"The Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother" is a Must-Read

I think one of the most interesting must-reads is Amy Chua-Rubenfeld's book Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother. I bought that book during my MBA days and gave it a read. I remembered seeing the movie The Joy Luck Club which analyzed four different stories by Amy Tan. The Joy Luck Club explored the plight of Chinese women back then such as how they were often forced to share a husband, how gender inequality was an issue and the mistakes made by Chinese parents. There was the part where the two mothers frequently competed on who was better. "My daughter is a first-class pianist!" "My daughter is a chess prodigy!" Amy Chua, having been born during the Generation X generation, did show her mistakes as a boomer when she wrote Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother with her Jewish-American husband, Atty. Jed Rubenfeld. 

Amy Chua was born to Chinese-Filipino parents. I guess the whole Chua surname already speaks volumes. She had already violated the older Chinese rule of never intermingling or intermarrying with other races. The late Bruce Lee was already taboo when he married his American wife who was back then, known as Linda Emery. Later, Linda remarried and became Linda Lee Cadwell. It was said Lee was antagonized by the American-Chinese community when he taught martial arts to "outsiders". It also seems very common for the Chinese to migrate here and there, form their communities, and they refuse to assimilate. Amy Chua's marriage to her husband Jed would already speak volumes of how it was frowned upon. I feel that Amy's marriage to an American man found the middle ground between Chinese and American parenting.

If I were to talk in Singlish (broken Chinese English), it'd probably sound like, "American parenting overly permissive! Chinese parently overly strict!" Amy Chua did write her book rather meticulously some of the bad things she's done. She's mentioned how it worked on Sophie but backfired with Lulu. I had a cringy moment when I realize that Chinese children hardly have a life. What's worse than not being able to play video games or watch TV (well, they can be very addicting) is when you can't get a grade lower than an A. For them, an A- is a bad grade. It's very common also that Chinese boomer parents tend to hammer their children saying, "You ought to be honor student ya because I was honor student ya!" Though, some of them are forcing their children to live their broken dreams such as the case of a certain American-Chinese, Sophie Xiong. 

It was an interesting read to see how both Amy Chua and Jed both had their differences. A man raised American. A Chinese-Filipino woman who became an American-Chinese at a young age. It was common for some Chinese-Filipinos to migrate to America. In my case, I wanted to migrate to America back in 2001. Jed did raise valid points when Amy Chua went too much. Eventually, Lulu managed to rebel. It was stressful to read how Lulu finally broke. As Amy Chua said, she was humbled by her second daughter. Later, Amy Chua made adjustments from Chinese authoritarian parenting in exchange for authoritative parenting. Being strict but not too strict would be the middle ground. That's what Amy did to Lulu later on. 

It was interesting to read what Amy Chua had to write. It's very hard to think that anybody would be willing to admit they failed. It seems that honor and reputation tend to be highly held in the Chinese family. They'd do anything for it even through demeaning and well-intentioned lies. For the child to finish their food, it's common to make little white lies instead of setting appropriate punishments. For the child to do better, they issue harsh empty threats. Instead, Amy Chua wrote what might be a warning of the fallacy of appealing to tradition. Many times, Chinese tradition has gone unquestioned resulting in many bad things. However, Chinese tradition isn't static. It's like how dog and cat meat is becoming more taboo in China. Chinese men used to marry multiple wives only for it to be abolished. Chinese overly controlling parenting is the same. It needs to be thrown into the same place with every absurd Chinese tradition.