Like so manytalented young Chinese, Yuan T. Lee came to the U.S. to study, and then tostay. He earned a Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. He climbed the academic ladder. Eventually, he won a Nobel Prize. Then earlierthis year, at the peak of his career, the 57-year-old chemist made a sweepingU-turn and headed back home to run research institutes.

The departureof such a distinguished scientist signals a dramatic change: the brain drainthat has enriched the West with tens of thousands of Asia’s best and brightestminds has begun to flow in the opposite direction. The Yuan T. Lees of tomorrowstill flock to elite North American and European universities for advanceddegrees, but more and more they are seeking employment in Asia, whereopportunities to pursue careers in research are expanding almost as fast assales of designer clothes and cellular phones.

The U.S., which last year pulled the plug on one of its most prestigious science projects, theSuper conducting Supercollider, often seems to forget the value of fundingresearch. But Asia has not. Japan has been building up its researchcapabilities for years, and it is being joined by the so-called Tigers of Asia—Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. They are collectively plowingbillions of dollars earned by selling cars and computer parts into theirtechnical universities and research institutes. Their goal is an ambitious one:first to catch up in scientific fields pioneered by the West, then to dominatethe industries of the future.

Asia’s newwillingness to invest in long-term research reflects not just its recenteconomic boom but also a radical shift in social outlook. Thirty years ago,when the average person needed rice and bread, who could talk about science?Today science is viewed as a necessity.

The change isas remarkable as it is recent—especially for those scientists making the trip back East. Just 10years ago, returning to Asia would have entailed enormous personal sacrifice.But that was before the job market for scientists and engineer in the Westturned sour and prospects in the East turned sweet. Singapore’s six-year-old Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology finds it increasingly easy to attract promisingyoung Ph. D.s with offers that start at $40,000 a year. Hong Kong’s new University of Science and Technology, which awarded degrees to its first class of 576undergraduates last month, can match the handsome faculty salaries offered bytop U.S. universities, and has even started to lure some prominent non-Asians.To direct a new $4.5 million environmental-studies program, for instance, HongKong recruited Gary Heinke from the University of Toronto. “We’re not shy,”laughs Hong Kong university president Chia-Wei Woo, whose resume includes astint as president of San Francisco State University. “When we see someone we want,we can be very sticky.”

For Asian-bornscientists, a sense of duty, the tug of shared culture, the need to care foraging parents and a thousand other imponderables influence the decision toreturn. The recent wave of corporate downsizing and research cutbacks in the U.S. has also tipped the scales. A generous retirement package helped persuade Lee to leavehis comfortable sinecure in Berkeley and take on the challenge of leadingresearch institutes.

But whatultimately wins over most wavering recruits is the sight of gleaminglaboratories stocked with state-of-the-art equipment. In Taiwan K.H. Chen andhis colleagues are using high-powered lasers to study ozone-destroying gasesand films of sparkling diamonds. In Hong Kong engineers are fabricatingcomputer chips in clean rooms that rival the very best facilities at U.S. universities. In Pohang, South Korea, scientists will soon start probing the structureof materials with a $180 million tool known as a synchrotron light source—one of only half a dozen suchmachines in the world.

Although theyhave taken shape in the shadow of Japan, the scientific showcases of thePacific Rim look for inspiration to California’s Silicon Valley, whereacademics and entrepreneurs race to take ideas out of the lab and into themarketplace. In Hong Kong researchers are already working on projects forclients ranging from a small machine-tool manufacturer in Nanjing, China, to big multinationals like U.S.-based Motorola. Taiwan’s scientists have taken on everythingfrom vaccines to satellite communications, and many harbor even grander dreams.“In a few years, ” confides an aspiring biotechnologist, “I hope to start myown company.”

But there is adanger in too narrow a focus on products and patents, warns Y. H. Tan, directorof Singapore’s Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology. While these may pay offin the short term, they are unlikely to yield the dazzling technological leapsthat come from tackling fundamental problems in science. Tan’s solution:continue supporting basic research—like mapping the genes of the fugue, the poisonous blowfish prizedby sushi chefs—whileat the same time prospecting for new drugs in Southeast Asia’s flora and faunafor the British giant Glaxo.

Competition foropenings in Asia’s top research centers is keen. The Ph. D. that received from Indiana university wasn’t good enough, jokes Huan Change, now at Taiwan’s Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences. “I had to go to Harvard as a postdoctoral fellow toget myself coated in a layer of gold.” There is a frontier spirit in thesefast-growing intellectual boomtowns that attracts adventurous job seekers.Calcutta-born Uttam Surana, an ambitious young biologist with a Ph. D. from the University of Arizona, turned down an offer from Germany’s venerable MaxPlanck Institute to go to Singapore. “When you work with big people, you getovershadowed by their thinking,” says Surana. “Here you can think your ownthoughts.”

The scientistsreturning to Asia bring more than just a Westernized preference for cappuccinoover tea. They also carry with them a penchant for challenging the status quo.Until recently, Asian funding agencies still doled out research money accordingto traditional egalitarian formulas, with little regard for quality. Now theyare being pressured to establish peer-review panels staffed by scientificexperts to gauge the merit of competing proposals. Automatic promotions, stilltypical at many academic institutions, are also coming under attack, and somebrave souls have even mounted an assault on the Confucian ethos—particularly its stultifyingworship of professors and its reluctance to question authority. Wen Chang, ayoung researcher, politely but firmly objects to being addressed as TeacherChang. “I tell students that there is no authority in science,” she says.“Everything can be overthrown the very next day.”

While theTigers’ forays into research and development have begun to produce somefirst-rate scientific papers, they have yet to generate the trailblazinginnovations that have streamed out of American laboratories. But the energy andexuberance alone of the Asians make them worth watching. Not tomorrow, perhaps,but a few decades from now, the U.S. may rue the policy drift that is erodingits research infrastructure as slowly and as surely as water rusts the steelgirders of a bridge. For the scientific breakthroughs of the 21st century—and the market opportunitiesthat follow—may beborn on the Pacific Rim.

1．The salary of a teacher in Hong Kong’s University of Science and Technology is ______.

A. as much asthat in top U.S. universities

B. much higherthan that in top U.S. universities

C. much lowerthan that in top U.S. universities

D. as little asthat in top in top U.S. universities

2．What ultimately attracted theresearchers to work in Taiwan’s labs is ______.

A. the pleasantclimate

B. the generouspeople

C. thewell-equipped labs

D. the colorfulculture

3．In California’s Silicon Valley, ______.

A. researchersdevoted themselves to the study whole-heartedly

B. all thepeople there knew something about computers

C. both theresearchers and businessmen were trying to turn scientific studies intoproducts and into money

D. people putmore emphasis on scientific study

4．Uttam Surana turned down an offer fromGermany’s Venerable Max Planck Institute because ______.

A. there are nobig people worth this admiration

B. Germany istoo far from his hometown

C. he doesn’tlike Germany

D. he doesn’tlike to work with big people

5．In the author’s opinion, the Americanpolicy at the present time is relatively ______.

A. encouraging

B. promising

C. no good

D. welcomed bythe researchers

【答案与解析】

本文介绍了在美国受教育及训练的亚裔研究人员归国，这对西方的技术优势形成的一种挑战。

1．A 从文中第五段可知，香港科技大学的工资和美国顶尖大学的工资一样多。因此，A项为正确答案。

2．C 从文中第七段可知，最吸引研究者在台湾工作的是装备优良的实验室。故选C项。

3．C 从文中第八段可知，在加州硅谷研究人员和商人都在努力把科学研究转化为产品，可见C项为正确答案。

4．D 从文中第十段最后两句可知，Uttam Surana 不喜欢和大人物一起工作，不愿受到他们思想的束缚和影响。

5．C 纵观全文可知，作者认为美国的当前政策相对来说是不理想的，故C项为正确答案。 uUp/eSKokebtGRO/2p9D351+YBCafpGhaLcEcdMHNLz5S0W5UMFON9xZCXEuPgG1