Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother --Amy Chua.pdf

Table of Contents Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Part One Chapter 1-The Chinese Mother Chapter 2-Sophia Chapter 3-Louisa Chapter 4-The Chuas Chapter 5-On Generational Decline Chapter 6-The Virtuous Circle Chapter 7-Tiger Luck Chapter 8-Lulus Instrument Chapter 9-The Violin Chapter 10-Teeth Marks and Bubbles Chapter 11-“The Little White Donkey”Chapter 12-The Cadenza Part Two Chapter 13-Coco Chapter 14-London,Athens,Barcelona,Bombay Chapter 15-Popo Chapter 16-The Birthday Card Chapter 17-Caravan to Chautauqua Chapter 18-The Swimming Hole Chapter 19-How You Get to Carnegie Hall Chapter 20-How You Get to Carnegie Hall,Part 2 Chapter 21-The Debut and the Audition Chapter 22-Blowout in Budapest Part Three Chapter 23-Pushkin Chapter 24-Rebellion Chapter 25-Darkness Chapter 26-Rebellion,Part 2 Chapter 27-Katrin Chapter 28-The Sack of Rice Chapter 29-Despair Chapter 30-“Hebrew Melody”Chapter 31-Red Square Chapter 32-The Symbol Chapter 33-Going West Chapter 34-The Ending Coda Acknowledgements Notes About the Author ALSO BY AMY CHUA Day of Empire:How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominanceand Why They Fall World on Fire:How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability THE PENGUIN PRESS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group(USA)Inc.,375 Hudson Street,New York,New York 10014,U.S.A.Penguin Group(Canada),90 Eglinton Avenue East,Suite 700,Toronto,Ontario,Canada M4P 2Y3(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)Penguin Books Ltd,80 Strand,London W C2R 0RL,England Penguin Ireland,25 St.Stephens Green,Dublin 2,Ireland(a division of Penguin Books Ltd)Penguin Books Australia Ltd,250 Camberwell Road,Camberwell,Victoria 3124,Australia(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd,11 Community Centre,Panchsheel Park,New Delhi-110 017,India Penguin Group(NZ),67 Apollo Drive,Rosedale,North Shore 0632,New Zealand(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)Penguin Books(South Africa)(Pty)Ltd,24 Sturdee Avenue,Rosebank,Johannesburg 2196,South Africa Penguin Books Ltd,Registered Offices:80 Strand,London WC2R 0RL,England First published in 2011 by The Penguin Press,a member of Penguin Group(USA)Inc.Copyright Amy Chua,2011 All rights reserved Portions of Chapter Four first appeared as“On Becoming American”in Defining a Nation:Our America and the Sources of Its Strength,edited by David Halberstam(National Geographic,2003).Photograph credits Bachrach Photography:page 30 Susan Bradley Photography:168 Peter Z.Mahakian:216,223 All other photographs from the authors family collection.LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA Chua,Amy.Battle hymn of the tiger mother/Amy Chua.p.cm.Includes bibliographical references.eISBN:9781101479629 1.Chua,Amy.2.Mothers-United States-Biography.3.Chinese American women-Biography.4.Mothers and daughters-China.5.Mothers and daughters-United States.I.Title.HQ759.C59 2011 306.8743092dc22 B 201002962 Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above,no part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,or transmitted,in any form or by any means(electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording or otherwise),without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.The scanning,uploading,and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law.Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials.Your support of the authors rights is appreciated.http:/ For Sophia and Louisa And for Katrin This is a story about a mother,two daughters,and two dogs.Its also about Mozart and Mendelssohn,the piano and the violin,and how we made it to Carnegie Hall.This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones.But instead,its about a bitter clash of cultures,a fleeting taste of glory,and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old.Part One The Tiger,the living symbol of strength and power,generally inspires fear and respect.1 The Chinese Mother A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereo-typically successful kids.They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies,what its like inside the family,and whether they could do it too.Well,I can tell them,because Ive done it.Here are some things my daughters,Sophia and Louisa,were never allowed to do:attend a sleepover have a playdate be in a school play complain about not being in a school play watch TV or play computer games choose their own extracurricular activities get any grade less than an A not be the#1 student in every subject except gym and drama play any instrument other than the piano or violin not play the piano or violin.Im using the term“Chinese mother”loosely.I recently met a supersuccessful white guy from South Dakota(youve seen him on television),and after comparing notes we decided that his working-class father had definitely been a Chinese mother.I know some Korean,Indian,Jamaican,Irish,and Ghanaian parents who qualify too.Conversely,I know some mothers of Chinese heritage,almost always born in the West,who are not Chinese mothers,by choice or otherwise.Im also using the term“Western parents”loosely.Western parents come in all varieties.In fact,Ill go out on a limb and say that Westerners are far more diverse in their parenting styles than the Chinese.Some Western parents are strict;others are lax.There are same-sex parents,Orthodox Jewish parents,single parents,ex-hippie parents,investment banker parents,and military parents.None of these“Western”parents necessarily see eye to eye,so when I use the term“Western parents,”of course Im not referring to all Western parentsjust as“Chinese mother”doesnt refer to all Chinese mothers.All the same,even when Western parents think theyre being strict,they usually dont come close to being Chinese mothers.For example,my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practice their instruments thirty minutes every day.An hour at most.For a Chinese mother,the first hour is the easy part.Its hours two and three that get tough.Despite our squeamishness about cultural stereotypes,there are tons of studies out there showing marked and quantifiable differences between Chinese and Westerners when it comes to parenting.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.”Other studies indicate that compared to Western parents,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.This brings me to my final point.Some might think that the American sports parent is an analog to the Chinese mother.This is so wrong.Unlike your typical Western overscheduling soccer mom,the Chinese mother believes that(1)schoolwork always comes first;(2)an A-minus is a bad grade;(3)your children must be two years ahead of their classmates in math;(4)you must never compliment your children in public;(5)if your child ever disagrees with a teacher or coach,you must always take the side of the teacher or coach;(6)the only activities your children should be permitted to do are those in which they can eventually win a medal;and(7)that medal must be gold.2 Sophia Sophia Sophia is my firstborn daughter.My husband,Jed,is Jewish,and Im Chinese,which makes our children Chinese-Jewish-American,an ethnic group that may sound exotic but actually forms a majority in certain circles,especially in university towns.Sophias name in English means“wisdom,”as does Si Hui,the Chinese name my mother gave her.From the moment Sophia was born,she displayed a rational temperament and exceptional powers of concentration.She got those qualities from her father.As an infant Sophia quickly slept through the night,and cried only if it achieved a purpose.I was struggling to write a law article at the timeI was on leave from my Wall Street law firm and desperate to get a teaching job so I wouldnt have to go backand at two months Sophia understood this.Calm and contemplative,she basically slept,ate,and watched me have writers block until she was a year old.Sophia was intellectually precocious,and at eighteen months she knew the alphabet.Our pediatrician denied that this was neurologically possible,insisting that she was only mimicking sounds.To prove his point,he pulled out a big tricky chart,with the alphabet disguised as snakes and unicorns.The doctor looked at the chart,then at Sophia,and back at the chart.Cunningly,he pointed to a toad wearing a nightgown and a beret.“Q,”piped Sophia.The doctor grunted.“No coaching,”he said to me.I was relieved when we got to the last letter:a hydra with lots of red tongues flapping around,which Sophia correctly identified as“I.”Sophia excelled in nursery school,particularly in math.While the other kids were learning to count from 1 to 10 the creative American waywith rods,beads,and conesI taught Sophia addition,subtraction,multiplication,division,fractions,and decimals the rote Chinese way.The hard part was displaying the right answer using the rods,beads,and cones.The deal Jed and I struck when we got married was that our children would speak Mandarin Chinese and be raised Jewish.(I was brought up Catholic,but that was easy to give up.Catholicism has barely any roots in my family,but more of that later.)In retrospect,this was a funny deal,because I myself dont speak Mandarinmy native dialect is Hokkien Chineseand Jed is not religious in the least.But the arrangement somehow worked.I hired a Chinese nanny to speak Mandarin constantly to Sophia,and we celebrated our first Hanukkah when Sophia was two months old.As Sophia got older,it seemed like she got the best of both cultures.She was probing and questioning,from the Jewish side.And from me,the Chinese side,she got skillslots of skills.I dont mean inborn skills or anything like that,just skills learned the diligent,disciplined,confidence-expanding Chinese way.By the time Sophia was three,she was reading Sartre,doing simple set theory,and could write one hundred Chinese characters.(Jeds translation:She recognized the words“No Exit,”could draw two overlapping circles,and okay maybe on the Chinese characters.)As I watched American parents slathering praise on their kids for the lowest of tasksdrawing a squiggle or waving a stickI came to see that Chinese parents have two things over their Western counterparts:(1)higher dreams for their children,and(2)higher regard for their children in the sense of knowing how much they can take.Of course,I also wanted Sophia to benefit from the best aspects of American society.I did not want her to end up like one of those weird Asian automatons who feel so much pressure from their parents that they kill themselves after coming in second on the national civil service exam.I wanted her to be well rounded and to have hobbies and activities.Not just any activity,like“crafts,”which can lead nowhereor even worse,playing the drums,which leads to drugsbut rather a hobby that was meaningful and highly difficult with the potential for depth and virtuosity.And thats where the piano came in.In 1996,when she was three,Sophia got two new things:her first piano lesson,and a little sister.3 Louisa Louisa Theres a country music song that goes,“Shes a wild one with an angels face.”Thats my younger daughter,Lulu.When I think of her,I think of trying to tame a feral horse.Even when she was in utero she kicked so hard it left visible imprints on my stomach.Lulus real name is Louisa,which means“famous warrior.”Im not sure how we called that one so early.Lulus Chinese name is Si Shan,which means“coral”and connotes delicacy.This fits Lulu too.From the day she was born,Lulu had a discriminating palate.She didnt like the infant formula I fed her,and she was so outraged by the soy milk alternative suggested by our pediatrician that she went on a hunger strike.But unlike Mahatma Gandhi,who was selfless and meditative while he starved himself,Lulu had colic and screamed and clawed violently for hours every night.Jed and I were in ear-plugs and tearing our hair out when fortunately our Chinese nanny Grace came to the rescue.She prepared a silken tofu braised in a light abalone and shiitake sauce with a cilantro garnish,which Lulu ended up quite liking.Its hard to find the words to describe my relationship with Lulu.“All-out nuclear warfare”doesnt quite capture it.The irony is that Lulu and I are very much alike:She inherited my hot-tempered,viper-tongued,fast-forgiving personality.Speaking of personalities,I dont believe in astrologyand I think people who do have serious problemsbut the Chinese Zodiac describes Sophia and Lulu perfectly.Sophia was born in the Year of the Monkey,and Monkey people are curious,intellectual,and“generally can accomplish any given task.They appreciate difficult or challenging work as it stimulates them.”By contrast,people born in the Year of the Boar are“willful”and“obstinate”and often“fly into a rage,”although they“never harbor a grudge,”being fundamentally honest and warmhearted.Thats Lulu exactly.I was born in the Year of the Tiger.I dont want to boast or anything,but Tiger people are noble,fearless,powerful,authoritative,and magnetic.Theyre also supposed to be lucky.Beethoven and Sun Yat-sen were both Tigers.I had my first face-off with Lulu when she was about three.It was a freezing winter afternoon in New Haven,Connecticut,one of the coldest days of the year.Jed was at workhe was a professor at Yale Law Schooland Sophia was at kindergarten.I decided that it would be a perfect time to introduce Lulu to the piano.Excited about working togetherwith her brown curls,round eyes,and china doll face,Lulu was deceptively cuteI put her on the piano bench,on top of some comfortable pillows.I then demonstrated how to play a single note with a single finger,evenly,three times,and asked her to do the same.A small request,but Lulu refused,preferring instead to smash at many notes at the same time with two open palms.When I asked her to stop,she smashed harder and faster.When I tried to pull her away from the piano,she began yelling,crying,and kicking furiously.Fifteen minutes later,she was still yelling,crying,and kicking,and Id had it.Dodging her blows,I dragged the screeching demon to our back porch door,and