Ms. Yap gave us 2 articles to read:
Personally, I think Amy Chua’s article is atrocious: she made Asian parents sound like they are mentally-abusive psychopaths whom only have sights on academic and career success. Also, she gave tiger a bad name. What she stereotyped as Asian parenting may be true to various degrees and in most of the Chinese families, but we could not be delusional that this does not happen in our Western counterparts, no matter how small the percentage. Look at Tiger Woods and Michael Jackson, the argument by the psychologist Oliver James highlighting the ferocious method their respective parents used to ‘nurture’ their talent, similar to Asian parenting, just with different goals. And I liked the term coined by one of the readers: authoritarian, which refers to any person who exercises complete control over another person. This generalizes the method of teaching to strict or loose, not Asian or Western, just like Ms. Yap’s example of there being only good or bad bosses, and not male or female bosses.
At the same time, however, I had a flood of empathy for her daughters. Wait. Pardon me, the more accurate word would be sympathy, as I have had little or close to zilch personal experience of being in them kids’ shoes.
I guess I could attribute it to the fact that while most people were brought up in a way that conformed to the norms of one particular society, in this case the Asian society, my upbringing was a test of balance with my feet in the two boats of Chinese and Western culture. I got the best of both worlds.
I had the sort of childhood that one would consider Asian-wise-non-conventional, wherein I was showered with playing and outdoor activities as a tool to learn and progress, rather than the demonic method of being cooped indoors to strive academically. My weekends were filled with picnics, day trips, art and craft sessions that imitated those on Barney the Dinosaur TV program, hiking nearby hills, cycling in parks and so on, as opposed to the stringy mess of tuition my peers got tangled up in. My parents even built a sandpit in the garden compound for me and my siblings to build sandcastles. Sometimes I felt like we were acting out what we read in story books and watched on TV; which explained why I hated kindergarden, the only treacherous place I went through ‘Asian parenting’, considering the emphasis they put on academic subjects, perfecting our Chinese characters strokes and dog-like obedience.
When my student life set sailed at the age of 7, the dock of mixed teachings marked my voyage of leading two lives: one as the submissive instruction-abiding citizen of a typical Chinese school, and the other as a free spirited child that submerged whole-heartedly in drama lessons and creativity-provoking American syllabus-based English classes. As a result, I practiced a yin and yang of Asian work ethics and Western open-mindedness. Or try to, at least.
Sure, there were times when I resented my mom making decisions for me because it was ‘the best choice’, like forcing me into the science stream judging on the ‘A’ I scored for science and maths; or when she kept echoing her regret on not pushing me to do medicine or pharmacy so that I would have a steady income in the future. But I’m content with where I’m at and what I have; a canoe that has oars for me to row with instead of some of my peers’ parent-controlled yatch.
So, I find Amy Chua’s reasoning of the need to force children to study or push them to work hard is ridiculous. To claim that kids never wish to work on their own volition is further proof of the failure of her parenting philosophy; because if a parent introduced a subject in a way that could generate a child’s interest or encourages self-learning, he or she would have no problem in putting extra effort to learn and progress. Like I mentioned in my journal on motivation, I believe in doing what you love and what’s right for you. I also believe in the Buddhist teachings of moderation, or what Aristotle called the ‘golden mean’, which is the midpoint of two extremes, the practice of the avoidance of extremes. Thus, while Amy Chua may be right about the parents’ role in steering the direction and building mental strength, she should not go to the extremes of blotting out her daughters’ social life and other aspects of learning, such as sports that teaches teamwork. The same goes with Western parents who should not be too soft on their kids when allowing them to venture and taste the world.
But what about the culture side of this parenting coin?
Centuries ago in our north residing neighbor China, education took the form of penning essays and poetry, and exam-wise, a person was only allowed to tap into the next level of examination through scoring in written subjects that tested one’s literacy. From rote memorization, reading to composition, scholars would strive to achieve high marks, so that they could obtain a high position in the government. If he should fail to secure an official career, his literacy skills would help him sail through life relatively smoothly. This thus set the foundation of Chinese’s skyscraper, built to reach the academic sky.
In the current world, it is evident that the motivation for excellence is strikingly different compared to our Western counterparts; while it is usual seeing kids work hard in a particular field or subject because they are passionate about it and are self-driven, Chinese made satisfactory performance in school as an unspoken code of conformity, as succeeding academically entitles good prospects in jobs in the future, which the parents of working children view it as a ticket to a comfortable retirement and old age.
Would this culture change then? Would there someday be a magnified scale of the sort of parenting my parents applied? A mixture of various cultures by extracting the best from each and imposing them correctly, so as to nurture an all-rounded generation in terms of academic, health, mental and spiritual strength.
Maybe. Time will tell.
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