4 ms·

Understanding and dealing with overbearing Asian parents

28 points by rglovejoy 17y ago

teuobk 17y ago
Were there similar phenomena during earlier waves of immigration? For example, the majority of my ancestors immigrated to America from Prussia in the mid to late 1800s. In general, they were professionals or businessmen, a tendency which has survived through the generations to me. I've always been encouraged in my intellectual and business pursuits, though not to the exclusion of more frivolous activities. Perhaps the German work ethic was/is in play?
- epochwolf 17y ago
  I'm pretty sure American culture used to be this way about a hundred years ago, given the little research I've done. I also have some personal experience. My paternal grandfather believes that you can't get a white collar job without a GPA of 3.5 or higher. (I don't think he knows the A in GPA means Average) My maternal grandmother told me grades used to meant a lot more back when she was younger. To be simplistic: Grading in an organized public school system is fairly new to the world. Everyone thought it was the greatest thing ever and used it as the ultimate measuring stick. In America (forgive me for ignoring Europe, etc.) people have realized that grades are far from a perfect measurement. Because of this, changes has been made in many companies to find new measures to grade people by. I believe this is because American culture has always had some disrespect for authority in it. (It varies from decade to decade) It is cultural acceptable to challenge old ideas of thinking even if you aren't in charge. (Culturally acceptable doesn't mean you won't get your ass in a sling) Asian cultural is very different. It is family centric and puts great focus on respect. Old age is respected in a way it never was in America. Once you get stuck with some bad or marginal ideas they tend to stick around for awhile.
- Locke1689 17y ago
  The only similar ethnic group I can think of is Jewish immigrants. An abnormally high percentage of people with Jewish heritage are academics and white collar professionals (for example, look at Jewish physicists).
- elblanco 17y ago
  I remember this great article on the subject and Jewish families. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010crat_atlarge http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010crat_atlar...
patio11 17y ago
I assert that Asian parents' obsessive emphasis on grades, test scores, and college rankings originate from their upbringing in a poor, oppressive, and politically-unstable third-world society. Asia is not China and China is not Asia.
- elbenshira 17y ago
  The author never made this claim. In fact, the author writes: "Your parents grew up 30 to 40 years ago in a poor third-world country. I don't care whether they came from China, Korea, Vietnam, or any other Asian country --- chances are that they grew up much poorer than the parents of your middle-class (probably white) American friends."
  - patio11 17y ago
    [Edit: Whoops, misunderstood your comment.] I think the author is grossly overgeneralizing. (cough Japan. cough)
  - tptacek 17y ago
    30 years ago South Korea wasn't a poor third-world country. Very few overbearing Asian-American parents come from North Korea.
    - patio11 17y ago
      Well, for a few years in the early 80s they would have looked a bit more like a poor cousin of Mexico than a peer to an Ireland or Italy, and they would have been a military dictatorship, but I am sympathetic to the general point.
      - Poiesis 17y ago
        Yes, Mexico is a pretty good description based on the folks I've talked to that have been stationed in Korea in that time period. Hosting the Olympics (1988) apparently really brought some positive change, at least to Seoul. It surprised a lot of people, seeing open sewers and the like before and coming back some twenty years later to see all the changes.
asianguy 17y ago
I'm Chinese American and had parents that attempted to regiment my life but failed since I was so headstrong and stubborn (a pain in the ass, in other words). Here's my take on the matter. It's a simple matter of a failure of common sense - in other words, smart people being really stupid. Immigrant Asian parents who come to this country and torture their kids with this kind of upbringing are basically trading off long-term well being for short term gain. This would be perfectly understandable as mere human nature if it were not producing fucked up individuals as a result. However, on the flip side, these kids are just as much at fault in my opinion. They need to take the initiative as Americans (however new their family's status) and start leading the life they want to live as soon as they are able. I threw off those shackles at age 13 and never looked back. Refused to take the piano lessons, refused to get straight A's, and ran around with whomever the hell I pleased. I also learned UNIX and programming at around this time, which has been FAR more useful in my life (I make over a quarter million dollars a year, I'm not a dot com millionaire but I make a good living) than anything my parents ever told me to do. The language barrier doesn't make things any easier. This is one of the main differences between east Asian and Indian families. Lots of immigrant Indians speak perfect English and have Anglo mannerisms. This matters because the parents and kids can level with each other. This simply cannot happen in a hardass asian American household. Parents and kids don't have conversations, they have dictatorships. I've had a discussion with my parents about this as a 25+ year old adult and they pretty much agree - the damage done by this kind of parenting is simply a case of smart people doing very stupid things. I literally asked my parents "How do asian parents do this? What the fuck were you thinking?" and they said "we weren't." I think the greatest irony is unless you are truly exceptional (top 0.5%), the kind of upbringing these parents are meting out will result in an awful cubicle job working making someone else rich who got far worse grades than you.
epochwolf 17y ago
This is a perfect example of how not to use bold and profanity. They only subtract from the point he was trying to make.
pgbovine 17y ago
uhhh, ok guys, i seriously don't think this is relevant to HN at all. it's not even remotely about hacking to any degree! i don't have enough karma to kill submissions; could somebody kill this? (i'm the author of this article, btw)
- epochwolf 17y ago
  Given the other articles I've seen on hacker news I don't really see this as out of place. Granted I'm new to the site but I seen articles similar to this one posted. Stuff posted to hacker news isn't about hacking just stuff that would be interesting to hackers.
- moseslee 17y ago
  This is very much relevant to HN. For many Asian-Americans, starting a company is just not something they would want to deal with. Not because they don't have the talent and vision to start a company, but because the added stress of having to deal with overbearing parents is not worth it. Starting a company is hard enough as it is.
occam 17y ago
He has described symptoms well, but his explanations only make sense if you ignore other immigrant groups. Latin American immigrants come from similar range of poor, politically unstable backgrounds, yet their children aren't being driven to academic excellence by their parents. In fact, instead of outperforming the white American natives, they substantially underperform them. Why the difference? Let me give an answer: it appears to be genetics. Why else are the very different experiences of mainland Chinese, Chinese Hong Kongers, Chinese people from Taiwan, Chinese people from Singapore, Chinese people from Indonesian and Malaysia resulting in only minor differences in average outcomes in the USA?

28 points by rglovejoy 17y ago

Were there similar phenomena during earlier waves of immigration? For example, the majority of my ancestors immigrated to America from Prussia in the mid to late 1800s. In general, they were professionals or businessmen, a tendency which has survived through the generations to me. I've always been encouraged in my intellectual and business pursuits, though not to the exclusion of more frivolous activities. Perhaps the German work ethic was/is in play?

epochwolf 17y ago
I'm pretty sure American culture used to be this way about a hundred years ago, given the little research I've done. I also have some personal experience. My paternal grandfather believes that you can't get a white collar job without a GPA of 3.5 or higher. (I don't think he knows the A in GPA means Average) My maternal grandmother told me grades used to meant a lot more back when she was younger. To be simplistic: Grading in an organized public school system is fairly new to the world. Everyone thought it was the greatest thing ever and used it as the ultimate measuring stick. In America (forgive me for ignoring Europe, etc.) people have realized that grades are far from a perfect measurement. Because of this, changes has been made in many companies to find new measures to grade people by. I believe this is because American culture has always had some disrespect for authority in it. (It varies from decade to decade) It is cultural acceptable to challenge old ideas of thinking even if you aren't in charge. (Culturally acceptable doesn't mean you won't get your ass in a sling) Asian cultural is very different. It is family centric and puts great focus on respect. Old age is respected in a way it never was in America. Once you get stuck with some bad or marginal ideas they tend to stick around for awhile.
Locke1689 17y ago
The only similar ethnic group I can think of is Jewish immigrants. An abnormally high percentage of people with Jewish heritage are academics and white collar professionals (for example, look at Jewish physicists).
elblanco 17y ago
I remember this great article on the subject and Jewish families. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010crat_atlarge http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010crat_atlar...

patio11 17y ago

I assert that Asian parents' obsessive emphasis on grades, test scores, and college rankings originate from their upbringing in a poor, oppressive, and politically-unstable third-world society. Asia is not China and China is not Asia.

elbenshira 17y ago
The author never made this claim. In fact, the author writes: "Your parents grew up 30 to 40 years ago in a poor third-world country. I don't care whether they came from China, Korea, Vietnam, or any other Asian country --- chances are that they grew up much poorer than the parents of your middle-class (probably white) American friends."
- patio11 17y ago
  [Edit: Whoops, misunderstood your comment.] I think the author is grossly overgeneralizing. (cough Japan. cough)
- tptacek 17y ago
  30 years ago South Korea wasn't a poor third-world country. Very few overbearing Asian-American parents come from North Korea.
  - patio11 17y ago
    Well, for a few years in the early 80s they would have looked a bit more like a poor cousin of Mexico than a peer to an Ireland or Italy, and they would have been a military dictatorship, but I am sympathetic to the general point.
    - Poiesis 17y ago
      Yes, Mexico is a pretty good description based on the folks I've talked to that have been stationed in Korea in that time period. Hosting the Olympics (1988) apparently really brought some positive change, at least to Seoul. It surprised a lot of people, seeing open sewers and the like before and coming back some twenty years later to see all the changes.

asianguy 17y ago

I'm Chinese American and had parents that attempted to regiment my life but failed since I was so headstrong and stubborn (a pain in the ass, in other words). Here's my take on the matter. It's a simple matter of a failure of common sense - in other words, smart people being really stupid. Immigrant Asian parents who come to this country and torture their kids with this kind of upbringing are basically trading off long-term well being for short term gain. This would be perfectly understandable as mere human nature if it were not producing fucked up individuals as a result. However, on the flip side, these kids are just as much at fault in my opinion. They need to take the initiative as Americans (however new their family's status) and start leading the life they want to live as soon as they are able. I threw off those shackles at age 13 and never looked back. Refused to take the piano lessons, refused to get straight A's, and ran around with whomever the hell I pleased. I also learned UNIX and programming at around this time, which has been FAR more useful in my life (I make over a quarter million dollars a year, I'm not a dot com millionaire but I make a good living) than anything my parents ever told me to do. The language barrier doesn't make things any easier. This is one of the main differences between east Asian and Indian families. Lots of immigrant Indians speak perfect English and have Anglo mannerisms. This matters because the parents and kids can level with each other. This simply cannot happen in a hardass asian American household. Parents and kids don't have conversations, they have dictatorships. I've had a discussion with my parents about this as a 25+ year old adult and they pretty much agree - the damage done by this kind of parenting is simply a case of smart people doing very stupid things. I literally asked my parents "How do asian parents do this? What the fuck were you thinking?" and they said "we weren't." I think the greatest irony is unless you are truly exceptional (top 0.5%), the kind of upbringing these parents are meting out will result in an awful cubicle job working making someone else rich who got far worse grades than you.

epochwolf 17y ago

This is a perfect example of how not to use bold and profanity. They only subtract from the point he was trying to make.

pgbovine 17y ago

uhhh, ok guys, i seriously don't think this is relevant to HN at all. it's not even remotely about hacking to any degree! i don't have enough karma to kill submissions; could somebody kill this? (i'm the author of this article, btw)

epochwolf 17y ago
Given the other articles I've seen on hacker news I don't really see this as out of place. Granted I'm new to the site but I seen articles similar to this one posted. Stuff posted to hacker news isn't about hacking just stuff that would be interesting to hackers.
moseslee 17y ago
This is very much relevant to HN. For many Asian-Americans, starting a company is just not something they would want to deal with. Not because they don't have the talent and vision to start a company, but because the added stress of having to deal with overbearing parents is not worth it. Starting a company is hard enough as it is.

occam 17y ago

He has described symptoms well, but his explanations only make sense if you ignore other immigrant groups. Latin American immigrants come from similar range of poor, politically unstable backgrounds, yet their children aren't being driven to academic excellence by their parents. In fact, instead of outperforming the white American natives, they substantially underperform them. Why the difference? Let me give an answer: it appears to be genetics. Why else are the very different experiences of mainland Chinese, Chinese Hong Kongers, Chinese people from Taiwan, Chinese people from Singapore, Chinese people from Indonesian and Malaysia resulting in only minor differences in average outcomes in the USA?