Of Tiger Mamas, The American Dream and The Samurai’s Garden …

 

The recent nuptials Mark Zuckerberg to long-time girl friend, Priscilla Chan, drew the attention of Yin Wai, who in her article, Priscilla Chan Is Every Tiger Mother’s Dream, writes, “ … World Journal, one of the largest newspapers serving the Chinese-speaking population in North America, posted details about the nuptials, following up with a translation of the piece that ran on BuzzFeed Shift comparing Chan to Kate Middleton. Apple Daily, a major Hong Kong news organization, also covered it. Should any Chinese mom have missed the papers, Chinese TV news programs seized on the story, too, with every reporter quick to call out Harvard, UCSF Medical School, and the groom’s billionaire status. …”

The article, while detailing Chan’s accomplishments, also provides further insight into how much Asian/Asia-American, particularly Chinese-American culture, values success.

That Priscilla Chan’s accomplishments both academic and personal, her marriage to Zuckerberg, land her as the poster child embodying the dream every Tiger Mother holds for her daughter elucidates one aspect of how Asian culture identifies with American culture.

The goal of Tiger Mothers can be described and summed as no less than the Asian take on the American dream.

Where as European Americans focus on success that one achieves for her or himself, Asians and Asian-Americans extend this phenomena to include their children.

As an African American raised in North Carolina during the 1960’s and who towards the end of that decade, and with my African American counterparts, experienced social integration, I can relate to the need to make your parents proud.

The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 left our parents stunned, saddened and dismayed. Anything less signified that his living and death had occurred achieved nothing.

Many middle class African Americans felt Dr. King’s assassination left a debt that only they could repay through pushing us, their children, to seek success in all we do. We received heavy emphasis on education and academic achievement with a push towards establishing our own families to continue the tradition that had nurtured us.

When I examine the goals of the various groups of immigrants who work to make a America their home wherein they establish a thriving livelihood and successful life, I am reminded of all that my, and my husband’s parents along with those of our colleagues and counterparts encouraged and demanded of us.

I do not always agree with the extremism of achievement at any cost that often accompanies the demands of “Tiger Moms.” Yet I am equally, if not more so, offended by the sense of entitlement that accompanies the American thought processes and belief systems of so many who were born and raised here.

Defining one’s self and establishing your purpose on what you do and how much money that yields proves risky business, if not out right psychological suicide. 

Life offers many difficulties that rock and reel the best of us. Terrible and what seem and feel like insurmountable circumstances affect good people every day.

Basing one’s ability to survive or that of our children on what or who we become and the work we do sets us up for inevitable failure. No person’s life holds a perfectly straight road.

Many of those high achieving couples who began their marriages along with mine with my husband have left their pledges and abandoned their vows to one another and sought comfort elsewhere.

Over the three decades of my marriage I have come to see that that the life of a marriage much like that of an individual requires strength to persevere–a staying power that in the face of discontent, fear and upheaval leveled by life and its myriad misgivings proves truth of what Gail Tsukiyama’s character, Sachi, in The Samurai’s Garden, states,  “ … it takes courage to live … ,” a quality not always conveyed through how much we accomplish, rather an internal ability to endure despite the embarrassments and humiliations life often bestows at will.

A life without responsibilities is a life without compass and meaning.

We are defined by those who love us and how we love them back.

What does one do?

Chop wood; carry water.

The Buddhist say reminds me of the importance of balance and seeking to live a life where we attend to our inner most passions of creativity that bring one close to her or himself along with working to assist others in developing their dreams and desires.

Quoheleth of the Old Testament urges the reader to remain mindful that our the work that constitutes our livelihood and yields the finances upon which we live also undergirds our spiritual development or the lack thereof.

Marriage constitutes work of its own, one that requires our daily attention and attentiveness, at truth to which the high numbers of broken and abandoned marriages in the United States attest.

I hope and pray that along with their external achievements that Priscilla and Mark  life grants them the strength and endurance to accomplish much in the internal areas of their lives, and that of their marriage as well.

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