Amina: Chinese culture is very similar to my culture…That’s why I think I got to page 7.
              Everyone laughs
Rozalya: Oh, you got to the end
Amina: No, not to the end.  I had three more pages.

Rozalya:   But you got the JIST of it.

Amina: I went through these similar.  I couldn’t have sleep over, play date, be in school play and complain not being in the school play, watch TV or play computer games.  

Rozalya: Yeah

Amina: Ummm I am not sure about extracurricular activities, because I did!  Ummm, my grades were always As. ummmm, I didn’t understand, not be number student in every subject except  gym and drama. What does that mean?

Alexa: Umm so in

Rozalya: They were very competitive

Alexa: yeah

Amina: They were never allowed to

Alexa: So they had to be number in math, LA, science, social studies, but when it came to like gym class because they don’t care about...physical activity they didn’t care if they fail.

Amina: OK. I don’t know about that. I never played any instrument. I can’t relate to that.

In Chinese culture academic is big thing whereas in western culture, if your child is not doing so good. Its like oh its ok, I don’t want to hurt the {self esteem}.

Alexa:                                                           {self esteem}.

Rozalya: humm… oh yeah

Amina: In chinese culture umm they can say, you are lazy. You need to do this.  And also i found it very interesting, a mother could say to their daughters

1:52

3:00

Amina: but if in case it did happen, parents would be screaming and they would have the kid. Um.. do the drilling.. have take so many practice exams.  So I don’t know if you know Dr Wu.

Rozalya: yeah

Amina: yeh he was telling me that his whole cabinet in his house is filled with um SAT books

Alexa: Woah!

Amina: His daughter had a perfect SAT score, on the other hand his son did only two  practice exams. Uh.. but He still did good, but if he had taken more practice exams he would have gotten a perfect score.

Rozalya:  Interesting..

Alexa: wow

Rozalya: I had the.. I thought I lost my thought.

Amina: there is a lot of drilling that happens in…

Rozalya: right

Amina: Chinese culture, rote memorization

Rozalya: So they, Children don’t excel, don’t do something because like out of pleasure, or interest, they love it, because they are under pressure.

Alexa: Well it said somewhere that I think once they praise them enough, something that wasn’t fun before becomes fun so that they can push them to keep doing it

Rozalya: so in eyes of the parents

Amina: no it said here that um

Alexa:I forget where it was

Amina: it was on page uh 4. Whether its math, piano, or anything else. The child gets confident when they when they get practice and they get good at it. so an activity activity was not so fun at one time is a fun activity.

Rozalya: oh because they can do it

(4:38)