蔡美儿是出生于美国的华裔移民第二代，作为家有小老美的第一代移民，本人不得不关注蔡美儿现象。再过十年或者二十年 家中的小老美们也要成熟长大，也要为人父母，那么他们将用什么方式方法养儿育女呢？我们天天浸润其中熟视无睹的中国方法中国方式，会不会随着我们的去世（是的，我们终有一天会死去的，尽管我们现在不愿去想） 而消失？还是将在下一代的育儿方式中继续承传下去呢？“红旗还能打多久？”什么是中国方式？什么不是中国方式？中国方式真的比西式育儿方法好一些吗？不用中国方式又会有什么结果？
蔡美儿的书，按照她声明的那样，并不是一本“父母育儿指南”，她没有打算让大家采用她的育儿方式。她写的书，只不过是一本个人回忆录，记载她为人之母的几多经历几多挣扎。为什么会有挣扎呢？我认为任何人的一生都是一个成长过程，从出生 学走路 学说话 到求学求职交友成家 到养儿育女做父母，到退休到面对死亡，无不是一个一个的挑战。一帆风顺的人确实有，但大多数人总要遇到这样那样的问题，面对这样那样的难题和挑战，解决这些个问题，应对好这些个挑战， 我们就一天天成熟一步步成长。而蔡美儿以及我们家中的小老美们还要面对一个特殊的环境，就是他们的生活里，影响他们的行为的还有两种不同的文化。第二代移民子女经过学校的社会化，已经十分清楚主流社会的文化内容及价值理念，而家庭蕴含的根文化跨海过洋跟随着父母的一招一式的育儿过程也清晰地呈现在他们的心目中。待到自己要承担做父母的职责时，用什么方法？若两种文化有一致性，那他们就会比较顺利；但当两种文化理念不同时，用哪一种? 就会有斟作有取舍有挣扎。
我们做父母，往往不像开车拿驾驶执照，考过笔试路考才能持照上路。往往是孩子出来了，才手忙脚乱的摸着石头过河，好在河也不太深，靠临时抱佛脚，临时找朋友亲属讨要经验，大多也能对付过去。尽管之前没做过父母，但做过孩子，对自己的父母有近距离观察，大概齐知道该怎么做。对自己的父母方式满意的，往往会照抄父母的方法，对自己父母的方式不满意的，则想一想如何变革，如何革新，比如小时挨打比较多，童年经历痛苦，长大之后下决心不打自己的孩子了，给孩子一个快乐童年。蔡美儿的童年少年的成长经历一定是快乐顺利的，她的父母很成功的养育的几个孩子，都有所成就，有耶鲁教授，有斯坦福教授，即使患有唐式综合症的小妹妹，也拿到过残疾人运动会的奖牌。于是蔡美儿对父母的方法照搬照抄。顺手拿来的方法用到大女儿身上十分有效，可是到了小女儿，方法却不行了；受到孩子抵抗之后使她开始反省。而这一番反省审视的结果是变革，是成长，是改变育儿方案，是写出了这么一本“虎妈战歌”。
有人认为蔡美儿太过于中国化，有人认为她不够中国化。有人认为她出生于美国，父母来自菲律宾，尽管父母是中国父母，可她算不得中国人。也算说对了，蔡美儿不是中国人。她是美国人。可是她是在美国的华裔，这一点“中国”的特性是不可否认的。再看看她的作为，她对努力的强调，真是再中国不过了。对读书学习的努力用功之强调，毋庸置疑是中国特色。不论怎样的强调都不会过份：自古以来就有头悬梁锥刺股的榜样，从来相信“天生我材必有用”， 管你是高智商还是低智商，先给我用功再说。如囊萤如映雪，只要功夫深铁杵磨成针，契而不舍金石可屡。相信“梅花香自苦寒来”。所以蔡美儿推着女儿们练钢琴练小提琴，一天三四个小时的苦练，陪练。终于将女儿推到了卡内基音乐厅的舞台上做出了成功演出。有人批判蔡美儿的追求名次，她要求孩子成绩必须是优，不能得良。这种精英思想，这种对中流平庸 (mediocre) 的担心和鄙视，不正是中国古训“吃得苦中苦，方为人上人”所教诲的吗? 这种吃苦努力的精神，也符合西方文化中的 no pains, no gains （不过这条西谚只强调没有痛苦磨难就没有收获，并不鼓吹要出人头地，做“人上人”）。.美国这个崇尚个人主义的社会，强调个人勇于对自己负责，自我奋斗，发奋图强，取得成就，自我实现。可以说在个人奋斗的强调上东方和西方这两股通常方向相逆的江河居然合流了，两者和谐交融，中西一致。这也许是网上大多数老美（60%）对蔡美儿持赞同意见的原因。这种中西融合，也许向我们说明，为了一个目标为了取得成绩而付出辛勤的汗水和努力，这个现象其实是具有人类共性的， 是一种universal. 就像前不久看到的一个很精辟的说法：东方西方原是一方。
Peter Z. Mahakian
Amy Chua
Tiger Mother Author Coming to UCSB
An Interview with Tiger Mom Amy Chua
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
When the dust settled on 2011, one thing became clear—it was the year of the parent. Or, more accurately, the year of “parenting,” that ubiquitous neologism that covers everything from heartwarming father-daughter wedding dance videos on YouTube to newspaper editorials that ask, “why do you let your daughter dress like a tramp?” Yet out of all the parenting stories that dominated such charts as Facebook’s “most shared links” list, none had the staying power of Amy Chua’s blockbuster memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.
Controversial does not begin to describe the reception accorded to this Yale Law School professor’s hilarious and scathingly candid account of her intensely focused and highly structured method of raising her two daughters, Sophia and Lulu. When the list of prohibited activities with which Chua began her first chapter—a list which included such contemporary childhood staples as sleepovers, playdates, television, video games, and school plays—hit the pages of the Wall Street Journal under the heading “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior,” all parenting hell broke loose. Even such ordinarily circumspect outlets as the popular New York Times parenting blog “the Motherlode” rushed to judgment, branding Chua as “downright mean” and her actions as “unforgivable.”
The ensuing media firestorm put both the tiger mother and her talented daughters under hot lights, and earned the author an undeserved reputation for “backpedaling” from a supposed message that she had never actually sent. On Saturday, January 14, Chua will be at UCSB’s Campbell Hall to talk with an audience about her memoir on the occasion of its December 27 release in paperback.
Reading the paperback this December, I was struck by a few things. First, how did so many people manage to miss the humor? Chua is an extremely gifted comic writer, in a league with such bestselling peers as David Sedaris, and her exuberant and sidesplitting self-descriptions and quotations are a tour de force of self-satire. Second, the book’s sensitive side complements the comedy. Chua leads the reader through two close family encounters with cancer, one of which ends in the death of her mother-in-law. Both stories are told with subtlety, tenderness, and insight. Finally, the book indicates, with an unusual degree of fidelity, the debt which Chua and her daughters owe not only to their wonderful music teachers, but to the great classical repertoire that is the basis for their grand musical adventure. Her descriptions of legendary violin teachers Almita Vamos and Carl Shugart could only be the work of someone who cares deeply about the most important and personal aspects of education. The excitement of committing fully to realizing the timeless truths of great music comes through in many places, and puts the supposedly drab routine of long hours of practice in a heroic light.
Last week I spoke to Amy Chua by phone from her home in New Haven, where she was preparing for her daughter Lulu’s sixteenth birthday party.
What have you been doing? I’m just returning from California, where we celebrated my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. Tomorrow in New Haven we will have a party for Lulu because she is now 16.
When I read the excerpt last year in the Wall Street Journal, I laughed a lot, both at the writing, and at the wild response, but then I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t get around to reading the rest of the book until the paperback arrived a few weeks ago. Reading the complete work was a revelation. You are one of the funniest, most daring and original writers around, and I really think you deserve a second chance to be understood. Thanks, it’s great to hear you say that. I was hoping that something like this would happen, because it’s true, I do feel that the book itself was neglected amid all the publicity of last year. People routinely responded only to the excerpt in the Wall Street Journal — which I did not title by the way — or even to articles quoting from that piece, exactly as though the rest of the book didn’t matter. It was taken as a parenting book, which was never my intention. I wrote it as a satiric memoir, and I love books with unreliable narrators. My inspirations were writers like Vladimir Nabokov, or David Sedaris and Dave Eggers, writers who really play with voice and narrative and who strive for humor, and when the book came out, I found that people wanted to compare me with Dr. Spock! Writing a parenting guide was never what I had in mind, and all the interview requests I got were from parenting experts who had already made up their mind about me, often without even bothering to read the book.
One of the things I liked most was the fascinating journey you and the girls have been on with classical music. Your descriptions of some of their teachers are beautiful — warm and true to the spirit of the music in a very striking way. Did you write it with this in mind? Yes I did, very much so. I do feel the book has so much of a music dimension. It raises lots of questions about music, such as the relation between talent and hard work. That’s something that has been of interest to me all along. It would be very coincidental if both my daughters just happened to have some genetic predisposition to be musically talented. And I don’t think you can romanticize creativity. That’s not what I get from reading about the composers. They weren’t exactly lazy. One thing I will say about Sophia and Lulu in regard to their musicality is that they are both very emotional girls, and I know that the music connects in some way to that aspect of their identities.
If it’s not a parenting guide, and music is only one part of it, what is the book about, in your view? From my perspective, the book is mainly about my own humbling, both by my daughters’ strength, and in the presence of the wonderful teachers I describe. I mean at first I felt really self-conscious around some of these teachers. I was thinking all the time, “Amy, you are a superficial moron compared to these people.” But I was also learning, and studying the music, and its history, and the lives of the great musicians and composers. The girls’ music became another way for me to go deeply into something, as I had previously done with the law.
Do you regret the way that the book appeared to pit Chinese mothers against the world? No, but I will say that I did not intend to draw such a line between Chinese and western parents. Several times in the book I make it clear that I don’t think this type of parenting is exclusively Chinese. There are lots of parents who think something like this.
Were all the emails you got from parents angry and hostile? No, not all of the parent response I got was negative. Actually, quite a few parents, especially those with younger children under 5, wrote to say positive things. It was more the parents of teens who were outraged, and who flamed me.
And what about the reviews? Were they difficult to accept? Yes, the initial reception of the hardcover was overwhelming. Interviewers were quite often openly hostile. Certain questions really began to bother me. For example, people would say, ‘Did you do this for your daughters, or for yourself?’ and the tone would be incredibly accusatory, so that it wasn’t really a question at all, but more of a judgment in the form of a question. So, what kind of answer do I give to that? I understand what you are saying, but as a question, this is meaningless.
You said that you like books with unreliable narrators. Is the tiger mother you or not? Oh yes. That voice that I created for the book is really the way I am, but I believe that we are all multiple personalities, and just because I am that way in one of my personalities doesn’t mean that I can’t also laugh about it in another. Oddly enough, I’m not a particularly judgmental person. I just don’t have a lot of filtering when I’m in tiger mother mode. I say what comes into my head. I’ve written two other books, both of them academic studies of global government and politics, and they were painful to write — every sentence was tough. Even now I have an assignment from Newsweek to write a piece about women billionaires in China, and it’s not easy for me to produce. I have to work at it. But this book just came out of me. I’d go running with my dogs, and when I got back, I’d have another chapter written in my head.
In the acknowledgments you write about the team that backed you in the publication of this book. Did they know what they had, or how intense the response would be?My agent Tina Bennett and my editor at Penguin, Ann Godoff, were both wonderfully supportive. The thing that Ann said was that she could tell that everything I did with my daughters was an act of love. Who knows? Maybe she’s right. But one thing I am sure of, and that I feel was a stroke of genius on her part, was that when I submitted the manuscript, she insisted that I not spend any time revising. She wanted to retain the raw voice of the tiger mother, and that was a brilliant move. It’s what makes the book special. When I first met with her, she started out by telling me all the reasons why she wouldn’t normally do my type of book. She said something like, “I don’t do memoirs, I don’t do parenting, and I don’t do women’s books, but your book, I want.” That was exciting.
And Tina Bennett, your agent — do you think she knew how crazy things would get? Tina must have sensed how provocative it would be — she has such an amazing feeling for the market. It’s funny — I nearly didn’t let her put it out for auction. My publisher for my academic books had a right of first refusal, and when they read it, they didn’t even bid! No interest. So I thought at that point that the book was dead. But Tina believed, and look what happened.
