On Chinese Mothers

My mom mentioned this article, Why Chinese Mothers are Superior, by Amy Chua, and how much she hated it; the article paints all Asian mothers as demanding, screaming crazy people who have absolutely no threshold for failure, and then insists that this method is better than “Western” parenting.

I read said article and it honestly bothers me too. Some points are true:

First, I’ve noticed that Western parents are extremely anxious about their children’s self-esteem. They worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children’s psyches. Chinese parents aren’t. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.

Of course that doesn’t apply to all Asian parents, but yeah, it’s kind of true.
But then there are passages like this:

If a Chinese child gets a B—which would never happen—there would first be a screaming, hair-tearing explosion. The devastated Chinese mother would then get dozens, maybe hundreds of practice tests and work through them with her child for as long as it takes to get the grade up to an A.

And this:

Back at the piano, Lulu made me pay. She punched, thrashed and kicked. She grabbed the music score and tore it to shreds. I taped the score back together and encased it in a plastic shield so that it could never be destroyed again. Then I hauled Lulu’s dollhouse to the car and told her I’d donate it to the Salvation Army piece by piece if she didn’t have “The Little White Donkey” perfect by the next day. When Lulu said, “I thought you were going to the Salvation Army, why are you still here?” I threatened her with no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years. When she still kept playing it wrong, I told her she was purposely working herself into a frenzy because she was secretly afraid she couldn’t do it. I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic.

Can I please say that these are not representative of Asian parenting? There’s even a point in the article where author makes a point of comparing her two children and shooting down her husband’s observation that their two daughters are different people. Amy Chua takes pride in being “mean” (her words!) to her daughters.

This article offends me because to the naked eye, I might look like a child of the Amy Chua parenting style: I play piano and violin, get (mostly) all As, etc., etc. But it’s not because my parents scream at me to be at the top; it’s because under their care I’ve developed my own independent drive to do the best I can. As for music, the reason why I’ve pursued it so far is because I love it; nothing else I’ve discovered in my life holds a candle to the power and expressiveness of music.
(And that’s another thing: this crazy-Asian parenting churns out plenty of kids who can play lots of notes accurately and very quickly, but does nothing to instill the power of expressing oneself through the music. But I digress.)
So, Amy Chua, keep your screaming parenting tactics to yourself, and don’t you dare go telling the world that all Asian parents are like you, and that it’s the best way to bring up kids.

Stuff

(I don’t really know what else to title this post.)

Yeah, I keep falling off the blogging wagon. One of these days I’ll post stuff from my camera and hopefully make substantial posts about my life, but for now, here’s a little list of stuff off the top of my head.

1. I’m home for break (and I don’t have any definite plans, so definitely call/text me!) and done with finals!
P.S. Dear people on Facebook, I understand that you are very excited about passing your classes, but it’s really unprofessional and annoying to see my newsfeed filled with “Yay! Got a B in this and a C+ in that an an A- in that…” or “Whoohoo! My GPA is 3.6!” Keep it to yourselves and tell your closest friends, thanks.
2. I recently designed an icon for a application my friend Ben wrote; you can see the icon and a description of the app here.
3. Recently my best friend Alix introduced me to Youtube fainting videos, and I spent a few minutes before bed watching people faint on TV. This was the result:

Me: remember when you showed me all those fainting videos

Alix: hahah, yes

Me: i ended up dreaming

that i was making my orchestral debut as a concert pianist

and as soon as i got to the first hard part in prokofiev’s third concerto

i fainted

and became a youtube sensation

Okay, that’s all for now. Maybe I’ll start putting more effort into my posts…maybe.

Fast food

When neither I nor my boyfriend have time to make dinner, we hit up the school pub for some hot, greasy fast food.
My ham-and-three-cheese sandwich and garlic fries. (The three cheeses: cheddar, brie, and provolone.)

His fish and curly fries.