【中文标题】“猛虎母亲”：中国母亲真的如此独特吗？（中西方教育理念比对系列文章之三）
【原文标题】Tiger Mother': Are Chinese Moms Really So Different?
【登载媒体】时代周刊
【原文作者】Emily Rauhala
【原文链接】http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2042535,00.html
香港英文版《南华早报》在1月13日刊登了一副漫画——一个父亲、一个母亲和一个皱着眉头的孩子——在厨房里。桌子上放着未动过的早餐——我们推断，是被那个有性格的孩子置之不理的食物。父亲威胁到：“如果你不吃早餐，我们就把你送给Amy Chua。”孩子面带恐惧。
Amy Chua是耶鲁法学院的教授、一名作家，也是在上个星期全被世界谈论最多的母亲之一。1月8日，《华尔街日报》发表了她的一篇文章，题目是“为什么中国母亲是优秀的”。她在文章中介绍了她的教育方式。她的孩子Louisa和Sophia不可以参加聚会、不可以看电视、不可以得到A以下的分数。她们只能学习演奏她选择的乐器（钢琴和小提琴），在大人严密监视下持续练习数个小时。如果孩子们反抗，她会坚决镇压：有一次她管自己的女儿叫“废物”，另一次她说他们“没前途”。
这篇文章取自Chua最新出版的回忆录《猛虎母亲的战斗颂歌》，现在，全世界掀起了一股喧嚣声，大家在讨论教育方式、个性、和家庭。超过100万人在网上读过这篇文章，5000多人发表了评论，还有数不清的人把它转给自己的朋友的家人。这篇文章像瘟疫一样在Facebook上传播，甚至还被台湾的Next Media制作成滑稽的动画片。与此同时，人们的反应大相径庭，从“你说的很对”到“你是个心胸狭窄的卑鄙母亲”到“我妈妈就是这样”。
不论是好是坏，很多人从Chua身上看到了自己或父母的影子。成百上千来自不同种族和文化背景人，怀着反抗、亲密、欢笑、愤怒的心情，在网络上分享他们自己的童年故事，或许是第一次讲述他们幼年时感受到的压力，以及这种压力如何影响他们的一生。Gene Law是一名加拿大华人记者，母亲是台湾移民，父亲是加拿大华人，他的心情或许可以回应Chua的故事。他在电子邮件中说：“就像文章中所说，我对我的父母一直感恩戴德，直到他们去世。这是我妈妈的思维方式，我不敢挑战。”但是Law也怀疑“猛虎母亲”教育方式的长远效果：他的母亲给他越大的压力，他就越发反抗。他说，现在“我和母亲之间的紧张关系要超过韩国非军事区”。
但是，这种观点的交锋与中国文化、甚至文化内涵有关系吗？“IansMom”在社会媒体论坛Quora.com上评论道：“披着文化的外衣来为残忍正名是可耻的。Chua很牛，她想让自己的孩子也一样成功。”无论他们是否欣赏Chua，所有读者几乎都不认为管孩子叫“废物”是文化的差异，而不是愤怒下失去理智的粗话。其实Chua预料到她的文章会招致这种抨击，她在文章中写道：“我所说到的‘中国母亲’是一个宽泛的概念，我认识一些韩国、印度、牙买加、爱尔兰和加纳的母亲都具有这样的品质。”但是就像很多评论人士所指出的，这篇文章似乎又是翻出了中国人性的陈腔滥调（好成绩、擅长音乐、不会运动），回应了那种亚洲移民背负了几十年的“优秀少数民族”的名声。
实际上，在我与香港和中国的朋友、同事和其他人的沟通中，对Chua最常见的态度——除了大错特错和古板之外——是过时。中国和世界其它地方一样，教育方式在不断变化。如果现实中的确有“猛虎母亲”，也不像她那样凶残。北大附中的副校长江雪芹说，他对Chua文章中“一棍子打死”的概念感到“震惊”。他说：“有些人对此不屑一顾，有些人觉得深受启发，所有事情都是这样。”34岁的老北京居民项玉琼在谈到她8岁的儿子时说：“我希望儿子能过上我这样的生活，但是过得更好。”所有父母都是不一样的，但是对孩子的愿望都是一样的。
评论：
Bereket Desta：
管自己的孩子叫“废物”是不对的，还引以为傲更是闻所未闻。Amy8岁的儿子可不能像他的妈妈一样。她明确地说自己不会耐心的教育，偷走了孩子的童年。Amy用成绩来衡量成功。你能想象出她如果是你的教授，在给你评分吗？我不认为她代表了中国的价值观。
AR Diary：
Amy和她这一类型的人说明了为什么亚洲裔美国人是美国女性自杀率最高的群体。干的不错！
Danny：
Amy是个英雄！她向西方国家充分展示了中国价值观，那就是完全没有家庭观念。
Michael Yim：
在很多亚洲国家中，竞争是非常激烈的，因为他们在过去都很贫穷。机会很少，竞争又如此激烈，你必须付出所有努力跟上队伍。你必须要比别人更优秀、更快、更强壮、更聪明，这样才能得到你想要的东西。她的教育方式就反应了这种背景.，这是缺乏理智的表现。很多来自贫穷国家的移民都愿意相信（或许很多人没有意识到）榜样的力量——要么第一名，要么什么都不是，没有借口。这太疯狂了。所以，很多父母决定离开他们的国家，因为他们不喜欢孩子在竞争过于激烈的环境中生活，来到环境宽松的美国，却还保持以前的生活方式。就好像周围有充足的食物，但是这个女人还是和别人抢东西。那他们当初为什么要来这里呢？我在15岁的时候从一个亚洲国家来到美国，见过太多这样的事情。相信我，管你的孩子叫“废物”绝没什么好处。
Emily Daniel：
这样母亲如果遇到有残疾的孩子怎么办？如果孩子有唐氏综合症而不能取得A的成绩怎么办？如果孩子患有脑瘫，手臂不够强壮，无法弹钢琴怎么办？在youtube上看看纪录片“The Dying Room”，你就知道传统的亚洲人是如何对待不完美的孩子。西方价值观之所以优秀，是因为我们尊重生活、尊重自由和个体。这个女人，以及其他像她一样的人都是魔鬼。传统的西方母亲爱她的孩子，尊重孩子的个性，而她却连有条件地尊重都做不到。还有一些事情要比学术成就更重要，这个母亲的内心是无比空虚的。当她年老之后，她的女儿的奖杯不会给她带来任何安慰，但是我的孩子和孙子会和我分享她永远无法理解的关爱。
Lilianna Parker：
应当有人向儿童保护机构举报Amy Chua。
kevin ballew：
如果有人钟情中国母亲的行为方式，他们应该去了解一下中国的历史。美国人把他们从日本的魔爪中解救出来。所以，究竟是谁会是未来号啕大哭的人？
Peggy：
悲哀！！！！完全是悲哀！没错，美国孩子需要做得更好，但这篇文章完全是一个悲哀。一句话，孩子应该有一个童年。这些父母太可耻了。我觉得他们根本没有考虑过孩子应当有一个完整的生活，而不仅仅是童年。他们应当做各种各样的事情，应当享受欢乐。这些不把孩子当人看的父母真是可耻，孩子只是能够让他们实现自己愿望的工具。你只有一个童年。这些父母真可耻！
Marco Garavaglia：
我不知道老子和孔子如何讨论这个问题，反抗还是顺从。我恐怕会赞成老子和道教的观点。
原文：
An editorial cartoon in the Jan. 13 edition of Hong Kong's English daily the South China Morning Post shows a family — a father, mother and frowning boy — together in the kitchen. On the table sits an untouched breakfast — the sodden castoffs, we infer, of the insolent child. "If you don't eat it," the father threatens, "we're going to have you adopted by Amy Chua." The child looks horrified.
Amy Chua is a professor at Yale Law School, an author and, as of last week, one of the most talked-about mothers in the world. On Jan. 8, the Wall Street Journal published an essay she wrote headlined "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior," in which she discusses her approach to child rearing. Her kids, Louisa and Sophia, were never allowed to have playdates, watch TV or get anything less than A's in school. They played instruments of her choosing (piano, violin) and practiced for hours under close watch. If they resisted, she pounced: at one moment she called her daughter "garbage," in another "pathetic."
The piece, adapted from Chua's just-released memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, is now at the center of a raucous global debate about parenting, identity and family. More than a million people have read the story online, more than 5,000 have commented on it, and countless others have passed it along to friends and family members. It's doing the rounds on Facebook and has been animated, to hilarious effect, by the folks at Taiwan's Next Media (of Tiger Woods drama re-enactment fame). Reactions range from (to paraphrase) "You're on to something" to "You're a bigot and a bad mother" to "You're just like my mom" — often in the same breath.
For better or for worse, many people saw themselves or their parents — or both — in Chua's portrait. In accounts that are by turns intimate, hilarious and angry, hundreds of people of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds have shared their own childhood stories online, articulating, perhaps for the first time, the pressure they felt as children and how it shaped their lives. Gene Law, a Chinese-Canadian journalist and son of a Taiwanese immigrant mother and a Chinese-Canadian father, could relate to Chua's tale. "As the article said, I'm indebted to my parents until they die," he wrote in an e-mail. "This is my mom's school of thought. I dare not disagree." But Law questioned the long-term efficacy of the "Tiger Mother" approach: the harder his mother pushed him, the more he rebelled. Now, he wrote, "my relationship with my mother is more tense than the Korean DMZ."
But do such clashes have anything to do with Chinese culture, or with culture at all? "Hiding behind culture to justify cruelty is offensive," wrote one commenter, "IansMom," on Quora.com, a social-media message board. "Chua is a bully, and she's teaching her kids to be the same." Whether they admire Chua or not, few readers accept the precept that calling a child "garbage" is a cultural practice rather than an ill-tempered expression of exasperation. Chua, to be fair, anticipates this objection in her essay. "I'm using the term 'Chinese mother' loosely," she writes. "I know Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too." Yet the piece, as many critics point out, seems to turn on clichés about what Chineseness entails (good grades, music, no sports), echoing the stifling model-minority tropes that have trailed Asian immigrants for decades.
Indeed, in my conversations with friends, sources and colleagues in Hong Kong and China, the word that came up most frequently in relation to Chua — after wrong and stereotype — was old-fashioned. Here, as elsewhere, parenting practices are always changing — the Tiger Mother, if she ever existed, is not as fierce as she once was. Jiang Xueqin, deputy principal at Beijing's Peking University High School, says he was "shocked" by the "crass generalizations" in Chua's piece. "It goes without saying that there is no one type of Chinese parent," he says. "Some are disengaged, some are deeply involved — it's the same as anywhere." Describing her hopes for her 8-year-old son, a 34-year old Beijing resident named Xiang Yuqiong says, "I want my son's life to be like mine, but better." Each parent is different, but that sentiment, we can all agree, is universal.
Bereket Desta
calling your kid ‘garbage’ is wrong but being proud of saying it is really unheard. Amy's 8-year-old son doesn't need to be like his mom. She denied herself peacifull parenting and stole her kids childhood. Amy's mesaured success by formal educational and grades. Can you imagine if she is your professor and grading your work. I don't think she represents any of chinse value.
AR Diary
Amy and people like her are the reason Asian-American Woman have the highest suicide rate among woman America. Nice job!
Danny
Amy is a hero! She shares the real Chinese Values with the Western countries which COMPLETELY lack of family values.
Michael Yim
Life is very competitive in many Asian countries because they’ve been mostly poor in recent years. Opportunity is scare and competition is fierce. You have to give everything you’ve got just to keep up. You have to be better, fast, stronger and/or smarter than others in order to have what you want. Her parenting style reflects that. It comes from lack mentality. Most immigrants from a poor country tend to believe (may not be even aware) in the model. You're either #1 or nothing. No excuses. It's crazy. So the parents decided to leave their country because they don't like the extremely competitive environment for their kids and come to an abundant place like US, yet choose to live the same way. It's like there's plenty of food to share but this lady chooses to fight others for it. Why would they come here in the first place? I came to this country when I was 15 years old from an Asian country and I’ve seen this kind of stuff around me. Believe me there is no good comes from calling your kid ‘garbage’.
Emily Daniel
What would a mother like this do with a child who has a disability? What if he has Down syndrome and is not capable of bringing home all A's? What if he has cerebral palsy and his hands are not strong enough to play the piano? Look up the documentary "The Dying Room" on youtube and you can see how these kind of traditional Asians would deal with a less than perfect child. Western values are superior because we value Life, Liberty, and the Individual. This woman and everyone like her is a monster. A traditional WESTERN mother loves her child and values him as an individual, she doesn't merely offer conditional approval. There is more to life than academic achievement, and it's sad that this woman has such an empty existence. Her daughter's trophies aren't going to comfort her in her old age, but my children and grandchildren will share with me a deeper more loving relationship than she is capable of understanding.
Lilianna Parker
Amy Chua should be reported to child protection service
kevin ballew
I think if one wants to ponder on chinese mothers they need to research china history. America saved there asses with Japan. So....,who are these souless people going to cry to next round.
peggy
SAD!!!!!!!!!!! Nothing but SAD. Yes, American children could perform at higher levels and need to., but this is just plain SAD. Children should have a chilhood...... period!!! Shame on these parents. I think they are not in the least little bit taking into consideration that their children have WHOLE lives.... well beyond childhood. They need to be able to find balance, and happiness. Shame on these parents for not seeing their children as human beings, but only as commodities that are reflections of what they wish they were. You only get childhood once....... SHAME on these parent!
Marco Garavaglia
I wonder how Lao-tzu and Confusius would argue this one - the rebel versus the conformist. I'll go with Lao-tzu and Taoism. |
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发表于 2011-1-23 00:18
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发表于 2011-1-23 12:31
