A number of sturdy pillars: hard work, high savings rates and Confucian values.

[Alive]

excuse me! can i ask a question about excersise here?
i have a question need explainining
why is "savings" plural in this sentence?
"The East Asian economic miracle was built on a number of sturdy pillars: hard work, high savings
rates and Confucian values. "
(from: cramming. bullies. rote lessons. east asia's schools are filing their students.)

[Alive]

oh can you also answer this question:
what does "and for years" mean ? can we replace it by any another phrase or word?
why did they use "rest easy with" ?
"And for years, Asia could rest easy in the know-ledge that its school systems were producing the best and the brightest"

[Cerberus™]

"Saving" is an odd word: it is often used in plural when it means the money that people have saved, deposited with a bank. The plural is even kept when the noun is used as an adjective.

"(And) for years" means "(and) during a period of several years". However, "for years" is a very common expression, and the most natural one here.

It says "rest easy in" here, not "rest easy with". It is a metaphor: Asia is compared to a person, who can rest in a relaxed manner because his mind is untroubled by worries. Just as Asia is in the fortunate situation where its school systems are very good. "In the knowledge that..." means the same as "because it knew that...".

[Alive]

Oh, i thought it had to be "easily" instead of "easy" because "rest" is a verb. Can you explain for me?

[Cerberus™]

You are right: easy should be an adverb. But there are some adjectives that have the same form as adverbs, and easy is one of them. It can be both adjective and adverb.
Easily exists, too: there is a subtle difference in meaning between adverb easy and adverb easily. I guess "rest easy" is an idiomatic expression, I'm not sure why it is always "rest easy" and never "rest easily". Perhaps idiomatic expressions prefer easy over easily?
Now that I think about it, the origin of this usage of easy may be that easy was an adjective when this expression was coined, as in: he stays calm, he rests easy. Here, "calm" may be said to constitute the nominal predicate, similar to "he is calm". A nominal predicate goes with adjectives or nouns, not adverbs.

[Alive]

and what about this? i don't understand this sentence's meaning, can you explain for me, why is the word " name" used?
"Who can name more than a
handful of famous East Asian scientists or mathematicians-if that many?"

[Cerberus™]

"To name" is a verb, which means "to give the name or names of". I could ask you: "name two British Prime Ministers". You could reply: "eh, Chamberlain and Churchill".