Of all the diverse peoples that poured into California after the discovery of gold, none stood out more than the Chinese. Radically different in dress, language and culture these new men were first welcomed because of their willingness to work hard for low wages at any task presented them.
John McDougall, the 2nd Governor of California, described them as “one of the most worthy of our newly adopted citizens.”
At the start of 1849 only 54 Chinese were in California. By1852 there were nearly 12,000 living here and only seven of them women. Because of turmoil in Canton another 20,000 would arrive that same year.
A community of Chinese Americans quickly grew in San Francisco. They marched in Fourth of July parades and rejoiced at California’s statehood, but celebrated their lunar new year in their traditional way.
In 1852 a Cantonese opera was performed at the American Theater and in 1854 a Chinese language newspaper began publishing.
The Kong Chow Association formed to help the new arrivals adapt to their new home. Then another, the Chew Yick, elected Norman As-sing, an English speaking owner of the Macao and Woosung Restaurant as their leader. Soon there were six associations called tongs that combined to form the Six Companies to better represent Chinese interest.
Before I start to talking about Chinese parents and children, first let us have a look of the currently pretty hot arguing book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which is a Chinese-American Yale law professor mom that wrote about how she was strict with her two daughters by making a lot of can’t doing rules, and she was acting like a wicked witch to push them to study.
I will not comment on which parenting method is better, Chinese or Western.
What I want to say is the book’s author Amy Chua’s way of parenting is typically Chinese though she is 4th-generation American.
Note from Blog host: Evidence of this may be found among reviews and comments on Amazon.UK. Rosie in the UK wrote, “I am Chinese now living in the UK and I admit I was outraged when I first read the WSJ excerpt of her (Amy Chua’s) book. My first thoughts were I can’t believe anyone would do something like that to their children. However, as I thought more about it and I guess living out here in the UK I’ve been so used to the numbing and dummying of our children’s perceived fragile self esteem and always making sure that their feelings and wants are met for fear of damaging them emotionally, I forgot that, hey, I was brought up pretty much the same way.”
Hanna says, “We Chinese have a long history of parents being strict with their children. From old days, the Ke Ju Kaoshi (official examination) was the only chance for people to change their fate and life.
“To achieve this, they must study really hard. We have an old saying about this “Shi Nian Han Chuang Ku Du Ri, Jin Chao Jin Bang Ti Ming Shi”, which means “Ten years of study at a cold window only for the day of passing the examination.”
“To study, students must be pushed even by using the stick.”
At a recent Chinese-American Lunar New Year dinner, all Asians were talking about Amy Chua’s essay in the Wall Street Journal, WhyChinese mothers are superior, and her memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.
They were angry with Chua. They said Chua was going to make their job as parents more difficult since most American Caucasian parents would stereotype them and disapprove.
Since most of the Chinese-Americans I know were born and raised in mainland China, I had to remind them that Amy Chua grew up in the US and was not Chinese but Chinese-American.
While her Middle Kingdom born and raised mother and overseas Chinese father raised her using perfectly acceptable, universal Tough Love parenting methods, she was also exposed to America’s evangelical atmosphere where far to many preach his or her brand of parenting, religion, politics and lifestyle as if it were the only acceptable way to live.
Among Chinese in America or China, I’ve seldom heard anyone preach what he or she believes is the best way to raise children, live and worship.
However, one of my closest Caucasian friends in the US does nothing but preach.
The consensus among the Asians I’ve heard was that it was wrong of Amy Chua to brand Tough Love parenting as a Chinese method.
In fact, it isn’t. All through history, Tough Love has been the way most parents raised children all over the globe. SAP (Self-esteem arm of Political Correctness) is the exception and is a recent, flawed belief. The SAP parenting model could be called the curse of a wealthy family or culture, which often leads to its downfall.
According to the reader reviewsfor Amy Chua’s memoir at Amazon.com, at 11:59 AM on Sunday, February 06, 2011, one-hundred-and-fifty-seven (157) people rated her memoir as a four or five star read.
Many of these four and five star reviews were thoughtful, long and well written.
In contrast, there were one-hundred-thirteen (113) one or two star reviews and most that I read were short with a few long-winded rants that seldom go into detail about the book itself.
The results show that more than 58% of reader reviews enjoyed her work or supported some level of Tough Love parenting leaving 42% opposed to her memoir/parenting style.
I didn’t count the three star reviews since they are somewhat neutral.
Then there is the on-line opinion pollthe Wall Street Journal conducted to discover which style of parenting was considered best for raising children.
The Permissive Western parenting style most practiced by SAPs, earned 37.7% of the 35,201 votes, while 62.3% voted for Demanding Eastern parenting.
The results from Amazon reader reviews and the WSJ poll on the subject seem to indicate that SAPs make up about 40% the population, which may represent the “average” American parent and child.
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
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Before I start to talking about Chinese parents and children, first let us have a look of the currently pretty hot arguing book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which is a Chinese-AmericanYale law professor mom that wrote about how she was strict with her two daughters by making a lot of can’t doing rules, and she was acting like a wicked witch to push them to study.
I will not comment on which parenting method is better, Chinese or Western.
What I want to say is the book’s author Amy Chua’s way of parenting is typically Chinese though she is 4th-generation American.
Note from Blog host: Evidence of this may be found among reviews and comments on Amazon.UK. Rosie in the UK wrote, “I am Chinese now living in the UK and I admit I was outraged when I first read theWSJ excerpt of her (Amy Chua’s) book. My first thoughts were I can’t believe anyone would do something like that to their children. However, as I thought more about it and I guess living out here in the UK I’ve been so used to the numbing and dummying of our children’s perceived fragile self esteem and always making sure that their feelings and wants are met for fear of damaging them emotionally, I forgot that, hey, I was brought up pretty much the same way.”
Hanna says, “We Chinese have a long history of parents being strict with their children. From old days, the Ke Ju Kaoshi (official examination) was the only chance for people to change their fate and life.
“To achieve this, they must study really hard. We have an old saying about this “Shi Nian Han Chuang Ku Du Ri, Jin Chao Jin Bang Ti Ming Shi”, which means “Ten years of study at a cold window only for the day of passing the examination.”
“To study, students must be pushed even by using the stick.”
In addition, modern Chinese are also having many new chances but this still won’t change the way most Chinese parents raise children, because China now has the “Gaokao”, which is the high school examination to get into a university or college.
Because of the competition, parents can’t afford or wouldn’t dare to let the child just play and have fun. Children don’t know what is best for them.
Parents must force them to study but spoil them at the same time. When the child gets the great score, that means everything to parents. The kids don’t have to do anything else in life but study. Therefore, the story is the boy went into a famous college but didn’t know how to peal the eggshell.
Note from Blog host: Another review from Amazon.UK supports what Hanna is saying. The reviewer wrote, “I know how appalling some of those things sound to many. Not me, since I am Chinese myself and I have been brought up that same way, if not more strict.…. However when I grow up (now 40), I see the vast difference of parenting among other people in different countries (I live in UK now with my English husband), and what repercussions it has on the kids when they grow up. I am glad I was brought up the way I was.”
Hanna says, “Chinese parenting is not about ‘feelings’, but it’s not to say that the parents do not care.”
The child has to finish the school homework to 10 pm at night five days a week. Then after school, the child goes to the special training to develop other skills such as piano. This is not about what the the child is interested but it’s what the parents decided based on what they believe is necessary. What we learn in China is that the children have to attend eight different hobbies classes. There’s no free time.
In fact, in China, children should not argue with their parents and the child must do what the parents say.
When the child is good at studying, it means “Guang Zong Yao Zu”, (bring honor to your ancestors).
When you get the low score (100% score is best. 60% means you barely passed the exam. 90% is good. However, even just 1% lower and the child gets the “cold face”).
This not only means teachers calling parents endless times for meetings and punishment from the parents but it embarrasses your ancestors too.
This means when children are doing the homework, parents watch them until they finish to insure no mistakes.
Another recent review from Amazon.US points out an interesting thought. “The (Amy Chua) book raises an important question: Is America’s assumed educational mediocrity really the fault of our public schools (as some believe) or is it the fault of an epidemic of indulgent parenting (as others believe)? Asian kids seem to do remarkably well in the public schools… and raising little complaint about the quality of the schools.”
As for myself, Hanna writes, I think I’m the lucky one born in a family offering more freedom. Luckily I was a good student so my parents didn’t have to pay as much attention to me.
Did they spoil me? Sure. Did they care about my feelings? Yes, because they allowed me talk and argue with them.
If your child is no good at school, you must still love them. However, being strict so they have a good future is not worth it if they hate you later. No matter what kind of family you live in – strict or spoiled – the important thing is to love. Then the world can be better place.
Chua says, “My memoir — seen in the West as a story about “extreme” parenting — is being marketed the opposite way in China, as a story about the importance of giving kids more freedom. Amusingly, the book’s title in China is Parenting by a Yale Professor: Raising Kids in America, and I was asked by one Chinese women‘s magazine to give its readers tips on “how to be friends with your kids.”
In February 2010, Gallup reported, “In general, the larger group of Asian-Americans tends to be more Democratic and more liberal than average Americans. Exit-poll data from the 2008 presidential election generally confirm this, with Asian-American voters having supported Barack Obama over John McCain by roughly a 2-to-1 margin.”
In fact, Asian Week says Chinese-Americans voted for President Obama by more than a 3-1 ratio.
Now that we have discovered that more than 75% of Chinese-Americans vote Democratic and are considered liberal, they may be surprised to discover that they fear Global Warming, trust what they read or hear in the traditional media, trust (scientific) experts more than emotional opinions, and are prone to hysteria.
If you are Asian-American or Chinese-American, does that describe you?
In Environmentalism in China, I mentioned that an “old” friend of mine all but “worships” this man. In fact, my “old” friend sounds as if he were a “Prager Parrot” (used as a metaphor).
For more about this embedded video, click on
HIV/AIDS Global Pandemic
Dennis Prager is an American syndicated radio talk show host, syndicated columnist, author and public speaker noted for his conservative political and social views.
In addition, Prager graduated from Brooklyn College in 1970 with a major in Middle Eastern Studies and History. He then studied at the Russian Institute at Columbia University.
He started broadcasting on radio in Los Angeles in 1982. Today, his talk show appears on about 100 radio stations across the nation influencing the opinions of millions of people that believe if you vote Democratic and/or believe Global Warming “may” be caused by carbon emissions, you are a hysterical leftist-liberal.
To understand Dennis Prager and his flock of Parrots (used as a metaphor), one must know the difference between facts, theories and opinions.
A fact has undisputed evidence to support its truth and is driven by rational thought. In science, “fact” is an objective and verifiable observation. For example, several centuries ago, many in the West held an opinion that the earth was flat and that the sun and stars revolved around the earth until explorers (such as Christopher Columbus) and scientists proved that wasn’t true.
A scientific theory is a well-confirmed hypothesis that explains a large body of facts inspired by a large body of research. When the body of research is convincing, many people accept the theory as a potential fact.
Since most of our objective and verifiable observations come from experts and/or scientists, according to Dennis Prager, if you believe these experts about Global Warming, you would be a hysterical leftist-liberal that trusts what the traditional media reports as news.
An opinion is based on a belief or personal view and varies according to an individual’s knowledge, experience, culture, beliefs and is driven and reinforced by emotion. An opinion may also be a simple, uniform message designed to be acceptable to a large number of people. An opinion is not a fact, because opinions have not been proven or verified.
As we know, Google returned to China on China’s terms. Did Prager later apologize for his praise of Google’s Sergey Brin after Google backed down? Prager says he suspects China needs Google more. Wrong again. China has Baidu, which is a search engine with about 76% of the search traffic in China.
In the Global Warming essay, Prager says, “Observers of contemporary society will surely have noted that a liberal is far more likely to fear global warming than a conservative.”
In the previous opening sentence of his essay of Global Warming, Prager defined the difference between liberals and conservatives in a simple generalization, which is an opinion and he has no facts to support what he claims.
However, to Prager and his fans, if you fear global warming, you are a leftist-liberal and are prone to hysteria. He then goes on to say that leftists also believes what The New York Times and other liberal news sources report, which means if you are a liberal, you will believe almost anything you hear or read in the mainstream media.
However, Gallup reported in September 2010 that “Distrust in U.S. Media edges Up to Record High” saying, “For the fourth straight year, the majority of Americans say they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly.”
The Gallup study also reveals that 33% of conservatives had a great deal of trust in the media while 46% of liberals had little or no trust.
Hmm, if we return to Prager’s opinion (I meant essay), we see that he said, “Liberals rarely question the authority of the mainstream media,” but when we examine the facts gathered by experts working for Gallup, this isn’t true.
Do you see the difference between Prager’s opinions and the facts, and how he relies on reinforcing his opinions by using terms that manipulate emotions?
Did you know that Prager wrote in the Jewish World Review that Mao “butchered” 60 million Chinese? However, there are no facts from eyewitnesses to support the claims and opinions that Mao deliberately “butchered” any Chinese. To discover more, I suggest you read China’s Great Famine – Fact or Fiction.
Dennis Prager says that liberal and/or leftists tend to trust experts more, are more likely to revere and even “worship” nature, while fearing death more than a conservative. Does this sound like a stereotype?
Pay attention to the emotional words Prager uses to drive his fans to accept his opinions. To a conservative, born again Christian reading that someone “worships” nature over God is a mortal sin and unforgivable.
This is how Prager manipulates the emotions of those that believe what he preaches. Has any expert studied if conservatives fear death less than liberal-leftists do? I doubt it.
He infers that if we allow the leftist-liberals to focus too much on reducing carbon emissions to deal with the potential threat of Global Warming, which he infers is a hoax, we will “lose the war” against “Islamic fascism” that threatens the free world.
Wow! That is HUGE leap of flawed logic. Imagine how “lose the war against Islamic fascism” is going to inflame the emotions of his conservative audience driving them to believe his opinions.
In addition, how is this going to happen? Well, by too many of us wasting our time working to cut back on carbon emissions reducing pollution so Global Warming may not threaten the world we live in.
To discover more of Prager’s fraud, I suggest watching To Hell and Back and discover that only one percent of the American population is fighting the war in Afghanistan and Iraq—to stop Prager’s “Islamic fascism” from taking over the world.
In addition, if we develop alternative forms of energy and break our Middle Eastern oil habit, won’t that help defeat Prager’s “Islamic fascism” by cutting off the West’s money from flowing into the Middle East?
Prager Claims “Equality” Isn’t American (because controversy is the bread and butter of talk radio)
If only one percent of Americans are fighting the war against Prager’s “Islamic fascism”, then why can’t the other 99% deal with the potential threat of Global Warming “possibly” caused by carbon emissions as supported by facts gathered and interpreted by many experts — In 1997, Science Daily reported that more than 1,500 of the world’s most distinguished senior scientists, including the majority of Nobel laureates in science, signed a consensus declaration urging leaders worldwide to act and prevent potentially devastating consequences of human-induced global warming.
However, in his Global Warming essay, Prager urges us to ignore these experts — that is unless we want to be seen as a hysterical, death fearing leftist-liberal.
In addition, if you click on that link To Hell and Back, you will discover from the video that many of America’s troops believe the wars (in Afghanistan and Iraq) are wrong.
A recent Pew research poll found that a third of American veterans who served after 9/11 believe the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not worth fighting.
Did you know that in Townhall.com, Dennis Prager wrote, “The president (of the US) does not wish to annoy China’s dictators prior to his upcoming visit to Beijing?”
However, Prager is wrong again. If we use the accepted definition, a dictator does not rule China today. Instead, China is a one-party Republic and China’s leaders are selected by the consensus of 80 million Communist Party members — a decision based on the merit of the individuals running for the position (instead of the popularity contest of American politics), which I wrote about in Dictatorship or one party-republic.
It is obvious why Prager used the word “dictator” to describe China’s government — to stir emotions driving his fanatical followers (Prager’s Parrots — used as a metaphor) to accept his opinions as if they were facts.
Did you know Dennis Prager wrote on Creators.com that, “Consider the facts (I’m surprised he used this word): Tibet, at least 1,400 years old, is one of the world’s oldest nations, has its own language, its own religion and even its own ethnicity. Over 1 million of its people have been killed by the Chinese, its culture has been systematically obliterated, 6,000 of its 6,200 monasteries have been looted and destroyed, and most of its monks have been tortured, murdered or exiled.”
All of Prager’s emotionally driven claims such as “killed, obliterated, looted, destroyed, tortured, murdered or exiled” have been proven wrong, but most of Prager’s Parrots are not interested in the facts. I say that Prager owes China an apology.
In fact, Tibet was not a nation until 1911 when the British convinced the Dalai Lama to declare freedom from China, after having been ruled by China since 1279 AD during the Yuan Dynasty, then the Ming Dynasty starting in 1368 AD and last the Qing Dynasty until its collapse in 1911.
In addition, only one percent of all Tibetans are self-exiled from Tibet. China did not drive those former landowners and Buddhist monks out of Tibet — they fled and there is no evidence other than emotional opinions that China killed over 1 million Tibetans in 1950.
All the “facts” are there for anyone willing to trust the experts and sources such as Sir Robert Hart (1835 – 1911) and a piece published in the October 1912 National Geographic Magazine by an expert Western trained medical doctor named Shaoching H. Chuan, M.D. that happened to spend two years in Tibet starting in 1907 after the last Qing emperor ordered him there to deal with a cholera epidemic.
In addition, Prager forgot to mention that there are more than sixty spoken languages in China and one written one. China has 56 minorities and each has its own language as the Tibetan minority does. It’s been this way in China for more than 2,000 years.
In fact, by not mentioning America’s native minorities, Dennis Prager is a hypocrite and deceitful.
North American native tribes and nations were free and governed themselves for more than ten thousand years (much longer than the 1,400 years he claims Tibet governed itself before 1950) before Europeans arrived and drove them from their land.
If you visit Native American Nations, you will discover how many spoke their own languages and many still do — the only difference is today native Americans live on reservations and the US Department of the Interior is responsible for the administration of programs relating to Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians.
One example is the Navaho Nation, the largest Native American reservation in the United States, which is in Arizona. The Navaho Nation covers 27,425 sq miles (71,000 km2) with a population of about 174,000.
The Navajo Nation, like Tibet, is a semi-autonomous Native American-governed territory within the United States.
Another example is the Cherokee Nation, which had its own written language developed early in the 19th century by a mixed-blood Cherokee called Se-Quo-Yah, so the Cherokee Nation would be considered educated, literate and capable of governing itself as an equal, independent nation.
However, this did not stop the United States from breaking treaties and waging war with the Cherokee Nation to exploit the natural resources of their land. It’s called conquest and anyone that studies history knows this is a natural part of the evolution of all species including man.
How is this situation different from Tibet and China? Native Americans had their own religions too and were not allowed to practice them by the United States, while China allows Tibetan Buddhists to practice their religion within a semi autonomous territory, which is administered by a CCP government agency similar to the US Department of the Interior.
Another fact that Prager conveniently left out of his opinionated rant of an essay is that after 1976, China rebuilt many of the Buddhist temples in Tibet that were destroyed during Mao’s Cultural Revolution when religions in China were banned and the entire population suffered.
Today, there are seven-major religions in China including Christianity and Islam.
Rush Limbaugh, the host of the number-one conservative talk-radio show, explains how talk-radio works.
Michael Orion Powell writes, “Prager is a good example of what happens when a commentator ties himself to one side of the political spectrum permanently.”
By Seattle standards, Michael Powell calls himself a conservative, but by actual conservative standards (as defined by talk show hosts such as Dennis Prager), he says he is a raving liberal.
In addition, decades ago, I too listened to Rush Limbaugh and then deserted him for Dennis Prager.
I eventually fled Prager too, after I questioned his emotionally driven opinions and compared them to the facts of experts discovering that he was often wrong and misleading. Now that I’m an ex-Prager Parrot, I guess that makes me a leftist-liberal prone to hysteria that fears death even though I support the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees the right to bear arms (weapons such as rifles and pistols).
So, we either trust the emotionally-driven opinions of conservative talk-show hosts such as Dennis Prager (with a major in Middle Eastern Studies and History who also studied about Russia), or trust 1,500 of the world’s most distinguished senior scientists, including the majority of Nobel laureates in science.
And the truth is, there is a chance the experts could be wrong about Global Warming, since it is only a theory supported by facts, but are we willing to risk ignoring them and support an unproven opinion as Prager and his Parrots argue?
From Griffith University, Australia, Poverty, by David C. Schak, Associate Professor
______________________________
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the unique love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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Guest post by John Putnam
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