Read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother Online

Authors: Amy Chua

Tags: #Asian American Studies, #Social Science, #Mothers, #Chinese American women, #General, #United States, #Mothers and daughters - China, #Personal Memoirs, #Mothers - United States, #China, #Cultural Heritage, #Biography & Autobiography, #Mothers and daughters, #Ethnic Studies, #Chua; Amy, #Mothers and daughters - United States, #Biography

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (4 page)

BOOK: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
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Well, not on my watch
. From the moment Sophia was born and I looked into her cute and knowing face, I was determined not to let it happen to her, not to raise a soft, entitled child—not to let my family fall.
That’s one of the reasons that I insisted Sophia and Lulu do classical music. I knew that I couldn’t artificially make them feel like poor immigrant kids. There was no getting around the fact that we lived in a large old house, owned two decent cars, and stayed in nice hotels when we vacationed. But I
could
make sure that Sophia and Lulu were deeper and more cultivated than my parents and I were. Classical music was the opposite of decline, the opposite of laziness, vulgarity, and spoiledness. It was a way for my children to achieve something I hadn’t. But it was also a tie-in to the high cultural tradition of my ancient ancestors.
My antidecline campaign had other components too. Like my parents, I required Sophia and Lulu to be fluent in Chinese and to be straight-A students. “Always check your test answers three times,” I told them. “Look up every word you don’t know and memorize the exact definition.” To make sure that Sophia and Lulu weren’t pampered and decadent like the Romans when their empire fell, I also insisted that they do physical labor.
“When I was fourteen, I dug a swimming pool for my father by myself with a pick and shovel,” I told my daughters more than once. This is actually true. The pool was only three feet deep and ten feet in diameter and came in a kit, but I really did dig it in the backyard of a cabin near Lake Tahoe that my father bought, after saving up for years. “Every Saturday morning,” I also loved to harp, “I vacuumed half the house while my sister did the other half. I cleaned toilets, weeded the lawn, and chopped wood. Once I built a rock garden for my father, and I had to carry boulders that were over fifty pounds each. That’s why I’m so tough.”
Because I wanted them to practice as much as possible, I didn’t ask my daughters to chop wood or dig a pool. But I did try to make them carry heavy objects—overflowing laundry baskets up and down stairs, garbage out on Sundays, suitcases when we traveled—as often as I could. Interestingly, Jed had the opposite instinct. It bothered him to see the girls loaded down, and he always worried about their backs.
In imparting these lessons to the girls, I’d constantly remember things my own parents had said to me. “Be modest, be humble, be simple,” my mother used to chide. “The last shall come first.” What she really meant of course was, “Make sure you come in first so that you have something to be humble about.” One of my father’s bedrock principles was, “Never complain or make excuses. If something seems unfair at school, just prove yourself by working twice as hard and being twice as good.” These tenets too I tried to convey to Sophia and Lulu.
Finally, I tried to demand as much respect from the girls as my parents did of me. This is where I was least successful. Growing up, I was terrified of my parents’ disapproval. Not so with Sophia and especially Lulu. America seems to convey something to kids that Chinese culture doesn’t. In Chinese culture, it just wouldn’t occur to children to question, disobey, or talk back to their parents. In American culture, kids in books, TV shows, and movies constantly score points with their snappy backtalk and independent streaks. Typically, it’s the parents who need to be taught a life lesson—by their children.
6
 
 
The Virtuous Circle
 
Sophia’s first three piano teachers were not good fits. The first, whom Sophia met when she was three, was a dour old Bulgarian woman named Elina, who lived in our neighborhood. She wore a shapeless skirt and knee-high stockings, and seemed to carry the sorrows of the world on her shoulders. Her idea of a piano lesson was to come to our house and play the piano herself for an hour, while Sophia and I sat on the couch and listened to her tortured anguish. When the first session ended, I felt like sticking my head in the oven; Sophia was playing with paper dolls. I was terrified to tell Elina it wouldn’t work out, for fear that she might throw herself wailing over a parapet. So I told her we were incredibly excited about having another lesson, and that I’d contact her soon.
The next teacher we tried was a peculiar little person with short hair and round, wire-rimmed glasses named MJ, who had been in the military. We couldn’t tell if MJ was male or female, but it always wore a suit and bow tie, and I liked its matter-of-fact style. MJ told us the first time we met that Sophia was definitely musically gifted. Unfortunately, MJ disappeared after three weeks. One day we arrived at MJ’s house for a lesson as usual, and found no trace of MJ. Instead, there were strangers living in the house, with completely different furniture.
Our third teacher was a soft-spoken jazz guy named Richard, with wide hips. He said he had a two-year-old daughter. At our first meeting, he gave Sophia and me a big lecture about the importance of living in the moment and playing for oneself. Unlike traditional teachers, he said he didn’t believe in using books written by others, and instead would emphasize improvisation and self-expression. Richard said there were no rules in music, only what felt right, and no one had the right to judge you, and the piano world had been destroyed by commercialism and cut-throat competition. Poor guy—I guess he just didn’t have what it took.
As the eldest daughter of Chinese immigrants, I don’t have time to improvise or make up my own rules. I have a family name to uphold, aging parents to make proud. I like clear goals, and clear ways of measuring success.
That’s why I liked the Suzuki method of teaching piano. There are seven books, and everybody has to start with Book One. Each book includes ten to fifteen songs, and you have to go in order. Kids who practice hard get assigned new songs each week, whereas kids who don’t practice get stuck on the same song for weeks, even months, and sometimes just quit because they’re bored out of their minds. Anyway, the bottom line is that some kids go through the Suzuki books
much faster than others
. So a hardworking four-year-old can be ahead of a six-year-old, a six-year-old can be way ahead of a sixteen-year-old, and so on—which is why the Suzuki system is known for producing “child prodigies.”
That’s what happened with Sophia. By the time she was five, we had settled in with a fabulous Suzuki teacher named Michelle, who had a big piano studio in New Haven at a place called the Neighborhood Music School. Patient and perceptive, Michelle got Sophia—appreciated her aptitude but saw beyond it—and it was Michelle who instilled the love of music in her.
The Suzuki method was perfect for Sophia. She learned really quickly and could stay focused for a long time. She also had a big cultural advantage: Most of the other students at the school had liberal Western parents, who were weak-willed and indulgent when it came to practicing. I remember a girl named Aubrey, who was required to practice one minute per day for every year of her age. She was seven. Other kids got paid for practicing, with giant ice cream sundaes or big Lego kits. And many were excused from practicing altogether on lesson days.
A key feature of the Suzuki approach is that a parent is expected to attend every music lesson and then to supervise practice sessions at home. What this meant was that every moment Sophia was at the piano, I was there with her, and I was being educated too. I had taken piano lessons as a child, but my parents didn’t have the money to hire anyone good, so I ended up studying with a neighbor, who sometimes hosted Tupperware parties during my lesson. With Sophia’s teacher, I started learning all kinds of things about music theory and music history that I’d never known before.
With me at her side, Sophia practiced at least ninety minutes every day, including weekends. On lesson days, we practiced twice as long. I made Sophia memorize everything, even if it wasn’t required, and I never paid her a penny. That’s how we blasted through those Suzuki books. Other parents aimed for one book a year. We started off with the “Twinkle, Twinkle” variations (Book One); three months later Sophia was playing Schumann (Book Two); six months after that, she was playing a sonatina by Clementi (Book Three). And I still felt we were going too slow.
This seems like a good time to get something off my chest. The truth is, it wasn’t always enjoyable for Sophia to have me as a mother. According to Sophia, here are three things I actually said to her at the piano as I supervised her practicing:
1. Oh my God, you’re just getting worse and worse.
2. I’m going to count to three, then I want
musicality
!
3. If the next time’s not PERFECT, I’m going to
TAKE ALL YOUR STUFFED ANIMALS AND BURN THEM!
In retrospect, these coaching suggestions seem a bit extreme. On the other hand, they were highly effective. Sophia and I were a great mother-daughter fit. I had the conviction and the tunnel-vision drive. Sophia had the maturity, patience, and empathy I should have had, but didn’t. She accepted my premise that I knew and wanted what was best for her—and she cut me a break when I was bad-tempered or said hurtful things.
When Sophia was nine, she won a local piano award, performing a piece called
Butterfly
by the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg.
Butterfly
is one of Grieg’s sixty-six Lyric Pieces, which are miniature compositions, each meant to evoke a particular mood or image.
Butterfly
is supposed to be light and carefree—and it takes hours and hours of grueling drudge-drilling to get it to sound that way.
What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you’re good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child will resist; things are always hardest at the beginning, which is where Western parents tend to give up. But if done properly, the Chinese strategy produces a virtuous circle. Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America. Once a child starts to excel at something—whether it’s math, piano, pitching, or ballet—he or she gets praise, admiration, and satisfaction. This builds confidence and makes the once not-fun activity fun. This in turn makes it easier for the parent to get the child to work even more.
At the Winners Concert where Sophia performed, as I watched her deft fingers fluttering and tumbling up and down the piano like real butterfly wings, I was overcome with pride, exhilaration, and hope. I couldn’t wait for the next day, to work more with Sophia, and to learn more music together.
7
 
 
Tiger Luck
 
BOOK: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
11.75Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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