Just before President Obama toasted Chinese President Hu Jintao at last week's state dinner, Time magazine unveiled a cover featuring Amy Chua's new tome, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.
In the book, Chua describes her hard-charging, "Chinese" parenting style; prohibiting her daughters from having sleepovers or play dates, telling them what extracurriculars to do (piano and violin) and not to do (the school play), and demanding that they be No. 1 in every academic class.
This take-no-prisoners approach sounds, to many Western ears, dictatorial.
And yet we have become enthralled with Chua, whose Wall Street Journal essay, "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior," garnered more than a million hits, lit up comment boards, and propelled her into interviews with CNN, NPR, and NBC.
But why?
In large part, it's because we're afraid. Afraid that Chinese culture may somehow eclipse our own, that our jobs may become Chinese jobs, that our preeminence will become Chinese preeminence.
At the state dinner—surrounded by celebrities from Michelle Kwan to Yo-Yo Ma—Obama insisted that we should "never forget the values that our people share: a reverence for family; the belief that, with education and hard work and with sacrifice, the future is what we make it; and most of all, the desire to give our children a better life."
Perhaps so, but many Americans worry that their children are already living in China's shadow.
In a December 2010 National Journal poll, 47 percent of respondents said they believed China has the largest economy in the world—20 percent thought America was No. 1. In fact, the U.S. economy is more than twice the size of China's, but at a time when companies can hire engineers from anywhere in the world, Americans feel that we are rapidly losing ground. Are we doing enough to educate our students? Are they studying hard enough?
The bottom line: no one knows.
Last month, we learned that the U.S. did poorly on a widely-followed international assessment test (PISA), scoring 17th in reading and 23rd in science. Our lowest ranking—31st in math—puts us behind far behind South Korea, Canada, and Slovakia.
The day before the PISA results broke, Obama noted, "In the race for the future, America is in danger of falling behind."
Unfortunately for the U.S., high-scoring countries refuse to rest on their laurels. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore fretted that his tiny nation (fourth in science, fifth in reading, second in math) needed to step up its educational game in order to avoid being eclipsed by China (the city of Shanghai claimed the top score in all three subjects).
Which brings us back to Amy Chua and her parenting style.
Chua, who reportedly got a six-figure advance, may be a provocateur, but she also taps a nerve.
"If done properly," Chua argues, "the Chinese strategy produces a virtuous circle. Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America."
And she insists that there is little room for deviation: "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."
Most Americans—including me—cannot imagine enforcing hours of rote learning each day or referring to any child as "garbage." But the intended effect is clear: hard work and obedience.
And hard work and obedience have upsides. In the classroom, it means no texting, no tardiness, and homework done on time. I have colleagues at many institutions who have complained about the problem of under-the-desk texting—which distracts both the texter and the more focused, enthusiastic students.
But hard work and obedience also have downsides. An educational environment that enforces discipline, respect, and rote learning can stifle questions, creativity, and understanding.
Michigan State Professor Yong Zhao has noted that "Chinese college graduates often have high scores but low ability. Those who are good at taking tests go to college, which also emphasizes book knowledge. But when they graduate, they find out that employers actually want much more than test scores."
America's leadership is rooted in creativity, inventiveness, the conceptualization of a new reality, and the ability to think beyond what our teachers tell us. But is our emphasis on free-thinking and self-esteem enough? Or are we marking time while the rest of the world races ahead?
At heart, this is our secret question for Amy Chua. Sure, she seems a little crazy, but she also represents a cultural system so unbelievably powerful that it's impossible to ignore.
Kara Miller is an Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. Her op-eds have appeared in The Boston Globe and The International Herald Tribune, and she is a contributor to WGBH's PBS and NPR stations in Boston.
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