"Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior"

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Don't forget parents, if you put the oranges in a burlap sack and then beat your children, not only will there be little to no bruising but you'll have created a delicious batch of freshly squeezed orange juice.

Makes me want to beat my children to the pulp

[GirlySports]

looks like the WSJ took the more controversial parts of the book, gave their article a good name and caused outraged. Here's an article from SF with an interview with the author herself.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...apop011311.DTL

"I was very surprised," she says. "The Journal basically strung together the most controversial sections of the book. And I had no idea they'd put that kind of a title on it. But the worst thing was, they didn't even hint that the book is about a journey, and that the person at beginning of the book is different from the person at the end -- that I get my comeuppance and retreat from this very strict Chinese parenting model."

[the2bears]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Isn't that because in Chinese there's really no grammer and no plurals?
Nouns don't change. It's characters!

It's a complex language, and trust me, there's a grammar. Fairly different from English, with unique properties. The pronunciation issues seem mostly with consonant sounds at the end of a syllable. Mandarin has fewer than Cantonese I believe, but I may be wrong. For instance, 'n' and 'ng' as in 'an', 'in', or 'ang', 'ing', are common enough in Mandarin, as are some 'r' endings. But that's about it. So you get words like "big" pronounced more like "pi-guh".

As for plurals, you're right, there are not plurals as we know them. Consider the noun "water", though. It's common to describe it as a "glass of water" or some other unit of "counting". In Mandarin almost all nouns are countable, so require something like a "glass" to indicate the unit. Everything becomes then, "One count of noun", or "Three count of noun", with no English style plural.

Sorry as well if this is more derailment, sort of on topic I guess.

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

looks like the WSJ took the more controversial parts of the book, gave their article a good name and caused outraged. Here's an article from SF with an interview with the author herself.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...apop011311.DTL

Chua responded to a brief message I sent her introducing myself and asking for an interview bysaying that she was glad to hear from me, as she'd been looking for a way to discuss her misgivings about the Journal article. Apparently, it had been edited without her input, and by the time she saw the version they intended to run, she was limited in what she could do to alter it.

Ok, I refuse to believe that a Professor of Law at Yale University would not make sure she knew EXACTLY what was to be printed before allowing the article to be written. Methinks she was trying to use controversy to sell some more books and knew exactly what was going on.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by The Yen Man

Ok, I refuse to believe that a Professor of Law at Yale University would not make sure she knew EXACTLY what was to be printed before allowing the article to be written. Methinks she was trying to use controversy to sell some more books and knew exactly what was going on.

As someone who worked for a magazine and knows how things are run editorially, I can tell you that, as the subject, you don't really have any say how a finished article is edited. You give your thoughts and quotes to the writer, but unless you're really famous/influential and it's part of some agreement, there's no way will an Editor would let you call the shots. That's the whole point of the free press. Otherwise it would be called advertising.

Considering she's a relative unknown, just being in the WSJ would've been enough to make an author more than satisfied.

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by Table 5

As someone who worked for a magazine and knows how things are run editorially, I can tell you that, as the subject, you don't really have any say how a finished article is edited. You give your thoughts and quotes to the writer, but unless you're really famous/influential and it's part of some agreement, there's no way will an Editor would let you call the shots. That's the whole point of the free press. Otherwise it would be called advertising.

Considering she's a relative unknown, just being in the WSJ would've been enough to make an author more than satisfied.

Thanks for the insight. I have no idea how any of it would actually work. I just assumed they would need some sort of permission before they are allowed to run the article.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by The Yen Man

Thanks for the insight. I have no idea how any of it would actually work. I just assumed they would need some sort of permission before they are allowed to run the article.

Well they can write about anything they chose really, it's a free world. How they edit an article is of course clearly a very powerful weapon (hence that famous saying about the pen and the sword!).

The only real control you might have is, when answering questions, you're able to stipulate what part of your responses are "off the record". Or you can of course choose not to say anything. I got a chance to be on the other side recently, and they're very good about knowing what the boundaries are....and then poking and prodding you to come over to their side of the line!

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by Table 5

As someone who worked for a magazine and knows how things are run editorially, I can tell you that, as the subject, you don't really have any say how a finished article is edited. You give your thoughts and quotes to the writer, but unless you're really famous/influential and it's part of some agreement, there's no way will an Editor would let you call the shots. That's the whole point of the free press. Otherwise it would be called advertising.

Considering she's a relative unknown, just being in the WSJ would've been enough to make an author more than satisfied.

This is correct. Mrs. Impaler has been a magazine editor.

[getbak]

This isn't an interview with her, it's an excerpt from her book, and it's her byline on the story.

This is at the bottom of the story: "This essay is excerpted from 'Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother' by Amy Chua, to be published Tuesday by the Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Copyright © 2011 by Amy Chua."

For all intents and purposes, it is advertising for her book. I wonder if the WSJ chose that piece to print or if it's what was provided by Penguin? I wouldn't be surprised if it was her publisher who chose the excerpt, and they selected the portion that they knew would cause the biggest reaction and sell more books.

[GirlySports]

now the daughter speaks out!

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainmen...teY0u2KXt7hM/0

[Sliver]

18 eh? Good to know.

[Muta]

My parents made me play music through my entire childhood.

While I hated it at the time, I look back on it now and realize just what a world of good it did for me. It taught me how to think open-mindedly, creatively, and it taught me how to analyze and interpret foreign information. These were phenomenal skills to develop; unbeknownst to me at the time.

I'm no scientist or anything, but I'm willing to bet that those skills helped me do as well as I did in elementary, high school and university, and have helped millions of others who took similar musical routes.

Granted, my parents also gave me the freedom to have a social life. They made me play music and study hard, but they also gave me no curfew and pretty much encouraged independence right from when I was about 10 years old. They told me to go out and experiment things, but learn from it to make smarter decisions in the future. When I look back on it, it was quite a brilliant parenting strategy, and one that I will likely practice with my kids in the future (if I ever have them, I like being a bachelor waaaay too much).

As a result, I'm doing just fine post-university, and I do believe I have the communication and leadership skills to go pretty far (perhaps you can see I have inflated confidence, but really, that's a compliment to me, so I don't really care). I know other bookworms who got better grades than me in high school and university, but they can't be put in social situations and help a company through business development because they simply do not have those social skills. I've seen it, even in the working world.

While I don't agree with all the all the tactics the author recommends, I do agree with the music part. I'm sure there's many examples of people who benefit their entire life from learning music at an early age.

Kids, however, need to have proper social skills. There's more to life than just 'family reputation'... something that too many families focus on by making their kids cerebral cyborgs. One thing I did was go experience new places and cultures around the world after university, and it gave me an even better perspective on life than what I gained acedmically before I left. I got into some weird and tricky situations when I travelled, and met some characters I hope to never meet again... but those experiences, whether good or bad, are invaluable to furthering your respect and appreciation for others and others' cultures.

[CaptainCrunch]

Somehow I get the gut feeling that this is spin control. Mom came across as an unsympathetic frankly monster, and they convinced the daughter to do it.

On the music front I played piano for 10 years growing up, my parents finally let me stop because frankly I didn't get a lot of enjoyment out of it in the end. Besides I tormented them by learning one song and playing it for 2 hours a day.

At the end of the day, do I have regrets, nope, as I've stated, my dad pushed me hard, not in terms of studies, or in terms of sports, but in terms of being a good well developed person with the ability to sense right from wrong and make tough choices.

On the sports front to be honest, my dad hated my playing style because I was a bit of a goon, on the studies part I was a spectacularly average to below average student, but that doesn't mean my mind went to waste, I found passions and pursued them, I think I'm ahead of the curve in terms of history and especially military history, I was amazing at biology, and very good at computers.

But I didn't need a parent to stand behind me and mentally whip me, or reject a birthday card because I didn't put enough effort into it.

I have this gut feeling with this girl that her mother will never believe that her achievements will ever be good enough, I have a feeling that this girl was never truly allowed to spread her wings and learn what kind of an individual she is, and when she leaves the nest she's going to have the fall down episodes that a lot of us had in our early to mid teens. I have a feeling that the first time that this girl runs into trouble or truly fails the last person she's going to go to is her mother.

Don't get me wrong, academics are hugely important, and I do have some regrets that my intellectual compass didn't stop spinning until after I was done. But the other equally important thing in growing up is to eventually hit the point where you can sit across the table from your parents and have a conversation as equals, it took a long time for me to do that with my dad because we were both bull headed and didn't reach an understanding for a long time, but thats the important key in everyones life where you can finally tell your parents that you don't need them to raise you anymore, but if I need advice your the first one I'm coming to. I don't see that kind of relationship with that girl, because the first time she f's up and tells her mom, she's going to get pounded down and told that she's failed.

But I just don't buy this love letter.

Sorry