120 books

#133 of 2011: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua

Whew, I’ve got a lot to say about this book that I don’t know where to start. Maybe I can start off with saying that I’m Asian but I don’t have a Chinese mother. Which is both a bomb and a treat. A treat because I love my mom very much and while at times she has been strict and I have been kind of Lulu - a lot of times, even way rebellious than she was portrayed as in the book, even though I’m supposed to be Perfect Sophia, being the firstborn - she has always valued my (and my brother’s) independence, dreams, and opinions. A bomb because hey, I could have turned out much better - I could have been an Olympian, a concertmaster, a master chef!! But really, in my opinion, what Amy Chua has written about the Chinese kind of parenting is not far off from what is common in the Eastern tradition. Be this memoir written as a self-parody (I guffawed more than a couple of times!) or as a serious account (Several chapters made me tear up), it still rings true for those families brought in an Asian-oriented setting where there are a LOT of values, skills, and traditions “forced upon” the children out of the parents’ desire of a successful future for them. I do understand the outrage the people from the “Western” side feel towards this book, but they what they have to understand themselves is that it’s a cultural thing that we just cannot break down in order to please everybody. Honestly, it’s a bit sad for me that some of these people can be this close-minded - after all, you know, Chinese parenting has proven to be more effective than detrimental (even in Adeline Yen Mah’s case! She wrote her own memoir, Falling Leaves and Chinese Cinderella, which made me bawl every.time.I.reread.them)! I hope more pick this book up because it can be an eye-opener, a comic relief, a tearjerker, a teacher or all of the above in one go.