Parliament is in Session part 2 of 2

The next ten minutes are a bit of a blur. Thanks to the guy showing us to the market, we were guided to a boat tour company and we ended up on a big wooden boat for a one-hour river tour –a privilege for which we paid US$30.

Per person.

That would be US$120 for my family of four.

For a one hour boat ride.

Ten minutes into the river tour, I turned to my brother-in-law. “How much did we just pay for this one-hour boat ride?”

“Seems a little high, doesn’t it?”

“Just a touch.”

I was starting to get the feeling that we had just been hustled.

And how.

We found out later that the Royal Palace has been a tourist site for the last two decades. The Thai government built themselves a new administrative complex on the other side of town over twenty years ago. The last time they had a parliamentary meetings at the Royal Palace, George W. Bush was still the owner of the Texas Ranger.

Parliament is in Session part 1 of 2

I mean, come on -he was wearing an official looking outfit. He had on a polyester short sleeve button-up shirt with matching khaki dress pants. His shirt had little official-looking epaulets on the shoulders. He was wearing a nametag for pete’s sake.

But our radar should have gone off. It was straight out of page 173 of the Lonely Planet guide book.

It was our first full day in Bangkok. We were traveling with Julie’s sister and her family and we had got off to a leisurely start that morning. It was already 11:30 by the time our tuk-tuks had dropped us off in front of the Grand Palace. As we approached the entrance, Mr. Epaulets greeted us. He spoke perfect English and was very friendly.

“Oh, the Royal Palace is just now closing for a Parliamentary session. They won’t be done until after the lunch hour. Why don’t you go to the market across the street, shop, and come back?” He was cordially walking us down the sidewalk toward the market.

Oh my. What unfortunate timing on our part. What are the chances that we would show up right when they were closing for a Parliamentary meeting. Sounds important.

By this time, we were 40 meters down the sidewalk. Mr. Epaulets approached another man on the sidewalk and said that this guy would walk us across the street and show us to the market.

Man, lucky for us we got Mr. Epaulets looking out for us. Bangkok sure has the world's friendliest and most helpful government employees.

As he handed us over to his colleague, we thanked Epaulet-man. My brother-in-law gave him a start when he tried to give him a close-fisted knuckle tap. After we explained that it was an American alternative to the high-five, he good-natured laughed and explained that for a second there he thought my brother-in-law going to punch him. We all laughed. Ah, our first new friend in Bangkok. What a great little cross-cultural moment.

After knuckle taps all around, we followed his buddy into the market.

Ready or Not, Thailand, Here We Come

time for some more Fractured English

Bowling at the Belair Lanes

Everyone, Please Remain Stationery

In The States, stationery generally refers to writing paper. If you are using the term broadly you might include cards, notes, pens, pencils, and calligraphy brushes.

But in Hong Kong, my students use the term even more broadly. Stationery not only refers to pens and paper, but it applies to all kinds of items you might keep on your desk such as scissors, whole punch, and tape dispenser; which recently gave rise to the following sentence from one of my student’s short stories. (You’ve got to love the teacher’s name.)

“Ms. Gibberish loved all the stationery on her desk, but the bit of stationery she was most fond of was her stapler.” (Mayhem ensues when a student borrows -and then breaks- the stapler in question without first asking permission.)

In The States, if you needed to buy a supply of three-ring binders or an electric paper shredder, you would say that you were going to an office supply store. Here in Hong Kong, you go to the stationery store. And trust me, it’s not going to look anything like an Office Max. It’s probably going to be a mom-and-pop shop that opens up directly onto the sidewalk. But it will be stacked from floor to ceiling with all sorts of stationery.

About half of which will be Hello Kitty brand.

-Jack

Last week’s Hong Kong-ism was “shroff.” The word originated from India. In the last century when the majority of British Hong Kong's police force was Indian, a shroff was the Police Court Official to whom money was paid. Today, in a parking lot, the "shroff office" is where you pay your parking toll. By extenstion, the word shroff in Hong Kong is coming to mean parking lot.

"Shroff" is one of those odd reminders of Hong Kong's complex, colonial heritage.

And the Verdict is . . .

Mid-December was contract renewal time around here. The school offered Julie and me additional two-year contracts to stay on at ICS. But after careful consider-ation, we turned them down.

We will returning to Chicago this summer.

We absolutely love the school at which we work and the girls attend, and Hong Kong is a really fun, safe, and livable city; but, alas, we have obligations that draw us back to life in the suburbs of Chicago.

Since making our decision, I have already been hit with bouts of sadness at the thought of leaving Hong Kong.

Doritos, Really?

Hong Kong has a way of putting its own twist on Western dishes. For example, some -not all- pizzas come with thousnad island dressing instead of tomato sauce.

And more often than not, when you order nachos in Hong Kong, your melted cheese, olives, diced tomatoes, sliced jalepeno peppers, and sour cream are going to come served on a pile of Frito Lay Doritos. It was a little weird at first, but I have got to be honest, I've kind of developed taste for it.

Now if I could just get restaurants to stop serving my hamburger with a slice of cucumber on it.

-Jack

Why Asian Mothers are Superior –an excerpt

The following story was takenfrom the Wallstreet Journal editorial “Why Asian Mothers are Superior” by Amy Chua, law professor Yale University. There has been a tremendous backlash against the column including death threats against the author.

Here's a story in favor of coercion, Chinese-style. My daughter Lulu was about 7, still playing two instruments, and working on a piano piece called "The Little White Donkey" by the French composer Jacques Ibert. The piece is really cute—you can just imagine a little donkey ambling along a country road with its master—but it's also incredibly difficult for young players because the two hands have to keep schizophrenically different rhythms.

Lulu couldn't do it. We worked on it nonstop for a week, drilling each of her hands separately, over and over. But whenever we tried putting the hands together, one always morphed into the other, and everything fell apart. Finally, the day before her lesson, Lulu announced in exasperation that she was giving up and stomped off.

"Get back to the piano now," I ordered.

"You can't make me."

"Oh yes, I can."

Back at the piano, Lulu made me pay. She punched, thrashed and kicked. She grabbed the music score and tore it to shreds. I taped the score back together and encased it in a plastic shield so that it could never be destroyed again. Then I hauled Lulu's dollhouse to the car and told her I'd donate it to the Salvation Army piece by piece if she didn't have "The Little White Donkey" perfect by the next day. When Lulu said, "I thought you were going to the Salvation Army, why are you still here?" I threatened her with no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years. When she still kept playing it wrong, I told her she was purposely working herself into a frenzy because she was secretly afraid she couldn't do it. I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic.

Jed took me aside. He told me to stop insulting Lulu—which I wasn't even doing, I was just motivating her—and that he didn't think threatening Lulu was helpful. Also, he said, maybe Lulu really just couldn't do the technique—perhaps she didn't have the coordination yet—had I considered that possibility?

"You just don't believe in her," I accused.

"That's ridiculous," Jed said scornfully. "Of course I do."

"Sophia could play the piece when she was this age."

"But Lulu and Sophia are different people," Jed pointed out.

"Oh no, not this," I said, rolling my eyes. "Everyone is special in their special own way," I mimicked sarcastically. "Even losers are special in their own special way. Well don't worry, you don't have to lift a finger. I'm willing to put in as long as it takes, and I'm happy to be the one hated. And you can be the one they adore because you make them pancakes and take them to Yankees games."

I rolled up my sleeves and went back to Lulu. I used every weapon and tactic I could think of. We worked right through dinner into the night, and I wouldn't let Lulu get up, not for water, not even to go to the bathroom. The house became a war zone, and I lost my voice yelling, but still there seemed to be only negative progress, and even I began to have doubts.

Then, out of the blue, Lulu did it. Her hands suddenly came together—her right and left hands each doing their own imperturbable thing—just like that.

Lulu realized it the same time I did. I held my breath. She tried it tentatively again. Then she played it more confidently and faster, and still the rhythm held. A moment later, she was beaming.

"Mommy, look—it's easy!" After that, she wanted to play the piece over and over and wouldn't leave the piano. That night, she came to sleep in my bed, and we snuggled and hugged, cracking each other up. When she performed "The Little White Donkey" at a recital a few weeks later, parents came up to me and said, "What a perfect piece for Lulu—it's so spunky and so her."

Even Jed gave me credit for that one. Western parents worry a lot about their children's self-esteem. But as a parent, one of the worst things you can do for your child's self-esteem is to let them give up. On the flip side, there's nothing better for building confidence than learning you can do something you thought you couldn't.

Why Asian Mothers are Superior

The other day Annika and her fellow ninth graders got a quiz handed back in their Modern Euro class. The boy next to her flipped his quiz face-down and mumbled “I failed.” Knowing that this boy was a smartacle, Annika asked him “Did you for-real fail or did you Asian fail?” The boy sheepishly answered “Asian-fail” and he lifted up the corner of his quiz to reveal a “B.”

The following editorial column appeared in last Saturday’s Wall Street Journal. While Mrs. Chua may be a bit extreme, there definitely are difference between Asian and Western mothering styles. As you can imagine, this article caused quite a stir on both sides of The Pond –including here in Hong Kong. It has stimulated quite the lively discussion in the teacher’s lounge for several days in a row. In fact, our pastor actually made reference to it from the pulpit this morning.

Mrs. Chua is so over the top –even by Chinese standards- that some have speculated that her editorial column is meant to be taken tongue in check. I’ll leave that for you to decide. Following is a trimmed down version of her column.

“Why Asian Mothers are Superior” by Amy Chua, law professor Yale University

A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it's like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I've done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

• attend a sleepover
• have a playdate
• be in a school play
• complain about not being in a school play
• watch TV or play computer games
• choose their own extracurricular activities
• get any grade less than an A
• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• not play the piano or violin.

I'm using the term "Chinese mother" loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too. Conversely, I know some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers, by choice or otherwise. I'm also using the term "Western parents" loosely. Western parents come in all varieties.

All the same, even when Western parents think they're being strict, they usually don't come close to being Chinese mothers. For example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practice their instruments 30 minutes every day. An hour at most. For a Chinese mother, the first hour is the easy part. It's hours two and three that get tough.

What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child will resist; things are always hardest at the beginning, which is where Western parents tend to give up. But if done properly, the Chinese strategy produces a virtuous circle. Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America. Once a child starts to excel at something—whether it's math, piano, pitching or ballet—he or she gets praise, admiration and satisfaction. This builds confidence and makes the once not-fun activity fun. This in turn makes it easier for the parent to get the child to work even more.

Chinese parents can get away with things that Western parents can't. Once when I was young—maybe more than once—when I was extremely disrespectful to my mother, my father angrily called me "garbage" in our native Hokkien dialect. It worked really well. I felt terrible and deeply ashamed of what I had done. But it didn't damage my self-esteem or anything like that. I knew exactly how highly he thought of me. I didn't actually think I was worthless or feel like a piece of garbage.

As an adult, I once did the same thing to Sophia, calling her garbage in English when she acted extremely disrespectfully toward me. When I mentioned that I had done this at a dinner party, I was immediately ostracized. One guest named Marcy got so upset she broke down in tears and had to leave early. My friend Susan, the host, tried to rehabilitate me with the remaining guests.

The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable—even legally actionable—to Westerners. Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, "Hey fatty—lose some weight." By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue, talking in terms of "health" and never ever mentioning the f-word, and their kids still end up in therapy for eating disorders and negative self-image.

I think there are several big differences between the Chinese and Western parental mind-sets.

First, I've noticed that Western parents are extremely anxious about their children's self-esteem. They worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children's psyches. Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.

For example, if a child comes home with an A-minus on a test, a Western parent will most likely praise the child. The Chinese mother will gasp in horror and ask what went wrong. If the child comes home with a B on the test, some Western parents will still praise the child. Other Western parents will sit their child down and express disapproval, but they will be careful not to make their child feel inadequate or insecure, and they will not call their child "stupid," "worthless" or "a disgrace." Privately, the Western parents may worry that their child does not test well or have aptitude in the subject or that there is something wrong with the curriculum and possibly the whole school. If the child's grades do not improve, they may eventually schedule a meeting with the school principal to challenge the way the subject is being taught or to call into question the teacher's credentials.

If a Chinese child gets a B—which would never happen—there would first be a screaming, hair-tearing explosion. The devastated Chinese mother would then get dozens, maybe hundreds of practice tests and work through them with her child for as long as it takes to get the grade up to an A.

Chinese parents demand perfect grades because they believe that their child can get them. If their child doesn't get them, the Chinese parent assumes it's because the child didn't work hard enough. That's why the solution to substandard performance is always to excoriate, punish and shame the child. The Chinese parent believes that their child will be strong enough to take the shaming and to improve from it. (And when Chinese kids do excel, there is plenty of ego-inflating parental praise lavished in the privacy of the home.)

Also, Chinese parents believe that they know what is best for their children and therefore override all of their children's own desires and preferences. That's why Chinese daughters can't have boyfriends in high school and why Chinese kids can't go to sleepaway camp. It's also why no Chinese kid would ever dare say to their mother, "I got a part in the school play! I'm Villager Number Six. I'll have to stay after school for rehearsal every day from 3:00 to 7:00, and I'll also need a ride on weekends."

There are all these new books out there portraying Asian mothers as scheming, callous, overdriven people indifferent to their kids' true interests. For their part, many Chinese secretly believe that they care more about their children and are willing to sacrifice much more for them than Westerners, who seem perfectly content to let their children turn out badly. I think it's a misunderstanding on both sides. All decent parents want to do what's best for their children. The Chinese just have a totally different idea of how to do that.

Western parents try to respect their children's individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they're capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits and inner confidence that no one can ever take away.

Hero Dress-up Day at School

Me as Ironman. Yup, dressing up like this is part of my job description.

It's in my contract. The things I do for a paycheck.