ABSTRACT
At the beginning of 2011, a newly published book called The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother caused something of a media storm. The Chinese-American author, Amy Chua, is a Law Professor at Yale Law School and the book was intended as the story of her family’s journey within two cultures: Chua was brought up in America by Chinese immigrant parents. She is grateful for the typically Chinese upbringing which she was given and she remains close to her parents. But when she started to bring up her own two daughters in the same way, she discovered a significant cultural dissonance between Eastern and Western parenting styles. Whatever one’s view of the controversy which surrounded the publication of the book, it does highlight some significant issues about cultural differences in the use of praise.
