Advice from a Pussycat Father

If my wife is a Tiger Mother, I guess I am a Pussycat Father, which inevitably will be abbreviated.

You may have heard about Professor Amy Chou's book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" which was briefly in newspaper headlines as "You're a Terrible Parent." I didn't read the book either, nor do I have any intention of lying and saying I will. But I did see her interviewed on the Colbert Report, and I think that pretty much entitles me to comment on it. Besides, my children's mother is a Tiger Mom, and that's nothing compared to a Tiger Wife. 

According to Chou, and Steve Colbert, her book is supposed to be funny, but newspapers only quoted the serious parts. She discusses Asian mothers who won't let their kids be in school plays, go to slumber parties, and/or smile. That is why Asian kids do well in school and the rest of us smoke pot and play video games. Already many American editorials have come out criticizing Chou and saying how kids need to have a social life and freedom to express themselves, get high and play Call of Duty. My blog is pretty late in the game, so late that Chou’s 15 minutes were about 20 minutes ago, but I feel since my wife is Chinese, my two daughters go to Taiwanese public elementary school, and I have taught in Taiwanese public schools, maybe my 2 cents is worth three, even with deflation. 

I've seen both sides up close and personal. I’ve seen my students come in looking like zombies, studying seven days a week, 10 or more hours a day. The better they are, the more they have to study. The reason is because their whole education is based on tests. Starting in the second semester of first grade, nearly all Taiwanese students nation-wide have competitive tests about every seven weeks. Many parents will do anything to get their kids ahead. And this of course includes no slumber parties, no school plays, no video games, and no smiling.

The result is they are amazing students whose math ability passes mine in the fifth grade. I know that first hand because when my daughter asks me to help her with her math homework, I have no clue. But there are side effects to this kind of education. They include severe lack of sleep and any resemblance to a childhood.

It would be easy for me to criticize the whole system, step up to the pulpit and tell all Tiger Mom’s they need to allow their kids to play more video games and smoke more pot, but I can’t do that. See, I went to public school in Anacortes Washington in the good old USA. Although I had a good time, it had its faults. Athletes were worshiped and scholars were put upside down in garbage cans. Wearing the right clothes was almost as important as not admitting you studied. Cliché groups roamed the halls bullying anyone who looked different, and getting a C meant showing up most of the time. I think we could do better, but for Americans, it works. Over confident and cocky, Americans have come up with such things as the Internet and MTV. We can’t do math, but we think of really cool things when we are high.

And in Taiwanese society, as well as what I know of many Asian cultures, their systems works for them. Think about their economies right now. Is someone from the West going to start preaching to China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, etc. they need to get rid of school uniforms and start football leagues? Sure I agree that their education systems could be better too, but just like ours, that does not make them bad.

That said and done, I bitch about Tiger Moms all the time, just ask my wife. Slumber parties are fun, school plays are cool, and I’ve even heard video games are awesome. Why not take part in them? Life is not only about trying to get the best test score so some day you can get a job making tests for kids. However, Chou and Asian Tiger Moms do have some good points. Studying can be very rewarding in the long run, even if getting stoned and playing video games might be more appealing in the next 15 minutes. Personally, it would be nice to have a mixture of both. Yes, you can go to the slumber party… if you finish your homework first.

  

SuperBowl XLV Champions: Homeland Security

It was a hard fought battle, but in the end I would say that Homeland Security put in the extra effort it needed and pulled it off. I know there are those who would dispute, but I think when all is said and done, Homeland Security won the Superbowl. 

Some of you with normal TV might have missed the action. What happened was a couple of days before the Superbowl The U.S. Attorney's Office of New York and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (a.k.a. "the man") closed down a bunch of websites that stream sports for free. Undoubtedly, some of you are saying "I get sports streamed for free all the time; it's called TV."  But I live in Taiwan, and for some reason the only games on ESPN Asia seem to be billiards and cricket, two sports I will never live long enough to understand - or care about. Anyway, thanks to the Internet, my friends and I can actually watch the Superbowl, although due to the time difference, we are forced to drink beer on Monday morning. 

So yesterday, at 7 a.m., on the last day of Chinese New Year vacation, I drug my wife out of bed and we drove to our friends Kevin and Rayne for a traditional Superbowl party. Everything started fine. We had bacon and eggs, dried fish snack, Japanese Pringles, and spiked coffee. It looked as though we were going to run away with a clean victory, watching the Superbowl online problem-free, but then at the beginning of the second quarter, Homeland Security struck. Like a juggernaut, it struck swift and hard as the screen went blue and the fatal words "disabled due to copyright infringement" popped up. We scrambled, trying other reliable streaming sites and even regular TV (I think a rerun of the Northern Thailand Billiard Titleship was playing) but all to no avail. It appeared that the tide had turned, Homeland Security was going to steal away a victory, and spiked coffee stomachaches were all for not. 

However, England pulled through. Accented commentators taking a day off from the other football (a.k.a. soccer) were streaming steady, and the picture was better also. Again we felt in control of the game, and we thought victory was ours. That's when Homeland unleashed its counterstrike. Flash! Blue screen! ...  disabled. The battled continued to Sweden, then Spain, then a language no one could identify. Sometimes there was sound, sometimes none. Sometimes players were in high definition, and sometimes the looked like old 70's cop shows. But time and time again, we were slammed by the blue screen as Homeland Security relentlessly shut down our offense.

In the final two minutes we were back to British commentators who were wondering why everyone had some much padding on. We thought we had finally pulled off a victory, but BAM! The connection sucked and just as Roethlisberger was hailing Mary, all froze. Then the game was over. 

Some may argue that we watched, and thus we won, but I would argue frantically and constantly trying to find a new link in between Spanish commentary pretty much means we lost. Homeland Security was successfully able to make it inconvenient to illegally stream the biggest sporting event in American history. It just goes to show that when the government wants to, they can actually do stuff on computers. What's next? making it slower to steal songs? Blotting out naughty parts in porn? Who knows what tricks Homeland Security and the American entertainment industry has in store. But there is one thing we can all count on: Making affordable legal online options to expand business models and actually bring some new services that don't just try to duplicate old media will be fought tooth and nail until victory is Achieved! Go Homeland Go! ...or, maybe just until Google finds a way around them. 

By the way, who won the game?

100 years of giant bunnies

I was thinking about how similar Chinese New Year is with Christmas. Everyone gets a week off, people exchange gifts, and families gather to overeat. But as my mother-in-law put fish eggs with scallions, stewed pig’s knuckles, pickled jelly fish, and fried chicken feet on the table, that thought quickly scampered away.

Happy New Year, by the way. February 3 marked year 100, and the year of the rabbit. That means it’s been 100 years since there was a Chinese emperor, and for some reason rabbits are important. I think it’s because it marks a whole new season of marketing cartoon bunnies. It probably also means in about three months there are going to be a lot of unwanted pet rabbits. I think it’s my 13th Chinese New Year as an expat in Taiwan. And while it’s a lot of fun, a lot of it I just don’t get.

Lantern Festival, for instance, is this day during Chinese New Year when lots of people display lanterns and the rest of us stand in line to see them. These are not your ordinary lanterns you use for an evening walk to the outhouse, these lanterns look more like floats in the Macy’s Parade. This year, appropriately, they’ll all look like giant rabbits. Some of them are fun, but after you’ve seen a dozen or so bunnies the thrill is pretty much gone and I’m ready to go home and watch TV. My wife tells me that I become bored so quickly because Lantern Festival was not part of my childhood, like making handprint turkeys or getting pillowcases full of candy while dressed as a zombie. She’s right, and that’s probably why a lot of the Chinese holidays don’t make sense to me. I just don’t have the history for them.

But this is also why they are really fun. I’m completely free of the guilt and weight of tradition. You know what that is. Something like, “It just wouldn’t be Christmas if we didn’t make those terrible cookies no one has ever liked.” Or, “We have to invite Uncle Larry. Even if he sits alone smelling funny, ‘tis the season.” Instead, of awkward commitments and overworking, I get a week of unmitigated rest. Which is great, but leads to both the best and worst part of the holiday.

Taiwan is about the size of Maryland, but four times as many people. China is much more so. When all Chinese get a week off, everywhere gets real busy. Every road, park, shopping center and bathroom is overflowing as more and more people try to enter. However, this gets back to one of the best points. Since every place is so crowded there is absolutely no reason to try to go anywhere or do anything – even see giant lighted bunnies. If you are going to sit in your car and not move, you might as well just sit on your sofa and not move. As I said, unencumbered laziness takes over.

So, Shin Nyan Kuai Le, spring is just around the corner, I’ve got about 30 old science fiction movies to watch, and mama just cooked up some sea slug. Cheers!

Nathan Lindberg