Book - Future Minds

Recently I read a book with something interesting to say called "Future Minds" by Richard Watson. By the way, I intend to start sharing what I learnt from books I read on NYHK. And being in Linda Chandler's CV book club, I am committed to reading a book a month based on her recommendation.

Future Minds made the point that the prevailing cognitive environment in the world today will have an impact on how the human functions - and it is not all good news. Fundamentally, the starting point is that as our lifestyles become more and more wired, everyone growing up in the world today, including - nay - especially, kids are feeding information more and more off a screen of some sort. And the trend is headed upwards.

This is leading to long term transformation in our ability to think and process information. Changes are literally taking place in the neural pathways of our brains. One major feature of such a change is that we are used to taking in vast amounts of information, often simultaneously, from our environment but often in an indiscriminate manner. Our minds are being attenuated to living in the white-noise of constant bombardment of information.

This level of information creates a new (simulated, controlled and manufactured?) sense of reality and sense of connection with the world. In many ways, this kind of interaction may eventually be preferred to "messy" real world connection with people. You might already know people who fit this profile - well, there will be more of them.

If in the past, information is power; in this world media, marketeers and technology platforms know that "attention is power". So it is actually deliberate to create a level of dependency on constant access and connectivity. The author quoted marketeers whose holy grail is to create in their users this so-called "constant partial attention" - think about someone who thinks of their Facebook every few minutes and you get the idea. Studies are showing that constant 'shallow' form of connectivity and feed-of-updates from social networks and media create a constant craving stronger than marijuana.

Along with seeking instant gratification for instant replies, multi-tasking and need to be in-the-loop, is a constantly high level of mental anxiety that is being satiated with small doses of "attention". Like slipping into an interstate highway (and forgetting what you were doing there in the first place) humanity in the digital societies are being swept into an auto-piloted pseudo-life of constant busy-ness, machine-like interactions, distorted reality, shallow connections and - taken together, the author posited - ultimately a life that is less and less "human".

Science fiction writers often thought of machines who can think like humans and cater to human lives. However, this beggars the question - what is being human?

Even as computers advance in leaps and bounds as to be smarter than humans in many ways, they function at the mental level. What is uniquely human (for now) are the capacity for deep thought, reflection and original ideas: the same faculties that humans are increasingly being distracted from or not practicing in the digital age. Of course, this does not even go as far as human capacity for feeling real emotions, inspiration, compassion and other higher levels of consciousness. All these, the digital humans are busy setting aside for a surface and digital existence.

At the same time, human challenges will not simply go away. Personal and societal issues will not go away by ignoring it or using a different setting. Managing frayed relationships between people and nations will not go away simply by pressing reset.

What I am getting from the book is that as humans interact more with computers in the digital era, it is far easier and comfortable for humans to develop the skills to adapt to the digital/computer than the other way round. The predictability and set patterns for interaction appeals to the human mind/ego, which is hardwired to crave for patterns, comfort zones and dislike uncertainty.

This development pattern will put a premium on anyone who can stand apart from it, because as computers and digital humans become less and less distinguishable from one another - as worker bees - human progress will depend more and more on those who are still really "human".

Triple Faced Treachery

Interesting account lifted from Singapore Straits Times Jan 21, 2011

Jan 21, 2011
Lai Teck - the traitor of all traitors
By Barry Wain, For The Straits Times

WHEN Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) boss Lai Teck failed to show for a special Central Committee meeting near Kuala Lumpur in early 1947, Chin Peng, a ranking colleague, suspected the worst. He thought Lai Teck had been picked up by the Special Branch.

Chin Peng headed for a house where Lai Teck - married with two children in Singapore - usually stayed with his Chinese mistress when he was in the area. She told him Lai Teck had been and gone.

Now worried that the Special Branch had kept the Central Committee gathering under surveillance, Chin Peng went underground for a week.

By the time he re-established contact with the party, concern had switched from the snooping British colonial police to focus on Lai Teck himself. The man who had served as secretary-general of the CPM for eight years - having been elected to the post at the outbreak of World War II - had disappeared.

Also missing were most of the party's considerable funds, consisting of gold ingots and sheets, 130,000 Straits dollars in cash and a stack of currency notes issued by the Japanese occupation administration during the war.

While the CPM established a three-man panel to investigate the affair, the senior communists recognised immediately the ugly truth:

Lai Teck, who had been re-elected secretary-general only a year earlier, months after the British had re-occupied Singapore and Malaya, was a traitor.

The stories circulating about Lai Teck having collaborated with the Japanese - which he had been summoned to address at the aborted Central Committee meeting - were true.

With no qualms, he had betrayed his comrades in spectacular fashion to the dreaded Kempeitai, the Japanese secret police, condemning dozens, if not hundreds, to certain death and temporarily crippling the clandestine communist movement - in particular its military wing, the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army, or MPAJA.

It was a year before the Central Committee received the panel's report, formally expelled Lai Teck from the party and disseminated the sordid details to party members.

Actually, what the Central Committee did not say, and apparently did not know, was even more damning. Lai Teck had not just collaborated with the Japanese. He was also a British plant who had infiltrated the CPM with the express purpose of destroying it.

He had opened the way for his leadership ambitions by passing on incriminating information to his Special Branch handlers in Singapore. That invariably led to the detention or death of party rivals.

Moreover, unknown to both the Japanese and the CPM, Lai Teck had earlier double-crossed the communist party in his native Vietnam and become an informer for the French colonial authorities there.

Covering his tracks expertly, the French intelligence agency in Indochina had then passed him along to its British counterpart, the Special Branch in Singapore, when he was no longer useful in Vietnam.

The French did such an effective job in spreading the false word that dedicated Vietnamese communists long believed Lai Teck had fled to Thailand to escape 'French repression'.

His exploits are recorded in the latest issue of the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, under the appropriate heading, 'Traitor of all Traitors'.

His tale is told by Dr Leon Comber, a former member of the Malayan Special Branch, who is now attached to Monash University's Monash Asia Institute in Australia. He currently is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.

Dr Comber adds to Lai Teck's profile by including information provided by Chin Peng and a Western academic doing research in Vietnam. But Lai Teck remains elusive. Dr Comber could find no specific Special Branch file on him in the official archives of Britain, Australia, Malaysia or Singapore.

Lai Teck's role in modern South-east Asian history is important, and not just because of the mystique that surrounds him.

It was Lai Teck - under the alias Chang Hong, one of at least 26 he used - who signed an agreement with British officers in 1943 that committed the CPM and the Allies to cooperate with each other to fight the Japanese for the duration of the war. The Allied South-east Asia Command based in Ceylon covertly supplied weapons, training and cash to the MPAJA in occupied Malaya.

It was also Lai Teck who made the first personal contact, in Hong Kong after the war, with the Chinese Communist Party, seeking advice on whether the CPM should resort to armed struggle in Malaya. The Chinese advice evidently was: Form a united front with all anti-colonial forces and strive for self-government by constitutional means.

And it was Lai Teck's disappearance that opened the way for Chin Peng - decorated by the British for his war-time bravery - to become secretary-general of the CPM at the age of 23.

Chin Peng led the Malayan National Liberation Army in an unsuccessful guerilla war against first the British colonial authorities and later the federal Malayan government from 1948 to 1960. He represented the CPM at the failed peace talks in Baling in 1955 with then Malayan Chief Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman and then Singapore Chief Minister David Marshall. Chin Peng finally reached an agreement with the Malaysian and Thai governments in 1989 to formally end hostilities.

The Lai Teck mystery begins with his communist activity and subsequent defection in southern Vietnam, and continues after he left the country with French help.

Some researchers believe he went to Moscow and joined the Third International, the Comintern, which then controlled all communist activities outside the Soviet Union. His trail leads to China, where he is thought to have worked for the Comintern's Far Eastern Bureau.

In his 2003 autobiography, Chin Peng dismisses the Moscow-China connection as conjecture. But he admitted to Dr Comber that Lai Teck was given the nickname Ah Lin, or 'Malaya's Lenin', because of his impressive knowledge of communist theory.

In any event, Lai Teck's claim to Comintern status, which implicitly proclaimed his revolutionary credentials and sophistication, impressed the provincial CPM when he arrived in Singapore in the early 1930s. The party signed him up as a member, even as he was being assigned to a Cantonese-speaking case officer in the Singapore Special Branch.

With secret Special Branch help, this foreigner - son of a Vietnamese father and Chinese mother, who spoke heavily accented Cantonese and Mandarin and whose real name was unknown to anyone in the CPM - rose rapidly to the top of the party. A mole at the heart of party central was a breathtaking coup for British intelligence.

Lai Teck's collaboration with the Kempeitai during the war included the preparation of a CPM organisational chart that enabled the Japanese to systematically target, torture and kill key personnel. By April 1943, he was the only CPM Central Committee member to have survived the Japanese dragnet.

Once, when a captured party member learnt of Lai Teck's perfidy and managed to get word to the CPM, Lai Teck arranged for the man to be released by the Japanese, successfully branded him a traitor and had him buried alive.

Lai Teck did not rat on the British officers working behind the lines with the MPAJA, displaying what one of them preferred to think of as a 'residual loyalty' to the British. But, of course, keeping them onside was merely an insurance policy for Lai Teck, who could see by the trend of events that the Allies were likely to win the war.

Even in the annals of espionage, where monumental feats of daring, danger and deception are common, Lai Teck was exceptional. In British or American terms, write scholars C.C. Chin and Karl Hack, it was as if Prime Minister Winston Churchill or President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had turned out to be spies for Josef Stalin.

It is hard to fathom the philandering Lai Teck's motive. The connecting thread at nearly every stage of his career was disloyalty - but why? What drove him?

We can only guess. All we know is that his triple-faced treachery did not end happily.

Finally confronted by Thai and Chinese communists in Bangkok in 1947, he resisted and was strangled - accidentally, they said. His body was stuffed in a gunny sack and dumped into a klong (canal).

He was 44.

The writer is a writer-in-residence at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

Why Asian Mothers (narrowly defined) Are Superior

The article below arrived in my email, as it often happens, just as I was hearing about the book from Amy Chua from quite a few others. This kind of buzz is a publicist's dream - in today's world, attention is power - and no publicity is bad publicity. Perhaps, the provocation and notoriety is just a dastardly clever way for Amy Chua to sell a lot of books (don't forget, if there is one thing Chinese do better than studying its making $$) - but I suspect the book must have struck a chord and will be widely discussed in the US and elsewhere.

At first impression the article made me feel uncomfortable - which made me curious as to why? So I re-read it carefully and really paid attention.

Nothing creates - or destroys - so much human potential as parenting. And yet it is something that most people learn on the job - without even a probationary period - by learning from their own mistakes or from fellow amateurs. All parents love their children unconditionally but how they express that love often bear the burdens of generations of cultural conditioning, habits and their own level of self-awareness. Safe to say most people ape their own parents and upbringing when they themselves became parents. Some bring to the role careful, conscious effort and reflection -- even for some of them still feel no wiser. A good number of kids thrive despite their environment!

But here is what I notice about the author and the article...

First, apart from their names, Sophia and Lulu, her article tells us little about her daughters. We know little from the mother's writing about their personalities, characters, passions etc. In many ways, to be glib, her article is mainly about "me me me". The several instances when she recounted her experiences with her daughters have a pretty consistent theme of getting her daughters to how she was proven right and how the daughters (and husband) eventually came to see the superiority of her way/wishes. I am sure she loves her family very much, but she sees the world though a somewhat self-righteous prism.

In a separate article in the Oprah magazine, she did point this out:

O: What is the single thing you wish you'd done differently? AC: I wish that I'd paid a bit more attention to the individual personalities of the girls, their temperaments and needs. I wish I'd realized earlier that parenting cannot just be one size fits all.

Indeed, I understand that at the end of the book, she realized that she has to moderate her ways because she feel she was going to lose her daughters - all while claiming that its superior all the same. In her logic, if you feel insulted, it is probably motivational.

Second, she might have attributed too much of outcome to her methods. And it is purely reductionist for her to cite her experience as all the proof she needs to devalue other other people approach to parenting. What is for sure is that she put in a tremendous amount of time, attention, energy and patience into her daughters. I'd consider this to be a critical ingredient to successful parenting. May be her kids would have turned out the same or better without the rest of her methods?? We will never know. Also, what are their other influences? Although she did not seem to rate her husband Jed's role very seriously (while not negative, her accounts of him were hardly flattering - mainly to illustrate the overly sensitive mentality of Westerners - and again, to prove that she was right in the end); I actually believe he probably played an important role in the family as a countervailing force to her.

Thirdly, another thing that she could have singled out is her refusal to believe anything to be beyond her children. What is praiseworthy is to teach the patience and capacity for hard work and the persistence to get through the difficult bits without giving in to self-doubt. But there has to be an alignment with the child's intentions and motivations; and not as fait accompli to her own ideas. There is tremendous value to have parents who have strong belief and faith in their children and who is willing to put in the effort/commitment to see it through. Unfortunately, her ego keeps getting in the way, so instead of empowering people to have boundless faith in their own children, she chose to use to it showcase the powers of her own will and genius in making things happen. One almost feel that her children are her props to prove her superiority. The choice of title is interesting - given that she is the author, she might (I say might) have chosen the title herself - before quickly defining the term Chinese Mothers to mean herself or anyone who is like her. She might as well title the essay "Why I am A Superior Mother (and if you disagree, you are a wimp)".

Fourthly, fair enough this is a short article and I have not read the book, but it is not clear to me what her daughters are like apart from getting As and there was a picture of one playing the piano in Carnegie Hall. We were not clued in on their achievements (easily measured) much less their well-being or character (less easily measured). Success is not the same as happiness. And being happy in turn is not the same as being a good person. I believe that by seeing the task as to be a "successful mother", the author forgets the desired outcome to have a "successful kid". In any case, what is for sure is that the daughters are still teenagers and it just seem strange for a mother of a teenager to be blowing the trumpet and declaring victory at that age... much less conclusively proving superiority. Not only would she have to uncross her fingers in order to grab the trumpet; it is definitely too early to tell - because the strength and resilience that she claim to have cultivated in the daughters still remain to be tested - and also, quite frankly, the only people who can really pass judgment on her parenting are her daughters.

Fifthly, at many points of the article, she practiced the classic tendency of may parents esp. Asian; i.e. to substitute a child's self-confidence with the need to seek the approval of others. Parents do that by making their love and attention conditional - the child learns that if they do something that pleases their parents, only then would they get praises or rewards. So they live for external affirmations - first grades then degrees, honours, prestige, positions, salaries, praise, luxury brands ... each a reaction to some inner insecurity and inadequacy. With that an aversion to initiative, risk, adventure, intimacy, empathy, creativity and living from the heart - because, what would so-and-so think?? That is a heavy load to carry, and I can see that with Amy Chua herself e.g. her need to prove her superiority as a mother to the world at large. At the end of the day, the human spirit is endlessly capable of finding a way out - which is how many people find peace and not take themselves too seriously at old age - although often not soon enough to avoid passing the same on to the next generation and thus perpetuating the cycle.

There are some who wonder if the book was meant as a satire. Whichever the case, it is sure to create another Asian stereotype.

Interestingly, an article in The Slate mentioned that in the epilogue of the book, she tells of when she showed the manuscript to her daughters, the elder one said "I'm sure it's all about you anyway," and the younger one said. "It's not possible for you to tell the complete truth, you've left out so many facts. But that means no one can really understand."

Not exactly what I hope my daughters will say when I show them my book.

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From WSJ - THE SATURDAY ESSAY JANUARY 8, 2011

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior

Can a regimen of no playdates, no TV, no computer games and hours of music practice create happy kids? And what happens when they fight back?

By AMY CHUA

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:

Erin Patrice O'Brien for The Wall Street Journal

Amy Chua with her daughters, Louisa and Sophia, at their home in New Haven, Conn.

• 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.

When it comes to parenting, the Chinese seem to produce children who display academic excellence, musical mastery and professional success - or so the stereotype goes. WSJ's Christina Tsuei speaks to two moms raised by Chinese immigrants who share what it was like growing up and how they hope to raise their children.

Journal CommunityDespite our squeamishness about cultural stereotypes, there are tons of studies out there showing marked and quantifiable differences between Chinese and Westerners when it comes to parenting. In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that "stressing academic success is not good for children" or that "parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun." By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way. Instead, the vast majority of the Chinese mothers said that they believe their children can be "the best" students, that "academic achievement reflects successful parenting," and that if children did not excel at school then there was "a problem" and parents "were not doing their job." Other studies indicate that compared to Western parents, Chinese parents spend approximately 10 times as long every day drilling academic activities with their children. By contrast, Western kids are more likely to participate in sports teams.

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.

Chua family

From Ms. Chua's album: 'Mean me with Lulu in hotel room... with score taped to TV!'

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 also once heard a Western father toast his adult daughter by calling her "beautiful and incredibly competent." She later told me that made her feel like garbage.)

Chinese parents can order their kids to get straight As. Western parents can only ask their kids to try their best. Chinese parents can say, "You're lazy. All your classmates are getting ahead of you." By contrast, Western parents have to struggle with their own conflicted feelings about achievement, and try to persuade themselves that they're not disappointed about how their kids turned out.

I've thought long and hard about how Chinese parents can get away with what they do. I think there are three big differences between the Chinese and Western parental mind-sets.

Chua family

Newborn Amy Chua in her mother's arms, a year after her parents arrived in the U.S.

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.)

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Chua family

Sophia playing at Carnegie Hall in 2007.

Second, Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything. The reason for this is a little unclear, but it's probably a combination of Confucian filial piety and the fact that the parents have sacrificed and done so much for their children. (And it's true that Chinese mothers get in the trenches, putting in long grueling hours personally tutoring, training, interrogating and spying on their kids.) Anyway, the understanding is that Chinese children must spend their lives repaying their parents by obeying them and making them proud.

By contrast, I don't think most Westerners have the same view of children being permanently indebted to their parents. My husband, Jed, actually has the opposite view. "Children don't choose their parents," he once said to me. "They don't even choose to be born. It's parents who foist life on their kids, so it's the parents' responsibility to provide for them. Kids don't owe their parents anything. Their duty will be to their own kids." This strikes me as a terrible deal for the Western parent.

Third, 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." God help any Chinese kid who tried that one.

Don't get me wrong: It's not that Chinese parents don't care about their children. Just the opposite. They would give up anything for their children. It's just an entirely different parenting model.

Here's a story in favor of coercion, Chinese-style. 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.

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.

—Amy Chua is a professor at Yale Law School and author of "Day of Empire" and "World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability." This essay is excerpted from "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" by Amy Chua, to be published Tuesday by the Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Copyright © 2011 by Amy Chua.

To Big To Fail and In Lieu of Ideology

Guest posting from KS Lim, Washington DC.

On the long journey home, I bought two long books to read on the flight, and it was money not wasted. The first was the book "Too Big to Fail" about the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the subsequent rush to save the global financial system. It depicts high finance as a high-octane, high-powered industry, populated by some very big personalities and egos. Reading about them they kind of remind me of all of the bankers I happen to know of; smart, yet egoistic, ruthless and with the tendency to mix in each others' company almost exclusively. It was overall a thrilling read.

The second book was a dry but educational piece called "In Lieu of Ideology", which basically analysed and summarised the writings and thoughts of Goh Keng Swee, and attempted to explain his philosophy of government through his own words. I came away from it even more impressed by Goh. The man seems to have been a true Renaissance man. His thinking drew from the best of the West and the East; he was much enamoured by Sun Zi's Art of War and the Warring States' general Wu Qi, but was also interested in Ancient Greece and Rome. His portfolio spanned the education, defense and economics, but he tended to view these varied elements in a holistic manner. Goh, according to the book, hated theorising about economics for its own sake, and believed that the main weakness of economists was that they neglected political science, sociology and other areas of study. He believed that the study of social science should have a practical use, that being to build a nation, and Singapore was his canvas. Thus, education, defense, the arts, finance etc. were all aimed at building a strong Singapore and therefore had to be integrated. He seems not to have disregarded the arts or "soft subjects", which is in complete contrast to the stereotype of the Singaporean.

It seems that Goh had a strong, almost Confucian belief in the rectification of the individual. He decried "traditional values" and believed that he was trying to mould a modern, "industrial" man in order to fit the economic models of the West. To him, the Western models could only work if they were applied to a certain type of person, thus his belief in the value of education. Interestingly, he was not happy about the pursuit of money and the "lack of moral education" which was prevalant in the Singaporean education system, and strived to introduce character building, physical boldness and creative thinking into schooling, not always successfully. To Goh, the individual really was the basis of society, and education was therefore key. That, at least, was what I got out of the book while reading it on the plane.

China's Conundrum - More Detailed Response

KY's earlier posting that discussed the trade-offs between a "strong / bad" China and a "weak/good" China in the diplomatic, military and economic sense represents the prevailing consensus of the past 3 decades.

In fact, China's epochial era of reform and opening-up was one of moving from a weak to a strong(er) China together with moving from a bad to a better China. We can feel good about China's achievements today mainly because of this twin-tracked progress. The history of the reform and opening-up was, in fact, a case of "better" governance leading to a stronger China and not the other way round.

The "other way round" was tried by Mao during the late 1950s and the early 1960s when China tried to be "strong" militarily and politically/diplomatically even at the price of millions of lives of its people. At that time, there were many people who honestly thought China was becoming strong. But with the benefit of hindsight, we recognize that kind of "strength" is not real. Simply put: strength, if pursued as an end in itself, is not real strength. If a nation is power-hungry, how can that nation be considered strong? The same was echoed in today's North Korea and in yesterday's Stalinist USSR and Militaristic Japan.

Neither of us are starry eyed idealists and philosophers who feel that national "virtue" can somehow redeem the suffering of its people. Almost always, the suffering are real but the virtue are not. Interestingly, the Maoist-era of perpetual revolution and class struggle provides the most recent example. Just last weekend, I had a conversation with a friend - who had the (mis)fortune of having been a Canadian diplomat in both North Korea and Cuba - but who is deeply uncomfortable with the notion of a benevolent dictatorship. And I defended the idea that the form of government matter less than whether it is concerned about the welfare and development of its people. In fact, Cuba and North Korean are excellent contrasting examples. This is consistent with ancient Chinese political thinking that emphasized governance over the finer questions of political legitimacy although Confucius actually stressed a lot about public opinion/will of the people.

Virtue by itself is not to be confused with "Good", and vice-versa. When KY considered the binary choice between a Good/Weak China and a Bad/Strong; I think he meant perferring one that is less virtuous but strong enough to safeguard its people over a virtuous but weak China. And I ask myself, how can a nation be virtuous/good if it cannot safeguard its people? To me, the conundrum does not exist because part of "Strong" is protecting the "Good".

China today is both more "Strong" and more "Good" than ever. But if it wants to get to the next level - to either be a great power or even the worl'd's pre-eminent power, it cannot simply be more of the same of what it is currently. There should be a positive purpose for China's continuing growth for the Chinese people and also for the world, rather than being a power for power's own sake. As the saying goes, along with great power comes great responsibility. I am a believer that in the coming years, the challenge for the Chinese leadership/nation will be to find the direction of what a "Good" China ultimately means.

Here I was negligent in not explaining the logic behind it earlier. In human history, power shifts are rarely peaceful. Most rising powers were in fact short-lived because they were either pushed back by the status quo or overtaken by other rivals. Unless a nation is inconsequential or very isolated/disconnected from the existing webs of interests, the result of its expansion is usually one of disastrous internal or external conflict. The logic is that as a nation grows (diplomatically, militarily and economically) it will inevitably encroach the space and threaten existing powers, even in the absence of a zero sum game. The other threat, as often happen, is that even as nations become "Strong" they would "lose steam", become venal and corrupt or plunge into internal conflict. This is why so many empires are rarely even remembered.

Rarely do powers emerge and remain sustainable more than a few decades on sheer wealth and military power alone without "that something else". Throughout human history, "That something else" is almost always an idea - it could be a philosophy, an insight, a system or a technology. I do not only mean ideology. "That something else" is not always more virtuous than the status quo but it is a force-multiplier for the power having it and others wanted it too. In fact, the best and most compelling ideas confers strength without requiring any force; they work their magic via the power of example and by creating a desire to emulate.

For much of its history, the greatest source of China's power was the richness of its civilization and culture, e.g. during the T'ang Dynasty. Having states the sends tributes are victories that required no force. China's height of territorial reach during the Han dynasty was due to the maturity of another idea - the centralised administration and civil service - as an alternative to the fractious feudal system.

Rome had a powerful and ruthless army, but it also offered the lure of being an empowered "citizen" of a republic and the rule of law which is vastly more attractive than life under tribal serfdom of its rivals. Rome's advanced engineering, logistics and commerce improved welfare and protected against starvation. Rome lasted more than 800 years.

Many of the waves of empires that followed were led by different religious ideas - not very convincing but effective nonetheless at the time. The Arabs had the Islamic religion (considered attractive and enlightened at the time because it was against slavery) but they also pioneered international trade. Nationalism was often the idea - often used by one monarch or regional power - to consolidated many parts of Europe and Asia into their current political entities. Europe gained military and economic strengths through science and technology - but the promise of modernity arguably did more to help them colonize the world. The Enlightenment offered an escape from religious oppression in thought and lifestyle. The industrial revolution multiplied human productivity and enabled the individual to accumulate wealth without being tied to the land. For millions, it meant jobs, material wealth but also freedom from peasantry. Along the way, came the modern rule of law, constitutional governments, equality, civil and political rights, social democracy, the global-economy and democracy - all very powerful ideas that allowed the West and later America to prevail because they were so attractive to the rest of the world.

I believe the key to China's peaceful rise, is to somehow be a source of positive contribution to the world. China's growth must serve a larger purpose in order to provide a balance to self-interest; which otherwise would be a source of internal conflicts. Many nations - especially in Latin America - lose their way a certain point of their development because development was built on a weak sense of common purpose.

Externally, the thing with China is that it has never been and will never be an inconsequential nation - not even when it was at its most feeble. The lesson from the last 30 years is that an isolated China is a weak China that cannot take care of its people. The lesson for the past 15 years is that China can succeed when it plays its role judiciously on the world stage (especially in the global economy). China no longer has the choice to simply mind its own business because China is becoming so huge that in the globalized and inter-connected world today that its actions or inactions impacts everyone else's. This also means that whenever conflicts arise, they cannot be resolved by protecting only China's national self-interest alone - China's national interests will increasingly be intertwined with its responsibility to look after the world's collective interests as well. So one way or the other, China will need to have a vision of how to contributions will be to the global system that is making its growth possible.

China Conudrum - A short response

Usually, my conversation with my father-in-law is about the stock market.

That particular day whilst visiting Shuri Castle in Naha, our conversation veered towards the topic of weak/strong China vis-a-vis bad/good China. (thanks to those plague from the Qing era).

We somewhat agree that it is preferable to have a strong China who is bad (in the context of democracy and human right) rather than a weak China who is good as long as the government is not as bad as that of Mao's. (My view of Mao's government is both bad and weak.)

It is embedded in almost all Chinese that they have been a victim of imperialism or foreign aggression. I cannot deny I do share this thoughts every now and then. Hence I am sometime less critical and more partial and more permissive of what China/CCP does.

We also come to the broad consensus that a weak country cannot be good especially for a large country like China. Being weak is synonymous with being bad in the modern history of China. (Strong/weak is read in the diplomatic, military and economic context).

While I offer no evidence of support, this sentiment is perhaps shared by the great many of the 1.3 billions Chinese

Having said all those above, there is no question that what you wrote is the way forward for China and it is the aspiration of many of us who are increasingly disappointed with the slow progress made in human right and democracy. You correctly pointed out that CCP's reaction to LXB's Nobel prize is evidence of her very own insecurity. This I am with you.

The problem with China today is the lack of confidence at the CCP leadership level. I am dead sure that they know what is inevitable yet they have chosen a (hopefully) longer road (though I am also becoming more frustrated).

Lets hope that LXB is the last famous prisoner of conscience. (admittedly this is a very unremarkable hope)

By the way, I suspect that the modern China (neither had the classical China) is uninterested to export any of her ideology or impose her way of life with the rest of the world unlike the European with her enlightenment, the American her democracy. Let me be candid, China hasn't had anything superior (I mean in soft power aspect) to offer the world yet.

That still leave me not an advocate for a more assertive China in the world affairs. I strongly believe the priority is still to elevate the standard of living and to ease the overbearing control over her citizens.