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Thread: Tiger Mothers and FOB Moms

  1. #46
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    99%



    Not quite a "Totally relevant protest sign" but in that same vein...
    Gene Ching
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  2. #47
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    of course she has few regrets. the book was successful.

    Tiger Mom has a few regrets
    Article by: LAURIE HERTZEL , Star Tribune
    Updated: February 7, 2012 - 10:25 AM

    Amy Chua is coming to town to talk about Chinese-American relations and to answer questions about her provocative memoir.
    hide

    Writer and Yale law professor Amy Chua, shown here on NBC-TV’s “The Today Show,” has taken a lot of heat for her strict philosophy of parenting.

    Photo: Peter Kramer, Associated Press
    [IMG]http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/630*412/1tigermom0206.jpg[/IMG]

    For those of you who have only heard about "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" and decided you hated it, the Tiger Mother has a request: Read it. All of it. And then decide.

    The memoir, a global bestseller that has prompted anger, scorn and vitriolic e-mails, is Amy Chua's account of raising her two daughters "the Chinese way."

    Chua, a law professor at Yale University, was brought up by strict immigrant parents. This meant high academic standards, no goofing off, no talking back, and hours each day devoted to schoolwork and music lessons.

    When she attempted to raise her own daughters the same way, however, things did not go as smoothly. Her older daughter, Sophia, thrived, but the younger girl, Lulu, did not. There were fights -- big ones. In the book, Lulu rips up her sheet music and Chua doggedly tapes it back together; Lulu refuses to practice her violin and Chua threatens to burn her stuffed animals; both girls make slapdash birthday cards for their mother, and their demanding mother rejects them.

    The biggest battles were over the violin, and by book's end, Chua capitulates. "I realized that the violin had begun to symbolize oppression," she writes. "I couldn't lose Lulu. Nothing was more important. So I did the most Western thing imaginable: I gave her the choice."

    Chua's book is newly out in paperback and she will be in the Twin Cities on Friday. We caught up with her by telephone last week.

    Q Did you have any idea that your book was going to be so controversial?

    A I didn't! I thought it was funny. When I was about halfway done, I showed it to a friend of mine, and she said, "You should think about publishing this. It's so interesting for people to know another model, because a lot of us are always wondering why are these Asian kids so good at math and instruments, you know? Is it something in the rice?"

    If you read all the way to the end, you realize that it's very self-incriminating. I mean, I have my daughters saying these things to me: "You're selfish, you're insane, you're wrecking our lives" -- it's so filled with self-criticism in a way, coming out of the mouths of my daughters. And you know I end the book with questions about what does it mean to live life to the fullest. Which I still think is the ultimate question.

    Q With people horrified by your anecdotes and largely missing the intended humor, do you wish now that you had written it any differently?

    A I've thought so much about this. The models for my book were this kind of weird book by Vladimir Nabokov called "Pale Fire," and some books by David Sedaris, and "All Creatures Great and Small," which is a hysterical book about a veterinarian. All these are books where you have this narrator, it's like an unreliable narrator -- they're telling the story and you kind of have to figure out what's really going on.

    I intended the book to be much zanier and satirical. Maybe I'm a stubborn girl here, but it's like what my editor said -- because I asked her, actually, when I was writing this, should I tone this down? She said, no, if you sterilize this thing and take out some of these parts it's not going to be the same honest memoir.

    Sometimes I wonder if I should have put in a prologue that says, "Look, this book is supposed to be kind of funny." But some people do get it.

    Q How is the paperback tour going?

    A This year was so much better. Last year they had to hire security guards. I got some really mean e-mails, really just so intensely angry e-mails -- "I hope both your daughters commit suicide," "We're gonna come get you in Chicago." One said "fan mail" in the subject line and I opened it and it said, "There's a special place for you in hell."

    This year there were still very, very big crowds. But I think somehow maybe the word had seeped out that the book was maybe not quite what people thought it was. People were much more open, the crowds were much more receptive.

    Q But despite the hostility, people were buying the book, right? It sold all over the world?

    A Thirty countries. I was so confused. I was wondering, What is going on? If everybody hates me, why are they buying it?

    Q Do you worry that the book perpetuates stereotypes about Asian-American parents?

    A I actually don't worry about that. I do hear that criticism and that's the one I have the hardest time seeing. The Asian stereotype is strict moms. But if you read the book, it conveys how much I, more than anything, love my children. And the other Asian stereotype is that we're these robotic people who just work hard and have no imagination. And even if you hate this book, the one thing it's not is, it's not conformist and robotic. It's a very bold, unusual, contrarian book, filled with satire. It destroys Asian stereotypes because it's a very rebellious book.

    Q How are your daughters?

    A They are actually doing great. Sophia just went back up to college [Harvard] yesterday. Lulu is a sop****re in high school. She just turned 16 a few days ago. I would say she's completely thriving. A lot of changes have taken place since she rebelled -- I really did change in many ways cold turkey. I mean, not totally -- I'm still a parent with very high expectations school-wise. But, you know, Lulu is a very social girl, so we've had a party at our house every weekend. She had a big sleepover for her 16th. She's a great student. She went back to violin, but the rule is: I cannot interfere. Ever. Period.

    Q How have your views on parenting changed?

    A I've had so many e-mails that say, Why only piano or violin? But the punch line of the book is that I let Lulu drop violin. One of the lessons that I learned is that, boy, I wish I'd have given my children more choices. I still believe that Western parents tend to give too many choices. But I think that I gave my kids too few choices. And certainly as they got older, I've had, you know, regrets. Like, why not? Why didn't I say, try the saxophone?
    Sax & violins...
    Gene Ching
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  3. #48
    When the book came out it made a buzz, but since it got big enough to catch the attention of academia it has been utterly obliterated by real statistics. Children that are pushed hard and punished hard don't do quite as well as children who are pushed hard but are further encouraged after failure. Tiger mom does good by having high expectations, but she falls short by being completely selfish, weak and irresponsible when she lashes out at her babies. Not to mention the long term damage being done to her childs self image.

    I think subjects like child psychology should be left to those who actually know something about it. It's too important to start muddying the waters for the sake of pushing an opinion outside her field.

  4. #49
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    Quote Originally Posted by GeneChing View Post
    I'm now curious. Who here was raised by a Tiger Mom or a FOB? I wasn't. My parents were fairly indulgent as I did pretty well academically. They let me pursue martial arts instead of violin and piano. Look where that got me.
    2 for 2 here.

    Tiger Mom and FOB Mom both.

    Made me what I am today.

  5. #50
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jimbo View Post
    I could be wrong, but it seems more about/for the parents themselves than for their kids.
    Yes, you are right about being wrong

  6. #51
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    Quote Originally Posted by -N- View Post
    Yes, you are right about being wrong
    I may be wrong in some cases, but there are cases I've seen where I'm not.

  7. #52
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    my cousin has a 5 year child and wants to sexy intercourse with me to get usa green card. she take me to hotel room but i was scares. is this normal

    Honorary African American
    grandmaster instructor of Wombat Combat The Lost Art of Anal Destruction™®LLC .
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  8. #53
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jimbo View Post
    I may be wrong in some cases, but there are cases I've seen where I'm not.
    Well, there are all kinds of people and motivations.

    A lot of Tiger Mom reasoning here in the US is to use overachievement as a defense against racism.

  9. #54
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    Quote Originally Posted by bawang View Post
    my cousin has a 5 year child and wants to sexy intercourse with me to get usa green card. she take me to hotel room but i was scares. is this normal
    No.

    Most 5 year olds are not able to get hotel rooms.

    She must be very advanced.

  10. #55
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    it was a donkey, i had to carry on my back

    Honorary African American
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  11. #56
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    innerestin...

    I always suspected as much....
    Poor Little Tiger Cub
    The first major study of tiger moms is out. The kids have worse grades, and they are more depressed and more alienated from their parents.
    By Paul Tullis|Posted Wednesday, May 8, 2013, at 8:45 AM
    Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters.

    When Amy Chua’s book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother came out in 2011, it sparked controversy among many people but especially psychologists and experts in child development. The book, they felt, had lodged in the culture certain stereotypes about an Asian parenting style that was not well-studied or well-understood and certainly not ready to be held up as some kind of model.

    Chua’s book was a somewhat tongue-in-cheek memoir of her experiences raising her two daughters with her (non-Asian) husband, which involved hours of forced music practice every day, severe restrictions on extracurriculars, outright bans on social activities like sleepovers, and punishment and shaming on the rare occasions her children failed to attain their mother’s high expectations. Chua eased off as her kids grew older, and she admitted that she might have been wrong in some instances. (Mainstream media coverage portrayals were somewhat less nuanced). Nonetheless, the story of a Yale-professor mother who had pushed her child until she landed at Carnegie Hall seemed to confirm that Asian-American parents are tough, demanding—and they consistently produce ****zes.

    When Chua’s book first hit the transom, Su Yeong Kim thought, “Oh my God! I actually have data for this!” An associate professor of human development and family sciences at the University of Texas, Kim had been following more than 300 Asian-American families for a decade when the book came out. In March, she published her results; they will no doubt surprise Chua and her admirers. Children of parents whom Kim classified as “tiger” had lower academic achievement and attainment—and greater psychological maladjustment—and family alienation, than the kids of parents characterized as “supportive” or "easygoing.”

    For Kim’s study, parents and children answered questions during the children’s adolescence about their parenting styles. The vast majority of parents were foreign-born in Hong Kong or southern China, with relatively low educational attainment and a median income of between $30,001 and $45,000 in each of the study’s three phases, spaced out equally over eight years. Three-quarters of their kids were American-born. The study controlled for socioeconomic status and other potentially confounding factors.*

    Kim wanted to look at a particular paradox that had emerged in the academic literature regarding Asian-American parents. When she began, of course, the term “tiger parent” didn’t exist, but scholars had the same impression as average Americans, that “Asian-American parents are more controlling, yet their children are also doing very well academically,” Kim recounts. This was somewhat of a mystery because it contradicted the experience of European-American children; overly strict and unresponsive white parents typically produce messed-up losers.

    Since the 1960s, academics have separated parenting styles into three categories, or “profiles”: permissive, authoritative, and authoritarian. Authoritative parenting—a combination of high responsiveness with the exercise of power that’s open to negotiation—has been found (in white families) to produce higher-achieving children with fewer symptoms of depression. Authoritarian parenting combines coercion with less responsiveness, and leads to higher depressive symptoms and lower self-esteem. Permissive parenting is characterized by high warmth and low control and demandingness. (Negligent parenting, added in the 1980s, is both cold and undemanding.)



    Kim did not feel that any of these descriptions quite matched what she had experienced growing up. “Whenever scholars compare European-American and Asian-American families,” she said, parents among the latter “almost always score higher on controlling and lower on warmth, which means they’re more likely to be classified as authoritarian.” Yet, their kids were outperforming whites in school. This gave rise to the “achievement/adjustment paradox”: kids doing well by external measures while feeling torn apart inside.

    Kim decided that for her study, she would both parse further the different dimensions of the Eurocentric profiles and create new ones that better fit the styles of the East Asian families. The responsiveness that’s considered an aspect of “authoritative” parenting, for example, was broadened to include both positive and negative attributes: warmth and hostility. Control, she would write, has “multiple facets … positive control is measured by parental monitoring and democratic parenting; negative control is measured by psychological control and punitive parenting.” Kim also added inductive reasoning, which is a measure of effective communication, and shaming, which had been established in the literature as a significant aspect in the rearing of Chinese-origin kids.

    Adolescents and parents rated the parents on several qualities, for example, “act loving, affectionate, and caring,” “listen carefully,” and “act supportive and understanding.” Warmth, reasoning, monitoring, and democratic parenting were considered positive attributes, while hostility, psychological control, shaming, and punitive measures were considered negative. These characterizations would be combined through a statistical method known as latent profile analysis to determine Kim’s four parenting profiles: Those scoring highest on the positive dimensions were labeled “supportive;” those scoring low on both dimensions were deemed “easygoing;” “harsh” parents were high on negative attributes and low on positive ones, and “tiger” parents scored high on both positive and negative dimensions.

    Despite the popular image of Chinese-American parenting that Chua’s book bolstered, fewer “tiger” parents emerged from Kim’s analysis than did “supportive” parents. “Easygoing” were similar in number as “tigers,” and the fewest parents were deemed “harsh.”

    Kim also measured the outcomes for each of her categories. Supportive parents had the best developmental outcomes, as measured by academic achievement, educational attainment, family obligation (considered positive outcomes), academic pressure, depressive symptoms, and parent-child alienation (considered negative).Academic achievement and attainment were purely data-driven, while the latter four came from different assessments developed by academics over the years (the academic pressure rating is Kim’s own), which, while considered reliable, are inherently somewhat subjective. Children of easygoing parents were second in outcomes, while tiger moms produced kids who felt more alienated from their parents and experienced higher instances of depressive symptoms. They also had lower GPAs, despite feeling more academic pressure.

    In the end, then, Kim finds that Chinese immigrant moms and dads are not that different from American parents with European ancestry: three of Kim’s types correspond to the parenting styles in the prior literature derived from studies of whites (supportive/authoritative, easygoing/permissive, harsh/authoritarian). What’s different is the emergence of the “tiger” profile. Since “tigers” in Kim’s study scored highly on the shaming practice believed more common among Asian-Americans, it seems that, pre-Chua at least, tiger parenting would be less common among whites. (The moms rated themselves more highly on shaming than even their kids, suggesting tiger moms—like Chua, who recounted such instances in her best-seller—feel no shame in their shaming)

    And although Chua presented her own children as Exhibit A of why her parenting style works, Kim said, “Our data shows Tiger parenting produces the opposite effect. Not just the general public but Asian-American parents have adopted this idea that if I'm a tiger parent, my kids will be ****zes like Chua’s kids. Unfortunately, tiger children’s GPA’s and depressive symptoms are similar to those whose parents who are very harsh.

    “Tiger parenting doesn't produce superior outcomes in kids.”

    Correction, May 10, 2013: This article originally and mistakenly stated that the study controlled for sibling order.
    Gene Ching
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  12. #57
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    Gee, who knew that a malformed sense of idealism wouldn't work?
    lol.

    ah well. It's easy to rile the people up and make them think a terrible idea is a great idea!

    I present History as my source.
    Kung Fu is good for you.

  13. #58
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    amusing huffington post

    Jie-Song Zhang
    Tiger Mom vs. Brooklyn Dragon: I Hereby Challenge Amy Chua to a Barefist Kung Fu Duel
    Posted: 01/21/2014 1:26 pm


    Amy Chua

    Amy Chua, I offer these words as a declaration of kung fu challenge -- an invitation to engage in a stern dialogue of fists such that we can measure, publicly and for the world to know, who between the two of us has the bigger, longer Chinese-ness. I'm talkin' me and you and the most Chinesest challenge imaginable. I'm talkin' I wanted to send you this invitation written in calligraphy on a small rolled up scroll, delivered by a pigeon -- but my pigeon has a drinking problem and was too hungover to fly. I'm talkin' I wanted to send shirtless kung fu henchmen to your house to silently but dramatically mouth these words in Mandarin while a poorly synced English translation plays on a tape recorder. That's the level of Chinese-ness I'm talking about.

    Tell me how you want it, Chua. We could match fists across the rooftops of a small rural village, the shadow outlines of our battle poses stitched across the cold black fabric of night. We could flying swordfight ballet upon the tops of tallest trees, barefoot or wearing Li-Ning sneakers. We could get down in Chinatown at the corner of Mott and Bayard, with a gathered crowd of elderly Chinese men, all of them squatting and smoking cigarettes as they watch us. Whatever you want to do. We could trade stances and glances in an ancient temple, awash in a thousand beads of candlelight, encircled by bare-headed monks thumbing their beads and chanting. We could shadow-box in the middle of the Stuyversant High School cafeteria, amid a room full of Chinese kids taking the SATs and scoring perfect on the Math sections. We could get real, real Chinese with it.

    I'm talkin' the most Chinese Mahjong Fukien showdown. Ever.

    *

    See, Amy, you're not the only person who can make a circus of our culture and caricatures of our people for the sake of grabbing a little public attention. It's naïve to blame you, really, being that much of modern society is driven by a "be seen at all costs" mentality -- at all costs, disregarding all potential consequences, and effortlessly detached of morality -- and you are certainly not the only one whose bank account feeds from leveraging the public's fear and ignorance. But, I am curious if you have ever found a moment, undressed of your "Tiger Mom, celebrity author" costume and all of the salesmanship it entails, to sit in your natural skin as an Asian-American, and as a mother, to properly measure how the thoughts you spread might affect our community, and in particular our youth -- those young people of shiny black eyes and straight black hair who look like you and me, many of them growing up exactly as you and I had to grow up, isolated from other Asians and left to fend for themselves in that psychological warfare of the modern American childhood, with its teasing, its bullying, its acts of merciless dehumanization.

    Have you ever maturely measured such things?

    1) Your personal success, popularity, and financial gain from Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom are paid for by an increased threat of psychological and even physical violence for Asian youth, everywhere throughout America.

    Across today's America, you will find a thousand, thousand young Asian people who are engaged in violent struggle to accept themselves -- to find belonging in the image of their own faces and in the customs of their own families -- because they are Asian in America. Because they are mocked and insulted for the way their eyes look, for their "complicated" last names, for the traditional Asian food they bring to school lunch, for the way their parents speak with an accent and behave so differently from "normal American parents." This is an immeasurably large number of fragile and developing psyches -- young children and teens, exquisitely innocent and beautiful -- looking upon America from behind eyes that look like yours and mine, and confronted by the impossibly difficult task of finding self-worth amid a social reality that tends to repay their Asian identity with insult, mental and emotional aggression, pain. Thousands of us grow up quietly "wanting to be White," some even seeking surgical procedures to change our eyes, or our bone structure; so many of us so intensely willing to pawn the immense treasure of our cultural heritage for the comfort of "feeling normal and being accepted in America." Thousands of us grow up without the ability to be physically attracted to other Asians, or even to befriend and feel close to other Asians, a profound symptom of the severe discomfort that exists in our relationships with ourselves. And though we rarely discuss it, there are many instances where we hang out with or date Whites as a means of assimilation, to escape the awareness of feeling foreign; to validate our place in this country, by fleeing from our roots.

    Amy, these difficulties experienced by our community are a result of Asians being perceived and treated as alien -- as non-human -- by members of other American communities. If a person is addressed, relentlessly, as if he or she is less than human, then he or she will feel it, will believe it, after time.

    When you, as an Asian-American, make public a statement such as "Chinese mothers are superior," I understand that it is a strategic self-promotional needle intended to pierce at that acutely sensitive, easily agitated region of the American psyche that concerns itself with race, ethnicity, and nationality; and you do this to conjure public drama and give visibility, marketability to your book. This is clear; this is easy. But you should also realize that when you say, so publicly, such a thing as "Chinese mothers are superior," what members of other groups essentially hear is the arrogant declaration: "Chinese people are superior." Their intuitive reaction will then be to respond with a sentiment of "F-- Chinese people", which, in America, is ultimately "F-- Asian people." To re-fold what I am trying to say: your work contributes to anti-Asian sentiment and increases the alienation experienced by Asians across the United States. Such sentiments lead to retaliation against Asian people, exposing the more vulnerable members of our community to an increased threat of psychological and even physical violence. "Oh, your ***** family is so superior, isn't it? Well, what's your Tiger Mom gonna do when I beat your f-ing ass?" I'm sure you've known racism in the United States, Amy, and as such, I imagine you can hear with great clarity the realism of such a statement.
    continued next post
    Gene Ching
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  14. #59
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    continued from previous post

    2) Your new work¸ The Triple Package, attempts to assess the value of human communities based on income and test scores - this is shallow and simple-minded.

    The Black community began its history in the United States of America held by chains. They have since marched through generation after generation of inequality, brutality, systematic dehumanization... and across the distance of this advancing struggle, they have met each step with grace and pride intact. How does one rely on numbers to tell of such strength and radiance of heart? And this is to say nothing of the cultural innovations of Black America -- in the arts, in language, in urban culture, in freedom of expression -- which have profoundly altered the design of the entire human culture. I have personally absorbed from my interaction with the Black community profound lessons on standing tall and with furious dignity against the winter wind of racism. My relationship with Black America has trained me in unique and liberating techniques of self-expression and celebration. I am a more quality human being for having been influenced and shaped in America by Blacks, but also Latinos, Muslims, Jews -- many other groups -- and none of the things I have gained from my immersion in these communities could ever be conveyed with a no. 2 pencil across a multiple choice answer sheet.

    Conversely, concealed beneath a glamorous cover page that speaks of our prolific spending power and professional achievement, is the reality that a great number of Asian-Americans cannot even look each other in the eyes when we pass one another on the street. I speak of Asian faces struggling to look upon other Asian faces, because we do not know how to confront the discomfort we experience as a people, so we instead look away from who we are. This is a trauma that no Harvard degree or executive title at a Fortune 500 company, no minty new Lexus or penthouse condo, can heal.

    3) Your two latest books drive a feeling of distance and opposition between communities, endangering the American future.

    America, with an effort that is arguably more dedicated and advanced than any other nation, has labored throughout its history to confront the most ancient ignorance: the one that deceives human beings of differing skin tones, belief systems, and ancestral backgrounds into feeling as though they share nothing in common with one another. The greatest of all American innovations could one day be the birthing of a society in which all varieties of people are able to identify in one another the shared, binding experience that defines us as human beings. But while many strive today to cleanse our nation of pre-modern biases and ignorance, work such as Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom and The Triple Package add more pollutants to our social eco-system, strengthening the perception of difference, distance, and opposition between our communities.

    We are walking now through a climactic passage in American history where the long held and previously unquestioned understanding of America as a definitively White and Christian nation is being forcefully challenged by an increased diversity both in the American distribution of power and in the voices that carry the American conversation. This ever-strengthening challenge to the American identity has created a feverish and still escalating tug-of-war for the soul of the United States, pitting those who push towards a more diverse and tolerant America against those unwilling to surrender yesterday's status quo. Indeed, America's social climate trembles with oncoming storm. The projecting image that we see of America's arriving future tells of a continued and intensifying economic hardship, as well a widening fissure dividing rich and poor. Such periods of economic suffering are generally accompanied by a growing tension between different ethnic and cultural groups, often leading to violent and destructive activity. Now, is a time of true vulnerability and fertility in the story of the United States -- a moment like those chilling, surreal ones we encounter in the defining experiences of our individual lives, marked by the presence of both real danger and grand opportunity. Now, is a time when the spreading of thoughts that antagonize and divide our communities is most dangerous; a time when gestures that might unite our communities, are most necessary.

    *

    A truly Chinese principle, one inherited from ancient ancestors, is the awareness that all the independent movements of life ultimately abide by the motion of one unified, greater destiny. The ancient Chinese recognized that the value of the individual part is expressed in its relationship and interaction with other parts in achieving the harmony of a greater whole. So too are the people -- White, Black, Asian, Latino, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc. -- of the United States of America bound to a shared path, one that is ultimately tethered to the greater destiny of humankind and the earth. We have arrived in an epoch of history where the state of interdependence and shared consequence between humans is widely visible, provable, and (most importantly) teachable -- and America, this cradle that nurses a thousand ancestries, is a fitting place to develop and broadcast such thoughts that would make all of us more aware of our being inseparably bound to one another. In this way, our nation, and the world, might come to intuitively understand that it can only be in the recognition of our great common cause, in the joining together of our individual strengths, and in the sharing of our collective responsibilities that we will pass through honorably to the next stage of humankind.
    Brings this thread back on topic for our Kung Fu forum here.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  15. #60
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    To re-fold what I am trying to say: your work contributes to anti-Asian sentiment and increases the alienation experienced by Asians across the United States. Such sentiments lead to retaliation against Asian people, exposing the more vulnerable members of our community to an increased threat of psychological and even physical violence.
    That's why we have kung fu.

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