intercede for long-lost wicked souls. In the end, his PayHell account showed that he only had $55 left. How much money did he have at first?

Try solving this, using the Singapore model, or bar, method, before peeking at the quick-and-dirty stack-method solutions below.

From the stack drawing,

2 units = 55 + 13 + 15 + 15 = 98
4 units = 2 × 98 = 196

He had $196 in his PayHell account at first.

Alternatively, we may represent the stack drawing as follows:

From the model drawing,

2 units = 15 + 15 + 13 + 55 = 98
4 units = 2 × 98 = 196

The devotee had $196 in his account at first.

Another way of solving the “ghost question” is depicted below.

From the stack drawing,

6u = 55 + 13 + 15 + 15 = 98
12u = 2 × 98 = 196

He had $196 in his PayHell account at first.

A prayerful exercise for the lost souls

Let me end with a “wicked problem” I initially included in Aha! Math, a recreational math title I wrote for elementary math students. My challenge to you is to solve this rate question, using the Singapore bar method; better still, what about using the stack method? Happy problem solving!

How would you use the model, or bar, method to solve this “wicked problem”?

Reference
Yan, K. C. (2006). Aha! math! Singapore: SNP Panpac Education.

A businessman won this “lucky” urn with a $488,888 bid at a recent Hungry Ghost Festival auction.

Yan's One Minute Math Blog

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