I am married to a Chinese-Indonesian woman. We have three children. It is fascinating to be forced to stare across a cultural gap every day navigating two very, very different worlds. I therefore feel I am in a very different position to discuss this issue than I suspect most here are.
There is a fundamental mismatch between Asian culture and American culture. This mismatch is even greater than it is between European culture and Asian culture. Americans are extraordinarily individualist. Asians are extraordinarily communitarian. Family is, in a very real way, the economic and social basis of survival in most of Asia. And yes, filial piety is a big part of that. I will also say that my wife can't stand the US because of the cultural gap, so she took the opposite direction than many of these writers, and instead of wondering about Asian values, rejected entirely the American ones. We now live in Indonesia.
Asian culture works for the most part, even as strict and harsh as it is. Many of my Asian-American friends in the US have been able to retire early. And yes, Asians do dominate some industries. And later in life, having children who will care for you in your old age is far better than the American way. There is much that mainstream American culture can learn from Asian culture as we must find more sustainable ways to live.
But there are costs too. At least here among the Chinese-Indonesians, very little or no value is placed on childhood play. It's just a waste of time when one could be learning how to be an adult. What is vitally missing in my view is a recognition that kids learn extremely important lessons through play, and that these lessons are no less important to success than learning math or science in school. This has been a challenge for our kids because cultivating a sense of play goes against the culture.
What disappoints me about the article is the fact that it seems very much like a one-sided self-critique. Immigrants generally have the potential to disrupt existing cultural ways of thinking by offering a different sort of critique. But here what I see is "I want to stop being Asian and be just American."
But instead if we had a dialog, we'd see that there are things we can learn from eachother, and that is a far better way forward than lamenting Asian values.
>What is vitally missing in my view is a recognition that kids learn extremely important lessons through play, and that these lessons are no less important to success than learning math or science in school.
Play is sometimes seen as important (in animals) because it establishes a dominance ranking in a less formal/less dangerous way than full-on fighting.
Is that then a positive thing for children to engage in?
For a culture to be more meritocratic, it would seem reasonable and perhaps necessary for society to discourage this type of play, no?
It's not just dominance though, and I disagree with you.
The value of play is that it teaches a couple of very important things. The first is that things fit together in different ways. When children are playing they are usually engaging in highly creative activity (provided it isn't sitting in front of the video game console). This activity is important to a whole range of things, and it includes things as diverse as self-motivation and invention.
For a culture to discourage play is to focus not so much on meritocracy so much as it is in quashing individualism both regarding internal motivation and innovation.
I say this even though I sincerely believe that innovation depends on details and that masters of a craft are the best able to innovate within it. But unless you have a sense of empowerment and motivation to do this, this is significantly slowed down.
Again, this is just tackling the point on play. I don't think it is about meritocracy. I think it is about the relationship between individual production and community.
It's commonly said that the West is more creative because of its permissive play culture, but I think I would challenge this for lack of evidence. First, it's not obvious that play is the most effective way to learn creativity. Second, Asia has a great history of art and individual creativity that doesn't seem diminished.
It was reported just today that a more creative problem-solving test has been added to the Pisa tests. Guess which continent dominates the rankings:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-26823184
I don't think you can really test creative problem solving. Quantifying this is very hard and you run into cross-cultural problems which I think is your major objection to what I said.
Also a second real problem with your thesis occurs to me, namely that Chinese-Indonesian culture really stresses competitive sports, where the domination aspect is most heavy. So it can't be about discouraging domination.
What I do see, again, is a question of how individual production ties into family and community. This is where the huge difference lies. In this regard, unrestrained creativity is a threat to order, but so is self-motivation, because both of these become in tension IME with the familial approach to business decision making that we see, at least with my in-laws etc.
In essence what I see (from close-up mind you) is that Asians tend to be more risk adverse than Americans, far more concerned about credentials and school records, and far more aggressive about tying individual aspirations to family obligations. I do think this has implications regarding innovation.
This is not to say there aren't things I really appreciate about Asian culture. The strong familial links has a very positive side to it, namely that adults don't have to save up for retirement (that's what kids are for) and therefore are more free to invest in the launch of their children. This is a lesson we are going to have to learn again in the West.
Sure. I understand that I've been insta-downvoted for that, but it doesn't change that I think it's worth considering.
We (in the West) like play because we believe that play influences learning: we have a very positive view of play, which I generally agree with. But, we have to consider that play, depending on the nature of it, has potential negative consequences as well. I'm suggesting that in a highly meritocratic society, alternative dominance rankings cannot be allowed/encouraged.
Another commenter indicates that they would value a discussion: but the current culture of downvoting for disagreement seems counterproductive to open discussion.
>lamenting Asian values
I think the article is realizes that most people praise what Asians are doing but don't yet realize its faults and is trying to bring up the counterpoint.
Rather than giving us a discussion, the writer attempts to dispel a myth so that we as the readers can have our own discussion.
It's not really hatred, just a rejection of the individualism.
And actually I have a fair bit of input. We lived in the US for 7 years. It's time to live in her country now for a time, especially since she wasn't happy in the US.
This is the fifth or so time I've upvoted an article simply because I wanted to see discussion on it. In this case, I found the topic interesting but the article itself long-winded and boring to read. Is this a permissible reason to upvote something?
I skipped to page 11 right away too. Great topic, overblown article.
When people tear apart the Tiger Mom book because they think overachievers miss out on important things, they miss the core point of the book. The author admits that something was wrong, but she just can't help herself.
Let me summarize my feelings toward Asian values: Fuck filial piety. Fuck grade-grubbing. Fuck Ivy League mania. Fuck deference to authority. Fuck humility and hard work. Fuck harmonious relations. Fuck sacrificing for the future. Fuck earnest, striving middle-class servility.
He's an American middle class poseur. Consciously or unconsciously he rejects middle class values so that he not be confused for them, the bourgeois. Neither poor people nor rich people have this kind of bile, because the first are not going to be mistaken for it and the second don't care if they are.
I'd imagine so, there is a comment system for a reason.
Although, most tend to stray away from long articles such as this one. Hacker News would benefit from a summation web application for articles like these.
If you have just one exam which basically defines your ability (and effectively that of your family) to succeed then it encourages exactly the sort of behaviour that is stereotypical of Asian-Americans. You could argue that certain schools in France, Oxbridge in the UK, and the US' Ivy League are part of a similar phenomenon, but the difference there is even if you don't get to those institutions you can still do reasonably well in life.
I think the article overplays asian stereotypes. I, personally think that I fall into almost none of them. I'm rarely subservient and am generally anti-authoritarian. I speak up at meetings. All the time. I even called out a fellow postdoc for using a line graph when he should have used a bar graph (In a moment of passion I called the incorrect usage f---ing retarded, which then got picked up by the 80 year old nobel laureate in the lab). My science isn't terrible - I improved an enzyme four fold, which is a feat only a handful of people in the world can claim. I even started my own nonprofit with a future view of securing science funding outside of the traditional (and increasingly scarce) funding streams. Yet, I still can't advance beyond the "bamboo ceiling" and failed to obtain a faculty position in academia.
When applying to colleges, I only got into one school (although I only applied to six) - despite having rather good scores, but also having directed a full-length theatre production, and being captain of a regionally victorious chess team (which, you would think, would imply leadership potential). I even placed in my category at the International Science Fair and failed to get a position at MIT.
There's racism against Asians, it's deep-seated, and it's not going away anytime soon for many many reasons.
> I even called out a fellow postdoc for using a line graph when he should have used a bar graph (In a moment of passion I called the incorrect usage f---ing retarded...
That's an overreaction for a small error, don't you think? Not to mention unconstructively critical and unnecessarily antagonistic. Definitely not something I'd want to see coming from faculty.
Your biases are showing. Said postdoc is a very good friend and the delivery was not confrontational although perhaps surprising to the senior scientists.
Data presentation is not a small error. A line graph implies a quantitative relationship between the ordinates in the independent variable, which did not exist in this case.
And antagonism is not bad in science. Its certainly better than fealty or consensus.
Without commenting specifically on the accuracy or lack thereof of Asian stereotypes (my assumption is that they're massively exaggerated, as a side note), the fact that you don't fit them doesn't really mean anything.
It's an accurate stereotype of human beings that they have two legs, but there are still people who can tell their story of how this stereotype doesn't fit them.
There is a fundamental mismatch between Asian culture and American culture. This mismatch is even greater than it is between European culture and Asian culture. Americans are extraordinarily individualist. Asians are extraordinarily communitarian. Family is, in a very real way, the economic and social basis of survival in most of Asia. And yes, filial piety is a big part of that. I will also say that my wife can't stand the US because of the cultural gap, so she took the opposite direction than many of these writers, and instead of wondering about Asian values, rejected entirely the American ones. We now live in Indonesia.
Asian culture works for the most part, even as strict and harsh as it is. Many of my Asian-American friends in the US have been able to retire early. And yes, Asians do dominate some industries. And later in life, having children who will care for you in your old age is far better than the American way. There is much that mainstream American culture can learn from Asian culture as we must find more sustainable ways to live.
But there are costs too. At least here among the Chinese-Indonesians, very little or no value is placed on childhood play. It's just a waste of time when one could be learning how to be an adult. What is vitally missing in my view is a recognition that kids learn extremely important lessons through play, and that these lessons are no less important to success than learning math or science in school. This has been a challenge for our kids because cultivating a sense of play goes against the culture.
What disappoints me about the article is the fact that it seems very much like a one-sided self-critique. Immigrants generally have the potential to disrupt existing cultural ways of thinking by offering a different sort of critique. But here what I see is "I want to stop being Asian and be just American."
But instead if we had a dialog, we'd see that there are things we can learn from eachother, and that is a far better way forward than lamenting Asian values.