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Yes, Chinese Mother Amy Chua Has Received Death Threats
By
Jen Chung
Published Jan 16, 2011
Modified Jan 18, 2011
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via Penguin Press
By
Jen Chung
Published Jan 16, 2011
Modified Jan 18, 2011
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Over a week after her controversy-stirring essay in the Wall Street Journal (6521 comments and counting!!!), Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother author Amy Chua is the subject of a NY Times Styles section feature. The article, "The Retreat of the Tiger Mother," reveals she's gotten death threats; Chua herself says of the reaction, "It’s been a little surprising, and a little bit intense, definitely," and that she's been working "24/7" to "clarify some misunderstandings." Like how she's not happy the WSJ titled the essay, "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior." Also:
Her narration, she said, was meant to be ironic and self-mocking — “I find it very funny, almost obtuse.”
But reading the book, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” it can be hard to tell when she is kidding.
“In retrospect, these coaching suggestions seem a bit extreme,” she writes in the book after describing how she once threatened to burn her daughter’s stuffed animals if she did not play a piano composition perfectly. “On the other hand, they were highly effective.”
Net takeaway: Chinese mothers are awesome at getting their kids to practice their instruments three hours a day, but suck at irony! We also like the anecdote about how she got upset with her husband for not taking raising their daughters Sophia and Lulu:
Ms. Chua’s husband appears only peripherally in “Tiger Mother” — though there is one battle in which she lashes out at him after he worries that she is pushing their daughters to the point that there is “no breathing room” in their home.
“All you do is think about writing your own books and your own future,” she says to him. “What dreams do you have for Sophia or for Lulu? Do you ever think about that? What dreams do you have for Coco?” He bursts out laughing — Coco is their dog.
She concludes, “I didn’t understand what was so funny, but I was glad our fight was over.”
COCO!!!!
Chua, who has already explained on the Today Show that she's just trying to keep her daughters from getting too soft (as in too Western, where teens are getting pregnant and spending all their time on Facebook), has her detractors—e.g., Ayelet Waldman—and her fans—check out this NY Post op-ed from yesterday ("Indeed, the self-esteem movement of the last several decades is parenting malpractice"). Chinese-American author Gish Jen (who wrote the terrific Typical American and Mona in the Promised Land) reviewed the parenting memoir in the Boston Globe:
Chua merits kudos for tromping where few dare tread. And yet I did eventually weary of her slapdash manner and wish that she had allowed herself more of the tonal modulation and nuance she demanded of her girls. As much life as there is in her pugnacity, there is arresting vitality, too, in her recollection of her mother’s description of “Japanese soldiers holding her uncle’s jaws open, forcing water down his throat,’’ and in her momentary awareness, at a Julliard audition, that almost all the other parents were foreigners or immigrants for whom “music was a ticket’’ and whose motivation so exceeded hers that she feared, “I don’t have what it takes.’’ These moments point to some of the trauma and insecurity that power the Asian drive to succeed; I wish she had given them their due. And where she does discuss Asian families and the relationship between generations, might not she have written a bit more about what “success” signifies in Asian vs. Western culture? And what about the implications of her training methods? I would have welcomed her reflections on for whom they are finally good, and under what conditions, as well as what sort of people they produce with what sort of worldview.
Upside for Chua: Her book is now #4 on Amazon.com (it was #5 yesterday!).
Tagged
amy chua
Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother
books
chinese mother
chinese parenting
dreams for your dog
irony
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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