Read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother Online

Authors: Amy Chua

Tags: #Asian American Studies, #Social Science, #Mothers, #Chinese American women, #General, #United States, #Mothers and daughters - China, #Personal Memoirs, #Mothers - United States, #China, #Cultural Heritage, #Biography & Autobiography, #Mothers and daughters, #Ethnic Studies, #Chua; Amy, #Mothers and daughters - United States, #Biography

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (26 page)

BOOK: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

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“Oh please,” I said, shaking my head. “Let’s not go in circles again.”

“I don’t want to quit violin,” Lulu repeated. “I just don’t want to be so intense about it. It’s not the main thing I want to do with my life.You picked it, not me.”

It turns out that not being intense had some radical, and for me heartbreaking, implications. First, Lulu decided to quit orchestra, giving up her concertmaster position in order to free up Saturday mornings for tennis. Not a second goes by that this doesn’t cause me pain. When she played her last piece as concertmaster at a recital at Tanglewood and then shook the conductor’s hand, I almost wept. Second, Lulu decided that she didn’t want to go to New York every Sunday for violin lessons anymore, so we gave up our spot in Miss Tanaka’s studio—our precious spot with a famous Juilliard teacher that had been so hard to get!

Instead, I found Lulu a local teacher in New Haven. After a long talk, we also agreed that Lulu would practice by herself, without me or regular coaches, and for just thirty minutes a day—not nearly enough, I knew, to maintain her high level of playing.

For the first few weeks after Lulu’s decision, I wandered around the house like a person who’d lost their mission, their reason for living.

At a recent lunch, I met Elizabeth Alexander, the Yale professor who read her original poem at President Obama’s inauguration. I told her how much I admired her work, and we exchanged a few words.

Then she said, “Wait a minute—I think I know you. Do you have two daughters who studied at the Neighborhood Music School? Aren’t you the mother of those two incredibly talented musicians?”

It turns out that Elizabeth had two kids, younger than mine, who studied at the Neighborhood Music School also, and they’d heard Sophia and Lulu perform on several occasions. “Your daughters are
amazing,
” she said.

In the old days, I would have said modestly, “Oh they’re really not that good,” hoping desperately that she’d ask me more so I could tell her about Sophia’s and Lulu’s latest music accomplishments. Now I just shook my head.

“Do they still play?” Elizabeth continued. “I don’t see them at the school anymore.”

“My older daughter still plays piano,” I replied. “My younger daughter—the violinist—she doesn’t really play so much anymore.” This was like a knife to my heart. “She prefers to play tennis instead.” Even if she is ranked #10,000 in New England, I thought to myself. Out of 10,000.

“Oh no!” Elizabeth said. “That’s too bad. I remember she was so gifted. She inspired my two little ones.”

“It was her decision,” I heard myself saying. “It was too much of a time commitment. You know how thirteen-year-olds are.” What a Western parent I’ve become, I thought to myself. What a failure.

But I kept my word. I let Lulu play tennis as she pleased, at her own pace, making her own decisions. I remember the first time she signed herself up for a Novice USTA tournament. She came back in a good mood, visibly charged with adrenaline.

“How did you do?” I asked.

“Oh, I lost—but it was my first tournament, and my strategy was all wrong.”

“What was the score?”

“Love-six, love-six,” Lulu said. “But the girl I played was really good.”

If she’s so good, why is she playing in a Novice tournament? I thought darkly to myself, but aloud I said, “Bill Clinton recently told someYale students that you can only be really great at something if you love it. So it’s good that you love tennis.”

But just because you love something, I added to myself, doesn’t mean you’ll ever be great. Not if you don’t work. Most people stink at the things they love.

The Ending

Lulu on court

We recently hosted a formal dinner at our home for judges from all over the world. One of the most humbling things about being a Yale law professor is that you get to meet some awe-inspiring figures—some of the greatest jurists of the day. For ten years now, Yale’s global constitutionalism seminar has brought in supreme court justices from dozens of countries, including the United States.

For entertainment, we invited Sophia’s piano professor, Wei-Yi Yang, to perform part of the program he was preparing for Yale’s famous Horowitz Piano Series. Wei-Yi generously suggested that his young pupil Sophia perform as well. For fun, teacher and student could also play a duet together: “En Bateau” from Debussy’s
Petite Suite
.

I was incredibly excited and nervous about the idea and nurturingly said to Sophia, “Don’t blow this. Everything turns on your performance. The justices aren’t coming to New Haven to hear a high school talent show. If you’re not over-the-top perfect we’ll have insulted them. Now go to the piano and don’t leave it.” I guess there’s still a bit of the Chinese mother in me.

The next few weeks were like a replay of the run-up to Carnegie Hall, except that now Sophia did almost all her practicing herself. As in the past, I immersed myself in her pieces—Saint-Saëns’s
Allegro Appassionato
and a polonaise and
Fantaisie Impromptu
by Chopin—but the truth was that Sophia barely needed me anymore. She knew exactly what she had to do, and only occasionally would I yell out a critique from the kitchen or upstairs. Meanwhile, Jed and I had all our living room furniture moved out except the piano. I scrubbed the floor myself, and we rented chairs for fifty people.

The evening of the performance Sophia wore a red dress, and as she walked in to take her opening bow, panic seized me. I was practically frozen during the polonaise. I couldn’t enjoy the Saint-Saëns either, even though Sophia played it brilliantly. That piece is meant to be sheer virtuosic entertainment, and I was too tense to be entertained. Could Sophia keep her runs sparkling and clean? Had she overpracticed, and would her hands give out? I had to force myself not to rock and back forth and hum robotically, which is what I usually do when the girls perform a difficult piece.

But when Sophia played her last piece, Chopin’s
Fantaisie Impromptu,
everything changed. For some reason, the tension in me dissipated, the lockjaw released, and all I could think was, She owns this piece. When she got up to take her bow, a radiant smile on her face, I thought, That’s my girl—she’s happy; the music is making her happy. Right then I knew that it had all been worth it.

Sophia received three ovations, and afterward the justices—including many I’ve idolized for years—were effusive in their praise. One said Sophia’s playing was sublime and that he could have listened to her all night. Another insisted that she had to pursue the piano professionally because it would be a crime to waste her talent. And a surprising number of the justices, being parents themselves, asked me personal questions like, “What is your secret? Do you think it’s something about the Asian family culture that tends to produce so many exceptional musicians?” Or: “Tell me: Does Sophia practice on her own because she loves music or do you have to force her? I could never make my own children practice more than fifteen minutes.” And: “How about your other daughter? I hear she’s a fabulous violinist. Will we hear her next time?”

I told them that I was struggling to finish a book on just those questions and that I would send them a copy when it was done.

Around the same time as Sophia’s performance for the justices, I picked Lulu up from some godforsaken tennis place in Connecticut about an hour away.

“Guess what, Mommy—I won!”

“Won what?” I asked.

“The tournament,” Lulu said.

“What does that mean?”

“I won three matches, and I beat the top seed in the finals. She was ranked #60 in New England. I can’t believe I beat her!”

This took me aback. I’d played tennis as a teenager myself, but always just for fun with my family or school friends. As an adult, I tried a few tournaments but quickly found that I couldn’t stand the pressure of competition. Mainly so we could have a family activity, Jed and I had made both Sophia and Lulu take tennis lessons, but we’d never had any hopes.

“Are you still playing at the Novice level?” I asked Lulu. “The lowest level?”

“Yes,” she answered amiably. Ever since I’d given her the choice, we’d gotten along much better. My pain seemed to be her gain, and she was more patient and good-humored. “But I’m going to try the next level soon. I’m sure I’ll lose, but I want to try it for fun.”

And then, out of the blue: “I miss orchestra so much,” Lulu said.

Over the next six weeks, Lulu won three more tournaments. At the last two, I went to watch her play. I was struck by what a fireball she was on the court: how fiercely she hit, how concentrated she looked, and how she never gave up.

As Lulu notched herself up, the competition got much tougher. At one tournament, she lost to a girl twice her size. When Lulu came off the court, she was smiling and gracious, but the second she got in the car she said to me, “I’m going to beat her next time. I’m not good enough yet—but soon.” Then she asked me if I could sign her up for extra tennis lessons.

At the next lesson, I watched Lulu drill her backhand with a focus and tenacity I’d never seen in her. Afterward, she asked me if I would feed her more balls so that she could keep practicing, and we went for another hour. On the way home, when I told her how much better her backhand looked, she said, “
No,
it’s not right yet. It’s still terrible. Can we get a court tomorrow?”

She’s so driven, I thought to myself. So . . . intense.

I talked to Lulu’s tennis instructor. “There’s no way Lulu can ever be really good, right? I mean, she’s thirteen—that’s got to be ten years too late.” I’d heard about the explosion of high-powered tennis academies and four-year-olds with personal trainers. “Also, she’s so short, like me.”

“The important thing is that Lulu loves tennis,” the instructor said, very American-ly. “And she has an unbelievable work ethic—I’ve never seen anyone improve so fast. She’s a great kid. You and your husband have done an amazing job with her. She never settles for less than 110 percent. And she’s always so upbeat and polite.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. But despite myself, my spirits lifted. Could this be the Chinese virtuous circle in action? Had I perhaps just chosen the wrong activity for Lulu? Tennis was very respectable—it wasn’t like bowling. Michael Chang had played tennis.

I started to gear up. I familiarized myself with the USTA rules and procedures and the national ranking system. I also looked into trainers and started calling around about the best tennis clinics in the area.

Lulu overheard me one day. “What are you doing?” she demanded. When I explained that I was just doing a little research, she suddenly got furious. “No, Mommy—
no
!” she said fiercely. “Don’t wreck tennis for me like you wrecked violin.”

That really hurt. I backed off.

The next day I tried again. “Lulu, there’s a place in Massachusetts—”

“No, Mommy—please stop,” Lulu said. “I can do this on my own. I don’t need you to be involved.”

“Lulu, what we need to do is to channel your strength—”

“Mommy, I
get it.
I’ve watched you and listened to your lectures a million times. But I don’t want you controlling my life.”

BOOK: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

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