On yoga, parenthood and underachieving

I ended up joining a yoga studio. Hong Kong work hours are totally inconducive to having any sort of regular, or even irregular, workout regime. The only thing I can commit to is one or two sessions a week and it has to provide maximum results to my health, mind and body. So I decided on yoga over gym membership because I realized I actually do feel calmer and healthier and more relaxed after yoga sessions, as well as more flexible and toned. So weekends tend to be my healthy detox days. I juice, do yoga, eat more fruit and vegetables (which I barely eat during the week - the HK diet is mainly noodles and rice) and get lots of sleep.

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I read Amy Chua's "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" last night. I find it interesting that this book (or more accurately, an excerpt cobbled together from the book) is causing so much controversy. I think more than anything, it's the title that irks people - "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior." The fact is, Amy Chua is not a typical Chinese mother. She is an American-born-to-academic-parents, ivy league-educated, uber-overachieving, control-freak maniac mother, and the title of the WSJ article should have more accurately been something along those lines. In one blowout fight with her daughter Lulu, Chua is indignant that Lulu won't try caviar in Russia and calls her a barbarian for being so close-minded. I mean...is this not just a little bit nuts? Who CARES if your daughter doesn't want to eat caviar? More for the rest of us! Chua wants her daughters to do exactly what she wants and what she tells them, and her younger daughter wants autonomy over her own life. To me, after reading the entire book, I think Chua's memoir (and that's what it is, a memoir - not a guide on parenting, as some people seem to think) is more about a battle of wills between two extremely stubborn people. The book is really about Chua's attempt to completely control Lulu's life, and Lulu's resistance to such domination. I find it amusing that Lulu's version of rebelling is to reduce her violin lessons and become a tennis champ. Oh no, poor Amy Chua - your daughter is SO HORRIBLE!! At the end of the day, I think Chua is extremely lucky to have two intelligent, obedient and talented daughters who didn't end up in rehab by age 12; and her daughters are lucky (in relative terms, when compared to let's say about 90% of the world) to have been given so many privileges and opportunities in life.

There were a few things I found annoying in the book though.

- Chua lambasts men with Yellow Fever at one point in her book, which she defines as men who will date any Asian woman, no matter how ugly. She then says pointedly that her husband never dated any Asian women before her. I think all this does is glaringly point out that she has some sort of insecurity about being an Asian woman married to a white man, who face it, may or may not have Yellow Fever. She clearly doesn't want people to think her husband married her just because she is an Asian, but because she is actually a beautiful, smart woman. I just found her insertion to be terribly glib and smug and insecure and judgmental, all at once.

- Chua says she tries to prevent her daughters from being provincial and small-minded, and will chide them if they ever make fun of someone with an accent or a funny name. But when her daughter Sophia has to do a presentation on Bolivia, Chua sends Sophia to school with a carving from Ecuador, and notes that no one will know the difference. Ok....so I know that there's a measure of sarcasm here, but at the same time, it IS what she actually did, and that is so extremely provincial and close-minded. Um Bolivia is NOT Ecuador? If your kid had to do a presentation on China, would you send her to school with an artifact from Japan?

Anyway, her book was a highly entertaining read.

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One thing I felt after finishing Chua's book though: extremely underachieved. I'm not comparing myself to her daughters here - I mean it's very impressive that her older daughter played at Carnegie Hall and whatnot, but she has a totally different upbringing from mine (namely - she was given every opportunity and privilege by her parents, shuttled around to lessons, given access to good schools and tutoring, etc. - all things that as a child of divorced, immigrant parents with various financial issues, I didn't have). So while I think her daughters are impressive, the source of my feelings of underachieving come from Chua herself. Chua went to law school, worked at a top law firm - our stories are similar up to there. But since then, she has obtained tenure at Yale, published three books (one of which is a controversial bestseller), raised two uber-achiever kids AND manages to look fantastically young (she's almost 50 but looks 30!). Yeah so she's a crazy control freak who clearly needs to see a psychiatrist about her control issues....but still. So I don't care too much about tenure at a law school (although a cushy teaching job for life sounds pretty good), but I hope at 50 I will have published a book (that's not complete crap) and raised at least one high-achieving-but-grounded child and look half as good as Chua. Which means I really should stop wasting my time on things like facebook and blog and start running 5 miles a day with my dogs (first I need to get a dog) and writing stuff that is actually publishable.