"Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior" lol

Congratulations, sir. You won the game known as 'Life'.

I got a ribbon saying 'Participant'.

EDIT: Damm you, pagetopper!

edited 10th Feb '11 12:20:56 PM by Kayeka

Still yet a lot of of it to be played out, Kayeka.

I'm hoping my remaining game is as good as the first quarter.

*claps*

(Thread hop. Sorry.)

You see, when I was in elementary school I was notoriously bad at rote memorization. I had a very very short attention span, so I preferred to just learn the principles and methods behind multiplication and division instead of memorizing the tables. Eventually I caught up with the rest of my classmates. I didn't just memorize the facts, I just got so much practice in and I gradually got faster and faster to the point where I was doing them quickly in my head and I was just as fast as everyone else. I do not "memorize" the answers, I compute the answers.

@Exterminator: That was very inspiring. Kudos to you for building such a great life.

Exterminator Zed should get a Made of Forum Win award for posting that in this thread.

<Bows graciously to Kayeka, Black Humor, OTOH and GMH>

edited 11th Feb '11 6:52:51 AM by ExterminatorZed

*still clapping*

I think this is a time for this, in a rare instance for it to be used unironically:

This was so big that my school newsletter talked about it.

My English teacher made us write an opinion essay on it. There were only two people in the class that agreed with Chua in any way, and it was me and another Chinese girl.

I hate to say it, but if the only two people who agreed at all were Chinese, maybe that's evidence you only agree out of more-or-less Stockholm Syndrome?

@Snowfox: How completely do you agree with her? Because if it's just like "Parents should care about their kid's grades", then it's not exactly a philosophy attributable to Chua alone - several worthy SAP's could take that title.

I hate to say it, but if the only two people who agreed at all were Chinese, maybe that's evidence you only agree out of more-or-less Stockholm Syndrome?

No? I dislike that argument where ethnicity is the deciding factor.

I think it is more representative that they understand more of what Chua is attempting to do and therefore look past her poor implementation of the philosophy and can see how it would be like if done right. On the other hand, those not of the culture simply dismiss it out of hand and believe their own style of upbringing is superior.

I mean, otherwise, why don't I turn around your argument and say, children raised in the opposite manner have Stockholm syndrome as they grow up to be totally useless.

I didn't say we completely agreed. We didn't like how she applied her philosophy in such an extreme manner (actually, it's probably illegal), but the basic philosophy made sense to us: make sure your kids are trying hard.

I can get behind that, but I guess I have a strong emotional grudge against Chua. I would have taken the same ideas and phrased them like "I completely disagree with Chua; I believe we should be involved in our children's academics and be invested in their future, but give high priority to their happiness, as well." Potayto, Potahto, I guess.

I hate to say this...but have you considered that part of your problem is that you're not picking up on the racism she shows?

The racism is so obvious I didn't even think it warranted discussion.

All right, just had to get it out there.

Well, I have to say, it's a bad sign that you and that other girl were the ones who approved. I bet that was a terrible moment for your teacher, too.

As I noted earlier, this book has not done much to improve understanding between cultures.

@breadloaf: If there are many ways to raise a child, and out of those nobody likes the way Chua does it better than the way they were raised except the ones who were raised essentially the way Chua does it, then the logical conclusion is that the ones who like it only like it due to having no real comparison.

May have not gotten that whole across well in my original post; I was really just trying to suggest that something was wrong and not why.

And if I were to show the opposite style of raising a kid and nobody but those raised by it agrees, then what? That's your argument, it doesn't work. If disagreement is based only on your personal upbringing, I don't think it is valid. The Stockholm Syndrome point is a two-way street.

The problem is that you're taking this obvious racist who is doing nothing but trolling and then you're basically arguing like that Cracked.com article. They basically just reversed the situation. Brought up all the ways Westerners raise their kid as inherently superior in some way, while at the same time making ridiculous claims on the chinese methods.

edited 12th Feb '11 9:51:20 AM by breadloaf

False Dichotomy, breadloaf. There aren't just two ways to raise a child. The opposite of Chua's behavior is a near-total absence of rules or even attention from the parents. Only a couple people would agree with that, same as this.

@breadloaf: Yes, raising a child is not just picking style A or style B; there are a lot of different ways to parent a child.

So if nobody raised style A thinks Chua's way is better, and nobody raised on style B thinks Chua's way is better, and nobody raised on style C thinks Chuas way is better [...] and nobody raised on style X thinks Chua's way is better, but only people raised Chua's way think Chua's way is good, maybe it's because Chua's way is just bad and the ones raised Chua's way have no point of comparison to see this.

I've never argued that there are only two styles, I dislike people who dismiss the different philosophy of raising a child simply because of Chua. I just find that there is a sense to simply dismiss anything the Chinese do because it is presumed to be abusive or anti-creative.