The uproar over tiger moms
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Fierce "tiger mothering" has been around in China but when children are driven to excel, the tigress techniques have triggered a debate over effectiveness and cruelty.
There's a lot of talk about parenting these days, especially since Amy Chua's "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" shocked many parents in the West with her boot camp-like discipline.
The furious discussion - involving some children who say they have been psychologically maimed by tiger moms (hu ma) - has reached China.
The Chinese translation of Amy Chua's "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" has generated heated discussion in China, especially online, and the pro-tigers outnumber the tiger bashers.
"Being a Mother in America," the Chinese title, was released in mid-January, only a few days after its English publication in America. The controversial best-seller in States sold more than 10,000 copies in less than a month, a lot in China.
The book made a stir on weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, even before its China release.
Some Chinese celebrities re-tweeted American critics of the book and were upset about Chua seeming to represent Chinese mothers and Oriental values. Numerous netizens then criticized the critics of Chinese-style education without having read the book.
"The book is not all about her children and domestic affairs. She also has very interesting reflections on the distinction between Chinese and Western education, based on her experience as a Chinese American," Wang Feifei, editor of the book's Chinese edition from Citic Press Corp, tells Shanghai Daily.
Wang started the project last March, long before the book was published in States. She was impressed by Chua's vivid description of family education as well as her reflections on Chinese and Western values in general.
She recommends Chinese readers to view the book as an encouraging biography rather than a guide to child education.
After it was published, the book was ranked among the top 10 best-sellers on China's major book sales sites, www.dangdang.com and www.joyo.com.
"Judging from comments on sales websites, it seems that 70-80 percent of Chinese readers agree with Chua's methods or at least consider her story useful. Most teachers also agree with her while education experts have rather divergent ideas," Wang says.
Many self-reporting surveys on major sites including weibo also show more followers than critics. One of Chua's fans is Michelle Zhang, a 29-year-old communications manager at an advertising firm, who has a three-year-old son.
"My foreign colleagues are so shocked by some details of the book, especially where Chua would call her daughters idiots and threaten to burn their dolls. But this seems natural to me and many other Chinese, who grew up in an even stricter environment. And our ancestors have been like that for thousands of years," Zhang says.
She still remembers how her mother, even stricter than Chua, smacked her palms with a wooden stick when she violated house rules or got bad grades.
And her father played the nice guy to balance it out, as her parents had agreed before she was even born.
Zhang's parents swear by the ancient Chinese (and universal) saying, "Spare the rod and spoil the child," and so does Zhang.
"Of course, I don't plan to hit my son physically as my parents hit me," she says. "But strictness is essential. I must train and discipline him when he is little."
On the other hand, readers like Zhu Ling, a 33-year-old entrepreneur, vow not to treat their children the way their parents treated them.
"Maybe I have to thank my mom for what she made me do to achieve who I am now. But I still think it was much too painful. I don't want my two-year-old daughter to experience the same pressure and unpleasant feelings," she says.
