Reasons for Our Successes and Failures in Life

When I was in High School, I always asked myself and other friends why Asian students were smarter than us. I thought that their smartness was natural. After reading Lac Su’s memoir I Love Yous Are for White People, and Amy Chua’s 2011 Publication, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, my perception of why Asian students are smart changed. Chua argues that Western parents are extremely anxious about their children's self-esteem. Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently. She also said that Chinese parents believe that they know what is best for their children and therefore override all of their children's own desires and preferences. Chua thinks that Asian tiger parenting produces more successful children because of its emphasis on perfection. On the other hand, psychologist and author Lac Su in his memoir I Love Yous Are for White People described what tiger parenting looks like. “My stomach grumbles. Pa won’t let me eat dinner until he’s satisfied with my performance” (61). Su’s father had study sessions with him to help Lac become smarter, and during these sessions, Su suffered physical abuse at the hands of his father, “When I struggle to find the answer, he breaths hard, grinds his cigarette into the ashtray, and waits. If my answer is wrong, he goes to work on me with the bamboo shoot”(62). Looking for acceptance and relief from everything that was happening at home lead Su to hang out with the wrong people, “My problems don’t feel like problems anymore. I find myself laughing them away with the Street Ratz” (157).Today, Lac Su has done very well as a professional. He's finished his education. He was also able to look back and see all the angles of his father’s life....

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...ow the wrong crowd. I am living the life I wanted and also my dreams as a teenager are coming true one by one. But all this is thanks to my family, especially me father that he never got tired of encouraging me. Somehow Lac feels the same way about his father. If we think about it, if his father would not care about him, he would not transfer to the Magnet school. In his memoir Lac said, “I love my father. I realize now that I always have and always will. I understand what he was trying to teach me all those years” (246). This made me realize how I really feel about my father too. I love him so much, but inside me there was a feeling of resentment towards my father. After reading Lac’s memoir, I feel that I love and understand my father more that I used to.

Works Cited

Su, Lac. I Love Yous Are for White People: A Memoir. New York: Harper Perinnial, 2009. Print.