English essay

The biography I chose is “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” by Amy Chua. Looking at the outside appearance of the book, the color of the cover is red with some ancient Chinese on it. There are also some comments on the cover, such as “A hilarious, hair-raising memoir” by Sunday Time and “Courageous and though provoking” by New York Times, and two other comments. The color red means stress and anger, but also means love and passion, which represents Tiger mother’s love and strict to her daughters, also the comments. It seems the name of each chapter represents each stage of Amy Chua’s attitude toward teaching her daughters. From my perspective, the publisher aims to create a sense of the harsh of tiger mother but also her love to them.

The very earliest generation of Chinese immigrants to the United State was at Qing Dynasty, 1872. Most of them were born in Scholar and royal families. Therefore, they are all very smart and talented. The Chinese government sponsored them to study in the other side of ocean, the United States, and they have all been admitted to excellent American universities including Harvard, Yale, and so on. It is our impressions that the first generation of immigrants is all strive, sparing. They provide opportunities and chances for the second generations to get good growing environment, education, and so on by their hard working. Therefore, there is a common impression of the second and the third generations of immigrants that they are lazy and like to show off, because they get everything from the first generation easily. However, there are families prefer to keep the good virtues, such as, hard working and sparing, so that they grow up their children in a strict way. “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother”, the personal story of Amy Chua writes in this book is a specific example of a family like that.

This book talks about the story between author herself and her daughters. The author of the book, Amy Chua, as a daughter of Chinese immigrants, she was graduated from Harvard University and now employed at Yale University as a professor. She married to another professor who is also employed at Yale University, they have two daughters. She wants her daughters to obey whatever she said.

In reading the biography, Battle Hymn of the Tiger mother by Amy Chua, I notice the tiger mother, Amy Chua who is the second generation of immigrants, and her family is live in the united state. Instead of teaches her daughters in Western way, she still used traditional Chinese way to taught and treated her two daughters. When I first read it, I was surprised by tiger mother's ten stick rules, even though I come from a Chinese family. She thought the subjects she let her children learn are the best for them and everything she let her daughters did would help them better grow up.

This is significant because she gives a lot of examples of how she treats her children and how western way of treating children is different from Chinese way. For example, she drove her daughters two hours to New York only for attend a violin interest class. Here is a quote of Amy describing the difference between western parents and Chinese parents, “Western parents try to respect their children’s individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they’re capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits, and inner confidence that no one can ever take away.”(Amy 69).

"I don't want to be Chinese. Why can't you get that through your head? I hate the violin. I hate my life. I hate you, and I hate this family!" (Amy) Of course, too much rules and stress create conflict between Amy and her younger daughter; because the younger daughter does not think she has freedom. However, Amy Chua does not mind her daughter hate her, she just want to give her daughter the best education and best thing for her. Later, with younger daughter’s unremitting resist, Amy compromised with her daughter that she let her daughter play tennis which is a hobby younger daughter really like instead of violin which is the hobby Amy force her to learn. That is an example of transculturation that Amy accepts the Western way of parenting. It is the thing I will not notice if I did not read Pratt’s article. “Meanwhile, our job in the Americas course remains to figure out how to make that crossroads the best site for learning that it can be. We are looking for the pedagogical arts of the contact zone.” (Pratt 6). It seems that in her essay, “the Arts of the Contact Zone”, Pratt emphasizes the importance of interaction in learning. She believes one of the best ways to study is to make interactions, because it helps people critically think and people learn things by actually doing and thinking it. She sum up this ideas to “contact zone” which is interaction between two sides. From my perspective, I agree with Pratt’s opinion. The conflict between Amy and her younger daughter is kind of an interaction. Through this interaction, Amy learned she is too strict, and things are changing that she cannot use the old Chinese way to educate her daughter.

In her book, Amy also talks about the difference between Chinese education system and Western education system. The education system of Chinese and U.S are completely different. Although the Chinese education system seems efficient and has good reputation in the world, the tough homework and high stress are not appropriate to everyone. There is a bias of Chinese are all good at math. However, Chinese students need to do tons of math practices so that they are very familiar with the formulas and problem solving process. That is what will not happen in American school. Chinese believes practice is more important. In the contrary, American think the flexibility and diversity is more important. Same as the education system, the Chinese parents and the western parents are also completely different, except they both love their children. Western parents are anxious about their children’s self-esteem, happiness. They may give some suggestion or help analyze the problem, but will let kids do the decision themselves. "One of the biggest differences I see between Western and Chinese parents is that Chinese parents assume strength rather than fragility." (Amy Chua) On the contrary, Chinese parents think they give live to their children, so that their children owe them everything. They think they know what is best for the kids, and will force them to obey it. For example, the list of thing Amy Chua does not allow her children 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 No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama

· play any instrument other than the piano or violin

· not play the piano or violin”

The “contact zone” Pratt talks about, which also known as transculturation, can be applied to Chua’s book. Her book and story is a mix of Chinese culture and Western culture. To have a better understanding of transculturation, there is a very interesting example in the movie Red Doors. This movie is similar to this book that they both talked about transculturation, tiger mother, and the resist of younger daughter. There is one sense that the youngest daughter dancing traditional Chinese dance, but wearing a sneaker, which is an example of transculturation. There are also some similar examples in Amy’s book. At the end of the book, Amy accept her younger daughter to learn tennis, it is a representation of Amy accept the Western education system and parenting.

Luckily, my parents use half Chinese way and half Western way to educate me. They let me do the decision myself and learn whatever I want, but I need to be also good at study and the hobby I chose to learn. My parent’s way of educate me are also transculturation. However, I know a lot of parents like Amy Chua in China. From my perspective, they give too much stress and expect too much from their children.

In her article, “AMERICA’S TOP PARENT: What’s behind the “Tiger Mother” craze?”, Kolbert uses Amy Chua as example talked about the America’s top parent. Amy Chua as a daughter of Chinese immigrants, she was graduated from Harvard University and now employed at Yale University as a professor. She married to another professor who is also a professor at Yale University, they have two daughters. Parenting is hard, the author claims that many parents are like Amy Chua. They love their children, of course, but their love is too harsh. Her growing up environment is as same as how she treats and teaches her children. Her parents made an exactly road for her to walk. However, she did not walk the way her parents direct to her. Amy Chua end her book with a clearly claim that she has changed that she gives her children more freedom, she communicate more with them, and that is a transculturation between Chinese and western.

1. Basu Moni. Immigrant in America: the second generation story. CNN.