I encountered this excellent psychological piece late last year and decided to save the link for now. There are similar lists available that many people do not even care to read. But the way I look at it, based on my theory of preinstitutions, these things are exactly and fundamentally defining the American and Chinese cultures and making the US strong enough to outcompete China. The seven things that parents should be doing for raising a successful child are listed below to save time from going back and forth between this blog and the report:
- Be a gardener, no a carpenter
- Talk and read to the child, a lot
- Explain things
- Describe the activities, not the person
- Help them to copy you
- Expose them to many people
- Applaud agency
Actively Encouraged, Broadly Referenced, Reasoned & Debated Junior Choices Define the Foundation of a Strong American Culture
The above is my one sentence takeaway from the seven “Dos” from the report. It summarizes the essential of why American culture is strong, powerful, influential and dominant in the world. Of course, I am talking about the ideal or the average, as there are certainly Americans who are awkward communicators, who do their jobs just for the money rather than for any deep seated personal interests or causes. There are even Americans like Donald Trump, who have managed to package in themselves so many dark personalities and bad behaviors, including wielding a smoking gun in the recorded phone conversation with the Georgian Secretary of State and threatening US senator Tom Cotton for agreeing to certify his loss in the electoral college votes. I totally agree with this opinion piece that Trump should be impeached and barred from holding any future public offices. But I also know that the US politics is a numbers game with the two political parties competing for the split voters, it is unlikely to happen this time like it had been for Richard Nixon.
The Chinese Are Lost At the Beginning Line
The best way to understanding Chinese culture is not to read the books of Confucius, or to study the folklore stories or the imperial records from one dynasty to the other (like Mao Zedong spent most of his time on doing and used historical quotes, policies and stories to guide his miserable decisions).
The best way is to study how the Chinese parents raise their children. It is live, continuous, dynamic and predictable. It is amazingly continuous both over time and goes from micro to macro.
I can come up with the same list of seven Dos, except this time for mainland China and the Chinese. Doing so would help us appreciate the American Dos more. The Chinese Dos below are the self-weakening acts that deprived the soft power of its culture beyond the borders of China. In all aspects the Chinese are doing exactly the opposite of the Americans.
- Be an unskilled carpenter with a fixed mold for all children
- Do not talk reasons nor encourage readings of anything with no immediate or obvious “utilities”
- Do not, or will not, explain much of anything to the kids
- Do jump to human stereotypes from over-generalization of activities
- Do limit the exposures of juniors to a thick family wall
- Do take away the kids’ opportunity of learning by doing
- Do not act as role model for the juniors
It is an irony that the Chinese parents really loathe making their juniors “lost at the beginning line” (别让孩子输在起跑线上), meaning to start their kids early and start it right, by sending them to various pre-kindergarten activities or extracurricular clubs or classes. But collectively they are exactly losing at the beginning line compared with the US.
From “Mouthless Listeners” to Quiet Employees
To illustrate how China and Chinese lost at the beginning lines, let’s consider the one phrase that parents have been most frequently telling the juniors throughout their childhood and even early adulthood: “Listen to the seniors” (i.e., parents, teachers, grandparents and relatives) or in Chinese: 要听大人的话! The presumption is that the seniors would never teach anything bad to the juniors, and with their experiences, wisdoms and insights the juniors have nothing to lose and everything to gain from following the advices of the seniors.
In all truthfulness, the juniors have much to lose and little to gain.
Listening to seniors only requires ears but no mouth for two-way communications. The “mouthless listening” in the childhood silently but preemptively took away the chance to practice personal communication skills with others. This is why the Chinese New Years are always celebrated with people watching the scripted performances on the stages and then transmitted on TV. Government leaders deliver speeches that are always written ahead of time — often by the secretary or the speech writer. At colleges students are busy taking notes rather than asking questions or talking unprepared in front of the class. This gets worse when the students go overseas: Chinese students tend to be the quietest, making it harder for a professor to recognize or remember them.
The consequence goes beyond dull classrooms. Communication skills are fundamental in a modern society to persuade and to convince others to come along with your ideas, especially for managers and leaders. It takes time and practices to get better over time, and it can only help if one starts early in life than others.
The Chinese have been talking among themselves how the Indians have climbed up the corporate ladders in many top notch firms. Many have attributed that to India being a former British colony, so the Indians know the English better than Chinese. However, communication is more about psychology than about language. One can speak perfect English but still does not know what to say at what time and how to say it.
From “Mouthless Listeners” to Dead Innovators
An even bigger problem from mouthless learners is the severely suffocated capability of innovations. On a per capita scale, China lags far behind the US. I know some commentators have claimed that only democracy encourages innovations. This is as much a myth as only capitalism can grow the economy fast. A much closer link is with how parenting is done to the juniors.
There are several reasons why listening to seniors is bad for innovations. First of all, seniors are not peers on an equal footing. With a hierarchical relationship with seniors, juniors are not as free to exchange ideas as with a peer.
I still remember vividly today that when I was a teaching assistant in Madison, Wisconsin, I was writing down the homework assignment on the blackboard. When I turned around, I saw two girls approaching and one of them simply said “Wu, your ass is sexy” (I told my students to call me “Wu” back then) and that was the very first class for the new semester back in 1987. My point is that conversation like that is entirely impossible in China. The minute the student find out you have control over what grade they get, they would treat you with all the respect and try to make a good impression on you anyway they can think of. It is the Americans who generally see each other as equal, which helps promote freer exchanges that are good for innovations.
The Chinese juniors are not allowed to criticize the thoughts of seniors, and therefore lost the opportunity to develop critical thinking that American kids have. Worse still, as Chinese generally have a low trust of people without blood ties, they also do not have good references and healthy debates to learn from anyone outside the family.
Of course, when the juniors grow up, they can form entrepreneurial teams for projects. My point here is that the Chinese had lost at the beginning lines.
Why A Continued US Leadership Makes Sense
As a true “globalist” I prefer a continued global leadership by the US rather than a takeover by China: All in all, the Americans still have far more to offer to the world than the Chinese do, although China can assist with making or bringing materialist changes. As far as I can see, there’s no other power in the world that can leverage and control China at the same time. China is the number one reason to call for a continued and strengthened American leadership.
It is a pity that China’s Xi, Jinping could have changed the country to another direction rather than trying to reverse the country back to the Mao era. On the other hand, countries like China and many other authoritarian societies in the world are more likely to have authoritarian regimes and leaders than a true democracy. It is in the blood and genes that are encouraged in early life stages.