Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
This book, by Amy Chua, has been a source of scandal a few months ago (see this article on Time.com, among others). I heard about it indirectly, through Twitter and other social media. And strangely (or not), it tickled the little Chinese in me.
I have just happily finished reading it (it was pretty quick; less than 250 pages and large line space, and a very fluid, easy-to-read style). And I have to admit I can understand the outrage of so-called “Western parents”: it is rather provocative a book. I would like to quote Time magazine on that, I think they captured it quite well.
It was the “Little White Donkey” incident that pushed many readers over the edge. That’s the name of the piano tune that Amy Chua, Yale law professor and self-described “tiger mother,” forced her 7-year-old daughter Lulu to practice for hours on end — “right through dinner into the night,” with no breaks for water or even the bathroom, until at last Lulu learned to play the piece.
For other readers, it was Chua calling her older daughter Sophia “garbage” after the girl behaved disrespectfully — the same thing Chua had been called as a child by her strict Chinese father.
And, oh, yes, for some readers it was the card that young Lulu made for her mother’s birthday. “I don’t want this,” Chua announced, adding that she expected to receive a drawing that Lulu had “put some thought and effort into.” Throwing the card back at her daughter, she told her, “I deserve better than this. So I reject this.”
Well, yeah, put like this and out of context it really sounds bad. Chua has been criticized all around for this kind of anecdotes she put in her book. But on the contrary, I think these outraged people are sort of missing the point.
The anecdotes might show that the methods she chose in order to enforce her authority, or to push her children to always do better, are a little extreme, but overall you can only feel how she loves her girls and how she is dying to provide them with the best weapons and assets to start in life.
However, among other things, some questions remain unanswered. For example, when Lulu, her rebellious second daughter, shouts out: “Everything you say you do for me is actually for yourself.” (p. 205). We never actually get a straight answer. I imagine that any “Western parent” would think that it is true, this terrible and cruel education can only be explained by the thirst for success of the mother. On the other hand, a “Chinese parent” would sound more likely in denial: it is of course not true, I am only wanting the best for my kids.
I do think that the truth lies between the extremes. It seems such a stupid, easy answer, but in that case, I can’t see no other. No, she is not cruel on purpose, just for the sake of being horrible. No, I don’t think she’s doing it exclusively for her children either, although it is her primary intention.
Being myself a production of some sort of Chinese family, I would say that yes, she indeed is doing all she can (and sometimes a bit too much!) for her daughters to be the best in whatever they do. Nevertheless, the “honor” is a major feature of Chinese culture. See pp204-205: “Do you know how sad and ashamed my parents would be if they saw this, Lulu - you publicly disobeying me?”
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is essentially the story of Amy Chua, her daughters, her family and their two dogs. As she wrote, it was “supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones”, but in the end it is just her story, her anecdotes, her struggles and how her Chinese parenting model (I don’t think this can be generalized), that she was trying to apply scrupulously, sort of failed in the end.
The failure comes from a basic misunderstanding. The model she tried to apply to her daughters works as long as the child is willing to endure it (I’m not suggesting that the kid is suffering, though). It goes to far when sometimes, the kid really can’t stand being forced to do things anymore.
More than just the story of an education, the book is also about the struggles and difficulties that her family had to overcome, from the death of her mother-in-law to her sister’s cancer, and the effects of these events on her family, and on her daughters.
Above all, what we should remember and keep from the Chinese model, that she tries to explain in her book, are the high expectations that a parent should have for his children - or that one should have for oneself. And the idea that if you’re not the best, then maybe you’ve just not tried hard enough.
—
I would like to add some final comments. I am just a girl who’s been raised in a Chinese family that immigrated in France. I’m the first generation to be born in France, although my parents - especially my mother - arrived there very young. I didn’t have such an extreme education as Chua is telling in this book - I didn’t get the chance to be really forced to play the piano (although I did take lessons unwillingly for a whole 9 years), and now regret that I have been so lazy about it. I didn’t have to compete against Korean-American prodigies in music or at school, the only competition I have really had to be subjected to was during my classes préparatoires, between ages 18 and 20 (more precisely 17 1/2 and 19 1/2… but who cares).
I wasn’t forced to speak Chinese - worse than that, I actually rebelled and refused to speak Cantonese for hardly less than 10 years, which is why I’m so bad at it now. I have rarely, if ever, been congratulated by my parents, and never felt bad about it before my best friend pointed it out, when I was in junior high. The idea of being rewarded for anything (good marks, end of the year, exam success) was introduced by myself, and I tend to reward myself more than receive anything from my family - and it’s only because I got caught in this consumerist society, that the reward is more like an excuse to buy something expensive. I was never forced by my parents to get an education, because any education was better than anything they had in the family. And I think I knew what was best for me, and they knew that I could manage it myself, so I did.
All these details of my life, just to say that no, all Chinese are not that horrible, but yes, I completely relate to Amy Chua’s story, because the basics are here. Honor, respect, ambition and hard work.
The only thing I added to that education, and got by myself, was a certain consciousness of the world around me, and the deep wish inside me that whatever I do next, I do it not (only) for my own ambition or will to succeed, but (hopefully, also) to improve the world around me.
