<p>Paper Tigers
What happens to all the Asian-American overachievers when the test-taking ends?</p>
<p>Paper Tigers
What happens to all the Asian-American overachievers when the test-taking ends?
[What</a> Happens to All the Asian-American Overachievers When the Test-Taking Ends? – New York Magazine](<a href=“http://nymag.com/news/features/asian-americans-2011-5/]What”>What Happens to All the Asian-American Overachievers When the Test-Taking Ends? -- New York Magazine - Nymag)</p>
<p>Sorry forgot link to the article.</p>
<p>Long article. My take on it- can glean some useful information. My problems with it- Asia includes India, as usual all Asians are lumped into the “Oriental” regions and no women included in the interviewed young people. Still an eye opener about how different lives can be for different subcultures of Americans.</p>
<p>Very interesting, I found the “Asian Pickup Artist” section to be very amusing since I actually watched the series “The Pickup Artist” a while back.
On the rest of his article, I’m curious whether the Asian-Americans on CC agree with the author’s basic premise.</p>
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<p>Hmmm, am I the only one who found it to be unsurprising? Although the “tiger” stereotype does have some basis in actual frequency of occurrence (probably to the dismay of Asian American applicants to selective universities who chose piano or violin because it was their interest, not due to “tiger parent” pressure), there are still a lot of Asian Americans who are nothing like the “tiger” stereotype. And the “[whatever] ceilings” (which are probably a by-product of “whom you know” type of things) have been written and talked about for ages.</p>
<p>But yes, South Asian Americans seem to be “off the radar” of many who write on the subject of Asian Americans. Somewhat odd, given the rapidly increasing population…</p>
<p>Oh, and why does that magazine mention the barber shops which gave the pictured guys haircuts? It is not like anyone needs to go to a special barber shop to get one’s head shaved like the third pictured guy.</p>
<p>Two of my closest “mommy” friends are Asian (one Japanese born in America, one born in Hong Kong who moved to the US for college). Since they stay home with their toddlers I can’t assess how they were in the working world, but they do not fit the stereotype very well. Both are what I would call powerful, assertive, confident women with a little bit of Tiger Mom, the one from Hong Kong much more so than the one born in the US. That could just be personalities, though. The HK mom has a wicked sense of humor. ;)</p>
<p>Their experience is very much like other minorities; obviously the bamboo ceiling is a play on the glass ceiling that women have to deal with. </p>
<p>It takes organizing together, networking, and time to change things. I wish things changed faster.</p>
<p>The despicable content of paragraph 3 on page 7 and paragraph 3 on page 8 of this article overwhelmed the author’s point about the discrimination against Asian males, in my opinion, and only adds to the difficulties that Yale may be facing with the DoE investigation of a “hostile environment” there for women. J. T. Tran, aka “Asian Playboy,” apparently spoke at a Master’s Tea in Silliman (one of Yale’s residential colleges) hosted by Master Krauss. It’s not clear from the article when this took place.</p>
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<p>^Was exactly, exactly what I thought of when I read it.</p>
<p>I thought it was an extremely interesting article, but, as ucbalumnus said, was fairly unsurprising. Mostly just confirmed what I already knew.</p>
<p>It has definitely been making its rounds among college students, though - I have seen it linked to on Facebook five times or so already!</p>
<p>It will take a couple of more generations before the bamboo ceiling is breached for Asians. Depending on which part of Asia you are from. Indians fare better than Chinese and Koreans.</p>
<p>My highly educated parents want to go back to Asia.
My dad told me few times about the ceiling. He is hoping that I find a job in my parents birth country after I am done with all my education.</p>
<p>I cannot believe I am back in Parents Forum.</p>
<p>So my take was that this is not so much racial/sexual bias as the need for certain personality characteristics to make it to the upper echelons of corporate America. And the good news is these traits can be learned.</p>
<p>The article reminded me that there are certain recurring struggles common among all immigrant groups. One of my best friends in college was the the second son of German, working-class immigrants, a “white guy”, on the surface, not much different in appearance from the majority of of kids from small town New England. He was hard-working, and earned superlative grades, but always struck people outside his extremely close circle of friends as shy and introverted. In reality, he was far from either, but, his early upbringing had not groomed him for the simple, strictly upper-middle class American, custom of smiling when you greeted someone for the first time. It took years of self-conscious social networking for him to learn how to do it.</p>
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<p>Why is there a parallel between the real and acknowledged discrimination of women (glass ceiling) and what is now called … bamboo ceiling?</p>
<p>What made the glass ceiling such an apt metaphor in the first instance was that people couldn’t quite see what the “real and acknowledged” barriers were; the rituals involved in all the promotion processes were seemingly “transparent” but, somehow elusive as far as women were concerned. What makes the New York Magazine article so painful to read is that while you can still see through the ceiling, you (meaning non-Asians) can also see (or, imagine we are seeing) what it looks like from the other side, and sadly, it looks like a glass floor leading to the IT dept.</p>
<p>It is not just Asian top marks great test takers elite school graduates who find out that Mr. Happy to meet you smile and make you feel good have a great personality and shmooz nicely becomes your boss even though he went to podunk U. and earned B’s. It happens all the time. And gets more dramatic the older you get. Ms. couldn’t figure her life out so went to CC after having 3 kids at age 20-25 and gets a basic solid occupational degree chugs along into her 50’s and blossums into a happy well off Gramma while Ms. top marks has an equally difficult but surprising (it was supposed to be easy after top marks U right?) journey. Hence the jaundiced view of cram school success. It takes more in life than success on tests. I guess that’s what the story is really about, no?</p>
<p>I enjoyed the discussion of body language differences, such as the Alpha male stance that Asian men supposedly don’t use.</p>
<p>As for the bamboo ceiling, my heart doesn’t break over it. If it were the case that Asians could emigrate to the United States, and fit flawlessly into the culture of our communities and companies, then the US would be just like Asia and there’d be no point in their coming. Our country is so attractive to immigrants because it’s NOT like their country of origin and our ways are NOT like their ways. Why is it surprising that it will take a few generations for people to become seamlessly integrated into our society? </p>
<p>Our country is expected to adapt to the ways of immigrants, and we often do so and graciously. We translate important government documents into other languages, we offer tons of charitable services to non-citizens such as free health care and now, apparently, in-state tuition at our public universities. Our private colleges offer 10% of their admission spots to foreign students. We allow non-citizens to work, to drive, to own property, to run businesses, to attend our public schools, and in general to have a multitude of priviliges that Americans would not be afforded in the countries from which these immigrants come. If my husband and I went to China and had a child there, how likely do you think it would be for that child, despite being born a Chinese citizen, to grow up to become a high level executive in a Chinese company? </p>
<p>There are obviously Americans who, consciously or subconsiously, might be a little afraid that our country will cease to be the America we know and love if foreign ways take it over. Now you might think that this fear is illogical or unacceptable, but it does exist and it doesn’t equate to racism. We have laws to prevent discrimination against someone because of their ethnicity, and most of us accept people pretty readily without the need for a law. At the same time, many Americans want to preserve their culture (and by extension their companies and organizations) from what they perceive as a foreign onslaught.</p>
<p>A seemingly nice and reasonably qualified Asian man keeps running for various community offices, including the Board of Ed. He can’t seem to get elected. I voted for him for BOE, and was shocked that a person with no college education nor relevant financial or administrative experience was elected over this man. However, hearing the talk on the street, I understood that people don’t want our schools turned into high-pressure Asian-style schools and they see electing that man as a slippery slope toward that end. It’s not prejudice exactly, but self-preservation.</p>
<p>Great post, GFG. This concept that you must attend a top top tippy top school to be successful in life is true in Asia. It is very not true in America. </p>
<p>Non Tigers are afraid (yes) of such a culture. Hard work is important and in another context I’d be arguing for it however the cram school culture makes non asian americans very very uncomfortable, especially when schools are infused with a large population of regular smarts asian kids who demand top spots due to cram school smarts. And when asian students cop an arrogant attitude about those smarts (yes it does happen) then stereoptyping grows.</p>
<p>The idea that you can cram for SAT’s goes against their original purpose which was to balance cramming (school grades) with an aptitude test (SAT) for which you did not study. Colleges were looking for a combo of hard work and essential smarts. They wanted to know if a kid was all work and no play or all play and no work (and in between). SAT 2’s were there to distinguish real knowledge from teacher’s favoritism in grades. Now with cramming for SAT’s the testing process is badly skewed. </p>
<p>So all this talk about just study for the SAT’s is ContrIbuting to the problem, not helping. And cram school instead of joining the local community activities (and excluding nonasian kids from cram school which also happens) also contribute to the problem.</p>
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<p>Well, it is overblown stereotyping. How many public schools in the entire US (even in areas with large Asian immigrant populations) have become “tiger” schools?</p>
<p>And US schools have plenty of room for improvement without becoming anything close to “tiger” schools.</p>
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<p>That belief is becoming more common in the US (including among non-Asian Americans), as evidenced by the greatly increasing application numbers and selectivity among the top schools in the US, even if the “need” to attend a top school (versus some other school) is very exaggerated.</p>
<p>I found the article very interesting, but I am in agreement with Hugcheck. It is not only Asians who find it baffling why some succeed in Corporate America whereas others who appear better qualified stagnate in the ranks.</p>
<p>Yang concludes with his own decision to be himself rather than mold himself to be some other, more “successful,” person. That is an experience many share in life, Asian, white or otherwise.</p>