Last week, Sapna Chemplavil rightly pointed out that The Wall Street Journal had blatantly sensationalized Amy Chua's essay, "Why Asian Mothers Are Superior," by strategically choosing an excerpt and title that wasn't in line with the rest of Chua's memoir ("Polarizing Parenting," Jan. 26). This misrepresentation of Chua's views has largely gone unnoticed by most commentators, resulting in a lot of misdirected critiques, but some productive dialogue has nevertheless resulted from the controversy.
One common critique among Chua's detractors is that the now notorious "Tiger Mom" stifles her children's creativity by not allowing them to be in school plays and pursue their artistic interests. This critique matches a common concern about the Chinese educational and parenting model in general that despite its success in consistently producing intelligent and highly capable individuals, it fails to imbue students with the creativity needed to win Nobel Prizes and found companies that rival innovative American brands like Google and Apple.
A general consensus has emerged among the Chinese that their children are uncreative because they don't get enough freedom and fun. This, unfortunately, is a very superficial diagnosis. While I think that Chinese children should be given more playtime and more freedom, authoritarian Chinese parents generally push their children to acquire all kinds of skills skills that may not necessarily be explicitly creative, but that will facilitate the development of creativity nonetheless. A superficial diagnosis therefore overlooks the root of the Chinese system's ailments: the role that "mianzi" plays in governing Chinese social relations.
Mianzi, or literally "face," is a complex Chinese sociological concept that eludes an exact Western equivalent, although it can be loosely translated as "dignity." In Chinese culture, harming your own and others' mianzi is to be avoided at all costs even if it requires lying or knowingly accepting someone else's lies. For example, it would be justified for me to blame my lateness on the traffic when I've actually slept in, and others would be expected to accept my excuse even when they know it's a lie. This situation is not entirely alien to Western social norms, but in Chinese culture lying to save face is not only preferable, but actually more acceptable than telling the truth.
Preserving the mianzi of authority figures is particularly important. Contradicting authority figures is extremely disrespectful in Chinese culture, and even asking authorities prodding questions especially if it's seen as an effort to prove them wrong can be disrespectful.
Having the confidence to be creative, which often means reexamining established methods and contradicting what those before you have said, is very difficult in an environment where acknowledging the mistakes of authorities is taboo. Mianzi thus indirectly discourages thinking outside the box.
Even when I'm not making a conscious effort to respect other people's mianzi, I still feel a deep sense of reverence for the opinions of others, which I attribute to my Chinese cultural upbringing. At Dartmouth, I'm often astounded at how easily some of my peers can challenge the ideas of an authority in the classroom. As a philosophy major, I am routinely awed by what my professor or the great thinkers I'm reading have to say. But when the professor turns around and asks, "What are some problems with this line of argument?" I struggle to find fault with the authority's logic. However, one of my peers always rises to the challenge and often succeeds, something that continues to impress me almost every day.
Attempts to make the Chinese educational and parenting model more creativity-friendly should therefore focus on promoting a social environment where it's not considered disrespectful for people to contradict, question and challenge each other. One simple, tangible way Chinese teachers and parents can make a difference is to start admitting that their views can be improved or even contradicted, thereby making it easier for younger generations to challenge old ideas. Right now, admitting blame only goes one way in Chinese culture from the student to the teacher, or from the child to the parent. If the Chinese can start to make questioning a two-way street, creativity within the Chinese educational and parenting model will naturally follow.
