大学生英语跨文化交际阅读课程 Unit6 Text A

Within the first few pages of Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, it is easy to see why her parenting memoir caused such a media frenzy in the days following its publication.
在蔡美儿的《虎妈战歌》的前几页中，很容易看出为什么她的育儿回忆录在出版后的几天内引起了如此大的媒体狂潮。
“The Chinese mother believes that (1) schoolwork always comes first; (2) an A-minus is a bad grade; (3) your children must be two years ahead of their classmates in math,” Ms Chua writes. She continues: “(6) the only activities your children should be permitted to do are those in which they can eventually win a medal; and (7) that medal must be gold.”
“这位中国妈妈认为，(1) 功课永远是第一位的；(2) A–是差的成绩；(3) 你的孩子在数学上必须比同班同学领先两年，”蔡女士写道。她继续说道：“(6) 唯一应该允许您的孩子参加的活动是他们最终可以赢得奖牌的活动；(7) 奖牌必须是金牌。”
A second-generation Chinese immigrant, Ms Chua was born in Illinois and married an American. When their children were born, the couple agreed they would be brought up according to their father’s religion - Judaism - and their mother’s parenting model - Chinese.
作为第二代中国移民，蔡女士出生在伊利诺伊州，嫁给了一个美国人。当他们的孩子出生时，这对夫妇同意按照他们父亲的宗教信仰——犹太教——以及他们母亲的教养模式——中国人来抚养他们。
Her tough-love prescription taps into parental insecurities about the way children are raised and schooled. But the book’s popularity is also down to the fact that it offers an insight into why Chinese children seem to excel in school.
她对孩子的抚养和教育方式的不安全感源于她的严厉爱意。但这本书的受欢迎程度也归功于它提供了一个洞察为什么中国孩子似乎在学校表现出色的事实。
This is not just a US phenomenon. In the UK, British-Chinese children significantly outperform their peers. Chinese children make up only 0.4 per cent of the secondary school intake, but more than 25 per cent of them are on the gifted and talented register. This compares with 15 per cent of white children and 15.9 per cent of mixed-race children.
这不仅仅是美国的现象。在英国，英籍华裔儿童的表现明显优于同龄人。中国儿童仅占中学入学人数的 0.4%，但其中超过 25% 的人在天才和有才华的登记册上。相比之下，白人儿童的这一比例为 15%，混血儿童的这一比例为 15.9%。
This could be put down to relative levels of affluence, were it not for the fact that the achievement gap between rich and poor among British- Chinese children is smaller than in any other ethnic group.
这可以归结为相对富裕程度，要不是英华儿童的贫富差距比其他任何族裔都小。
A study of GCSE results between 2005 and 2007 by academics at London University’s Institute of Education and Queen Mary, found that only 5 per cent fewer British-Chinese children on free school meals got five A*-C grades at GCSE than those not entitled to free school meals. Among white British pupils, that gap is 32 per cent.
伦敦大学教育学院和玛丽皇后学院的学者对 2005 年至 2007 年的 GCSE 结果进行的一项研究发现，与没有资格获得 GCSE 5 个 A*-C 成绩的英籍华裔儿童相比，在免费校餐中获得 5 个 A*-C 成绩的儿童仅少 5%。免费学校餐。在英国白人学生中，这一差距为 32%。
So why do British-Chinese pupils not only do so well, but also seem so immune to the socio-economic factors that are the bane of teachers’ lives up and down the country? For Ms Chua, the answer is that their parents expect nothing less and their children thrive under the pressure.
那么，为什么英籍华裔学生不仅表现如此出色，而且似乎对影响全国各地教师生活的社会经济因素如此免疫？对于蔡女士来说，答案是他们的父母期望不高，他们的孩子在压力下茁壮成长。
This may seem an extreme parenting model, but it also rings true in the experience of many teachers. Ian Warwick, a teacher for 20 years and now the director of London Gifted and Talented, says the parents of his Chinese pupils are extremely driven and above all, want their children to succeed.
这似乎是一种极端的育儿模式，但在许多教师的经验中也是如此。伊恩·沃里克 (Ian Warwick) 担任了 20 年的教师，现在是伦敦天才班主任，他说他的中国学生的父母非常有动力，最重要的是，他们希望他们的孩子取得成功。
“British-Chinese success is an awful lot to do with cultural background and parental expectation,” he says. “I have worked in schools which had 130 languages spoken. If you had a Chinese kid, you knew they were going to do well.” He struggles to think of a single Chinese child who was not a high achiever.
“英中的成功与文化背景和父母的期望有很大关系，”他说。 “我在有 130 种语言的学校工作过。如果你有一个中国孩子，你知道他们会做得很好。” 他努力去想一个成绩不高的中国孩子。
Until last year, Jane McGowan, a secondary languages teacher, worked at one of Northern Ireland’s top-performing grammar schools. Her experience of Chinese pupils also largely matched Ms Chua’s model. “We had quite a high proportion of Chinese pupils and in general they would be really disciplined,” she says.
直到去年，中学语言教师简·麦高恩 (Jane McGowan) 还在北爱尔兰表现最好的文法学校之一工作。她对中国学生的经历也很大程度上符合蔡女士的模式。 “我们有相当高比例的中国学生，总的来说，他们真的会受到纪律处分，”她说。
But although this attribute was widespread, she says it was not universal. Mrs McGowan, who taught in Belfast, says not every Chinese pupil was a high achiever. “The ones who weren’t had in some way rebelled,” she says.
Mrs McGowan remembers one former pupil whose mother was from a nearby council estate, but whose father was Chinese, and paid for his daughter to board at the school. “She seemed to resent that and did no work at school,” she says.
但是，尽管这种属性很普遍，但她说它并不普遍。在贝尔法斯特任教的麦高恩夫人说，并不是每个中国学生都取得了很高的成就。 “在某种程度上，那些没有得到的人反叛了，”她说。
Becky Francis and Louise Archer from the Institute for Policy Studies in Education at London Metropolitan University have extensively researched ethnic-minority achievement, interviewing pupils, teachers and parents. For a 2005 study, they interviewed Hoi Ling, a secondary pupil in London. “My parents expect me to get the best grades. They expect me to be better than other people”, Hoi told them.
伦敦城市大学教育政策研究所的贝基·弗朗西斯 (Becky Francis) 和路易丝·阿彻 (Louise Archer) 对少数民族的成就进行了广泛的研究，采访了学生、教师和家长。在 2005 年的一项研究中，他们采访了伦敦的一名中学生海玲。 “我的父母希望我取得最好的成绩。他们希望我比其他人更好”，海告诉他们。
“If I don’t, they will continuously start nagging at me to do better. My friend’s parents will say: Oh OK, you tried your best, make sure you try to improve it'. My parents will continuously say:Try and practise your maths and get it better’.”
“如果我不这样做，他们会不断地唠叨我要做得更好。我朋友的父母会说：‘哦，好吧，你已经尽力了，一定要努力改进它’。我的父母会不断说：‘试试看练习你的数学，让它变得更好。”
Although Chinese parents are typically very interested in their children’s education, Dr Francis says their approach is quite different from that of the “pushy parent” familiar to many UK teachers. British parents who want their children to succeed are more likely to blame the school or teacher rather than their child and will happily come knocking on the teacher’s door to discuss the ins and outs of their little darling’s education.
尽管中国父母通常对孩子的教育非常感兴趣，但弗朗西斯博士表示，他们的做法与许多英国教师熟悉的“咄咄逼人的父母”截然不同。希望孩子成功的英国父母更倾向于责怪学校或老师而不是孩子，他们会高兴地敲老师的门，讨论他们小宝贝教育的来龙去脉。
In contrast, she says, teachers may not get to know the parents of their Chinese pupils very well and are unlikely to learn much about their home life. Part of this is a language barrier - parents cannot be involved in the school if they cannot communicate well with the teachers. “But they were often engaged in other ways,” says Dr Francis.
她说，相比之下，教师可能不太了解中国学生的父母，也不太可能了解他们的家庭生活。部分原因是语言障碍——如果家长不能与老师很好地沟通，他们就不能参与学校的活动。 “但他们经常以其他方式参与，”弗朗西斯博士说。
As well as their high expectations, Chinese parents see their financial contribution as crucial, giving them the right to ask so much from their child.
除了寄予厚望之外，中国父母还认为自己的经济贡献至关重要，因此他们有权向孩子提出这么多要求。
“Many of the Chinese parents interviewed, even those of quite impoverished families, work all the hours God sends in the takeaway or the family business for extra tuition for their kids,” Dr Francis explains. “There is a hell of a lot of work going on towards their kids’ achievement, but not necessarily in the expected ways that would be familiar to a white middle- class family.”
弗朗西斯博士解释说：“许多接受采访的中国父母，即使是那些非常贫困的家庭，为了给孩子额外的学费，上帝派来的所有时间都在外卖或家族企业中工作。” “为了他们孩子的成就，有很多工作要做，但不一定以白人中产阶级家庭熟悉的预期方式进行。”
Many of the prerequisites for the Tiger Mother approach appear to be in place already in the British education system. The last government launched the Every Child Matters initiative in order to promote personalised learning, the ethos of which is still in place in schools today. High-achieving children are registered as gifted and talented and receive additional opportunities and coaching to help them on their way.
“虎妈”方法的许多先决条件似乎已经在英国教育系统中就位。上一届政府发起了“每个孩子都很重要”倡议，以促进个性化学习，这种精神今天仍然存在于学校中。成绩优异的孩子被登记为有天赋和才华，并获得额外的机会和指导来帮助他们前进。
But contrary to the intensive regime extolled by Ms Chua, the British approach is more about nurturing and looking after children’s emotional needs, says Denise Yates, chief executive of the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC). The difference between helping children fulfil their potential and a relentless drive for higher grades is a subtle one, but it is there nonetheless.
全国天才儿童协会 (NAGC) 首席执行官丹尼斯·耶茨 (Denise Yates) 表示，与蔡女士所推崇的强化制度相反，英国的做法更多地是为了培养和照顾儿童的情感需求。帮助孩子发挥他们的潜力与对更高年级的不懈追求之间的区别是微妙的，但仍然存在。
“The most important thing is for these children to have confidence, and the A* should come if they are thriving,” Ms Yates says.
“最重要的是让这些孩子有信心，如果他们茁壮成长，A* 应该会到来，”耶茨女士说。
Grades are important to teachers and parents but above all pupils should not feel pressured to get the best grades all the time, she says. "Children should be viewed for their own sake, not for what they are going to be viewed as in the future.
她说，成绩对老师和家长来说很重要，但最重要的是，学生不应该一直为了获得最好的成绩而感到压力。 “应该为孩子们自己的缘故来看待孩子，而不是为了他们将来会被视为什么。
“More and more parents believe that as long as their child is happy and has friends, the achievement will come next.”
“越来越多的家长认为，只要孩子快乐，有朋友，成绩就会随之而来。”
The theory that children do not benefit from too much pressure and that bright youngsters suffer under the weight of their talents is supported by a NAGC survey of gifted and talented children which found that many of them push themselves to do well.
NAGC 对天才儿童的一项调查支持了这种理论，即儿童不会从太大的压力中受益，而聪明的年轻人会在他们的才能的重压下受苦，该调查发现，他们中的许多人都在推动自己做得好。
“What we are finding is that the biggest mental health problem is linked to a fear of failure and perfectionism,” says Ms Yates. “There is a high proportion of bright children, mainly girls, who suffer from anorexia and who feel quite isolated. Quite simply, they are not on the same wavelength as children in their class and they may prefer to mix with older children.”
“我们发现最大的心理健康问题与害怕失败和完美主义有关，”耶茨女士说。 “有很高比例的聪明孩子，主要是女孩，他们患有厌食症，感觉很孤立。很简单，他们与班上的孩子不在同一波长上，他们可能更喜欢和年龄较大的孩子混在一起。”
Ms Chua’s model provides little room for concern about children’s emotional health. “Western parents are concerned about their children’s psyches. Chinese parents aren’t,” she writes. “They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result behave very differently.”
蔡女士的模型几乎没有考虑到儿童的情绪健康。 “西方父母关心他们孩子的心理，而中国父母则不然，”她写道。 “他们假设力量，而不是脆弱，因此行为非常不同。”
Anxiety over eating habits provides a case in point. Whereas some parents would regard how much their child weighs - whether it is too much or too little - as a sensitive subject, Ms Chua says Chinese parents have no such qualms. “Chinese mothers can say to their daughters: Hey fatty - lose some weight'," she says. "By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue, talking in terms ofhealth’ and never mentioning the f- word, and their kids still end up in therapy for eating disorders and negative self-image.”
对饮食习惯的焦虑就是一个很好的例子。蔡女士表示，虽然有些父母会将孩子的体重（无论是多还是少）视为敏感话题，但中国父母没有这样的疑虑。 “中国妈妈可以对她们的女儿说：‘嘿，胖子——减肥吧’，”她说。 “相比之下，西方父母不得不小心翼翼地绕过这个问题，谈论‘健康’，从不提f-这个词，他们的孩子最终仍然接受饮食失调和负面自我形象的治疗。”
Dr Francis has seen this “bootstraps and chin-up approach” not only through her research but also through personal experience: she is married to a Chinese man and is now part of an extended Chinese community in the UK. “I know of kids being left in villages by their parents, then at the age of eight being yanked across to Britain,” she says. “These stories are normalised - if it was us Brits we would be in therapy for years.”
Some of this determination to succeed may be down to an immigrant mentality. For economic migrants, starting a new life in a new country carries with it an extra incentive to do well. And just as parents work hard to provide for their families, so they expect that work ethic to pass down to their children.
Many of the young people from ethnic minorities interviewed for the London Metropolitan University report said they were working hard at school to enable them to get a job or boost their future prospects. All 80 children interviewed answered “Yes” to the question, “Is education important?”
On top of this, the British-Chinese community tends to see educational achievement as a distinctive part of their culture. Dr Francis and Dr Archer found that the emphasis on education is bound up with their identity as an ethnic group. “As a minority group here, the idea that they take education more seriously than everyone else is what is distinct about their community,” says Dr Francis. “They construct this as part of their Chinese-ness. The notion of educational achievement is one of their pillars of identity in relation to other social groups.”
Indeed, Shanghai and Hong Kong were among the most successful in the latest worldwide Pisa survey of 15-year-olds from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Jim Knight, former Labour schools minister, wanted to bring aspects of Chinese education and Confucian philosophy to British schools, and education secretary Michael Gove has named Hong Kong as a template for success.
China’s harsh recent history may also inform its people’s focus on educational achievement. “During the Cultural Revolution, all the schools were closed down, I couldn’t study,” says Wing Shan, one of the parents interviewed by Dr Francis and Dr Archer.
“We all went up the mountains to settle, there was no chance to be educated, but now you can study and go to university and study whatever you want.”
Chinese culture also emphasises a fear of losing face. Pupils who do badly at school will embarrass their parents and risk lowering their status in society. Children are aware of this, and Ms Chua says it is one of the reasons why her children - and Chinese children in general - always give the appearance of being so obedient and well mannered to anyone outside the family, even if they are fighting with their parents behind closed doors.
But despite its track record of success, this approach to education is vulnerable to criticism that it is too academic and leaves no time for socialising. Consequently, children are not prepared for life outside rote learning and exams.
Mrs McGowan says her Chinese pupils tended not to socialise outside school as much as other pupils, and many children attended Chinese school after school and on Saturday mornings.
“I got the impression that they weren’t really allowed to participate in the social life of the school, but there seemed to be more of an emphasis on families eating together, and on studying at home,” says Mrs McGowan.
But some argue that not giving children time to themselves, to play or be with other children, hinders their development. Following research in Chinese schools, psychologist Oliver James concluded that a “lack of creativity is a major problem as a result of Asian schooling”.
It is partly in reaction to these fears that the Hong Kong curriculum has recently been altered, with the introduction of liberal studies, aimed at teaching critical and creative thinking.
While working in Hong Kong over the past decade, Mr Warwick came across a number of parents who worried that their child had not developed creativity. This was perhaps a response to Western concerns, but Mr Warwick is reluctant to make generalisations.
“Flair is very difficult to quantify,” he says. “With all of these things, you are dealing with stereotypical views and so much is down to the way the school sees a certain group.”
Assumptions about pupils of Chinese ethnicity do not always work in their favour. Their level of achievement often means racist bullying tends to be overlooked as their grades don’t suffer, says Dr Francis. She found this was a serious problem for many of the Chinese pupils she interviewed.
Racial stereotyping also rears its head at options time: teachers can assume that Chinese children will excel at maths but not at art, for example. And in Mr Warwick’s experience, the pupils tend to achieve accordingly. “I have worked in some boroughs which have real problems with Somali boys, but in other boroughs they are achieving brilliantly,” says Mr Warwick. “I would be wary of pinning specific attributes to racial groups.”
But the Tiger Mother approach may strike a chord with those who believe the British system does not push children hard enough. “For a lot of bright kids, they don’t get stretched or tested until at least A-level,” says Mr Warwick. “State education is too safe now - kids need to meet failure to learn resilience, but at the moment the system is too scaffolded.”
Ms Yates agrees that many gifted and talented children slip through the net because school is not challenging enough and they misbehave.
Despite the successes of British-Chinese children, few are prepared to argue that this is solely the result of the Tiger Mother approach, or that this strict model will solve all pupils’ problems overnight. Even Ms Chua had to admit defeat when it came to her younger daughter’s teenage years. But the debate on which parenting style and which country’s education system is best will no doubt keep raging long after the hype surrounding Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother has abated.
TOUGH LOVE
A few years ago, Amy Chua went to a dinner party and told her fellow diners that she had called her youngest daughter “rubbish”, trying to shock her into submission when they were having a fight, and instead her daughter Lulu continued to argue.
Ms Chua was telling the story as an example of Lulu’s disobedience, but one of the guests was so upset that she left the dinner in tears.
The incident is recounted in Ms Chua’s memoir, and it would have given the Chinese-American mother some inkling of the outrage that would be caused by her account of bringing up her daughters in the high-pressure, no- excuses style that she was used to.
Ms Chua’s parenting style is motivated by her fear that, despite her parents starting at the bottom of the ladder and she working equally hard to get to the top of her career, her own children will be brought up spoilt, living in the lap of luxury. The reason she wants them to learn the piano and the violin is because she sees classical music as “the opposite of decline, the opposite of laziness, vulgarity and spoiledness”.
But while she considers her parenting style to be “Chinese”, in China her book has been published under the title Being an American Mum. The cover shows a picture of Ms Chua against the backdrop of the US flag.
And the Chinese take on the memoir? “Her experiences, superior or not, might enlighten Chinese parents on how to raise their kids in a proper way,” says Wang Feifei, acquisition editor at the CITIC Publishing House. “From the book, we see an inspiring Asian immigrant with admirable entrepreneurial spirit.”

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