As a father of one, and having studied and worked in the US in my teens, alone in a city where I had absolutely no friends, the arrest of Sun An-tso (孫安佐) — the only child of two well-known Taiwanese actors — on suspicion of threatening to commit a school shooting has brought back a stream of memories and sparked emotions.
The time I spent studying abroad coincided with the economic boom of the four Asian tigers. China had not yet opened up to the world. At that time, students from Asian nations who were studying in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand or European countries were often seen as synonymous with ostentatious wealth.
Compared with local students and other international students who used their money sparingly, kept a low profile and who worked part-time jobs, many rich Asian kids spent their days speeding around in flashy cars, eating expensive meals and buying things in shopping malls. It seemed as if no matter much money they spent, they could never spend it all.
Although my family was quite well off, I spent my time abroad becoming friends with locals, working part-time jobs and saving my money, while distancing myself from those show-off foreign students.
I also saw how many of the children belonging to Taiwan and Hong Kong’s rich and famous fell by the wayside.
The “tiger parents” of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea demand that their children bow to their wishes when choosing their schools, subjects and friends, but they often put their kids under so much pressure that some turn to drugs, join gangs or even kill themselves.
Faced with over-bearing, manipulative Asian “tiger moms,” these children often learn how to pull the wool over their parents’ eyes. To make matters worse, such parents generally only value their children’s achievements in certain subjects, so that they can brag about them and compare them with children of a similar family background in the same elevated social strata.
Meanwhile, these parents disregard the need for their children to have healthy and diverse social and interpersonal relationships, so their character development often takes a wrong turn.
To make matters worse, many Asian parents pay scant attention to international news or the laws and regulations of the countries where their children are studying, and when their children get in trouble with the law, they think it is a small problem that can be solved with money.
Tiger moms often overlook their children’s real needs and put them in a situation where they are forced to hoodwink their parents.
Sun has a tiger mom whose apparent contrasting indulgence and control, and her lack of concern over school shootings in the US, are a replay of cases I witnessed years ago.
It would be a good if the local media and the government take this case as an opportunity to think about whether too many celebrities are given a stage in the local media on which to display their ignorance and extravagance, and their dictatorial and deviant ideas about rearing children.
Genzi Lim is a freelance teacher and writer.
Translated by Julian Clegg
A high-school student surnamed Yang (楊) gained admissions to several prestigious medical schools recently. However, when Yang shared his “learning portfolio” on social media, he was caught exaggerating and even falsifying content, and his admissions were revoked. Now he has to take the “advanced subjects test” scheduled for next month. With his outstanding performance in the general scholastic ability test (GSAT), Yang successfully gained admissions to five prestigious medical schools. However, his university dreams have now been frustrated by the “flaws” in his learning portfolio. This is a wake-up call not only for students, but also teachers. Yang did make a big
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) concludes his fourth visit to China since leaving office, Taiwan finds itself once again trapped in a familiar cycle of political theater. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has criticized Ma’s participation in the Straits Forum as “dancing with Beijing,” while the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) defends it as an act of constitutional diplomacy. Both sides miss a crucial point: The real question is not whether Ma’s visit helps or hurts Taiwan — it is why Taiwan lacks a sophisticated, multi-track approach to one of the most complex geopolitical relationships in the world. The disagreement reduces Taiwan’s
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is visiting China, where he is addressed in a few ways, but never as a former president. On Sunday, he attended the Straits Forum in Xiamen, not as a former president of Taiwan, but as a former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman. There, he met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Presumably, Wang at least would have been aware that Ma had once been president, and yet he did not mention that fact, referring to him only as “Mr Ma Ying-jeou.” Perhaps the apparent oversight was not intended to convey a lack of
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) last week announced that the KMT was launching “Operation Patriot” in response to an unprecedented massive campaign to recall 31 KMT legislators. However, his action has also raised questions and doubts: Are these so-called “patriots” pledging allegiance to the country or to the party? While all KMT-proposed campaigns to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers have failed, and a growing number of local KMT chapter personnel have been indicted for allegedly forging petition signatures, media reports said that at least 26 recall motions against KMT legislators have passed the second signature threshold
RSS