Rebutting the Tiger Mother: Live!
It's easier to think of Amy Chua as a Dragon Lady villain, but after hearing her speak at Time Inc. tonight, it is perhaps more accurate to say that she is mostly self-deluded. I'm not trying to be insulting-I genuinely think she has not fully thought through certain issues related to Asian and/or Asian-American identity and perception, and moreover, I don’t think she realizes how much she doesn't know.
She repeated two corrections throughout the discussion: that Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is "clearly satirical, hysterical and zany" (she described most of the scenes in her book as “zany”), and that it is "a memoir, not a manual."
To the former point, I suspected as much even after the first chapter. It's just so over the top. But I can understand why some might have trouble discerning the "joke." For some people, it plays into suspicions and paranoias they already have about Asian families. Why wouldn't those folks take a Chinese mother's account of her radical parenting methods at face value? For others, Chua's "anecdotes" trigger real, traumatic experiences of their own. Sorry that those past abuse victims can't take a joke!
Chua seemed to think there's only one explanation: "The book is tricky, it operates on 12 different levels, and it’s satirical. You either get the book or you don't. Some don't-they read things literally." I guess that must be my problem. I lack to ability to grasp complexity and I don't understand satire. I thought Colbert went to Capitol Hill because he really didn't want Mexican fingerprints on his tomatoes. I think Bruce Willis should sue Community for that paintball episode where they totally ripped off Die Hard. I wish my friends had told me I didn't have a sense of humor! I feel so naked without one!
Chua told us she thought she would come off "less like Mommie Dearest and more like David Sedaris" (whose name she would invoke two more times over the course of the discussion). She referred to one of Nabokov's nonfiction works (sorry, I didn't write down the title) and Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius as models for her own memoir. Truly, I am humbled by her presence in that company. Clearly, Amy Chua is this generation's Jonathan Swift, and I have simply been too obtuse and literal to understand her! I am obviously being literal right now! Writing like Sedaris is easy! Any lawyer can do it! I am a dummy for not realizing her comedic genius!
Or maybe I am too Asian, which she says generally means "meek, humorless and uncreative." In contrast, Chua called her own voice "defiant" and "outlaw." She said her book is essentially the anti-Joy Luck Club, which is all about victimization and oppression, whereas "my book is a PROUD book. I'm proud of what I am. I refuse to let others define me."
Chua is clearly proud of her ethnic heritage and has not at all bought into cultural stereotypes. Referring to her adolescence, she said she experienced "the whole Asian-American thing: glasses, braces, greasy hair." Hey, thanks for reducing that whole Asian-American thing, Amy Chua! You're such a wonderful and qualified spokesperson for our people! (Am I getting the hang of sarcasm yet?)
Chua told us she considered some sort of legal action when she found out that her book was being marketed in China as a parenting guide from a Yale law professor (I’m not sure that’s legally actionable? But then again, I’m no law professor). She said that in China her methods are uncontroversial because the people there tend to have “an inability to convey love-they don’t have psychiatry, counseling” or other such resources available to them. I need an entirely separate post to unpack the racism in that thought.
Chua asserted that “there’s a strong theme of rebellion throughout the book,” and it wasn’t just from her daughters. When she was a teenager herself, she rebelled against her Tiger Dad, who wanted her to go to college in-state, by forging his signature to apply to a school on the other side of the country. “I’d barely heard of it-Harvard.” (Cue delighted gasps and spontaneous applause from the rapt audience.) That story doesn’t even make sense. First of all, what child of a self-respecting “Tiger” parent didn’t have every issue of U.S. News and World Report’s Best Colleges since, at the latest, seventh grade? And she was in Berkeley in 1980, not New Guinea in 1660. And why would you apply to a school you’d barely heard of? You know who makes coy understatements about that college in Boston? Well, not in Boston, but nearby. No, not Tufts.
Chua insisted that Battle Hymn is a memoir, one in which she took creative liberties (like Sedaris, but not like Frey, I presume). Fine. But that doesn’t mean she hasn’t profited greatly from her book being promoted and received as a manual. Even the tagline on the back cover belies her protestations: HOW TO BE A TIGER MOTHER. (Chua speculated that her publishers might have been trying to “give her a taste of her own medicine.”)
She tries to have it both ways. “I was a very strict mother and I raised two independent daughters,” she told us. But she did not raise her daughters to be “independent.” The objective of her strict parenting was obedient children. It’s wonderful that her daughters seem to be well-adjusted and talented young individuals-I genuinely mean that-but which is it? Is Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother a self-deprecating confessional of a Type A mom’s come-uppance, or is it a triumphant recording of her accomplishments?
There seemed to be a number of contradictions in Chua’s thinking. “The act of the book is profoundly ‘un-Asian’ because it’s rebellious,” she told us. (Again, so many unsubstantiated declarations about what is and isn’t Asian.) So writing the book was “un-Asian,” even though the book touts “Asian” values? Because despite eventually letting her younger daughter quit violin and take up tennis, Chua doesn’t outright disavow her Tiger method, and she has said she would mostly do the same thing again.
When asked what answers she intended her book to give, Chua responded (again) that since Battle Hymn is a memoir, she shouldn’t be required to provide answers*, but she was game to give it a shot. With the disclaimer that it was “a cliché, which is Western” (clichés are Western? Or what’s to follow is a cliché?), she said that the lesson of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is “pursue your passion.” She added that this value has been cheapened by parents who let their kids take up and quit hobbies at a whim, and I agree. “Finding your passion requires hard work,” Chua told us. “It took me almost forty years to figure out what I loved doing.”
And that’s when it clicked for me. AMY CHUA IS A LATE BLOOMER. In fact, like all of us, she is still figuring things out. It’s just that she had the (Western?) initiative and confidence to publish a book that hit the cultural zeitgeist, and she is now being regarded as an expert on Chinese parenting, or, at the very least, a spokesperson in a milieu devoid of diverse Asian-American voices.
Chua's first book, World on Fire, published in 2002, is apparently about, in part, ethnic resentments between privileged minorities and majority groups that feel threatened by them. She says she didn't initially realize a connection between this past academic work and her memoir, but now sees that... both are about "inverting the weaknesses" of the Asian-American stereotype. I couldn’t figure out what she meant by that, but I was surprised that her epiphany had nothing to do with the cultural implications of her current bestseller.
At the Time Inc. discussion she claimed that her memoir is about “what I see as the strengths of East and West,” a few minutes after she cited a problem about “false dichotomies.” She also assured us, “I wonder about and have real concerns about the model minority stereotype.” I think (I hope) that in five or ten years, Amy Chua will see the irony in all of the above, and maybe then, be able to produce a truly nuanced handling of Asian-American dynamics.
*On the contrary, Elizabeth Kolbert’s New Yorker review of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother said that “memoir is, or at least is supposed to be, a demanding genre. It requires the author not just narrate his or her life but reflect on it.”
She repeated two corrections throughout the discussion: that Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is "clearly satirical, hysterical and zany" (she described most of the scenes in her book as “zany”), and that it is "a memoir, not a manual."
To the former point, I suspected as much even after the first chapter. It's just so over the top. But I can understand why some might have trouble discerning the "joke." For some people, it plays into suspicions and paranoias they already have about Asian families. Why wouldn't those folks take a Chinese mother's account of her radical parenting methods at face value? For others, Chua's "anecdotes" trigger real, traumatic experiences of their own. Sorry that those past abuse victims can't take a joke!
Chua seemed to think there's only one explanation: "The book is tricky, it operates on 12 different levels, and it’s satirical. You either get the book or you don't. Some don't-they read things literally." I guess that must be my problem. I lack to ability to grasp complexity and I don't understand satire. I thought Colbert went to Capitol Hill because he really didn't want Mexican fingerprints on his tomatoes. I think Bruce Willis should sue Community for that paintball episode where they totally ripped off Die Hard. I wish my friends had told me I didn't have a sense of humor! I feel so naked without one!
Chua told us she thought she would come off "less like Mommie Dearest and more like David Sedaris" (whose name she would invoke two more times over the course of the discussion). She referred to one of Nabokov's nonfiction works (sorry, I didn't write down the title) and Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius as models for her own memoir. Truly, I am humbled by her presence in that company. Clearly, Amy Chua is this generation's Jonathan Swift, and I have simply been too obtuse and literal to understand her! I am obviously being literal right now! Writing like Sedaris is easy! Any lawyer can do it! I am a dummy for not realizing her comedic genius!
Or maybe I am too Asian, which she says generally means "meek, humorless and uncreative." In contrast, Chua called her own voice "defiant" and "outlaw." She said her book is essentially the anti-Joy Luck Club, which is all about victimization and oppression, whereas "my book is a PROUD book. I'm proud of what I am. I refuse to let others define me."
Chua is clearly proud of her ethnic heritage and has not at all bought into cultural stereotypes. Referring to her adolescence, she said she experienced "the whole Asian-American thing: glasses, braces, greasy hair." Hey, thanks for reducing that whole Asian-American thing, Amy Chua! You're such a wonderful and qualified spokesperson for our people! (Am I getting the hang of sarcasm yet?)
Chua told us she considered some sort of legal action when she found out that her book was being marketed in China as a parenting guide from a Yale law professor (I’m not sure that’s legally actionable? But then again, I’m no law professor). She said that in China her methods are uncontroversial because the people there tend to have “an inability to convey love-they don’t have psychiatry, counseling” or other such resources available to them. I need an entirely separate post to unpack the racism in that thought.
Chua asserted that “there’s a strong theme of rebellion throughout the book,” and it wasn’t just from her daughters. When she was a teenager herself, she rebelled against her Tiger Dad, who wanted her to go to college in-state, by forging his signature to apply to a school on the other side of the country. “I’d barely heard of it-Harvard.” (Cue delighted gasps and spontaneous applause from the rapt audience.) That story doesn’t even make sense. First of all, what child of a self-respecting “Tiger” parent didn’t have every issue of U.S. News and World Report’s Best Colleges since, at the latest, seventh grade? And she was in Berkeley in 1980, not New Guinea in 1660. And why would you apply to a school you’d barely heard of? You know who makes coy understatements about that college in Boston? Well, not in Boston, but nearby. No, not Tufts.
Chua insisted that Battle Hymn is a memoir, one in which she took creative liberties (like Sedaris, but not like Frey, I presume). Fine. But that doesn’t mean she hasn’t profited greatly from her book being promoted and received as a manual. Even the tagline on the back cover belies her protestations: HOW TO BE A TIGER MOTHER. (Chua speculated that her publishers might have been trying to “give her a taste of her own medicine.”)
She tries to have it both ways. “I was a very strict mother and I raised two independent daughters,” she told us. But she did not raise her daughters to be “independent.” The objective of her strict parenting was obedient children. It’s wonderful that her daughters seem to be well-adjusted and talented young individuals-I genuinely mean that-but which is it? Is Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother a self-deprecating confessional of a Type A mom’s come-uppance, or is it a triumphant recording of her accomplishments?
There seemed to be a number of contradictions in Chua’s thinking. “The act of the book is profoundly ‘un-Asian’ because it’s rebellious,” she told us. (Again, so many unsubstantiated declarations about what is and isn’t Asian.) So writing the book was “un-Asian,” even though the book touts “Asian” values? Because despite eventually letting her younger daughter quit violin and take up tennis, Chua doesn’t outright disavow her Tiger method, and she has said she would mostly do the same thing again.
When asked what answers she intended her book to give, Chua responded (again) that since Battle Hymn is a memoir, she shouldn’t be required to provide answers*, but she was game to give it a shot. With the disclaimer that it was “a cliché, which is Western” (clichés are Western? Or what’s to follow is a cliché?), she said that the lesson of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is “pursue your passion.” She added that this value has been cheapened by parents who let their kids take up and quit hobbies at a whim, and I agree. “Finding your passion requires hard work,” Chua told us. “It took me almost forty years to figure out what I loved doing.”
And that’s when it clicked for me. AMY CHUA IS A LATE BLOOMER. In fact, like all of us, she is still figuring things out. It’s just that she had the (Western?) initiative and confidence to publish a book that hit the cultural zeitgeist, and she is now being regarded as an expert on Chinese parenting, or, at the very least, a spokesperson in a milieu devoid of diverse Asian-American voices.
Chua's first book, World on Fire, published in 2002, is apparently about, in part, ethnic resentments between privileged minorities and majority groups that feel threatened by them. She says she didn't initially realize a connection between this past academic work and her memoir, but now sees that... both are about "inverting the weaknesses" of the Asian-American stereotype. I couldn’t figure out what she meant by that, but I was surprised that her epiphany had nothing to do with the cultural implications of her current bestseller.
At the Time Inc. discussion she claimed that her memoir is about “what I see as the strengths of East and West,” a few minutes after she cited a problem about “false dichotomies.” She also assured us, “I wonder about and have real concerns about the model minority stereotype.” I think (I hope) that in five or ten years, Amy Chua will see the irony in all of the above, and maybe then, be able to produce a truly nuanced handling of Asian-American dynamics.
*On the contrary, Elizabeth Kolbert’s New Yorker review of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother said that “memoir is, or at least is supposed to be, a demanding genre. It requires the author not just narrate his or her life but reflect on it.”