22 ms·

What happens to Asian-American overachievers when the test-taking ends? (2011)

86 points by farazzz 7y ago

Mathnerd314 7y ago
Fuck sacrificing for the future. [...] there are kids out there in the Midwest who can do way less work and be in a garage band or something [...] If you take this job, you are just going to hit the same ceiling we did. They just see me as an Asian Ph.D., never management potential. [...] I didn’t earn more than $12,000 for eight consecutive years. A rambling slog. Needs a [2011] tag.
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rayiner 7y ago
As a (south) Asian immigrant I found this article trite. To answer the title—what happens after the test taking ends? Asians end up as the highest income demographic in the country. Thank you, tiger mom. I also don’t appreciate the angsty ranting about Asian immigrant culture. Work hard, keep your head down, raise kids, provide for your family, respect your parents, etc. Those are great values and are as much traditional American values as Asian immigrant ones. It’s the American baby boomers and millennials with their fixation on self-gratification that are the outliers.
- strikelaserclaw 7y ago
  I don't think being good bureaucrats is what any intelligent, hardworking people should aim towards. I think asian culture has some great tenets, hard work being the one i like the most. People should take the best things out of the different cultures. Too much deference to authority is not a good thing (in my opinion the weakest part of asian culture).
  - SapporoChris 7y ago
    Not enough deference to authority leads to a lot of unnecessary conflict. (especially with police) I've seen so many stories where even if the police arguable cross the line, events usually start with the civilian with an attitude. I am all for civil disobedience, but it has to be done properly. Lastly, where did you pull out bureaucrat from the previous comment? Non sequitur.
    - notoriousjpg 7y ago
      > I am all for civil disobedience, but it has to be done properly. I suspect the definition of properly looks very different when you're a victim, perpetrator, or a (privileged) bystander. Let's march politely down the street with the rest of my college educated peers doesn't exist for everyone unfortunately.
    - TheCoelacanth 7y ago
      You say it's caused by inappropriate lack of deference to police. I say it's caused by an inappropriate expectation of deference by police. Their motto is "protect and serve", not "rule with an iron fist". Police need to maintain discipline and composure regardless of the attitude from people that they are interacting with or they are not worthy of the power that they have been entrusted with.
  - notoriousjpg 7y ago
    > Too much deference to authority is not a good thing (in my opinion the weakest part of asian culture). Yes, the homogeneous entity of Asia and its culture. How do you even have a productive conversation about this topic when people are this ham fisted and uninformed? Have you actually been to Asia? Try traveling there and see if you still think there's "too much deference to authority". If anything the opposite is closer to being true, this stereotype is a western cliche. And yes, I'm Asian and grew up in "Asia".
    - 420codebro 7y ago
      While Asians may be a lot of things, the subservient to power meme is kinda weak. My first thought is the Vietnamese fighting the French and then the Americans, even in the face of overwhelming losses.
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      There are strong Confucian cultures in Korea, Japan, and to a lesser extent (ironically enough) China. In those countries, you can really feel the authority deference. Samsung especially has trouble with this when opening branch R&D offices in the USA. You really have to work in these countries to feel it though, just visiting isn’t good enough. When I was working tech in China, expats had lots of war stories about working in japan or Korea, which sounded a lot less appealing than working in China (though working for an American company, the culture was necessarily mixed). I’m sure SE Asia and South Asia/India would be fairly different in many respects.
      - trhway 7y ago
        >to a lesser extent (ironically enough) China i heard people attribute that to Mao who explicitly encouraged the younger generation to challenge established authority (which was a way to turn and use them against the rest of the state and the Party power who became critical of Mao blaming him for the failures and disasters of the Great Leap Forward) as part of the Cultural Revolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#Red_Guards_and_the_destruction_of_the_%22Four_Olds%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#Red_Guards... "At the Red Guard rallies, Lin Biao also called for the destruction of the "Four Olds"; namely, old customs, culture, habits, and ideas.".
  - djshsisbdkx 7y ago
    “Too much deference to authority is not a good thing (in my opinion the weakest part of asian culture).” That’s pretty naive. Western politicians start wars all the time when their rating are low because we’re so deferent to authority.
  - billions 7y ago
    Perhaps religious role models like Jesus Christ and the Buddha play a subliminal factor in disobedience, risk taking, etc
  - tathougies 7y ago
    Right hong kong and Taiwan and the Indian independence movement suffer(ed) from too much deference to authority
- mikhailfranco 7y ago
  The interesting question is how those values are to be regained after the Boomers. Perhaps the half-century of the self has broken the chain for passing these values through to future generations cast adrift in a sea of self-obsessed narcissism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s
- gnusty_gnurc 7y ago
  Say what you will about American academic culture - and we may have toxic pressure in some respects too - but we have nothing as horrific as mass suicide over standardized testing: https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/30/health/india-exam-results-suicide/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/30/health/india-exam-results-sui...
  - henemsm 7y ago
    Except school shootings.
- Red_Tarsius 7y ago
  I agree with you. There's a tendency of exaggerating the downsides of Asian culture. Some people can't accept uncomfortable truths. I lived in Japan for one year. I felt like a medieval peasant stepping into a time machine. Everything was clean, safe and fully operational. Rome looks like a ghetto compared to Tokyo. Not one graffiti in sight – a byproduct of respect for public spaces. Critics always bring up their work culture, as if that invalidates the whole picture. > Work hard, keep your head down, raise kids, provide for your family, respect your parents, etc. Have you noticed how American media is always set on undermining those qualities?
  - drivebycomment 7y ago
    In case you haven't heard, there's "Paris syndrome" for Japanese, which is: "a condition exhibited by some individuals when visiting or going on vacation to Paris, as a result of extreme shock at discovering that Paris is different from their expectations." per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome Basically, Paris is so dirty that it is a shock to many Japanese. And it's not surprising that's the case, given how clean and tidy Japanese cities are.
    - ekianjo 7y ago
      Expectations about Paris are created by fantasy driven marketing about foreign places by the tourism industry as well as local representatives of said countries. Note that mass media is also guilty in Japan for propagating the illusion of a perfect Paris.
    - geomark 7y ago
      Not only Japanese. I had a rude awakening as a younger backpacker walking through one of those underground sidewalks in Paris. The strongest and foulest smell of urine imaginable.
    - tarsinge 7y ago
      The joke is that you are not in a true Parisian coffee if the waiter is not rude. With that said there are a lot of nice and clean places in Paris. But the tourists area are mostly in the worst neighborhoods. To compare with American cities Moulin Rouge would be a strip club in Skid Row. It’s madness sending tourists in the north/ north center of Paris, travel agencies don’t do their jobs.
- lambdasquirrel 7y ago
  There is a tired, beaten-up trope that we need to be “saved” from our culture, and that only Westerners can understand us, from the outside, and heal us. And we even need Westerners to understand our own cultures. Would it be less grating if it came from a place of honest intentions, if that’s even possible? Among other things, this is how I also understand why rural Americans find “liberals” to be stuck up and condescending. It’s weird having empathy for a demographic that’s dissimilar to you, and by all appearances and experience dislikes you, but the dumpster fire of misunderstanding runs pretty deep. It’s hard to take a stand against the politics of the day when everything you hear, from both sides of the aisle, makes you want to watch the world burn.
  - sudosteph 7y ago
    You know, if you had substituted "Coastal Elites" for "Westerners" in the first paragraph, then I would have sworn you were writing from the perspective of a person from Appalachia or the South. So safe to say, that sentiment you feel really is shared in some way by many rural Americans, and hopefully, some empathy might even go both ways in many cases. You are hitting into a salient point I think though. What point do these tropes actually serve? Make people from other cultures conform out of shame? Or is it purely to make the people perpetuating these standards to feel superior?
- terasepu 7y ago
  I think the key focus should be “immigrant” culture. If you’re in Asia, (which is like saying Africa or Europe), and as long as you don’t stay in the expat bubble, you will meet so many different types of people. However, one thing to note is how assertive Asians are treated in the workplace, > East Asians who don't conform to racial stereotypes are less likely to be popular in the workplace. "In general, people don't want dominant co-workers," says Berdahl, "but they really don't want to work with a dominant East-Asian co-worker." theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/05/study-of-the-day-theres-a-bamboo-ceiling-for-would-be-asian-leaders/257135/
  - gamedori 7y ago
    Ingroup biases (race, class, religion) don't really become a factor until the outgroup is assertive. I saw this firsthand as a foreigner in Korea. The first few years I kept my head down and was treated well. "He's just like a Korean." As I became more confident at work, my coworkers started playing politics to hold me back. (One of them used race explicitly to form a coalition.) Nowdays I don't play politics, and my performance is good, but I still get a lot of comments about my "attitude" from my boss. Nevermind that people I don't report to directly love working with me.
    - blaser-waffle 7y ago
      Hell, it doesn't even have to be Asia. As a white dude working in Australia I found myself on the wrong side of arguments and perceptions cuz I had a different accent.
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- djshsisbdkx 7y ago
  “It’s the American baby boomers and millennials with their fixation on self-gratification that are the outliers.” As a millennial American... spot on. Pampered wusses from day one. I also appreciate your point on “keeping our head low”. What is more pathetic than Americans’ “look at me! I’m special!”
- fzeroracer 7y ago
  Most of those values you've mentioned equate to 'Don't try and change the status quo'. It should be obvious for a lot of people that when the status quo doesn't benefit them, they don't find value in what you've listed. Especially this notion of 'working hard' which is almost purely a corporatist-favoring attitude nowadays. Work harder for no reward, and keep your head down because trying to earn more means you're a selfish millennial. What happened to the value of 'work smarter, not harder'?
- xenocyon 7y ago
  I'm South Asian as well and I find your attitude a little arrogant. As pointed out in the book "The other one percent" (Sanjoy Chakravorty) Indian immigrants of my generation have benefited from a couple of events we didn't have to fight hard for, namely the end of colonialism in South Asia and the civil rights wins in USA, as well as a stable and privileged background that many Indians lack access to. To varying extents the same is true for other Asian immigrants as well. Many non-Asian people "work hard" and take care of family, we are not unique in these respects and these self-aggrandizing stories are not the complete explanation for our demographic's income or our model minority myth.
  - devoply 7y ago
    Take the best and brightest in a country of a billion, move them to another country. Wonder at why they are still doing pretty well compared to the local population which is average. Also wonder why their children are doing well despite the fact that they inherited their parents DNA. True their home countries local population might not equal their adopted country's local population in their aptitude. Immigrants make the adopted upper classes even richer, obviously they get a small piece of that. Their children inherit their genes, and they get the benefit of being born to relatively well to do parents. Obviously they often do well as well, if their parents don't burn them out. You want Asian CEOs, then Asian investors should invest in American companies and make Asians CEOs of those companies. Its that simple. At the end the corporate structure is defined by investor money. That money belongs to people of certain races who trust their race to run their company... and if not their race then white people -- and this goes for Arabs and Asians. The rather have their companies run by whites (which often includes the other whites that must not be named) that know other whites that can make things happen.
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- bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  Although non-Asian I was coming in to say pretty much the same thing, what happens to them after the test taking ends - in most cases I would assume a high paying job.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  It's hard to take issue with people wanting to set up their kids for success by prioritizing academics.
  - inimino 7y ago
    Not really hard to take issue with once you see how it's done, no.
    - JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
      In principle, there's nothing wrong with prioritizing academics. That statement doesn't imply going to extreme lengths.
      - inimino 7y ago
        In principle, non scholae sed vitae discimus. Prioritizing anything becomes pathological when we lose sight of the benefit for which it is worthy of prioritization. In practice, non vitae sed scholae discimus, because we make degrees, credentials, and zero-sum competitions a goal and forget the true goal, which is a life well lived, for everyone, not just the top N% of the class.
- mymythisisthis 7y ago
  They also lie about women's test scores to keep them out of Universities. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/03/world/asia/japan-medical-school-test-scores-women.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/03/world/asia/japan-medical-... Their nuclear reactors blow up. They still hunt whales and dolphins.
- bhl 7y ago
  To add on, did anyone else find it strange that the demographics of the interviewees counters the main point of the entire article? Most of them are alumni of elite universities; shouldn’t we be introduced to those who rebelled against the Asian narrative? I’m not sure if this is just standard of Asian American coverage. See this article from the NYTimes recently on affirmative action: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/28/magazine/affirmative-action-asian-american-harvard.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/28/magazine/affirmative-acti.... Most of the interviewees again went to elite universities, even though affirmative action affects more than just elite privates.
  - inimino 7y ago
    No, the point of the article is that the ones who succeed within the Asian narrative don't end up getting everything they want or expected.
- tzhenghao 7y ago
  This. I think I'm better off today having raised by tiger parents than not. I remember the days when I feared coming home for canings if I had "median" high school scores. It wasn't fun. In hindsight, this weird combination of fear and desperation to achieve excellence I still carry on till this day. The only difference now is me competing against yesterday's self, and this has helped me significantly in my career.
- jimbo1qaz 7y ago
  The Asian values of "respect your parents" and "children have a duty to parents" impedes the ability of abused children to realize that something is wrong. Parents, by making an explicit choice to have kids, are bound to the obligation to not harm or mistreat them. However children never chose to be born, and do not have an obligation to accept responsibilities given by parents, or respect their parents' right to mistreat them. When children complain that the parents are hurting them, parents can avoid responsibility for their abuse by arguing that their children "do not respect them". When children do not go along with their parents' values and orders, parents can easily use "disrespect" as a reason to punish the children. I have Asian parents who physically and mentally abused me, though I'm not sure if they specifically invoked "respect" as justification.
- inimino 7y ago
  > highest income demographic Yes, concentrated in a narrow band around upper middle class professional jobs. The point of the article is that some people want more than that, and can't figure out why they aren't getting it. Well, you don't get above average outcomes without taking some risk, and it's no surprise that the most risk-averse culture is going to be under-represented at the top, while still doing well in the median outcome.
  - chithanh 7y ago
    > The point of the article is that some people want more than that, and can't figure out why they aren't getting it. Actually, the article found out pretty well why they aren't getting it: "And yet while only 15 percent of the male population is at least six feet tall, 58 percent of all corporate CEOs are." Asians are not as tall as other ethnic groups, so are naturally at a disadvantage here. Only 3% of CEOs are 5'7" or less, which is the median height of an Asian-American male. 95th percentile height of Asian-Americans is 5'11.4" or thereabouts (source: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_03/sr03_039.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_03/sr03_039.pdf ).
    - inimino 7y ago
      Height? Are you sure that if you control for height you can explain away the entire effect? I think there might be a little more to it than that.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    > The point of the article is that some people want more than that, and can't figure out why they aren't getting it. Well as an Asian I’d say these delusions of grandeur are part of the problem.
    - inimino 7y ago
      Delusions of grandeur? If you work your whole life doing all the things people tell you to, and do them well, and you expect some reward beyond a pat on the back, is this a delusion or a reasonable expectation? The one that wants to be a leader, but never will, because leadership character traits were conditioned out of him (or her) by a long process of socialization towards following and away from questioning, disobedience, independent observation and inquiry, in short all the attributes of leadership ... this one suffers from a delusion? Perhaps, but then can we blame him if every person in authority in his life has always told him he is doing everything well? How can this delusion be dissolved if the entire cultural heritage in which he is shaped encourages following rules as a chief virtue?
mikhailfranco 7y ago
How Life Became an Endless, Terrible Competition Meritocracy prizes achievement above all else, making everyone—even the rich—miserable. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/meritocracys-miserable-winners/594760/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/meritoc... Recently on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20741224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20741224
strikelaserclaw 7y ago
I think the next generation of AA will be more balanced in how they raise their kids, thus they will break all the stereotypes. Most of the examples used in this article are children of first generation immigrants who were raised in a super chaotic society, enduring poverty (maybe), immigrating to a completely different land. It is normal that they would advise caution and hard work to their children. But make no mistake, i think this tiger parenting stuff is super toxic. No children in America should be raised like a race horse.
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- belltaco 7y ago
  AA typically means African American so I was confused for a bit.
  - Izkata 7y ago
    I was thinking Alcoholics Anonymous.
- terasepu 7y ago
  I would add that the recent, extremely wealthy immigrants from China are already changing the “meek and keep your head down” stereotypes.
dang 7y ago
From 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7506651 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7506651 Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2530663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2530663
propter_hoc 7y ago
This is a pretty gross article. Pickup artists are the answer, really?
- opportune 7y ago
  This was written back when they were still a relevant subculture
- 171243 7y ago
  To be honest, it is incredibly effective? Have you ever given it a shot?
opportune 7y ago
I think some of the conclusions of the article put the cart before the horse. The writer mentions a few times that if Asian people are X% of an incoming class at e.g. PwC, then of that cohort, about X% should also become partner; but then the author also claims that he doesn't think Asians are intrinsically smarter than other people, just taught to be much better test takers / students. Those two outcomes aren't necessarily contradictory; it could be that focusing too hard on academics causes people to end up in career tracks where they are less suited to the job compared to people who put in less effort but performed similarly. This is actually a noted phenomenon at Google where competitive programming experience correlates negatively with job performance, because by practicing the measure so much, you can display a stronger signal than you actually have (in other words, you can seem better than you are because you are highly practiced at the tests). Also I think the author is off the mark with their generalizations of white people. Almost all of the stereotypes about Asian people also apply to e.g. white software developers.
- farazzz 7y ago
  > Almost all of the stereotypes about Asian people also apply to e.g. white software developers. The argument is talking about a general stereotype, which means that saying some people don’t fit it is kind of meaningless. Also, White parents are not prohibited from raising their children in an Asian way, and some do. Relevant quote from Amy Chua, the “Tiger Mom”: > I'm using the term "Chinese mother" loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too. Conversely, I know some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers, by choice or otherwise. I'm also using the term "Western parents" loosely. Western parents come in all varieties. https://web.archive.org/web/20120102062419/http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html https://web.archive.org/web/20120102062419/http://online.wsj...
- Petrova 7y ago
  I actually think the Pwc partner example is a poor one. Not all people that work at Pwc want to become partner as it necessitates 4 months/year of 7 day 94 hour work weeks for 8-12 years. Most people get the brand on their resume and then leave.
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DrWumbo 7y ago
Overachiever is a loaded term. It has many negative connotations. As if someone went so far beyond achieving that they deserve to be despised for it. This type of rhetoric is often used to disparage Asian-Americans. I enjoyed reading the different perspectives in the article, but I do wish they'd be more conscious about such terms.
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- andykx 7y ago
  I'd never really considered the implications of that term before. There is a shockingly large segment of American society that feels pride in its own ignorance. I've had numerous discussions with family members, particularly those from rural areas, who flat-out deny statistical fact because "they know what's right in their heart" That being said, I think there is an analogue to these ideas in Asian cultures. I think Asian cultures can be similarly resistant to new ideas - particularly in social contexts (LGBTQ rights, as an example.)
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    There are farmers in Asia that are similarly close minded, they just don’t tend to immigrate to the USA. There is a lot of selection bias that prevents generalizing immigrant experiences back to native ones.
- yitchelle 7y ago
  Totally agreement with you. Overachievering should not been seen as negative. As humans, we need to be overachievers, to better ourselves in what we are doing. Without the overachievers but achieving just enough, we will never improve. Furthermore, I have the feeling that negative connotations is more prevalent in western societies than it is eastern societies.
DaniloDias 7y ago
What a racist title.
noetic_techy 7y ago
Are there any books our there that strike a balance between being "tiger mom" and the positives of a western upbringing? I've read Amy Chaus book and it seems like some balance of both cultures is the ideal solution for kids in the future. Has anyone tried to cherry pick the best of both worlds/cultures and written about it? It's a question I've pondered as I start to look into how to raise my 2 year old.
rramadass 7y ago
Very good and raw article. You can feel the author's angst and confusion about his standing in society and the need for recognition of who he really is rather than being defined by accident of birth. I think the lessons are applicable universally to any individual who feels alienated from their society due to the perceived need for conformance. I loved this passage; Someone told me not long after I moved to New York that in order to succeed, you have to understand which rules you’re supposed to break. If you break the wrong rules, you’re finished. And so the easiest thing to do is follow all the rules. But then you consign yourself to a lower status. The real trick is understanding what rules are not meant for you. "Leadership" in a nutshell!
- mistermann 7y ago
  > in order to succeed, you have to understand which rules you’re supposed to break. If you break the wrong rules, you’re finished. That is a very insightful observation.
turtlecloud 7y ago
They run for president. Yang2020 !!!
ridaj 7y ago
The part about the hardness of the transition from school to real life is great. The part where, somehow, we're supposed to buy that a path out of the situation comes from Asian American men getting better at "picking up" white women feels pretty ridiculous.
tathougies 7y ago
Substitute any other race and ny mag would be accused of racism. Asian is the new white. Its time Asians stand up to the blatant racism of the media. Asians are where we are because of a superior work ethic. Sorry white people
- nathanasmith 7y ago
  You sound extremely insecure considering this is some article giving one person's viewpoint from 8 years ago. The vast majority of white people have never thought about this "issue" a single time in their lives and couldn't even begin to care less. >flagged Haha. Literally reeking of insecurity.

86 points by farazzz 7y ago

Fuck sacrificing for the future. [...] there are kids out there in the Midwest who can do way less work and be in a garage band or something [...] If you take this job, you are just going to hit the same ceiling we did. They just see me as an Asian Ph.D., never management potential. [...] I didn’t earn more than $12,000 for eight consecutive years. A rambling slog. Needs a [2011] tag.

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rayiner 7y ago

As a (south) Asian immigrant I found this article trite. To answer the title—what happens after the test taking ends? Asians end up as the highest income demographic in the country. Thank you, tiger mom. I also don’t appreciate the angsty ranting about Asian immigrant culture. Work hard, keep your head down, raise kids, provide for your family, respect your parents, etc. Those are great values and are as much traditional American values as Asian immigrant ones. It’s the American baby boomers and millennials with their fixation on self-gratification that are the outliers.

strikelaserclaw 7y ago
I don't think being good bureaucrats is what any intelligent, hardworking people should aim towards. I think asian culture has some great tenets, hard work being the one i like the most. People should take the best things out of the different cultures. Too much deference to authority is not a good thing (in my opinion the weakest part of asian culture).
- SapporoChris 7y ago
  Not enough deference to authority leads to a lot of unnecessary conflict. (especially with police) I've seen so many stories where even if the police arguable cross the line, events usually start with the civilian with an attitude. I am all for civil disobedience, but it has to be done properly. Lastly, where did you pull out bureaucrat from the previous comment? Non sequitur.
  - notoriousjpg 7y ago
    > I am all for civil disobedience, but it has to be done properly. I suspect the definition of properly looks very different when you're a victim, perpetrator, or a (privileged) bystander. Let's march politely down the street with the rest of my college educated peers doesn't exist for everyone unfortunately.
  - TheCoelacanth 7y ago
    You say it's caused by inappropriate lack of deference to police. I say it's caused by an inappropriate expectation of deference by police. Their motto is "protect and serve", not "rule with an iron fist". Police need to maintain discipline and composure regardless of the attitude from people that they are interacting with or they are not worthy of the power that they have been entrusted with.
- notoriousjpg 7y ago
  > Too much deference to authority is not a good thing (in my opinion the weakest part of asian culture). Yes, the homogeneous entity of Asia and its culture. How do you even have a productive conversation about this topic when people are this ham fisted and uninformed? Have you actually been to Asia? Try traveling there and see if you still think there's "too much deference to authority". If anything the opposite is closer to being true, this stereotype is a western cliche. And yes, I'm Asian and grew up in "Asia".
  - 420codebro 7y ago
    While Asians may be a lot of things, the subservient to power meme is kinda weak. My first thought is the Vietnamese fighting the French and then the Americans, even in the face of overwhelming losses.
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    There are strong Confucian cultures in Korea, Japan, and to a lesser extent (ironically enough) China. In those countries, you can really feel the authority deference. Samsung especially has trouble with this when opening branch R&D offices in the USA. You really have to work in these countries to feel it though, just visiting isn’t good enough. When I was working tech in China, expats had lots of war stories about working in japan or Korea, which sounded a lot less appealing than working in China (though working for an American company, the culture was necessarily mixed). I’m sure SE Asia and South Asia/India would be fairly different in many respects.
    - trhway 7y ago
      >to a lesser extent (ironically enough) China i heard people attribute that to Mao who explicitly encouraged the younger generation to challenge established authority (which was a way to turn and use them against the rest of the state and the Party power who became critical of Mao blaming him for the failures and disasters of the Great Leap Forward) as part of the Cultural Revolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#Red_Guards_and_the_destruction_of_the_%22Four_Olds%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#Red_Guards... "At the Red Guard rallies, Lin Biao also called for the destruction of the "Four Olds"; namely, old customs, culture, habits, and ideas.".
- djshsisbdkx 7y ago
  “Too much deference to authority is not a good thing (in my opinion the weakest part of asian culture).” That’s pretty naive. Western politicians start wars all the time when their rating are low because we’re so deferent to authority.
- billions 7y ago
  Perhaps religious role models like Jesus Christ and the Buddha play a subliminal factor in disobedience, risk taking, etc
- tathougies 7y ago
  Right hong kong and Taiwan and the Indian independence movement suffer(ed) from too much deference to authority
mikhailfranco 7y ago
The interesting question is how those values are to be regained after the Boomers. Perhaps the half-century of the self has broken the chain for passing these values through to future generations cast adrift in a sea of self-obsessed narcissism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s
gnusty_gnurc 7y ago
Say what you will about American academic culture - and we may have toxic pressure in some respects too - but we have nothing as horrific as mass suicide over standardized testing: https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/30/health/india-exam-results-suicide/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/30/health/india-exam-results-sui...
- henemsm 7y ago
  Except school shootings.
Red_Tarsius 7y ago
I agree with you. There's a tendency of exaggerating the downsides of Asian culture. Some people can't accept uncomfortable truths. I lived in Japan for one year. I felt like a medieval peasant stepping into a time machine. Everything was clean, safe and fully operational. Rome looks like a ghetto compared to Tokyo. Not one graffiti in sight – a byproduct of respect for public spaces. Critics always bring up their work culture, as if that invalidates the whole picture. > Work hard, keep your head down, raise kids, provide for your family, respect your parents, etc. Have you noticed how American media is always set on undermining those qualities?
- drivebycomment 7y ago
  In case you haven't heard, there's "Paris syndrome" for Japanese, which is: "a condition exhibited by some individuals when visiting or going on vacation to Paris, as a result of extreme shock at discovering that Paris is different from their expectations." per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome Basically, Paris is so dirty that it is a shock to many Japanese. And it's not surprising that's the case, given how clean and tidy Japanese cities are.
  - ekianjo 7y ago
    Expectations about Paris are created by fantasy driven marketing about foreign places by the tourism industry as well as local representatives of said countries. Note that mass media is also guilty in Japan for propagating the illusion of a perfect Paris.
  - geomark 7y ago
    Not only Japanese. I had a rude awakening as a younger backpacker walking through one of those underground sidewalks in Paris. The strongest and foulest smell of urine imaginable.
  - tarsinge 7y ago
    The joke is that you are not in a true Parisian coffee if the waiter is not rude. With that said there are a lot of nice and clean places in Paris. But the tourists area are mostly in the worst neighborhoods. To compare with American cities Moulin Rouge would be a strip club in Skid Row. It’s madness sending tourists in the north/ north center of Paris, travel agencies don’t do their jobs.
lambdasquirrel 7y ago
There is a tired, beaten-up trope that we need to be “saved” from our culture, and that only Westerners can understand us, from the outside, and heal us. And we even need Westerners to understand our own cultures. Would it be less grating if it came from a place of honest intentions, if that’s even possible? Among other things, this is how I also understand why rural Americans find “liberals” to be stuck up and condescending. It’s weird having empathy for a demographic that’s dissimilar to you, and by all appearances and experience dislikes you, but the dumpster fire of misunderstanding runs pretty deep. It’s hard to take a stand against the politics of the day when everything you hear, from both sides of the aisle, makes you want to watch the world burn.
- sudosteph 7y ago
  You know, if you had substituted "Coastal Elites" for "Westerners" in the first paragraph, then I would have sworn you were writing from the perspective of a person from Appalachia or the South. So safe to say, that sentiment you feel really is shared in some way by many rural Americans, and hopefully, some empathy might even go both ways in many cases. You are hitting into a salient point I think though. What point do these tropes actually serve? Make people from other cultures conform out of shame? Or is it purely to make the people perpetuating these standards to feel superior?
terasepu 7y ago
I think the key focus should be “immigrant” culture. If you’re in Asia, (which is like saying Africa or Europe), and as long as you don’t stay in the expat bubble, you will meet so many different types of people. However, one thing to note is how assertive Asians are treated in the workplace, > East Asians who don't conform to racial stereotypes are less likely to be popular in the workplace. "In general, people don't want dominant co-workers," says Berdahl, "but they really don't want to work with a dominant East-Asian co-worker." theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/05/study-of-the-day-theres-a-bamboo-ceiling-for-would-be-asian-leaders/257135/
- gamedori 7y ago
  Ingroup biases (race, class, religion) don't really become a factor until the outgroup is assertive. I saw this firsthand as a foreigner in Korea. The first few years I kept my head down and was treated well. "He's just like a Korean." As I became more confident at work, my coworkers started playing politics to hold me back. (One of them used race explicitly to form a coalition.) Nowdays I don't play politics, and my performance is good, but I still get a lot of comments about my "attitude" from my boss. Nevermind that people I don't report to directly love working with me.
  - blaser-waffle 7y ago
    Hell, it doesn't even have to be Asia. As a white dude working in Australia I found myself on the wrong side of arguments and perceptions cuz I had a different accent.
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djshsisbdkx 7y ago
“It’s the American baby boomers and millennials with their fixation on self-gratification that are the outliers.” As a millennial American... spot on. Pampered wusses from day one. I also appreciate your point on “keeping our head low”. What is more pathetic than Americans’ “look at me! I’m special!”
fzeroracer 7y ago
Most of those values you've mentioned equate to 'Don't try and change the status quo'. It should be obvious for a lot of people that when the status quo doesn't benefit them, they don't find value in what you've listed. Especially this notion of 'working hard' which is almost purely a corporatist-favoring attitude nowadays. Work harder for no reward, and keep your head down because trying to earn more means you're a selfish millennial. What happened to the value of 'work smarter, not harder'?
xenocyon 7y ago
I'm South Asian as well and I find your attitude a little arrogant. As pointed out in the book "The other one percent" (Sanjoy Chakravorty) Indian immigrants of my generation have benefited from a couple of events we didn't have to fight hard for, namely the end of colonialism in South Asia and the civil rights wins in USA, as well as a stable and privileged background that many Indians lack access to. To varying extents the same is true for other Asian immigrants as well. Many non-Asian people "work hard" and take care of family, we are not unique in these respects and these self-aggrandizing stories are not the complete explanation for our demographic's income or our model minority myth.
- devoply 7y ago
  Take the best and brightest in a country of a billion, move them to another country. Wonder at why they are still doing pretty well compared to the local population which is average. Also wonder why their children are doing well despite the fact that they inherited their parents DNA. True their home countries local population might not equal their adopted country's local population in their aptitude. Immigrants make the adopted upper classes even richer, obviously they get a small piece of that. Their children inherit their genes, and they get the benefit of being born to relatively well to do parents. Obviously they often do well as well, if their parents don't burn them out. You want Asian CEOs, then Asian investors should invest in American companies and make Asians CEOs of those companies. Its that simple. At the end the corporate structure is defined by investor money. That money belongs to people of certain races who trust their race to run their company... and if not their race then white people -- and this goes for Arabs and Asians. The rather have their companies run by whites (which often includes the other whites that must not be named) that know other whites that can make things happen.
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bryanrasmussen 7y ago
Although non-Asian I was coming in to say pretty much the same thing, what happens to them after the test taking ends - in most cases I would assume a high paying job.
JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
It's hard to take issue with people wanting to set up their kids for success by prioritizing academics.
- inimino 7y ago
  Not really hard to take issue with once you see how it's done, no.
  - JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
    In principle, there's nothing wrong with prioritizing academics. That statement doesn't imply going to extreme lengths.
    - inimino 7y ago
      In principle, non scholae sed vitae discimus. Prioritizing anything becomes pathological when we lose sight of the benefit for which it is worthy of prioritization. In practice, non vitae sed scholae discimus, because we make degrees, credentials, and zero-sum competitions a goal and forget the true goal, which is a life well lived, for everyone, not just the top N% of the class.
mymythisisthis 7y ago
They also lie about women's test scores to keep them out of Universities. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/03/world/asia/japan-medical-school-test-scores-women.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/03/world/asia/japan-medical-... Their nuclear reactors blow up. They still hunt whales and dolphins.
bhl 7y ago
To add on, did anyone else find it strange that the demographics of the interviewees counters the main point of the entire article? Most of them are alumni of elite universities; shouldn’t we be introduced to those who rebelled against the Asian narrative? I’m not sure if this is just standard of Asian American coverage. See this article from the NYTimes recently on affirmative action: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/28/magazine/affirmative-action-asian-american-harvard.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/28/magazine/affirmative-acti.... Most of the interviewees again went to elite universities, even though affirmative action affects more than just elite privates.
- inimino 7y ago
  No, the point of the article is that the ones who succeed within the Asian narrative don't end up getting everything they want or expected.
tzhenghao 7y ago
This. I think I'm better off today having raised by tiger parents than not. I remember the days when I feared coming home for canings if I had "median" high school scores. It wasn't fun. In hindsight, this weird combination of fear and desperation to achieve excellence I still carry on till this day. The only difference now is me competing against yesterday's self, and this has helped me significantly in my career.
jimbo1qaz 7y ago
The Asian values of "respect your parents" and "children have a duty to parents" impedes the ability of abused children to realize that something is wrong. Parents, by making an explicit choice to have kids, are bound to the obligation to not harm or mistreat them. However children never chose to be born, and do not have an obligation to accept responsibilities given by parents, or respect their parents' right to mistreat them. When children complain that the parents are hurting them, parents can avoid responsibility for their abuse by arguing that their children "do not respect them". When children do not go along with their parents' values and orders, parents can easily use "disrespect" as a reason to punish the children. I have Asian parents who physically and mentally abused me, though I'm not sure if they specifically invoked "respect" as justification.
inimino 7y ago
> highest income demographic Yes, concentrated in a narrow band around upper middle class professional jobs. The point of the article is that some people want more than that, and can't figure out why they aren't getting it. Well, you don't get above average outcomes without taking some risk, and it's no surprise that the most risk-averse culture is going to be under-represented at the top, while still doing well in the median outcome.
- chithanh 7y ago
  > The point of the article is that some people want more than that, and can't figure out why they aren't getting it. Actually, the article found out pretty well why they aren't getting it: "And yet while only 15 percent of the male population is at least six feet tall, 58 percent of all corporate CEOs are." Asians are not as tall as other ethnic groups, so are naturally at a disadvantage here. Only 3% of CEOs are 5'7" or less, which is the median height of an Asian-American male. 95th percentile height of Asian-Americans is 5'11.4" or thereabouts (source: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_03/sr03_039.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_03/sr03_039.pdf ).
  - inimino 7y ago
    Height? Are you sure that if you control for height you can explain away the entire effect? I think there might be a little more to it than that.
- rayiner 7y ago
  > The point of the article is that some people want more than that, and can't figure out why they aren't getting it. Well as an Asian I’d say these delusions of grandeur are part of the problem.
  - inimino 7y ago
    Delusions of grandeur? If you work your whole life doing all the things people tell you to, and do them well, and you expect some reward beyond a pat on the back, is this a delusion or a reasonable expectation? The one that wants to be a leader, but never will, because leadership character traits were conditioned out of him (or her) by a long process of socialization towards following and away from questioning, disobedience, independent observation and inquiry, in short all the attributes of leadership ... this one suffers from a delusion? Perhaps, but then can we blame him if every person in authority in his life has always told him he is doing everything well? How can this delusion be dissolved if the entire cultural heritage in which he is shaped encourages following rules as a chief virtue?

mikhailfranco 7y ago

How Life Became an Endless, Terrible Competition Meritocracy prizes achievement above all else, making everyone—even the rich—miserable. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/meritocracys-miserable-winners/594760/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/meritoc... Recently on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20741224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20741224

strikelaserclaw 7y ago

I think the next generation of AA will be more balanced in how they raise their kids, thus they will break all the stereotypes. Most of the examples used in this article are children of first generation immigrants who were raised in a super chaotic society, enduring poverty (maybe), immigrating to a completely different land. It is normal that they would advise caution and hard work to their children. But make no mistake, i think this tiger parenting stuff is super toxic. No children in America should be raised like a race horse.

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belltaco 7y ago
AA typically means African American so I was confused for a bit.
- Izkata 7y ago
  I was thinking Alcoholics Anonymous.
terasepu 7y ago
I would add that the recent, extremely wealthy immigrants from China are already changing the “meek and keep your head down” stereotypes.

dang 7y ago

From 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7506651 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7506651 Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2530663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2530663

propter_hoc 7y ago

This is a pretty gross article. Pickup artists are the answer, really?

opportune 7y ago
This was written back when they were still a relevant subculture
171243 7y ago
To be honest, it is incredibly effective? Have you ever given it a shot?

opportune 7y ago

I think some of the conclusions of the article put the cart before the horse. The writer mentions a few times that if Asian people are X% of an incoming class at e.g. PwC, then of that cohort, about X% should also become partner; but then the author also claims that he doesn't think Asians are intrinsically smarter than other people, just taught to be much better test takers / students. Those two outcomes aren't necessarily contradictory; it could be that focusing too hard on academics causes people to end up in career tracks where they are less suited to the job compared to people who put in less effort but performed similarly. This is actually a noted phenomenon at Google where competitive programming experience correlates negatively with job performance, because by practicing the measure so much, you can display a stronger signal than you actually have (in other words, you can seem better than you are because you are highly practiced at the tests). Also I think the author is off the mark with their generalizations of white people. Almost all of the stereotypes about Asian people also apply to e.g. white software developers.

farazzz 7y ago
> Almost all of the stereotypes about Asian people also apply to e.g. white software developers. The argument is talking about a general stereotype, which means that saying some people don’t fit it is kind of meaningless. Also, White parents are not prohibited from raising their children in an Asian way, and some do. Relevant quote from Amy Chua, the “Tiger Mom”: > I'm using the term "Chinese mother" loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too. Conversely, I know some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers, by choice or otherwise. I'm also using the term "Western parents" loosely. Western parents come in all varieties. https://web.archive.org/web/20120102062419/http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html https://web.archive.org/web/20120102062419/http://online.wsj...
Petrova 7y ago
I actually think the Pwc partner example is a poor one. Not all people that work at Pwc want to become partner as it necessitates 4 months/year of 7 day 94 hour work weeks for 8-12 years. Most people get the brand on their resume and then leave.
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DrWumbo 7y ago

Overachiever is a loaded term. It has many negative connotations. As if someone went so far beyond achieving that they deserve to be despised for it. This type of rhetoric is often used to disparage Asian-Americans. I enjoyed reading the different perspectives in the article, but I do wish they'd be more conscious about such terms.

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andykx 7y ago
I'd never really considered the implications of that term before. There is a shockingly large segment of American society that feels pride in its own ignorance. I've had numerous discussions with family members, particularly those from rural areas, who flat-out deny statistical fact because "they know what's right in their heart" That being said, I think there is an analogue to these ideas in Asian cultures. I think Asian cultures can be similarly resistant to new ideas - particularly in social contexts (LGBTQ rights, as an example.)
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  There are farmers in Asia that are similarly close minded, they just don’t tend to immigrate to the USA. There is a lot of selection bias that prevents generalizing immigrant experiences back to native ones.
yitchelle 7y ago
Totally agreement with you. Overachievering should not been seen as negative. As humans, we need to be overachievers, to better ourselves in what we are doing. Without the overachievers but achieving just enough, we will never improve. Furthermore, I have the feeling that negative connotations is more prevalent in western societies than it is eastern societies.

DaniloDias 7y ago

What a racist title.

noetic_techy 7y ago

Are there any books our there that strike a balance between being "tiger mom" and the positives of a western upbringing? I've read Amy Chaus book and it seems like some balance of both cultures is the ideal solution for kids in the future. Has anyone tried to cherry pick the best of both worlds/cultures and written about it? It's a question I've pondered as I start to look into how to raise my 2 year old.

rramadass 7y ago

Very good and raw article. You can feel the author's angst and confusion about his standing in society and the need for recognition of who he really is rather than being defined by accident of birth. I think the lessons are applicable universally to any individual who feels alienated from their society due to the perceived need for conformance. I loved this passage; Someone told me not long after I moved to New York that in order to succeed, you have to understand which rules you’re supposed to break. If you break the wrong rules, you’re finished. And so the easiest thing to do is follow all the rules. But then you consign yourself to a lower status. The real trick is understanding what rules are not meant for you. "Leadership" in a nutshell!

mistermann 7y ago
> in order to succeed, you have to understand which rules you’re supposed to break. If you break the wrong rules, you’re finished. That is a very insightful observation.

turtlecloud 7y ago

They run for president. Yang2020 !!!

ridaj 7y ago

The part about the hardness of the transition from school to real life is great. The part where, somehow, we're supposed to buy that a path out of the situation comes from Asian American men getting better at "picking up" white women feels pretty ridiculous.

tathougies 7y ago

Substitute any other race and ny mag would be accused of racism. Asian is the new white. Its time Asians stand up to the blatant racism of the media. Asians are where we are because of a superior work ethic. Sorry white people

nathanasmith 7y ago
You sound extremely insecure considering this is some article giving one person's viewpoint from 8 years ago. The vast majority of white people have never thought about this "issue" a single time in their lives and couldn't even begin to care less. >flagged Haha. Literally reeking of insecurity.