“I value cosmopolitanism, and to make sure the girls are exposed to different cultures, Jed and I have always taken them with us everywhere we traveled—even though, whenthe girls were little, we sometimes had to sleep in one bed to make it affordable. As a result, by the time they were twelve and nine, the girls had been to London, Paris, Nice, Rome, Venice, Milan, Amsterdam, the Hague, Barcelona, Madrid, Málaga, Lichtenstein, Monaco, Munich, Dublin, Brussels, Bruges, Strasbourg, Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Manila, Istanbul, Mexico City, Cancún, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Rio de Janeiro, São Paolo, La Paz, Sucre, Cochambamba, Jamaica, Tangier, Fez, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and the Rock of Gibraltar.” Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, pg 86-87.
In my eighteen years of life, I’ve been to Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, Las Vegas, Vancouver, Boston, New York, Ithaca [lol], Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Heyuan, and Beijing. Under 15 places in 18 years, compared to almost 40 in 12 or 9 years—and those are just the cities OUTSIDE the U.S.
When I’m reading Amy Chua’s book, the feelings I experience are somewhat…complex. I’m surely not reading it and seeing anything particularly shocking; indeed, her conduct is that which I expect from a strict, traditional, Asian mother.
A fact that struck me as particularly interesting was that a) Chua is probably as old as my mother and father; all three were born in the Year of the Tiger in 1962 [indeed, she’s a month younger than my dad] and b) Sophia is the same age as I am. And yet, reading about her, she is clearly much more talented, much more motivated, and much more adept at a variety of subjects and disciplines than I could ever imagine being.
My dad is definitely Western by Chua’s definitions—he’s fairly lax and allows us to do as we wish, because he believes that ultimately it’s up to us to forge our own way through life. The only Chinese-styled parenting I see from him is his [rightful] refusal to praise us in public—or even at home, sometimes. My mother is comparatively more traditional. I sometimes think that she would have liked to be a tiger mom, and given better work and living circumstances, I’m sure she would have followed in Chua’s footsteps. At the moment, she’s reading the Chinese version of the book [which I thoughtfully bought for my parents as a Christmas present] and exclaiming that she was never as harsh as Chua, and now she cites excerpts as justification for things like prohibiting sleepovers.
When I’m reading this, I wonder if the reason I’m so mediocre—in math, in music, in Chinese, in everything—is because my parents didn’t have the time (or the heart) to drill me as hard as Chua did with her daughters. Compared to many people—including many of my thoroughly Western classmates both at Harvard and in high school—I’m very unmotivated, lazy, stupid. I’m not very good at my passion of learning languages because, as my attempt to excuse myself goes, I’m just naturally bad at memorizing vocab. But sometimes, I wonder if it’s just because I’m being far too easy on myself. If I just drill myself, if I do more rote memorization, if I practice my strokes in Chinese and my conjugations in Spanish and French, German and Italian, could I not reach the same level of competency and fluency as someone like Krister could?
And then there are times when I reminisce about missed opportunities. My only formal piano lessons happened when I was seven years old. Even then, my lessons weren’t one-on-one; they occurred at the teacher’s house, where he taught classes of 15 or so kids really, really basic tunes. The extent of practice I put in at home was practically negligible. Right now, I’m seeing the same pattern of practice [or rather, lack thereof] in my sister, albeit with the violin. Her report card for Orchestra came home as merely “Satisfactory”, the middle grade, rather than “Outstanding”. The key reason, I suspect, is because of her lack of at home practice (duly noted on the report card) and the lack of any real improvement (also noted on said report card). And despite my attempts to tell her to practice [“You need to do at least half an hour every day you don’t have Orchestra”—a feat insanely dwarfed by Lulu and Sophia’s schedules] she never does it, and I, supposedly lost in my own “busy” [selfish] life, never follow through.
When I read the part about the three-generation deterioration of the Chinese immigrant family, something immediately stuck out to me. Even though I belonged to the second generation—aka Amy Chua’s generation, the first generation American—I identified more with the third generation. Sure, I’m relatively disciplined, and I’m attending an Ivy League—but at the same time, I’m extremely privileged, extremely pampered, and extremely lazy and un-self-motivated. And when I read that, I think, would I have turned out differently had my parents been Chua’s stereotypical strict immigrant parents? Would my possibly innate talents in language and other fields have blossomed more rapidly, more perfectly? And most of all, would I be more confident in myself?
Of course, I’m grateful for the freedoms I have. I’m allowed to do basically anything I want. My father said today that he will support me whatever major I declare, as long as it’s something I enjoy. And my mother has compromised by saying that psychology, at least, might be somewhat useful and lucrative [she’s still intent on me eventually obtaining a law and/or business degree, because “You’re going to Harvard, after all. Why not study the thing that Harvard’s best at? Study law!”]. But part of me wonders if the reason I can’t imagine living without these privileges is due to the fact that I’ve never had to live without them, that I’ve never really been forced to do something that I didn’t want to, that I’ve never been deprived of them—and I wonder if that in turn has deprived me of some other opportunities.
Oh well. Thoughts, thoughts. Ultimately, I try to minimize the influence that Tiger Chua is having on my own hibernating-Tiger mom, telling her that “Yes, she did do those things, and she didn’t allow her daughters to do those other things, but in the end, she says she regrets a lot! Just read on!” Truthfully, I don’t remember if Chua admits to being regretful at all—after all, both daughters turned out wonderful. And the most ironic part of it is that I myself show Tiger tendencies when I scold my sister. Indeed, already I can imagine being a Tiger Dad myself—drilling in classical music [piano and/or some sort of orchestral instrument, stringed or woodwind], finding tutors in foreign languages [Chinese at a minimum, hopefully Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Catalan, German, Japanese, Arabic, Farsi, Russian, Latin, and Greek; in short, the few languages that I myself want to master eventually.], and tons tons tons of math, reading, and writing practice. I want kids who will get perfect 2400s on the SAT and 36s on the ACT (feats that I myself was unable to accomplish)—all while probably married to a skeptical Westerner (hopefully at least one who actually wants children).
In short, I admire Amy Chua. I certainly think that she’s far too strict, and right now I wouldn’t want her controlling my life. But her ability to stay strong and maintain ground in front of the children she loves—that, at least, is a trait to be admired.
Alright, time to get back to reading.
