Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

In my own definition, a tiger mother is someone like what my mom used to be, only awfully extreme. HAHA.

This book is some sort of mother-daughters memoir written by Amy Chua, a John M.Duff Professor of Law at Yale University, about how she raised her daughters (who are by the way, Chinese Jewish American-she married a Caucasian) according to the Chinese parenting. There are several rules in Chinese Parenting, some of them are: 

The children are not allowed to:

1) Get any grade less than an A (Even A minuses are not acceptable! I'd be dead by now if Amy's my mom)

2) Play instrument other than piano and violin

3) Not play the piano and violin (it's compulsory!)

4) Not watch TV or play computer games (horror!)

By reading the book, I can relate her to someone who share the same fiery passion and enthusiasm. Who? Becky Bloomwood the Shopaholic. SERIOUSLY!

The children MUST practice Piano and violin EVERYDAY, on vacations and birthdays, after dental surgery, no mercy! The funny thing is that before the whole family went to any places, Amy would phone the hotel and asked for them to reserve her a PIANO! Everyday without fail, the children were required to practice for 3 hours! Or 2 hours at least!

Of course, everything paid off when Sophia (her eldest daughter) won a prestigious competition and got to perform at the Carnegie Hall.

Sophia at Carnegie Hall

If you read the Shopaholic series, or even at least watched the movie and if you read this book, you'd find some striking similarities in their behaviours. It's just that Amy Chua is not a shopaholic. She's more towards the kiasu-type of woman. KIASUHOLIC or Achievement-holic.

Basically, 70% of the book's content is about piano piano piano, violin, violin, violin. Sometimes I couldn't help but to agree with Amy's way of parenting yet somehow, I think she's being too harsh on her children. Anyway, Motherrrrrr knowssss BEST! (sing).

Scary face! Muahahaha

Then there were some rebellions shown by her youngest daughter, Lulu. There was a lot of shouting between mother and daughters, of which I think is highly inappropriate.

Sure, according to Amy (indirectly), her daughters could shout to her, could talk back but their achievements come first!

Well, according to me, achievements are indeed, important of course. But there's no way I'd let my children talked to me that way! I wouldn't blame her children, they were feeling extremely tensed and stressed out. But again, Amy knows best, of course.

Sophia, Amy, Lulu

There are some funny parts in this book. The family bought a Samoyed (a dog) and Amy began to show her achievement-holic side when she actually made some research about the capabilities of a Samoyed and that she decided to impose the strict Chinese parenting (by training, etc) on her dog too! Of which later on she came into a realization that the dog is just a dog. Not a human. I laughed out loud (literally) when I read that part.

This book is kind of a guide book (at least I think so, though Amy denies it) to the Western parents on how to discipline their children. If  you watched the Disney movies, there will be this one part where the teenage children organized a late night party when their parents were not at home. And when the parents found out, guess what's the SEVEREST punishment they'd execute on their children?

"YOU'RE GROUNDED!!!"

Pftttt..

It's no wonder that the children turned up to be like this (okay, not Luan, but the kid at the beginning of this video, LOL)

The Western parents are too soft with their children! They found physical and verbal punishments as highly uncivilized. I'm not saying ALL Western parents. At least, those who are depicted in the movies. Bear in mind that movies usually illustrate the norms of the society, which includes 'grounding your children' if they made mistakes.

Although,

Nowadays; you can witness the transformation of the once strict Malay parents (in the days of our grandparents) into those Western parents. Mat Rempits, rapists, delinquents, all sorts of crimes in Malaysia are mostly committed by the *smack head* MALAYS!

I'm going to say no more about this. Just think. Reflect.

Oh yes, take a look at Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld's blog. http://tigersophia.blogspot.com. 
Thanks to her mother, she's now an undergraduate student of Harvard University. And she's really pretty!!! :D

AND THIS BOOK IS A MUST-READ!

With that, thank you and may peace be upon you!

Images are Googled.