Over this past winter break, I realized, with some surprise, that my Chinese-speaking, Chinese literature-teaching parents who reside in China are not, in fact, Chinese parents. How did I come to this somewhat random and seemingly illogical realization? I used my extraordinary skills to reflect on current events and social attitudes with my personal life experiences and was enlightened by a leading academic at the Yale Law School, by way of the Wall Street Journal.
The Journal article, "Why Chinese mothers are superior," contained an excerpt from Yale law professor Amy Chua's book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother," a memoir of her experience raising two daughters in the strict, "Chinese" manner. Chua claims that raising children in this way leads to academic and professional superiority, as opposed to Western parents who "seem perfectly content to let their children turn out badly".
Chua, however, is hardly the traditional Chinese she wants the world to think she is. A second-generation immigrant from the Philippines, she does not speak Chinese, nor has she ever lived in China.
I write this column not as a child embittered by a history of strict parenting, or as a human rights advocate incensed by Chua's not allowing her daughter toilet breaks. I do not wish to make any critical assessments of Chua's parenting style. It matters very little whether or not Chua really adheres to the radical measures she describes — growing up in working-class immigrant Australia, similarly sensationalist discussions about strict parenting were characteristic of my peers' parents. Instead, my perspective is that of an ethnically Chinese immigrant in a Western country who is offended by Chua's marketing scheme.
Though Chua explains her use of the term "Chinese parent" not based on pure ethnic identity, and admits that there are many parents who identify as Chinese but do not subscribe to her philosophies, she seems to be seriously devoted to her precious identity as being Chinese. That is to say, even as she acknowledges that parents from other cultures and ethnicities can go to extreme measures to compel their children to achieve, she accords her appropriation of a strict parenting lifestyle entirely to her ethnic identification.
If Chua's parenting philosophy is not entirely derived from Chinese culture, nor does she have direct, immediate ties with that huge country to the east, why do we make such a huge fuss about Chua as a representative of the Chinese way of life, rather than just one, rather odd, individual? The answer to this question is brutal and heartbreaking: to make tons of money.
Chua's insistence on characterizing herself as Chinese cleverly capitalizes on the ageless East-West dichotomy — the shallow, perceived culture war that inspires some of the bestselling writing and film in this country.
The ugliest consequence of our high-tech, consumerist culture is that conflict sells. International relations-savvy Chua knows this perfectly well — for what could represent a more pressing conflict than the underlying fear in American foreign relations that China will very soon become the world's new biggest superpower?
If Chua had titled her book "Strict Parenting is Good: How a law professor raised two great daughters" — instead of attempting to pen the argument that Chinese mothers are superior — the racist overtones plaguing opinions columns and user-generated discussions over cyberspace would lessen considerably.
It concerns me that Chua's daughters have been dragged into this artificial struggle before they have had the chance even to attend college. Being half-Chinese, raised Jewish and remarkably brilliant, they will no doubt have enough questions about their own cultural identity without being used in a commercial ploy.
To someone the West has treated so well — giving her education, employment and a husband — Chua certainly neglects to admit that she has a lot to owe to Western society, just as much as her daughters "must spend their lives repaying (her) by obeying." Chua promulgates and exacerbates an imagined conflict that she's not really qualified to take sides in, and reaps the commercial benefits. Her huge promotional tours are hardly characteristic of Confucian humility.
If the elitist Chua really wants to raise some traditional Chinese allusions to her self-perceived dedication to Chinese-ness, she should have named herself "Dragon Lady," a term commonly used to refer to the infamous Dowager Empress Cixi, who imprisoned her nephew, bankrupted the imperial Chinese economy on luxury and was the ultimate exemplar of a woman who always gets her way.
In an attempt to rid China of Western influences, Cixi backed the xenophobic, radical Boxer Rebellion. Like Cixi over a century earlier, Amy Chua is supporting something dangerous and radical in a misguided attempt to pass herself off as someone deeply devoted to Chinese tradition.
Sarah Yu '11 also has several bones to pick with "The Joy Luck Club." She can be
contacted at xia_yu@brown.edu.