Another year has flown, and the Year of the Dragon is rapidly approaching.

Ethnic Chinese have cherished dragons as a cultural icon for millennia. We even refer to ourselves as the “descendents of the dragon.” The Shuo Wen Jie Zi, an ancient reference work, mentions the innumerable magical transformations of which dragons are capable: “Dragon, the most senior of the scaled beasts; capable of hiding or remaining visible, becoming large or small, long or short; ascends the heavens in spring and conceals itself in the abyss in fall.” Another classical reference, the Gujin Tushu Jicheng, depicts the dragon as an amalgamation of virtually every creature on land and sea: “Horned like a deer, with a head like a camel (or a horse), eyes like a ghost (or a prawn), a body like a snake, a belly like a crab, scales like a carp, claws like an eagle, feet like a tiger, ears like a cow….”

This majestic figure, which ascends to the Heavens, circles the Earth and incorporates the spirits of all the beasts, has long represented the unassailable glory of the Emperor.

The first trigram in The Book of Changes, qian (“expansive energy”), symbolizes the way in which a gentleman faces life’s many vicissitudes: he conceals his virtues and bides his time until his talent is recognized. If he should find that his great deeds have discomfited his king, he retires to cultivate himself. When the time is ripe and the emperor has consolidated his position, he again takes up a ministerial position, joining together with other worthies to set the world to rights.

“Dragons” are talented individuals, even geniuses, but it takes more than mere diligence to create them; they need just the right conditions to appear.

The US has triumphed in the global competition for talented professionals, and has benefited greatly from the flow of human capital to its shores. Its natural strengths, its outstanding environment for technological R&D and its high salaries have attracted many of the world’s best and brightest. For example, roughly 40% of the graduate students at the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology are foreign nationals. Some 30% of the roughly 3,000 tech companies that California’s Silicon Valley has birthed over the last half century have had either Indian or ethnically Chinese founders. Policies aimed at attracting people to the US have clearly had far-reaching effects on the country, its tech industry and economy in particular.

But, as Thomas Friedman pointed out in The World Is Flat, the 9/11 terrorist attacks have shaken the US’s multicultural, open-door ethos. The US security response has greatly increased the time needed to obtain a student or professional visa, causing Friedman to worry about a possible brain drain.

His book highlights the importance of talent with a discussion of Microsoft’s establishment of three research centers—one each in Washington State, London, and Beijing. Lee Kai-fu, who hails from Taiwan, was the head of Microsoft’s Asian research unit at the time the Beijing center was founded. To staff the facility, Lee sought candidates from the mainland’s major universities, but permitted only PhD students and researchers to attend his recruitment sessions. He held 2,000 such sessions before settling on just 20 people to whom he offered generous compensation packages. Now, several years later, the Beijing center is the most productive of Microsoft’s research units.

Friedman argues that in this brainpower-driven age, countries must vigorously promote education (for example, by increasing education spending) and recognize the importance of talented professionals. If they don’t, their younger generation is going to enjoy much less prosperity.

This month’s issue also looks at the futures of disadvantaged Taiwanese children. Following the media’s revelations concerning Ho Hsiao-feng’s abuse by the family that adopted her, we visited several domestic adoption agencies in an effort to understand the changes that have taken place within Taiwan’s adoption system. We learned that the process has shifted from a private “transaction” between adults to one handled by agencies that focus on protecting the rights of the children involved.

Stories from domestic and foreign adoption agencies introduced us to Xiang­xiang, Ah Jie, Nian­nian, Kai­kai, and others. These special-needs children’s tales certainly leave us hopeful that they will have bright futures.