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Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer)

jeanhsu.com

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Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer)

#191

Post by gawker »

nsoonhui wrote: post #20
drinian wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not Jewish, but I went to school with a lot of kids from successful Jewish families of varying levels of religiosity. I think at this point that the whole "overbearing Jewish parents" thing is more of a self-conscious joke than anything else, excepting perhaps some of the more religious Jewish families. I don't know if it's gotten to that point for Chinese-Americans yet. Also, by "a Chinese," what do you mean? Is the…

I'm a Malaysian, for your info. But most Chinese parents here rise their kids in pretty much the same ways as Amy Chua.

Tutoring everyday but that's only because there aren't many good jobs if you didn't have decent education.

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer)

#192

Post by misterm »

stcredzero wrote: post #128
sown wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was raised like this. My mom showed me no real love, nor did my family. I buckled under the pressure and when the time came for any real emotional support, they abandoned me in an attempt to get me to "try harder." I never forgave them and I don't talk to them any more. In the end, regardless of how they felt or their intentions, I was made out to be nothing more than an ornament, a product for the glory of the fam…

I was raised like this. My mom showed me no real love, nor did my family. I buckled under the pressure and when the time came for any real emotional support, they abandoned me in an attempt to get me to "try harder." I never forgave them and I don't talk to them any more. In the end, regardless of how they felt or their intentions, I was made out to be nothing more than an ornament, a product for the glory of the fam…

That's almost as bad as telling a depressed person that they are overreacting and to just "cheer up". Incredibly stupid.

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer)

#193

Post by randrews »

bane wrote: post #173
randrews wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a lot like how abuse works: cut off from any social reality outside the abuser's, you come to think you deserve it; being abused becomes normal. Reading that WSJ article made me angry, because it's obvious that's what she's trying to do. She wants something from her daughter (probably doesn't even herself know what), is abusing her until she gets it, and cutting her daughter off from any outside support so she…

One of my friends (who happens to be Chinese and was raised in a home like this) remarked, "but look at the kids! See their smiles? It can't possibly be abuse!" I replied, "have you ever seen pictures of the smiling performers in a North Korea propaganda play?" Of course they are smiling. 1) They don't know anything else, so when they do things that bring them positive reinforcement, they show happiness (most people…

A thousand times this. Not only do abused people not know any better, they're actively prevented from knowing any better. It's how abuse works.

It's especially terrible when parents do it, because children are naturally, genetically predisposed to try to seek approval from their parents. If they can't get it, or if it's contingent on something as arbitrary and pointless as playing a piano, it will destroy them for life.

I'm not a parent, and after my childhood I didn't think I'd ever want to be, but reading that article gave me new hope for myself: if anyone tried to do to my hypothetical children what the author is doing to hers, I would kill them. Instantly and brutally. That's got to be some kind of a qualification.

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer)

#195

Post by varjag »

toblender wrote: post #156
varjag wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the flipside however, it is undeniable that asians outperform westerners. Look around your office and name 5 things invented in the Asia.

Paper, ink, the compass, most of the food you eat is from china,and clothes you wear.

The word paper is derived from "papyrus", Egyptian invention - along with ink. Chinese invented more practical process though, although modern way of manufacturing paper is different.

Compass, yes, although I don't keep one in my office (nor gunpowder for that matter).

None of the clothes I wear were invented in Asia.

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer)

#196

Post by stcredzero »

misterm wrote: post #192
stcredzero wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was raised like this. My mom showed me no real love, nor did my family. I buckled under the pressure and when the time came for any real emotional support, they abandoned me in an attempt to get me to "try harder." I never forgave them and I don't talk to them any more. In the end, regardless of how they felt or their intentions, I was made out to be nothing more than an ornament, a product for the glory of the fam…

That's almost as bad as telling a depressed person that they are overreacting and to just "cheer up". Incredibly stupid.

That's not what I meant. Just take it as face value. I'm saying that 1) these pathologies are real 2) they're not unique to any one culture 3) there are powerful forces that keep them from our everyday consciousness.

Thanks for revealing your biases so cheaply and easily.

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer)

#197

Post by sethg »

muhfuhkuh wrote: post #11
aothman wrote: post #5

The point about turning out a generation of clones is spot on, and ultimately the cruelest irony of the whole thing. The best way to get into an elite college is by standing out as an individual; the colleges asian parents desperately want their kids to attend deal with the "asian clone" thing by rejecting the lot of them. The asian kid with a 1560 SAT and state violin awards (probably) isn't getting into Harvard, bu…

"The asian kid with a 1560 SAT and state violin awards (probably) isn't getting into Harvard" 18% of Harvard students are Asian, so yeah, he (probably) would. And, that's with a long-standing policy of "ethnic cleansing" in Asian matriculation[1]. [1] http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2008/2/19/affirmatives-of-...

The kid who merely has 1560 SAT and state violin awards won’t get into Harvard. The people running admissions for top-tier schools are looking for freshmen who are “well-rounded” as well as smart, and they want a “diverse” student body as well. If you show up with exactly the same extracurricular activities on your resume that a thousand other pushed-to-overachieve seventeen-year-olds all over the country have, you are at a disadvantage.

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer)

#198

Post by SkyMarshal »

klenwell wrote: post #17

A friend of mine, a mother of a gifted 5th grader wrestling with similar issues of parental control as Amy Chua, shared the WSJ article with me today. It reminded me of something Steven Pinker writes about in one of his books. In his book, he breaks down the work of Judith Rich Harris ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Rich_Harris ) to this formula: Genes have 50% influence over a child's development, peers 40%-50…

It sounds like the result of Amy Chua's mothering is to instill in her children a love of, maybe even addiction to, accomplishment through extremely hard work and sacrifice. And that's pretty much what it takes to do anything truly great.

If her kids enter college with that mindset completely internalized, then I'd say odds are they'll be less likely to get distracted by the low-priority frivolities their peers may.

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer)

#199

Post by codexon »

tastybites wrote: post #109
codexon wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that happens, you call the cops like the victim of any other kind of assault. Like any other assault, you need proof that abuse actually happened and you just didn't slip and fall. And how is a 8 year old kid supposed to know? Also what about the threats to bring them to China, free to beat them as much as they like, if they told the police? (And yes all this actually happened). That's my point. Having an Asian si…

> Maybe that's true to a small extent, but the statistics from Okcupid shows that skin color is a much greater factor. Dude, you are confusing the effect for the cause. LOL I don't even know if they have a name for that kind of logical fallacy.

If your hypothesis was correct, the response rate from asian females to asian males would be much lower than the asian male average.

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Not Superior (from a female Chinese engineer)

#200

Post by strlen »

hristov wrote: post #26
nsoonhui wrote: post #6

I hope I don't sound too racist or anti-Semite. Why is it that when a Jewish mother does the same as the Asian mother, no one complains? I'm a Chinese btw.

No one complains ???? Have you not watched TV in the last 10 years? There are entire genres of comedy mostly devoted to jews complaining about their parents. When art historians analyze late 20th and early 21st century culture, they will certainly coin the jewish-complaining art movement, which spanned television, movies and stand up comedy for like 30 years, and is still running strong with Curb your Enthusiasm.

> No one complains ???? Have you not watched TV in the last 10 years? There are entire genres of comedy mostly devoted to jews complaining about their parents.

Was about to say that (as a Russian Jewish male), that if it weren't Jews complaining about their mothers, the literary and entertainment worlds would be far far poorer :-)

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