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gubuchu 's review for:
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
by Amy Chua
Ok, actual review 8/18/16:
Story time. The first time I heard about Chua's book was when the WSJ article got really big in the news. I think I was in like early middle school then or late middle school. Well, flash forward to many years later when I am in high school and I'm looking up Chua's kids online because, well, I'm curious. (I ended up finding a nice study guide by one of her daughters who goes to Harvard, and I read another interesting article about her younger daughter who goes to Harvard too and well her children are kind of #goals. Sorry, I'm in that phase of my life where I applied to college and well Harvard was pretty nice, ok.)
Anyways, I remember being pretty conflicted about this book coming out because at that time in middle school I had a lot of resentment and anger towards my parents, so when Chua's article came out I was like OMG UGH, the source of my resentment personified!!! But I also remember reading Sophia's (the oldest) defend her mom at the time and that was perhaps the reason why I still remembered this book and why I kept up with her daughters. So, flash forward to 2016. I decided to read this book because I read this lovely LA Times article about Hispanic mothers who made a reading group together because of the high school principal and their next book happened to be this so I thought, OK I'll read this and that's when I finally read the whole book. Even though it wasn't published recently, it was actually pretty relevant (at least, to me) and Chua's thoughts were a lot similar to mine. And, like Sophia's article argued, the media was blowing her up to be a lot worse. Which I will discuss in the spoilers section.
1. Chua discusses the struggles her daughters faced when they went to China because they are half-Chinese half-Jewish. Her daughters aren't the type of mixed children who look more Asian (like some people I know), but instead look more Jewish. She discusses what her daughters faced in China, how people would stare at them, and this was actually something I wondered randomly as I was growing up, how her daughters faced. Also, I had been to Vietnam recently and I just felt a little lost. I'm completely Vietnamese so I wasn't treated as an outsider, but I thought that when I went there I'd be able to feel completely connected but I didn't and that was a bit jarring for me. I guess I'm pretty American.
2. Chua discusses how she felt letting down some 3000 year ancestry by not marrying some Chinese guy and I kind of chuckled and agreed because I actually thought this too? Honestly, it seems so silly because while I don't really have a preference about who I'd date, (Chua addresses Yellow Fever) I can't help but think about the whole 'Should I date somebody outside of my ethnicity?' I've reached the point in my life where I realize that it doesn't matter though, despite what my relatives might think. So I'll just date whoever I like, regardless of class, race, and looking closer, ethnicity.
3. OK, so this made me laugh but I totally agreed when she was talking about how she wanted to be the next Amy Tan, Maxine Hong Kingston, etc. etc. and wanted to write a great generational Chinese-American family epic (because I've thought this way too), but then she finally writes a snippet of it and her daughters (or her husband, I forget) tells her that what she wrote wasn't too good and she had to admit it too LOL
4. She addresses helicopter parents which I thought was pretty interesting because this was initially what a lot of people assumed she was like and I think why a bunch of Asians like me got kinda mad because we thought it was helicopter parenting (which is pretty damaging and can be seen in the stress involved in Asia's schooling system, where teens have to study a lot in many of those countries with that kind of education system, just for a test to get into a college, and they're told that if they don't do well, then it's pretty much over. Which explains the high suicide rates among teens.) But I think if you read the book, you can see that what Chua does isn't helicopter parenting and you can clearly see the love and intent that she has behind her parenting and it's not like she's one of those closed off stoic Asian parents. She clearly engages and talks to her daughters often and they have fun together so it's not 100% strict like helicopter parents who hover around. I'll discuss Chua's parenting in the next paragraph.
As I said before, her parenting isn't THAT bad because you can clearly see the love behind it. As somebody who's shit at music but was forced into piano lessons (and later cello), I actually really regret not doing well at the instrument and basically foresaking it like in Joy Luck Club's protagonist because damn do I wish I played, but I have little to no musical ability so I guess that's it. Anyways, what Chua does you can clearly tell she does with love, and like I said before, she's no helicopter parent. You can also see that she realizes she's too intense and her focus on what's important after her sister gets cancer, and when Lulu has a breakdown and gets pissed at her mom, and Chua is running around Paris (or some European city) emotional in flip flops. LOL.
Anyways, I didn't think she was too bad, but I did think at one point, 'Wow, this is overkill.' when you can see how intense Chua is being with her parenting that the person she credited for being the way she is and why she parents, HER OWN PARENTS are like, 'Amy Chua, maybe you're being too excessive with this whole playing thing?' and she's like, 'It's fine!!!!! Look, I'm just following your examples, parents! You parented me like this too, you know?' and her dad is like 'OK, but I think it's okay to stop and chill out.' So, for me, that was when I thought ENOUGH!!!!!! when her own strict father is like let's chill.
Well, thankfully, this is when Chua changes after her sister and Lulu's meltdown, so she clearly learns from her mistakes (especially when Lulu is like Mom chill, I'm going to go at my own pace with tennis, ok.)
So all in all this was an enjoyable, interesting memoir. I'm glad it wasn't as terrible as I had once thought many years prior, and that Chua is more insightful than I imagined. No wonder her daughters (who I admire so ardently that I follow them on social media LOL) are doing so well and think so articulately and eloquently.
Pre-review 2016:
Going to write a review for this. Probably going to be a long one because I wrote notes! Notes!!!!! It's also going to be pretty darn personal too. Anyways, I have to say, I actually liked this a lot.
Pre-review:
If you ask me what I have more conflict with in comparison to Amy Tan and Amy Chua, answer is Amy Chua, for obvious reasons. But while I was initially sure I would never read this, my friend told me about it because we are slightly obsessed (not sure if this is the right word) about looking up how her daughters are doing in college because they're pretty cool and neat. So I think I'm going to read this. Just, eventually.
Story time. The first time I heard about Chua's book was when the WSJ article got really big in the news. I think I was in like early middle school then or late middle school. Well, flash forward to many years later when I am in high school and I'm looking up Chua's kids online because, well, I'm curious. (I ended up finding a nice study guide by one of her daughters who goes to Harvard, and I read another interesting article about her younger daughter who goes to Harvard too and well her children are kind of #goals. Sorry, I'm in that phase of my life where I applied to college and well Harvard was pretty nice, ok.)
Anyways, I remember being pretty conflicted about this book coming out because at that time in middle school I had a lot of resentment and anger towards my parents, so when Chua's article came out I was like OMG UGH, the source of my resentment personified!!! But I also remember reading Sophia's (the oldest) defend her mom at the time and that was perhaps the reason why I still remembered this book and why I kept up with her daughters. So, flash forward to 2016. I decided to read this book because I read this lovely LA Times article about Hispanic mothers who made a reading group together because of the high school principal and their next book happened to be this so I thought, OK I'll read this and that's when I finally read the whole book. Even though it wasn't published recently, it was actually pretty relevant (at least, to me) and Chua's thoughts were a lot similar to mine. And, like Sophia's article argued, the media was blowing her up to be a lot worse. Which I will discuss in the spoilers section.
Spoiler
In that:1. Chua discusses the struggles her daughters faced when they went to China because they are half-Chinese half-Jewish. Her daughters aren't the type of mixed children who look more Asian (like some people I know), but instead look more Jewish. She discusses what her daughters faced in China, how people would stare at them, and this was actually something I wondered randomly as I was growing up, how her daughters faced. Also, I had been to Vietnam recently and I just felt a little lost. I'm completely Vietnamese so I wasn't treated as an outsider, but I thought that when I went there I'd be able to feel completely connected but I didn't and that was a bit jarring for me. I guess I'm pretty American.
2. Chua discusses how she felt letting down some 3000 year ancestry by not marrying some Chinese guy and I kind of chuckled and agreed because I actually thought this too? Honestly, it seems so silly because while I don't really have a preference about who I'd date, (Chua addresses Yellow Fever) I can't help but think about the whole 'Should I date somebody outside of my ethnicity?' I've reached the point in my life where I realize that it doesn't matter though, despite what my relatives might think. So I'll just date whoever I like, regardless of class, race, and looking closer, ethnicity.
3. OK, so this made me laugh but I totally agreed when she was talking about how she wanted to be the next Amy Tan, Maxine Hong Kingston, etc. etc. and wanted to write a great generational Chinese-American family epic (because I've thought this way too), but then she finally writes a snippet of it and her daughters (or her husband, I forget) tells her that what she wrote wasn't too good and she had to admit it too LOL
4. She addresses helicopter parents which I thought was pretty interesting because this was initially what a lot of people assumed she was like and I think why a bunch of Asians like me got kinda mad because we thought it was helicopter parenting (which is pretty damaging and can be seen in the stress involved in Asia's schooling system, where teens have to study a lot in many of those countries with that kind of education system, just for a test to get into a college, and they're told that if they don't do well, then it's pretty much over. Which explains the high suicide rates among teens.) But I think if you read the book, you can see that what Chua does isn't helicopter parenting and you can clearly see the love and intent that she has behind her parenting and it's not like she's one of those closed off stoic Asian parents. She clearly engages and talks to her daughters often and they have fun together so it's not 100% strict like helicopter parents who hover around. I'll discuss Chua's parenting in the next paragraph.
As I said before, her parenting isn't THAT bad because you can clearly see the love behind it. As somebody who's shit at music but was forced into piano lessons (and later cello), I actually really regret not doing well at the instrument and basically foresaking it like in Joy Luck Club's protagonist because damn do I wish I played, but I have little to no musical ability so I guess that's it. Anyways, what Chua does you can clearly tell she does with love, and like I said before, she's no helicopter parent. You can also see that she realizes she's too intense and her focus on what's important after her sister gets cancer, and when Lulu has a breakdown and gets pissed at her mom, and Chua is running around Paris (or some European city) emotional in flip flops. LOL.
Anyways, I didn't think she was too bad, but I did think at one point, 'Wow, this is overkill.' when you can see how intense Chua is being with her parenting that the person she credited for being the way she is and why she parents, HER OWN PARENTS are like, 'Amy Chua, maybe you're being too excessive with this whole playing thing?' and she's like, 'It's fine!!!!! Look, I'm just following your examples, parents! You parented me like this too, you know?' and her dad is like 'OK, but I think it's okay to stop and chill out.' So, for me, that was when I thought ENOUGH!!!!!! when her own strict father is like let's chill.
Well, thankfully, this is when Chua changes after her sister and Lulu's meltdown, so she clearly learns from her mistakes (especially when Lulu is like Mom chill, I'm going to go at my own pace with tennis, ok.)
So all in all this was an enjoyable, interesting memoir. I'm glad it wasn't as terrible as I had once thought many years prior, and that Chua is more insightful than I imagined. No wonder her daughters (who I admire so ardently that I follow them on social media LOL) are doing so well and think so articulately and eloquently.
Pre-review 2016:
Going to write a review for this. Probably going to be a long one because I wrote notes! Notes!!!!! It's also going to be pretty darn personal too. Anyways, I have to say, I actually liked this a lot.
Pre-review:
If you ask me what I have more conflict with in comparison to Amy Tan and Amy Chua, answer is Amy Chua, for obvious reasons. But while I was initially sure I would never read this, my friend told me about it because we are slightly obsessed (not sure if this is the right word) about looking up how her daughters are doing in college because they're pretty cool and neat. So I think I'm going to read this. Just, eventually.