中國爹娘美國娃（四） - 致亞裔父母親

 

Concerning Asian Parents / 致亞裔父母親

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.

 

叔叔阿姨們好。我的名字叫陳開文，來自一個亞裔家庭。所不同的是，我成長在加州矽穀，幾乎是全美國最自由的地方。在我們這裏，有好幾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。這些都是公立高中，如果是私立高中的話，所列名單可能會更長。

 

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高中相對於這些學校，課業競爭沒有那麽激烈。我的妹妹就在F高中讀書，現在是高三學生。從現在開始，學校進入考試賽季，各學科的標準化測驗正式啟動。尤其高三的學生，開始要準備考SATs、ACTs和AP。當我這麽說，“這個季節的壓力是前所未有、難以置信”時，我想，沒有人會對我的說法表示異議。亞裔父母帶給他們孩子的壓力幾乎走向極端。從你們的角度考慮，理由很充分，沒有什麽不妥之說。

 

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).

 

眾所周知，亞裔文化非常看重結果。比方說，如果你的兒子或女兒沒有達到你的預期，使你無法在人前炫耀孩子的SAT分數、GPA成績、被大學錄取的通知時，你總是會感到自愧不如。（哈哈，不要強詞奪理急著否認，我們都知道其實你就是的）。

 

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.

 

父母們期待自己的孩子成績優秀，SAT得高分，順利進入理想大學，擁有這樣的想法是每一個做父母的心願，都是為孩子的前途著想，我非常理解。是的，I Do。 然而，我不讚同亞裔父母對實現這個目標的手段和思維方式。

 

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? 

 

亞裔父母期望孩子考出好成績，在SAT上下功夫，最後進入頂尖大學，但是，為了實現這樣的目標，他們是怎樣做的呢？從我的觀察來看，那些父母們隻是在解決表麵現象：他們讓孩子無休無止地應付期末考試和SAT考試。

 

試問，就算孩子最後如願以償地進了理想大學，那又會怎樣呢？他能不能丟掉他父母親那根拐杖？他能不能在沒有父母督促的情況下，仍然可以繼續往前走呢？你是希望他隻是一個考試機器呢？還是一個有知識有智慧的年輕人？

 

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?

 

我在這裏想要強調的是，亞裔的孩子在家長的高壓下，許多都成為高分低能的考試工具。雖然他們能解決許多表麵上的問題，比如考高分和升學，可是，家長們有沒有考慮到，如何關注問題的實質，解決“人”的成長問題？

 

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，如果這個孩子隻把分數作為人生追求的標杆時，那麽，一旦把分數和考核的標杆拿掉，他會怎麽樣？他將會失去前進的原動力，因為在他心目中，隻認分數。

 

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.

 

要想培養一個真正成功的孩子，亞裔父母要對每一個孩子的個性特征、內心追求和自身能力予以關心，而不是強加於父母的意願。比如，你有一輛汽車，它的引擎性能很好，但是輪子很糟糕，至少這部車子還能開出去，但是，如果車輪性能上佳，而引擎已經壞掉，那麽，無論輪子質量再好車子也無法啟動。

 

孩子就是引擎，考試和升學就是輪子，而車子跑得多遠就是成功的目標。所以，要想根本解決問題，亞裔父母要經常問自己一個問題：“離開了我的壓力和嘮叨，我的孩子還能不能繼續前行？”問了這個問題之後，你才真正開始解決問題的本質：那就是：關注人本身，關注問題實質。

 

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.

 

我個人的經曆來講，我在伯克萊大學遇到太多這樣的事例。許多孩子相當聰明，但是一旦他們失去父母的壓力和從旁督促，就開始變得無所適從，並開始顯現懶惰和幼稚的本性。他們毫無止境地揮霍和浪費青春於Party和毫無意義的事情上。

 

我建議，父母應該教會孩子給自己設定目標，而不是用分數和父母自己的要求來束縛他們。

 

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.

 

老實話說，我正在成長，而且我並不知道具體去做該有多麽困難。我之所以能提出我自己的見解，是因為在我交往的家庭中，有與亞裔父母，也有與其他開放父母的經驗。具體如何實施，我想，等我長大以後才會知道。

 

我希望我的這番話，能夠幫助到亞裔父母，尤其是那些有幼小孩子的亞裔父母，能夠看見問題的另一麵。

 

感謝你們的傾聽。