
What Happens to Asian-American Overachievers When the Test-Taking Ends? (2011) - not_paul_graham
http://nymag.com/news/features/asian-americans-2011-5/?imw=Y&f=most-emailed-24h5
======
einhverfr
I am married to a Chinese-Indonesian woman. We have three children. It is
fascinating to be forced to stare across a cultural gap every day navigating
two very, very different worlds. I therefore feel I am in a very different
position to discuss this issue than I suspect most here are.

There is a fundamental mismatch between Asian culture and American culture.
This mismatch is even greater than it is between European culture and Asian
culture. Americans are extraordinarily individualist. Asians are
extraordinarily communitarian. Family is, in a very real way, the economic and
social basis of survival in most of Asia. And yes, filial piety is a big part
of that. I will also say that my wife can't stand the US because of the
cultural gap, so she took the opposite direction than many of these writers,
and instead of wondering about Asian values, rejected entirely the American
ones. We now live in Indonesia.

Asian culture works for the most part, even as strict and harsh as it is. Many
of my Asian-American friends in the US have been able to retire early. And
yes, Asians do dominate some industries. And later in life, having children
who will care for you in your old age is far better than the American way.
There is much that mainstream American culture can learn from Asian culture as
we must find more sustainable ways to live.

But there are costs too. At least here among the Chinese-Indonesians, very
little or no value is placed on childhood play. It's just a waste of time when
one could be learning how to be an adult. What is vitally missing in my view
is a recognition that kids learn extremely important lessons through play, and
that these lessons are no less important to success than learning math or
science in school. This has been a challenge for our kids because cultivating
a sense of play goes against the culture.

What disappoints me about the article is the fact that it seems very much like
a one-sided self-critique. Immigrants generally have the potential to disrupt
existing cultural ways of thinking by offering a different sort of critique.
But here what I see is "I want to stop being Asian and be just American."

But instead if we had a dialog, we'd see that there are things we can learn
from eachother, and that is a far better way forward than lamenting Asian
values.

~~~
ronaldx
>What is vitally missing in my view is a recognition that kids learn extremely
important lessons through play, and that these lessons are no less important
to success than learning math or science in school.

Play is sometimes seen as important (in animals) because it establishes a
dominance ranking in a less formal/less dangerous way than full-on fighting.

Is that then a positive thing for children to engage in?

For a culture to be more meritocratic, it would seem reasonable and perhaps
necessary for society to discourage this type of play, no?

~~~
einhverfr
It's not just dominance though, and I disagree with you.

The value of play is that it teaches a couple of very important things. The
first is that things fit together in different ways. When children are playing
they are usually engaging in highly creative activity (provided it isn't
sitting in front of the video game console). This activity is important to a
whole range of things, and it includes things as diverse as self-motivation
and invention.

For a culture to discourage play is to focus not so much on meritocracy so
much as it is in quashing individualism both regarding internal motivation and
innovation.

I say this even though I sincerely believe that innovation depends on details
and that masters of a craft are the best able to innovate within it. But
unless you have a sense of empowerment and motivation to do this, this is
significantly slowed down.

Again, this is just tackling the point on play. I don't think it is about
meritocracy. I think it is about the relationship between individual
production and community.

~~~
ronaldx
It's commonly said that the West is more creative because of its permissive
play culture, but I think I would challenge this for lack of evidence. First,
it's not obvious that play is the most effective way to learn creativity.
Second, Asia has a great history of art and individual creativity that doesn't
seem diminished.

It was reported just today that a more creative problem-solving test has been
added to the Pisa tests. Guess which continent dominates the rankings:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-26823184](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-26823184)

~~~
einhverfr
I don't think you can really test creative problem solving. Quantifying this
is very hard and you run into cross-cultural problems which I think is your
major objection to what I said.

Also a second real problem with your thesis occurs to me, namely that Chinese-
Indonesian culture really stresses competitive sports, where the domination
aspect is most heavy. So it can't be about discouraging domination.

What I do see, again, is a question of how individual production ties into
family and community. This is where the huge difference lies. In this regard,
unrestrained creativity is a threat to order, but so is self-motivation,
because both of these become in tension IME with the familial approach to
business decision making that we see, at least with my in-laws etc.

In essence what I see (from close-up mind you) is that Asians tend to be more
risk adverse than Americans, far more concerned about credentials and school
records, and far more aggressive about tying individual aspirations to family
obligations. I do think this has implications regarding innovation.

This is not to say there aren't things I really appreciate about Asian
culture. The strong familial links has a very positive side to it, namely that
adults don't have to save up for retirement (that's what kids are for) and
therefore are more free to invest in the launch of their children. This is a
lesson we are going to have to learn again in the West.

------
brandonhsiao
This is the fifth or so time I've upvoted an article simply because I wanted
to see discussion on it. In this case, I found the _topic_ interesting but the
article itself long-winded and boring to read. Is this a permissible reason to
upvote something?

~~~
option_greek
Yes so long winded like all their other articles are.. and off topic but I
can't help but notice none of them wear shirts. Whats with that ?

~~~
barry-cotter
_Let me summarize my feelings toward Asian values: Fuck filial piety. Fuck
grade-grubbing. Fuck Ivy League mania. Fuck deference to authority. Fuck
humility and hard work. Fuck harmonious relations. Fuck sacrificing for the
future. Fuck earnest, striving middle-class servility._

He's an American middle class poseur. Consciously or unconsciously he rejects
middle class values so that he not be confused for _them_ , the bourgeois.
Neither poor people nor rich people have this kind of bile, because the first
are not going to be mistaken for it and the second don't care if they are.

------
brandonhsiao
As an Asian-American who recently exited childhood I'd say the biggest gap is
that in Asian culture there's fundamentally (a) one way of doing things that
(b) one should not stray from, even from childhoood. Asians don't like
surprises. To them the idea of a risk is something where you don't have a set
plan, not necessarily something that's actually risky. That's why Asians like
engineering, medical, accounting, and legal jobs-- fields where it's possible
to carve out a formulaic living. It's also why Asians like math and piano and
violin so much: you can be amazing by working hard on a predefined problem.

This theory explains the common perception that Asians are mindless drones who
admittedly dominate lots of fields. They look like mindless drones because
they explicitly try to follow the status quo; they dominate lots of fields
because picking a problem early and just sticking with it does make you pretty
good at it.

Actually, this must've worked pretty well back when it life really did have
more or less one realistic path to take. What's changed is that life's gotten
more complicated.

------
fidotron
I wonder how much of this derives from the history of the Imperial Exam (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_exam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_exam)
).

If you have just one exam which basically defines your ability (and
effectively that of your family) to succeed then it encourages exactly the
sort of behaviour that is stereotypical of Asian-Americans. You could argue
that certain schools in France, Oxbridge in the UK, and the US' Ivy League are
part of a similar phenomenon, but the difference there is even if you don't
get to those institutions you can still do reasonably well in life.

------
dnautics
I think the article overplays asian stereotypes. I, personally think that I
fall into almost none of them. I'm rarely subservient and am generally anti-
authoritarian. I speak up at meetings. All the time. I even called out a
fellow postdoc for using a line graph when he should have used a bar graph (In
a moment of passion I called the incorrect usage f---ing retarded, which then
got picked up by the 80 year old nobel laureate in the lab). My science isn't
terrible - I improved an enzyme four fold, which is a feat only a handful of
people in the world can claim. I even started my own nonprofit with a future
view of securing science funding outside of the traditional (and increasingly
scarce) funding streams. Yet, I still can't advance beyond the "bamboo
ceiling" and failed to obtain a faculty position in academia.

When applying to colleges, I only got into one school (although I only applied
to six) - despite having rather good scores, but also having directed a full-
length theatre production, and being captain of a regionally victorious chess
team (which, you would think, would imply leadership potential). I even placed
in my category at the International Science Fair and failed to get a position
at MIT.

There's racism against Asians, it's deep-seated, and it's not going away
anytime soon for many many reasons.

~~~
fatjokes
> I even called out a fellow postdoc for using a line graph when he should
> have used a bar graph (In a moment of passion I called the incorrect usage f
> ---ing retarded...

That's an overreaction for a small error, don't you think? Not to mention
unconstructively critical and unnecessarily antagonistic. Definitely not
something I'd want to see coming from faculty.

~~~
dnautics
Your biases are showing. Said postdoc is a very good friend and the delivery
was not confrontational although perhaps surprising to the senior scientists.

Data presentation is not a small error. A line graph implies a quantitative
relationship between the ordinates in the independent variable, which did not
exist in this case.

And antagonism is not bad in science. Its certainly better than _fealty_ or
_consensus_.

------
z92
tl;dr? The article is too long. No chapter index either.

