Agreed, @Jliu32472 – as I wrote earlier, “Asian” is a pretty pointless term and using it as shorthand for “East Asian” also elides enormous cultural differences. Interestingly, Asians in Asia don’t see themselves as Asian but as Chinese, or Koreans, or Taiwanese (or Pakistani, or Indian, or Indonesian…), and only when they find themselves in the West are they suddenly conflated and absorbed into this larger, artificial category. Reminds me of the intro of Edward Said’s Orientalism…
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PLEASE go get the book Where You Go is Not Who You Will Be - and beg your parents to read it. Every page has great information that may help them put all thisd into perspective.
Depends on the generation concerned, individual families, and the educational environments the kids happen to be in.
For instance, one aunt in Taiwan was very neo-hippieish in her manner and didn’t push her kids academically or otherwise. It’s one reason why she enrolled her kids in private international schools rather than the regular Taiwan public K-12 system.
The latter is much more competitive and sink-or-swim in ways similar to my public magnet HS experience vs. the respectable/elite private day/boarding school experiences of my undergrad classmates and a few cousins.
Also, while my parents were more strict, they were nowhere near as helicopterish as Chua was in dictating which ECs/social activities or dictating how I was to study…they expected me to figure that out for myself* as that was considered my domain of responsibility.
I was also given a greater degree of independence compared with many American kids my age in HS or sometimes even college…such as having no mandatory curfew after I turned 11.
- Part of this was due to the fact my father had been on his own since the age of 12 due to losing both parents by 10 and fleeing the Maoist takeover of China by himself.
Despite never finishing middle school or attending high school due to the chaos of the Chinese Civil War and being a refugee without parents, he managed to work to support himself and study in night preparatory schools well enough to gain admission with a complete full ride(including books and room& board) to the #2 university in the ROC in the early '50s at 16 and graduate with high honors at 20.
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Apples to apples, oranges to oranges. I have a son at UCSC who is really smart but very lazy. Does just enough to get by with low A’s or high B’s. If he applied himself he could have gone to a better school but he says what is the use because it is where you end up not how you got there. His basic philosophy, life is short so don’t worry. I have a HS daughter and is choosing between Columbia University and Stanford University, she is very smart also but is driven.
My wife and I are both college educated Korean Americans. I in the US and her in South Korea. We can honestly say that we did not push our kids in HS because we have been too busy making ends meet. I can understand your parents position because they have worked and sacrificed so much for your education and have dedicated themselves to you. We were planning on selling our house to afford Columbia or Stanford before their generous financial aid. I also understand your position because my parents were first generation and naive about colleges in the US. I paid my own way through school.
In my experience, you need to overcome the language barrier that exists between you and your parents. You write and probably speak English well to the point Korean is difficult. You don’t understand them and they don’t understand you, because your life is very different from the life they had. You need a third party who speaks both Korean and English with nothing lost in translation. Keeping your emotions in check and taking things out will bring mutual respect and a deeper understanding and ultimately a closer family.
Your parents will come around to your thinking because even if they don’t show it they love and respect you, it will take some time. They also know they don’t want to live their lives through you but as you know they have sacrificed so much for you. It is hard when other parents brag about their kids and their accomplishments. With the passage of time, where you go to college or what job you have or how much you make is not really that important because family is more important. Keep your head up and keep treading.
Hope this helps.
My offspring’s high school alma mater had some real problems with Asian parents, particularly Korean parents. (For example, the police were searching for one Korean-American student who was “missing.” The school couldn’t understand because he was going to all his classes. It turned out that he had found a way to stay in the basement of the building overnight and had done this for 3 days. Why? He had gotten a bad report card and was terrified of going home and facing his parents. His dad used corporal punishment–I am NOT claiming that’s typical, but his dad did—and he was genuinely terrified of going home.)
So, some more “Americanized” Korean parents formed a Korean-American Parent Association. The idea was to share information with other Korean parents. The information DID include things like you need strong ECs to get into top American colleges. It included information about financial aid and the need to fill out FAFSA. (Some parents didn’t understand that you HAD to do this to get financial aid.Others simply found it too daunting. ) It also introduced parents to the reality that there is no magic “to be done” list that guarantees admission into HYPSMC. They had monthly meetings. Some speakers included young Korean grads of the high school who had gone to SUNYs or CUNYs and then on to top med schools and law schools.
It helped. I don’t mean that all pressure on the kids stopped; it didn’t. However, parents had a much better idea of how the process worked and also understood that their kids weren’t closed out of top grad and professional programs if they went to less highly ranked undergrad colleges.
So, @guamboy maybe you could look into trying to organize something like this.
Even if verbal communication isn’t an issue, there can be a huge gap in understanding/relating to each other due to differences in generation and experiences growing up. I had no issues communicating with my parents in Mandarin Chinese, but certain experiences my parents had as kids/young adults were completely different from my childhood/young adulthood.
And people are quite variable in their willingness/ability to try making some effort in understanding the other.
Especially when there’s the possibility one may never fully comprehend the experience of others because they’re so greatly different and visceral that one literally had to be there to get the full experience…and that’s not always advisable considering what some of those experiences were…
Thanks for the add…that is why i suggested the third party with nothing lost in translation. Harder said then done of course. I think every generation from every background has had some degree of what we are talking about. Times change, culture changes, expectations change, technology changes…life always changing. Only thing that does not seem to change is that blood thicker then water and verbal communication even with all its pitfalls is still the best between family.
Great advice. I know a couple of mothers and fathers like that. They are the worst because they make their kids miserable. The best Asian students and most rounded that get into the top universities from our high performance HS have parents who are supportive. I have learned from a couple who sent their son to Harvard four years ago (he was one of the graduating speakers last year) what their secret was. Their answer was quite simple. Give them room to grow and love them and pray.
The admissions officers at the top schools are really good at picking out the well rounded kids. They can see it in the essay writing from the kids who are independent and have found their voices.
Helicopter parents your hurting your kids into getting college of your choice or letting them grow. Let them have a voice and you will see them grow like weeds. Trust them and let them make independent decisions, they are much smarter then you take them for. Have you tried one of their calculus problems? If you can’t you need to step back and admire them for who they are.
BTW…took the advice of the couple to heart. D will be either attending Stanford or Columbia this fall.
While getting a third party may help ameliorate the generation/experiential gap, it may not always guarantee it.
People’s experience even within generations may be quite variable. For instance, someone who didn’t take part in the '60s countercultural/anti-war protests in the boomer generation may not always be able to relate to those who had. Got to see plenty of infighting not only among boomers, but even among Vietnam vets over those very issues while growing up in a former working-class NYC neighborhood in the '80s and early-mid '90s.
From observing them, it was almost as if they were from different societies/generations despite them being from the same society, same generation, and presumably speaking the same American English.
Nothing guaranteed in life…you make the the best with what is given to you. You will never fully know another person like you will never fully know your wife or husband. But communication in all its flaws is better than letting things simmer and the family break apart.