Thread: Most Circulated Article in WSJ History

Good parenting starts with infanticide, I guess.

Good link, DOMS.

Let me know if my write-up is shit.

This is so true. Being married to a chinese broad and having lived there for a short time, I know a helluva lot of families like this. Most all of those kids are incredible students, but they have next to zero personality and are extremely introverted. They're bgasically rasing little robots who will make great technicians and researchers, but aren't likely to become future business leaders.

Originally Posted by GearsMcGilf

This is so true. Being married to a chinese broad and having lived there for a short time, I know a helluva lot of families like this. Most all of those kids are incredible students, but they have next to zero personality and are extremely introverted. They're bgasically rasing little robots who will make great technicians and researchers, but aren't likely to become future business leaders.

or inventors for that matter

^The latest TIME Magazine cover article is on this story/book and talks about this "flipside." So much so that the Chinese government is now putting a lot of money to try to encourage more "Western thinking" in some schools.

Lots of responses to the article.

I posted it on another forum (non-bbing) and I also posted David Brook's response.

The mother is overboard, IMO. Balance is what is needed.

But also....the authoer (the Chinese mommy)....just happens.....to have her book released in a couple of months.....

Hmm......

So, this is an interesting topic...but also opportunistic.

And as for the Chinese and that piano tune....Americans better wake the f*ck up!!!

Hate to ask a second time but I'm curious as to what people thought of my write up. If it sucks, let me know. If it's decent, let me know. I'm trying to better my writing skills, specifically from a comedy angle, and would like some feedback.

Oh, and fuck Oprah.

Originally Posted by soxmuscle

Hate to ask a second time but I'm curious as to what people thought of my write up. If it sucks, let me know. If it's decent, let me know. I'm trying to better my writing skills, specifically from a comedy angle, and would like some feedback.

Oh, and fuck Oprah.

It was pretty good for the most part. But, WTF was the part about the guy trying to wedge a meatball up his arse during an interview? I'da left that part out. It didn't make much sense. Also, what's with the name Julian? No reference to either anywhere in your write-up. They were just mentioned out of nowhere. Anyhoo, Aren't there other forums for swapping material like that?

Originally Posted by GearsMcGilf

It was pretty good for the most part. But, WTF was the part about the guy trying to wedge a meatball up his arse during an interview? I'da left that part out. It didn't make much sense. Also, what's with the name Julian? No reference to either anywhere in your write-up. They were just mentioned out of nowhere. Anyhoo, Aren't there other forums for swapping material like that?

I was writing this for my high school friends. Matt, meatball up ass kid, is a friend of mine.

Julian is a reference to Big Daddy.. the scene where Sandler lets the kid make his own decisions. I don't know why that came to my head while writing.

Thanks, man.

I don't know of any forums like that. I do know that I respect the peoples heres opinions (most) though.

Originally Posted by soxmuscle

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior - WSJ.com

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior is the headline.

It's a gross overstatement and an idea that is incredibly simplistic but that's what garners peoples interest these days, clearly, so I'll bite.

Every Monday in high school, I'd ask this Asian classmate of mine in my advisory/home room how his weekend went and what he did:

"Friday, I drove home from school at a pace well below the speed limit while getting honked at in the left lane. The second I got home, I opened up my backpack and did my homework, then ate Sushi for dinner, and then read the textbook until I fell asleep."

Typically, my mind would wander before his Saturday run down began because I would be laughing to myself at just how different my weekend was in comparison to his:

"Friday," I'd say to myself in my head. "I drove home from school at a pace well over the speed limit while honking at bad drivers who don't know that the left lane is for passing. The second I got home, I threw my backpack in a corner not to be seen until Sunday night after football. Then I went over to Sam's house and beer-bonged beers with my friends. Then we all stumbled to the grocery store and tried to use Guthrie's account to buy sandwiches. Then we walked back to Sam's and saw Matt passed out on the public bench. Then we woke him up and he tried to poop in a propel bottle. Then this girl drove us around. Then we drank more. Then..."

You get my exaggerated point. If I could do it all over again, knowing how easy school is and how much it means to your success as an individual later in life, I wish my parents had forced perfect grades upon me to maximize my potential instead of settling for B's. However, if it were to come at the expense of being socially inept, I'm fortunate to have grown up in the family I grew up in.

The author of this article, Amy Chua, is trying to mold her children to her perspective of the world and as far as I'm concerned, that's ridiculous. Guiding your children so they're aspiring to be the best in the classroom is commendable. Forcing your kids to play an instrument because that's what you think is best is... well, that's pretty much Fred Phelps esque.

After homework was done, my Dad would instill the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics and Bruins upon my brothers and I, with some softcore Cinemax porn after my Mom went to sleep, while my Mom would force the piano and violin upon us with a trip to the Zoo as the ultimate prize. Needless to say, we weren't frequenting Lincoln Park regularly.

To Amy Chua, my westernized parents were horrible but who the hell is she to say? Why are sports and other recreational fields that my brothers and I enjoyed considered bad, and playing the Cello is good?

I understand forcing your kid to get his/her homework done but let your kids do what they want in their free time (do you even like that name Julian?). I don't know how my former advisory classmate is doing, and he could be in the process of taking over the world for all I know... however, seeing his face after I'd tell him about my weekend was enough to know that while he may have seemed content on the outside, that wasn't how he felt on the inside.

The interview process, for instance, would have been fine without having seen Matt try to wedge a meatball up his ass but there are life lessons that I learned because of how I was brought up that my old friend will have missed out on and it's unfortunate.

It's a good start but you're bouncing around audiences and it's confusing, even if it's written for your friends you posted it here, so putting a little back story in would clear up the confusing elements for our sake...

As for the story, I had to learn to balance success in the classroom with socializing. Luckily I was a self motivated kid who wanted to make honor roll and have good grades so that people would be like, "How the hell does he goof off so much and still make good grades? I like to be an enigma, thats why I still party like I do and manage to function like a Chinese mathlete. It's just who I pressured myself to become and thats all thanks to my father giving me free will, I was the one who chose to take up guitar(would have been nice if he had been supportive and urged me to take lessons), I was the one who chose to read lke a maniac when I wasn't out gallivanting with my friends, I had no real mother but lucky for me my fathers insatiable quest for knowledge rubbed off on me, he didn't read too much, but he was always watching Nova or one of those shows. He was a jack of all trades, he my uncle and I built their lakehouse from scratch, all carpentry, electrical, roofing, plumbing we 3 did ourselves.

Here's a good example, my friend Christian had one of those yuppie moms who made him take violin lessons, go to church every wednesday and sunday, finish his homework before he went outside, take ritalin because he was too hyper(he wasn't the ritalin made him wacky). She was just a smothering bitch who made his life miserable. I would be on honor roll every semester and he would sometimes goof off too much in class and not make honor roll. The difference was I had all the free time after school to goof off and he didn't. Like you my homework waited until right before bed time or Sunday evening on the weekends, but it got done. Last I heard he had been kicked out of the Air Force for some car theft incident.... Oppression leads to rebellion or utter defeat, either way life is gonna suck for the oppressed....

Here's a common example I run across of a Chinese guy who is a math/sci expert but can't even communicate clearly...sure theres a little bit of a language issue but come-on try to at least try to improve how you express yourself in written form instead of living your life in the logic portion of your brain....

"In the bypass is employed, the schottky barrier rectifier can give play to the advantage of low forward voltage drop, and less than ordinary P-N forms the power dissipation of the rectifier. However, these kind of device has a shortcoming of low reverse voltage spike, it is very much easy because of ESD (electrostatic discharge) Electric over stress(EOS) And the induced upper voltage is damaged. Fig. 1 is expicity, the nonserviceable test result after a Schottky rectifier exerts the upper voltage 8/20 s pulse under 250V voltage. Fig. 1, the Schottky rectifier is in 250V voltage and a 8/20 s pulse (2 – thread is hindered) Fail under the situation."