Chinese mothers are not all Tigers

September 13, 2016

• Topical

from The Telegraph, 20.02.2015

When my high school English teacher saw I was disappointed with my essay grade, she remarked that I must be under a lot of pressure because of my ‘Chinese parents’.

Yes, those were her words…and the opposite to what I felt.

The typical Chinese parenting style is pushing their children to achieve top grades at school because academic excellence reflects good parenting. They make sure their kids go to an elite school so they can get the best grades.

They constantly nag them to be lawyers, doctors, or to get into business or financial careers. Parents say these ‘sensible’ jobs pay high, are prestigious and upgrade your social status.

This reputation is immortalised by Chinese-American author Amu Chua, best known as the ‘Tiger mom’. The name speaks for itself. In her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Chua argues that ‘traditional Chinese parenting’ is superior to Western-styles because harsh discipline is the best way to force kids to get the best results.

Chua says she threatened her youngest daughter with no food and no presents for four years, until she mastered a piano piece perfectly. She also denied her daughters play dates with other children.

Historically, the Chinese believe education is the key to everything. In Imperial China, working in government was highly revered and the main way to get these jobs was to pass the imperial examination, where you competed with the country’s best scholars.

A study by Dr John Jerrim from the University of London measured the academic grades of 14,000 Australian students who took the 2012 Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment) maths test. He found that second generation migrant students from East Asian backgrounds, a majority of them Chinese, outperform their Australian-born peers.

Of course, Chua is on the extreme end of the Chinese parenting spectrum. But how do parents force their children to study something they do not like?

It is usually through guilt tripping and pressuring – they start when their children are still in primary school.

One of my friends wanted to be an archaeologist but eventually gave in to her mother’s demands to work in the medical field. Her mother told her that being a doctor is prestigious and she should continue the family line in this profession.

I watched my friend struggle through university because she did not like studying science. Although she graduated and found a job, she is still not happy. But the pressure continues – her mother wants her to marry a doctor.

One of my relatives achieved 95 per cent for her VCE (Victorian Curriculum Education, equivalent to UK A-levels) score and after many years, her parents still sigh about her not getting the perfect 99.95 per cent.

Additionally, according to some parents, humanities subjects are not practical because you will not earn much from the field.

I remember when I had to accompany my parents to the dreaded family friends’ dinners, one of my father’s friends asked me what I wanted to do when I finished school. I said I wanted to be a journalist and the only response I got was an insincere acknowledgement.

Another friend of my father’s then said I was not fit to be a journalist and should consider something more ‘appropriate’.

Of course, not all Chinese parents are like that. When I was little, my parents said to me I should find a career that I liked because my life would be much more fulfilling and meaningful if I build upon my interests and talents.

They taught me that studying and understanding something are two different things. They discouraged rote learning, which is usually practised in schools in East Asia and by some parents, because it does not foster independent thought.

I recall that when I turned 13, my mother told me to read Pride and Prejudice. She told me not just to read it for the story, but to try and understand the characters and the underlying themes of the book.

I guess my parents know the pain of not been able to follow your dreams. They grew up in Vietnam during the war and there were very few opportunities. My mother had always wanted to be a radio broadcaster and my father wanted to study biology.

So I told my English teacher I was disappointed, not because I was fearful of parents finding out my grade, but just because I wanted to do well at school. My parents taught me to study for myself, not for anyone else.

And she had nothing to say.

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