<p>According to my understanding of what really matters in Chinese culture, Amy Chua is a total fail because she didn’t have a son – only daughters.</p>
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<p>Never be able to understand?? Why not try and attempt to explain it to us, then? </p>
<p>Especially after you feel the explanations from several Asian-immigrant and Asian-American parents who expressed both supportive and dissenting perspectives on this type of parenting did not seem to explain it well enough. </p>
<p>Could it be that? Or maybe the explanations were actually clear and you’re really expressing displeasure that there are many cc parents and others here who disagree with this parenting practice? </p>
<p>Disagreement that FYI is not limited solely to what you would term “Westerners”.</p>
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<p>If you really want to go old school, she’s also a fail for the following reasons:</p>
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<li><p>She’s descended from a family of merchants/businesspeople. An occupational class that was considered the lowest of the commoner classes after scholar, farmer, and artisan in the Confucian social hierarchy. </p></li>
<li><p>Moreover, up until 1461, it was officially ILLEGAL for sons or even grandsons of merchant families to participate in the imperial civil service exams. Law was enacted to prevent the contamination of the scholar-gentry elite with the “materialistic” and “selfish” values of the merchant/business class. By that standard, she gained her “scholarly credentials” either illegally if we go by a strict reading of the old rules…or she was the equivalent of the lowest form of social-climber in the eyes of the more traditionalist scholarly elite. Even as late as the mid-19th century when this rule has long been overturned, there were still many traditionalists railing about how allowing sons and grandsons of merchant/business families has corrupted the scholar-gentry elite. </p></li>
<li><p>She married outside of her ethnicity/race. Though not as big of an issue now, it would have certainly been so 50+ years ago…and is still generating a lot of anger at her perceived hypocrisy on the WSJ comments and other discussions on her article. Lots of angry comments from some presumably Chinese xenophobes furious that she’s presenting a Orientalist version of Chinese culture on the one hand…while hypocritically forgetting and exempting herself from the same standards.</p></li>
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<p>No, not really. I would argue that you disagree because it is in contradiction with what you know as Westerners.</p>
<p>Asian-Americans who disagree have become too Westernized…</p>
<p>Ditto, Cobrat.</p>
<p>Of course there are differences in culture between the East and the West. However, the core value of human being remain constant and universal: Freedom, Love (of your country, you family and your community), and Dignity. There are outliers in every culture and in every society. It is not helpful to just paint everything with a broad stroke of brush and think that was the universal truth.</p>
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<p>More importantly, stating that one’s culture is so exceptional and complex that it is inscrutable is not only anti-intellectual, but a variant of crappy polemical social science with a long sordid history. </p>
<p>A history which still dogs humanistic and social science studies of societies and cultures to the present day…and now ironically perpetuated as much by the formerly colonized as their former colonizers for their own dubious self-aggrandizing agendas…including the author of that WSJ article we’re discussing.</p>
<p>Opened the Review section of the (London) Sunday Times this morning to find 4 inch headline: DRAGON MOTHER. Full page excerpt from the book plus two more pages inside and a side column commentary by an Anglo Chinese writer under the heading , Underachiever with a First in Classics. But what really caught my eye was the half page colour photo of the Chua-Rubenfeld family at home. At the top of the photo, father Jed Rubenfeld (summa from Princeton,magna from Harvard Law, Robert R. Slaughter Professor of Law at Yale Law, two years in the drama division of Julliard, author of thriller Interpretation of Murder number one best seller here in the UK). Then three stunning long haired girls takes a moment to realize that the middle one is actually the mother, Amy Chua. Theyre all smiling even the two white Samoyeds down front wearing the trendy bandana collars are smiling.</p>
<p>OK, all this stuff about the photo may seem a digression but the huge photo was there to serve a purpose: to undercut the dragon mother headline. And if you read the article, it is clear that it is facile to discuss the book on the basis of quotes from reviews or quotes out of context. Im not sure that I want to discuss it even on the basis of reading an extended excerpt. But a couple of things pop out. Its funny. That bit about burning the stuffed animals? Its the good daughter quoting her mothers threats back to her. Some of the other threats are even funnier. Yes, Lulu does win. The mother refers to being defeated by a 13 year old. And ironically, as the mother points out, this is the daughter who is closer to her in temperament. The father is the good cop, definitely. The mother addresses the whole issue of happiness. Its funny. (it cant be true what the Brits always say, can it that Americans dont get irony? Because theres a lot of irony going on in the Sunday Times excerpt and its funny.) Oh, and the poster who wondered whether Amy Chua, mother of a class of 11 daughter, was here on CC? I really doubt it. The girls have legacy/fac-brat status at Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Duke, Berkeley (grandpa father of nonlinear circuit theory, Chuas circuit , is professor there). And the whole extended family seems close and happy the excerpt quotes from the speeches both girls gave at their paternal grandmothers funeral shed moved in with them before her death and what strikes the mother in their tributes is the girls acknowledgement of the importance of balanceing intellectual stimulation and happiness. But I wouldnt want to make the mistake of judging the book on the basis of a couple of quotes…</p>
<p>A question for Kironide, #159, do you mean that Westerners will never be able to understand the method of child-rearing that is described (at least in the excerpts), or do you mean that Westerners will never be able to approve of it?</p>
<p>Also, a question from my spouse: Have the Chinese filed a defamation suit yet?</p>
<p>Chua seems to be exaggerating for effect. Her timing is stellar. She is going to be making a great deal of money from this, as well as exposure. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a reality TV show deal in the works. TLC needs something to replace Sarah Palin’s Alaska!</p>
<p><a href=“it%20can’t%20be%20true%20what%20the%20Brits%20always%20say,%20can%20it%20–%20that%20Americans%20don’t%20get%20irony?%20Because%20there’s%20a%20lot%20of%20irony%20going%20on%20in%20the%20Sunday%20Times%20excerpt%20–%20and%20it’s%20funny.”>quote</a>
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Whew! What a relief! She’s speaking ironically, and most of us doofus Americans just didn’t get it. Well, nice for the kids, anyway. The PR machine isn’t flacking it as irony, but irony doesn’t sell many books, does it?</p>
<p>I was actually speaking a bit ironically myself about the possibility of Ms. Chua being on CC. I kinda figured her kids would be all but ushered into a tippity-top school - probably even without rock-star prof parents, because wasn’t that pretty much the point of the Tiger Mother approach? </p>
<p>I have to wonder how her kids - who are still adolescents, after all - will respond to the details of their family life being made public. But if their irony-assessment gauges are better than mine (and how could they not be?), no problem.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure Lulu would have mastered the piece within a couple more weeks if she’d been allowed to go to the bathroom, eat dinner, sleep, and return to the piano for some sane number of hours each day.</p>
<p>I just finished reading the Wall Street Journal article on Chua and my husband and I laughed at most of it. She is extreme to say the least. I’d like to know how children who are raised in such a restrictive and strict household progress socially. Chua made it clear that her kids never had a play date and spent every hour outside of school on academic and music practice. If that is true then they never had the opportunity to form and develop friendships, which is something that will hurt them in the real world. The girls may be outstanding students and musicians but they will probably only be able to function in research or academia when they are adults because it would be difficult for them in any field that requires social skills. And, I don’t care what she claims, calling your child “garbage” or telling them that they’re “pathetic” is not productive.</p>
<p>At the same time, I’d rather see a child raised like Chua’s children over kids who are ignored and allowed to watch Snookie and the Jersey Shore or other low life television shows.</p>
<p>My kids are not straight A students but they are good students who are well rounded, happy, and will be successful in life because they have all of the skills that they need to be productive in the real world. I’d say that a balanced life is the way to go.</p>
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<p>I agree with Calico on that one. My kids work very hard, and not because I force them to, but because they want to. Coincidentally, they attend the same high school as Chua’s daughters (whom I don’t know). There have been times when I thought my kids were working too hard and should relax more, but that is their personalities.</p>
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<p>Who would have known? It’s just a big The Onion piece, apparently. It’s not real.</p>
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<p>Everything in moderation. The choices aren’t between raising the Chua daughters and raising the next Snooki. A lot of gray in between.</p>
<p>Not sure I want to read the book written by the mom, but I’m looking forward to reading Lulu’s book some day!</p>
<p>As a former Suzuki mom, I was appalled to read Chua’s description of the piano practice sessions she had with her child (in the Wall Street Journal article). Suzuki education specifically teaches respect for the individual, and would NEVER countenance yelling at your child or saying the horrible, cruel things that that mother does. Suzuki education specifically is aimed at helping ANY child enjoy music at the level they are capable of achieving. MOms are specifically counseled against comparing their child with other children, or competing with other moms regarding how fast one’s child is progressing. Actually, the method is supposed to increase the parental bond and help you grow to love and appreciate your child. This lady has gotten a great deal wrong regarding how to help one’s child learn music! Makes you wonder how someone so smart could be so misguided.</p>
<p>On Saturday morning, I read the story in the Wall Street Journal about this book.
Then I went to a screening of “Race to Nowhere” here in Silicon Valley.
I kept thinking about the book review as I watched the documentary.
The book’s argument that we need to parent even more intensely seems kind of crazy when I watch the lives of most of the teenagers I know. For me, the movie’s message made more sense, that what our teens really need is more sleep and more family time.</p>
<p>Asian mothers are not tigers. They actually love their children and protect the children from the harsh treatment and punishment of the husbands. When a father beats a son, the mother would try to stop the husband. When a father forces a daughter to marry someone for his career or business advancement, the daughter would come to cry with the mother and ask for her intervention. When a father wants to kick a daughter out of the house because of her out of wedlock pregnancy, the daughter would come to cry with the mother for help.</p>
<p>I would not spend a single minute to read Amy Chua’s book.</p>
<p>And I would not tell PF Chang is a great Chinese restaurant.</p>
<p>So what’s with the harsh treatment from the fathers? Sheesh.</p>
<p>[‘Battle</a> Hymn of the Tiger Mother,’ by Amy Chua](<a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/09/RVAE1H3BSG.DTL]'Battle”>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/09/RVAE1H3BSG.DTL)</p>
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<p>An interesting side note: many years ago, when my son was in preschool, there was a Chinese student teacher who was doing her master’s thesis on the math gap between Asian and American kids. She studied kids in China, Japan, Korea and the U.S. and found that by second grade, the kids in all three Asian countries were three years ahead of the American kids in math.
I was fascinated by this and asked if I could take her out to lunch to discuss it further.
During lunch, I asked if it was early use of the abacus that accounted for the difference.
She denied this. She acknowledged that early reading of characters that look like the objects they are meant to portray may have some effect on the brain. But, she said, the main difference was cultural - the work ethic and the emphasis on homework, drill, testing, and mastery.
I, though, still thought that the abacus must have something to do with it. I realized that we have an “American abacus” in our system of money, and I began to play with my three oldest children for about 10 minutes a day with pennies, dimes, and dollars. I taught them how to exchange 10 pennies for a dime, and 10 dimes or 100 pennies for a dollar, and we did little calculations by counting the money and changing the pennies for dimes and dimes for dollars. It was all fun, with lots of praise for figuring out the problems. All “carrot” and the kids looked forward to these sessions and asked for them.
I even volunteered in kindergarten classes to play these games with all of the kids in an “extra math” center.
Anyway, what did we get out of this? Bonding time with the kids and fun, but also kids who didn’t always get As in math, but who always really, really understood it, who could use all kinds of “tricks” to calculate, who could create their own algorithms, who had stellar math SAT scores, who had the ability to explain it to others and the ability to use reasoning in other subject areas.
Of course, this is totally anecdotal and slightly but not completely off topic, but I just think that it is interesting.</p>