High Standards in Parenting
Based on the poem “Suicide Note” by Janice Mirikitani and “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” by Amy Chua they both present differences and similarities. Chua addresses Asian practices as a manner of giving negative reinforcement to motivate. As a result, children do have a positive effect and prosper. Whereas in Mirikitani’s poem it portrays the opposite impact on the narrator emphasizing that their Asian parents set them to higher standards and feels worthless knowing they cannot please the parents even if they try their hardest to attain it.
Nevertheless, I've noticed that in both the poem and in Chua’s passage, Asian parents are referred upon and portray the causes and effects towards the high expectations that the parents give to their child. In contrast, they, however, give a different perspective for their children to follow along with certain rules so that success can be attained. For instance, in Mirikitani’s poem, it mentions “ I apologize for disappointing you. I’ve worked very hard, not good enough harder, perhaps to please you (5-9).” while in Chua’s “Chinese parents can say, "You're lazy. All your
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Likewise, in the poem, it reflects that the statement about Asian parents being strict is correct. For that matter, the author in the poem reflects a different outcome on the humiliation of not pleasing the parents even if they tried their finest to flourish the parent's necessities. As stated in the poem, “Notes shredded drift like snow on my broken body, covers me like whispers of sorries sorries” (50-55) proving that the technique Asian parents obtain can affect some people and not being able to handle being shamed
Like the name of this article suggests, the writer's main purpose is to persuade the audience to make them believe that Chinese mothers are indeed superior. To support her argument she uses different methods to appeal to her audience's favor: she uses statistics of researches about Chinese mothers and Western mothers opinions, opinions that are mostly about how parents should or should not do when they are raising their children. She also uses passages of her life as a Chinese mother to support her argument. Also, she points out a few characteristics of western parents that are completely opposite to how a Chinese mother raises their children, which made her argument stronger. Nevertheless, there were some fallacies in her logic. One of her main fallacies is what we call "Hasty Generalization".
Amy Chua utilizes evidence to verify that Western parenting practice is wrong and not as effective as Chinese parenting practice. In her article, Chua comments, “Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable-even legally actionable-to Westerners, “Hey fatty-lose some weight.” By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue” (Chua 54). She also gives her observation as evidence to convince Westerners treat their kid wrongly. She adds her observation in her article “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,” “I also once heard a Western father toast his adult daughter by calling her “beautiful and incredibly competent.” She later told me that made her feel like garbage” (Chua 54). Brooks, in opposite, does not fight against to prove Chinese parenting techniques are completely wrong. However, he just want to give evidence so that Chua and Chinese, in common, understand Western parenting practices are good in some ways. In Brooks’ article, he clears, “So I’m not against the way Chua pushes her daughters” (Brooks 59). Furthermore, David Brooks writes in his article “I wish she recognized that in some important ways the school cafeteria is more intellectually demanding than the library” (Brooks
Do you believe in equality? Regardless of gender, age, education, religion, etc. all people should be treated the same. However, not everyone is. This literature review shows that. My literature review is on the Gender Matters set of essays. The first essay is The Startling Plight of China’s Leftover Women by Christina Larsen. This essay is about the unmarried, educated women in China and why they are still unmarried. The second essay is The Invisible Migrant Man: Questioning Gender Privileges by Chloe Lewis. This piece is about the struggles and issues that married male migrants face and have faced. The last is Body-Building In Afghanistan by Oliver Broudy. It is about the men who are unemployed in Afghanistan who spend their time working out. My literature review is written in the following order: Larsen’s essay, Broudy’s
Throughout history, Americans have always been intimidated by immigrants. The idea of an immigrant coming to America and easily being able to get a job scared Americans. Americans feared that good jobs would be taken from hard working Americans and given to immigrants for less pay because they required less money to live on or were used to no wages or lower wages in their Country of origin. People would immigrate to America in search of a better life, and often times they could find homes and jobs that made them want to stay. A melting pot is described as being a mixing of different cultures into one universal culture. In Erika Lee’s, The Chinese Exclusion Example, immigrant exclusion helped re-define the melting-pot
“In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that ‘stressing academic success is not good for children’ or that ‘parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun.’ By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way. Instead, the vast majority of the Chinese mothers said that they believe their children can be ‘the best’ students, that ‘academic achievement reflects successful parenting,’ and that if children did not excel at school then there was ‘a problem’ and parents ‘were not doing their job.’ … Chinese parents spend approximately ten times as long every day drilling academic activities with their children. By contrast, Western kids are more likely to participate in sports teams” (Chua 5). Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua is an engulfing novel which clearly distinguishes the difference between Western style of parenting and the Chinese style of parenting. The quote stated above shows some of the statistics that we completed to write this book. The story is a breathless and emotional memoir of Amy Chua, consisting mostly her two daughters and husband. While the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother appears to be about the battle between a parent and a child and the relationship they share, the author, Amy Chua, has actually implied that it is important for the children to start developing skills early on to benefit in the future as well as be successful in their lives.
One type of effect the Chinese mothers’ expectations has in their relationship with their “Americanized” daughter is negative since the mothers are unable to achieve anything. An-Mei Hsu expects her daughter to listen and obey as the young ones do in Chinese culture, but instead receives a rebellious and stubborn daughter, “‘You only have to listen to me.’ And I cried, ‘But Old Mr. Chou listens to you too.’ More than thirty years later, my mother was still trying to make me listen’” (186-187). Instead of the circumstances improving, the mother is never able to achieve anything; her forcing and pushing her daughter to the Chinese culture goes to a waste. They are both similar in this sense because both are stubborn; the daughter learns to be stubborn through American culture and wants to keep herself the way she is, whereas the mother wants to remove this teaching from American culture and does not give u...
Similarly, Wong also grew up in America with a traditional Chinese mother. In contrast, Wong’s upbringing involves her mother forcing her into attending two different schools. After her American school day, Wong continues on with Chinese school to learn both cultures. Her mother felt it was her duty to “[. . .] learn the language of [her] heritage” (Wong 144). This puts a burden on Wong as she starts to despise the Chinese culture.
Every daughter forms a very close relation with their mothers before they even come to the world or understand anything. Every mother has a unique way of protecting their children. In most Asian families, mothers think putting their own control and limitations on their daughter’s life will protect and secure them. While doing that they forget that not every daughter would let their mothers take over their life. In “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, the mother’s harsh rules have made Jing-Mei rebel against her mother and regret later in life. Similarly, in “Saving Sourdi” by May-Lee Chai, Sourdi’s mother’s traditional ways of forcing decisions on her daughter’s life has enforced Sourdi to suffer through an abusive marriage. In both the texts, the authors
The Chinese mothers, so concentrated on the cultures of their own, don't want to realize what is going on around them. They don't want to accept the fact that their daughters are growing up in a culture so different from their own. Lindo Jong, says to her daughter, Waverly- "I once sacrificed my life to keep my parents' promise. This means nothing to you because to you, promises mean nothing. A daughter can promise to come to dinner, but if she has a headache, a traffic jam, if she wants to watch a favorite movie on T.V., she no longer has a promise."(Tan 42) Ying Ying St.Clair remarks- "...because I remained quiet for so long, now my daughter does not hear me. She sits by her fancy swimming pool and hears only her Sony Walkman, her cordless phone, her big, important husband asking her why they have charcoal and no lighter fluid."(Tan 64)
In the short story, "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan, a Chinese mother and daughter are at odds with each other. The mother pushes her daughter to become a prodigy, while the daughter (like most children with immigrant parents) seeks to find herself in a world that demands her Americanization. This is the theme of the story, conflicting values. In a society that values individuality, the daughter sought to be an individual, while her mother demanded she do what was suggested. This is a conflict within itself. The daughter must deal with an internal and external conflict. Internally, she struggles to find herself. Externally, she struggles with the burden of failing to meet her mother’s expectations. Being a first-generation Asian American, I have faced the same issues that the daughter has been through in the story.
The author, Amy Chua, portrays her opinionated argument that Chinese children are more Why Chinese Mothers are Superior Why Chinese Mothers are Superior successful because of the way they are brought up in her article, “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior (2011)”. This theme is important because it compares and contrasts the tactics of Chinese mothers to Western mothers to strive for their children to be successful. This paper describes the three key arguments Chau (2011) ties into Ed124 and why Chinese parents act the way they do towards their children.
She believes they would rather have a son: “If only I were a son, shoulders broad / as the sunset threading through pine, / I would see the light in my mother’s / eyes, or the golden pride reflected / in my father’s dream” (Mirikitani 10-14). While some would be led to believe that a parent would be happy with their child regardless of gender, it is known that in Asian culture men are put on a higher platform than most women, so instead of this being all in the speaker’s head, there is a high probability that there is some truth to the thoughts the speaker possesses. Not only do the parents wish they had a son rather than a daughter according to the poem, but the speaker also makes it seem as though the parents put a lot of pressure on her to make good grades. This is another part of Asian culture that most know to be very important to them. The speaker offers up multiple apologies to her parents for not working hard enough in college even though she was trying her very
Throughout Asian American literature there is a struggle between Asian women and their Asian American daughters. This is the case in The Joy Luck Club, written by Amy Tan and also in the short story "Waiting for Mr. Kim," written by Carol Roh-Spaulding. These two stories are very different, however they are similar in that they portray Asian women trying to get their American daughters to respect their Asian heritage. There are certain behaviors that Asian women are expected to have, and the mothers feel that their daughters should use these behaviors.
The opening line of “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu introduces a looming sense of sadness and trauma: “One of my earliest memories starts with me sobbing” (Liu 178). Liu presents a narrative in which trauma is passed on from generation to generation, asserting its existence as an intentional inheritance. Through the loss of Chinese culture and the culture’s inevitability, Jack and his family fall victim to the cyclical suffering that can only be lessened through a balancing act of backgrounds. In the moments leading up to, during and after Jack reads his mother’s bleak letter, Liu constructs a paper chain of trauma, urging his characters to marry opposing ethnicities.
“Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” is an excerpt from Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua, a Yale Law professor. In this excerpt the author explains why Chinese children tend to be more successful in life and expresses her dislike towards Western parenting. The first idea Chua explains is a list of activities her daughters are allowed to do and not do in order to focus solely on academic progress. Second, the author demonstrates the contrast in mindset between Chinese mothers and Western mothers by explaining how Chinese mothers feel differently than Western mothers in regards to academic success and learning. Furthermore, she describes how Chinese mothers can demand things from their children. Finally, they can also say