way2go! 7. Coursebook, Schulbuch

76 Unit 05 | Live and learn You are going to read an article about Amy Chua’s book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother , in which Chua writes about how she tried to bring up her two daughters in America according to the strict Chinese parenting methods she herself had experienced. Choose the correct answer (A, B, C or D) for questions 1–7. Put a cross ( ) in the correct box. The first one (0) has been done for you. READING 18 a M p. 30 Tough love or cruelty? It was the ‘Little White Donkey’ incident that pushed many readers over the edge. That’s the name of the piano tune that Amy Chua, Yale law professor and self-described ‘tiger mother’, forced her seven-year-old daughter Lulu to practise for hours on end – “right through dinner into the night,” – with no breaks for water or even the bathroom, until at last Lulu learned to play the piece. For other readers, it was Chua calling her older daughter Sophia “garbage” after the girl behaved disrespectfully – the same thing Chua had been called as a child by her strict Chinese father. And for some readers it was the card that young Lulu made for her mother’s birthday. “I don’t want this,” Chua announced, adding that she expected excellence in the form of a drawing that Lulu had “put some thought and effort into.” Throwing the card back at her daughter, she told her, “I deserve better than this. So I reject this.” Even before Chua’s book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother was published, her proudly politically incorrect account of raising her children “the Chinese way,” her parenting methods were being discussed by many disbelieving, angry people in supermarkets and coffee shops around the USA. A pre- publication excerpt in The Wall Street Journal (titled ‘Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior’) started the buzz. When Chua appeared on The Today Show in the US, the usually sunny host Meredith Vieira could hardly contain her dislike as she read aloud a sample of comments that viewers had sent in: “She’s a monster;” “The way she raised her kids is outrageous;” “Where is the love, the acceptance?” Chua’s reply was one of defiance: “To be perfectly honest, I know that a lot of Asian parents are secretly shocked and horrified by many aspects of Western parenting and edu- cation, including how much time Westerners allow their kids to waste – hours on Facebook and computer games – and in some ways, how poorly they prepare them for the future.” She added, “It’s a tough world out there.” Chua’s account of her authoritarian parent- hood is indeed worrying, even shocking. But there’s something else behind the intense reaction to Tiger Mother , which shot to the top of best-selling book lists despite the fact that it received much criticism. Though Chua was born and raised in the US, her account of what she describes as “traditional Chinese parenting” has hit a national sore spot in America: the fears about losing ground to China and other rising powers, and about adequately preparing children to survive in the global economy. Her stories of never accepting a grade lower than an A, of insisting on obedience and hours of maths and spelling drills and piano and violin practice each day (weekends and vacations included), of not allowing play dates or sleepovers or television or computer games or even school plays, have left many readers outraged but also defensive. The tiger mother’s cubs are being raised to rule the world, the book clearly suggests, while the offspring of “weak-willed” and “indulgent” Westerners are growing up ill-equipped to compete in a fierce global marketplace. Chua’s husband makes the occasional appearance in Tiger Mother , cast as the tender- hearted opposite to Chua, who is a merciless taskmaster. When her husband protests at Chua’s harshness over ‘The Little White Donkey’, for instance, Chua informs him that their older daughter Sophia could play the piece when she was Lulu’s age. Sophia and Lulu are different people, he argues reasonably. “Oh, no, not this,” Chua shoots back, adopting a mocking tone. “Everyone is special in their special own way. Even losers are special in their own special way.” Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv