
What happens to Asian-American overachievers when the test-taking ends? (2011) - farazzz
http://nymag.com/news/features/asian-americans-2011-5/
======
rayiner
As a (south) Asian immigrant I found this article trite. To answer the
title—what happens after the test taking ends? Asians end up as the highest
income demographic in the country. Thank you, tiger mom.

I also don’t appreciate the angsty ranting about Asian immigrant culture. Work
hard, keep your head down, raise kids, provide for your family, respect your
parents, etc. Those are great values and are as much traditional American
values as Asian immigrant ones. It’s the American baby boomers and millennials
with their fixation on self-gratification that are the outliers.

~~~
Red_Tarsius
I agree with you. There's a tendency of exaggerating the downsides of Asian
culture. Some people can't accept uncomfortable truths. I lived in Japan for
one year. I felt like a medieval peasant stepping into a time machine.
Everything was clean, safe and fully operational. Rome looks like a ghetto
compared to Tokyo. Not one graffiti in sight – a byproduct of respect for
public spaces. Critics always bring up their work culture, as if that
invalidates the whole picture.

> _Work hard, keep your head down, raise kids, provide for your family,
> respect your parents, etc._

Have you noticed how American media is always set on undermining those
qualities?

~~~
drivebycomment
In case you haven't heard, there's "Paris syndrome" for Japanese, which is:

"a condition exhibited by some individuals when visiting or going on vacation
to Paris, as a result of extreme shock at discovering that Paris is different
from their expectations."

per
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome)

Basically, Paris is so dirty that it is a shock to many Japanese. And it's not
surprising that's the case, given how clean and tidy Japanese cities are.

~~~
tarsinge
The joke is that you are not in a true Parisian coffee if the waiter is not
rude.

With that said there are a lot of nice and clean places in Paris. But the
tourists area are mostly in the worst neighborhoods. To compare with American
cities Moulin Rouge would be a strip club in Skid Row. It’s madness sending
tourists in the north/ north center of Paris, travel agencies don’t do their
jobs.

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rramadass
Very good and raw article. You can feel the author's angst and confusion about
his standing in society and the need for recognition of who he really is
rather than being defined by accident of birth. I think the lessons are
applicable universally to any individual who feels alienated from their
society due to the perceived need for conformance.

I loved this passage;

 _Someone told me not long after I moved to New York that in order to succeed,
you have to understand which rules you’re supposed to break. If you break the
wrong rules, you’re finished. And so the easiest thing to do is follow all the
rules. But then you consign yourself to a lower status. The real trick is
understanding what rules are not meant for you._

"Leadership" in a nutshell!

~~~
mistermann
> in order to succeed, you have to understand which rules you’re supposed to
> break. If you break the wrong rules, you’re finished.

That is a very insightful observation.

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opportune
I think some of the conclusions of the article put the cart before the horse.
The writer mentions a few times that if Asian people are X% of an incoming
class at e.g. PwC, then of that cohort, about X% should also become partner;
but then the author also claims that he doesn't think Asians are intrinsically
smarter than other people, just taught to be much better test takers /
students. Those two outcomes aren't necessarily contradictory; it could be
that focusing too hard on academics causes people to end up in career tracks
where they are less suited to the job compared to people who put in less
effort but performed similarly.

This is actually a noted phenomenon at Google where competitive programming
experience correlates negatively with job performance, because by practicing
the measure so much, you can display a stronger signal than you actually have
(in other words, you can seem better than you are because you are highly
practiced at the tests).

Also I think the author is off the mark with their generalizations of white
people. Almost all of the stereotypes about Asian people also apply to e.g.
white software developers.

~~~
Petrova
I actually think the Pwc partner example is a poor one. Not all people that
work at Pwc want to become partner as it necessitates 4 months/year of 7 day
94 hour work weeks for 8-12 years. Most people get the brand on their resume
and then leave.

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DrWumbo
_Overachiever_ is a loaded term. It has many negative connotations. As if
someone went so far beyond _achieving_ that they deserve to be despised for
it. This type of rhetoric is often used to disparage Asian-Americans. I
enjoyed reading the different perspectives in the article, but I do wish
they'd be more conscious about such terms.

~~~
andykx
I'd never really considered the implications of that term before.

There is a shockingly large segment of American society that feels pride in
its own ignorance. I've had numerous discussions with family members,
particularly those from rural areas, who flat-out deny statistical fact
because "they know what's right in their heart"

That being said, I think there is an analogue to these ideas in Asian
cultures. I think Asian cultures can be similarly resistant to new ideas -
particularly in social contexts (LGBTQ rights, as an example.)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
There are farmers in Asia that are similarly close minded, they just don’t
tend to immigrate to the USA. There is a lot of selection bias that prevents
generalizing immigrant experiences back to native ones.

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strikelaserclaw
I think the next generation of AA will be more balanced in how they raise
their kids, thus they will break all the stereotypes. Most of the examples
used in this article are children of first generation immigrants who were
raised in a super chaotic society, enduring poverty (maybe), immigrating to a
completely different land. It is normal that they would advise caution and
hard work to their children. But make no mistake, i think this tiger parenting
stuff is super toxic. No children in America should be raised like a race
horse.

~~~
belltaco
AA typically means African American so I was confused for a bit.

~~~
Izkata
I was thinking Alcoholics Anonymous.

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mikhailfranco
How Life Became an Endless, Terrible Competition

 _Meritocracy prizes achievement above all else, making everyone—even the
rich—miserable._

[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/meritoc...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/meritocracys-
miserable-winners/594760/)

Recently on HN:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20741224](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20741224)

------
noetic_techy
Are there any books our there that strike a balance between being "tiger mom"
and the positives of a western upbringing? I've read Amy Chaus book and it
seems like some balance of both cultures is the ideal solution for kids in the
future. Has anyone tried to cherry pick the best of both worlds/cultures and
written about it? It's a question I've pondered as I start to look into how to
raise my 2 year old.

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propter_hoc
This is a pretty gross article. Pickup artists are the answer, really?

~~~
opportune
This was written back when they were still a relevant subculture

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dang
From 2014:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7506651](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7506651)

Discussed at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2530663](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2530663)

------
ridaj
The part about the hardness of the transition from school to real life is
great. The part where, somehow, we're supposed to buy that a path out of the
situation comes from Asian American men getting better at "picking up" white
women feels pretty ridiculous.

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Mathnerd314
_Fuck sacrificing for the future._ [...] _there are kids out there in the
Midwest who can do way less work and be in a garage band or something_ [...]
_If you take this job, you are just going to hit the same ceiling we did. They
just see me as an Asian Ph.D., never management potential._ [...] _I didn’t
earn more than $12,000 for eight consecutive years._

A rambling slog. Needs a [2011] tag.

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DaniloDias
What a racist title.

