Today I read in world news on the ultimate
Tiger mother, tough love in a league of it’s own. What the article went on to
describe was a chinese woman who
explained to her own daughter that her real mother was dead and that she was
actually adopted: to prevent the child from being spoilt and needy. The harsh
strategy involved the woman telling her 10 year old daughter that “I’m not your
real mother; she died a long time ago”, she went onto explain that “I’m just
providing your education up until you finish your university”. What resulted is
perhaps predictable: the girl was baffled but the mother seized by fierce
parental ambition, held on strong and convinced her daughter that her adoption
is genuine. What resulted was an unintentional social psychology experiment
unfold. It’s reported that the revelation resulted in an epiphany within Cheng
Cheng to becoming an independent and hardworking individual. Within the next 13
years of her life, she opted to go to boarding school and went onto win
scholarships to Dalian Jiaotong University and upon graduation she not only
secured a job but also a husband. So
upon this point where I suppose one has ticked off all the boxes that they are
suppose to in Chinese culture to be deemed ‘successful’ or followed the path
that one is suppose to in this competitive culture, her mother decided to
reveal this deceit “ I told you that you weren’t my real daughter back then to
encourage you to study”. “It was to get
you to drop your bad habits… and eventually grow up to find a good job!”.
Now having been born into a Chinese family,
I understand, even if I’m a little white washed and spent most of my childhood
and adult life in a western society, I understand. Your parents and in
particular Chinese mothers are seen as tiger mothers that push their kids both
academically, musically and in any aspect that will increase their chances
of finding a good job and a good
husband/wife. Their methods seem extreme at times and it is there’s no denying
that. Many people from other societies do not understand this culture and I
don’t blame them, but we accept (or not) it because they are our parents and we
know that they do this because they love us. It’s a very hard thing to explain,
because there have been many points in my life where I have questioned what the
point of my existence was and I owed them my life.
It is here that we get to the core of it,
I’m 23 years old like Cheng Cheng, except my parents have always been my real
parents and they have been quite lenient for Asian standards. They bought me
alcohol at 16 and allowed me to go to parties with hundreds of other 16 year
olds drinking RTD’s and getting wasted off 3 drinks. I never had to go through the anguish of
believing that my real parents were dead, I’ve lived an incredibly comfortable
life and yet I lack all forms of motivation and ambition. Perhaps Cheng Cheng’s
mother was onto something, I have lived a life of luxury that has lead to
arrogance and dependency. I may be more emotionally stable (debatable) but I’m
definitely no better off, perhaps even in a worse position than Cheng Cheng in
terms of the materialistic aspects and a lack of love life (lets not even get
into that). No parent should ever put
their child through the ordeal as she has but is stability and comfort our downfall?
When did I stop trying? When did that
ambition within me die? From memory I recall that when it was just my mother
and I, and I felt that she needed to rely on me and that there was instability
within our household, I stepped up and out my own selfish needs in the
backburner. The lack of a father figure
meant I had to be her daughter and son, I had to do my role in the family
because it was just the two of us. When I realized as a child that couldn’t
rely on anyone else apart from my mother in a foreign country, I was more self
reliant and independent. When my father
came back into the picture and he took upon himself what he believed was his
responsibility to look after the family and we were more financially secure and
in a sense I felt more emotionally fulfilled, my ambition and drive gradually
left me. I became comfortable in my environment and increasingly dependent on
them rather than myself. I guess I eventually grew into what I am today, an
arrogant, dependent, 23 year old with no idea what to do with her life because
I was given one too many options and freedom that I’m like a indecisive brat at
MC Donalds. I blame others or drown myself in self pity, a ‘pity party’ if you
will, where other females of my age group come together to bitch about their
lack of love life and general self wallow that others can tolerate while
drinking copious amount of cheap wine as 90’s hip hop play in the background. I
don’t have a healthy relationship with myself or with my parents, instead of
being grateful for everything that they have done for me, I loath them for
having bought me into this world but I think that’s just a personal thing. My parents have even expressed that they were
too lenient on my upbringings and should of forced me to study like the other
Asian kids, required curfews and today perhaps I would be thanking them rather
than this resentment. I seem
ungrateful and perhaps I am, is it nurture or is it in my nature to be such a
selfish human being?
Now brings me to the crux of it all, having
had this revelation and too much coffee, how to proceed? As a good friend of
the most indecisive person and probably mine told me earlier today, look at
your options, choose one and go for it. Perhaps that’s all we need to do is to
get over that barrier where you’re scared and I know it’s hard, I’ve been
avoiding it for the last 5 years now, prolonging my stay in my mind. It’s
easier this way, if I don’t try and put myself out there I won’t have to deal
with failure and that’s probably the most frightening aspect even worse than
death. I can’t really fathom the idea of
surviving in the real world, I’ve been living in a bubble for so long but I’m
going to give it my best shot.
Short term:
- § Finish my degree
- § Graduate
- § Find a job
