中国爹娘美国娃（四） - 致亚裔父母亲

 

Concerning Asian Parents / 致亚裔父母亲

By Kevin Chen

 

Hello Asian parents. My name is Kevin Chen and I come from an Asian household as well, but in a totally different setting. I grew up in the Silicon in California, one of the most liberal places in the United States. In this area, we get some of the highest ranking high schools in the nation, academically: Saint Francis, Lynbrook, Homestead, Mission San Jose, and so on. Those were all public schools too. The list of private schools is even longer.

 

叔叔阿姨们好。我的名字叫陈开文，来自一个亚裔家庭。所不同的是，我成长在加州硅谷，几乎是全美国最自由的地方。在我们这里，有好几所在全美名列前茅的高中。比如：Saint Francis高中，Lynbrook高中，Homestead高中，Mission San Jose高中，等等。这些都是公立高中，如果是私立高中的话，所列名单可能会更长。

 

I have a younger sister, who’s a junior right now attending F High School, a school that is one of the lesser academically competitive. Around this time, standardized testing season starts kicking in. Juniors begin taking their first SATs, ACTs, and AP tests. Now any child can sympathize with me when I say that this season is incredibly stressful.  The pressure that you Asian parents apply on your children to do well is extreme, but your reason for doing so is definitely not unfair.

 

F高中相对于这些学校，课业竞争没有那么激烈。我的妹妹就在F高中读书，现在是高三学生。从现在开始，学校进入考试赛季，各学科的标准化测验正式启动。尤其高三的学生，开始要准备考SATs、ACTs和AP。当我这么说，“这个季节的压力是前所未有、难以置信”时，我想，没有人会对我的说法表示异议。亚裔父母带给他们孩子的压力几乎走向极端。从你们的角度考虑，理由很充分，没有什么不妥之说。

 

It is well known that the Asian-American culture is very performance based—if you can’t flaunt your son or daughter’s SAT score, GPA, or places he/she got admitted into college, you get mildly ashamed (Haha， Don’t try to deny it, we all know you do).

 

众所周知，亚裔文化非常看重结果。比方说，如果你的儿子或女儿没有达到你的预期，使你无法在人前炫耀孩子的SAT分数、GPA成绩、被大学录取的通知时，你总是会感到自愧不如。（哈哈，不要强词夺理急着否认，我们都知道其实你就是的）。

 

Now I’m not discrediting the ideology of getting good grades, SATs score, or into a good college; all those are fantastic things to have for your children. I do, however, disagree with the method and mindset Asian parents have with this ideology.

 

父母们期待自己的孩子成绩优秀，SAT得高分，顺利进入理想大学，拥有这样的想法是每一个做父母的心愿，都是为孩子的前途着想，我非常理解。是的，I Do。 然而，我不赞同亚裔父母对实现这个目标的手段和思维方式。

 

Asian parents always pressure the child to get good grades, to work on SATs, to get into a topcollege, but how do you do that? I’ve observed that you only address the problem on the surface: you have your child study countless hours for a final or SAT test. 

 

What happens, however, when the child does get to college? Is he going to be ready to be let off the leash? What happens when mommy and daddy are not pushing him to do work anymore? Is he just going to be a great test taking boy instead of a knowledgeable and wise young man? 

 

亚裔父母期望孩子考出好成绩，在SAT上下功夫，最后进入顶尖大学，但是，为了实现这样的目标，他们是怎样做的呢？从我的观察来看，那些父母们只是在解决表面现象：他们让孩子无休无止地应付期末考试和SAT考试。

 

试问，就算孩子最后如愿以偿地进了理想大学，那又会怎样呢？他能不能丢掉他父母亲那根拐杖？他能不能在没有父母督促的情况下，仍然可以继续往前走呢？你是希望他只是一个考试机器呢？还是一个有知识有智慧的年轻人？

 

What I’m trying to say here is that the Asian-American child is getting pressured to do well on all the surface level things like tests and admissions, but how about getting at the root of the problem, the person himself?

 

我在这里想要强调的是，亚裔的孩子在家长的高压下，许多都成为高分低能的考试工具。虽然他们能解决许多表面上的问题，比如考高分和升学，可是，家长们有没有考虑到，如何关注问题的实质，解决“人”的成长问题？

 

You see, once the child has taken all his tests, what’s he going to do? Without a grade or performance review, he won’t have anything to drive him; grades are all he’s ever known. 

 

你看，如果这个孩子只把分数作为人生追求的标杆时，那么，一旦把分数和考核的标杆拿掉，他会怎么样？他将会失去前进的原动力，因为在他心目中，只认分数。

 

To truly be successful, Asian American parents have to address the problem at the individual and his desires and his drives, not the things that you want him to drive. For example, if you have a car and it has a good motor but terrible wheels, it can still go a distance. But if you have amazing wheels but a broken motor, no matter how amazing the wheels are going to be, the car is not going to move much. 

 

The child is the motor, the tests and admissions are the wheels, and the distance is the results. If we as a culture view the problem, and ask ourselves, “How is my child going to do without my pushing and nagging him?”, then we can begin to assess the problem. It starts at the person, at the roots.

 

要想培养一个真正成功的孩子，亚裔父母要对每一个孩子的个性特征、内心追求和自身能力予以关心，而不是强加于父母的意愿。比如，你有一辆汽车，它的引擎性能很好，但是轮子很糟糕，至少这部车子还能开出去，但是，如果车轮性能上佳，而引擎已经坏掉，那么，无论轮子质量再好车子也无法启动。

 

孩子就是引擎，考试和升学就是轮子，而车子跑得多远就是成功的目标。所以，要想根本解决问题，亚裔父母要经常问自己一个问题：“离开了我的压力和唠叨，我的孩子还能不能继续前行？”问了这个问题之后，你才真正开始解决问题的本质：那就是：关注人本身，关注问题实质。

 

Personally, I see so many students at Berkeley that are incredibly smart kids, but they do not know how to apply themselves. Because their parents have been doing all the pushing, when they are left to live by themselves, suddenly their laziness and foolishness comes out. So many students squander their time away for parties and meaningless things on their road to success. 

 

What I propose is that parents need to work on the child’s own standards for themselves and not base themselves off a letter grade or even their parent’s standards.

 

我个人的经历来讲，我在伯克莱大学遇到太多这样的事例。许多孩子相当聪明，但是一旦他们失去父母的压力和从旁督促，就开始变得无所适从，并开始显现懒惰和幼稚的本性。他们毫无止境地挥霍和浪费青春于Party和毫无意义的事情上。

 

我建议，父母应该教会孩子给自己设定目标，而不是用分数和父母自己的要求来束缚他们。

 

To be honest, I’m still growing up and I don’t know how difficult this is to do. But in my experience from being around Asian families while at the same time having more liberal parents, I’m able to offer you this advice. How to put it into action is another thing that I have to discover as I grow older. 

 

I hope this is helpful to all you Asian parents in gaining some perspective and that you could help other young parents in their experience in raising a child. 

 

Thanks for listening.

 

老实话说，我正在成长，而且我并不知道具体去做该有多么困难。我之所以能提出我自己的见解，是因为在我交往的家庭中，有与亚裔父母，也有与其他开放父母的经验。具体如何实施，我想，等我长大以后才会知道。

 

我希望我的这番话，能够帮助到亚裔父母，尤其是那些有幼小孩子的亚裔父母，能够看见问题的另一面。

 

感谢你们的倾听。