I agree that most Western parents are too lenient and too obsessed with being "friends" with their kids. But...
Not everyone can get an "A" or be #1 in every subject. And sports are important for building character.
Yeah. Most telling is the breakdown a lot of these kids (and lots of kids of every ethnic and cultural background pushed onto a med school track) have when they are forced into chemistry & organic chemistry classes in college, which have -real curves-. So not everyone can get an A. In fact, almost no one is going to get an A. Lots of them completely fall apart and have a hard time figuring out it is what they really want to be. Almost worse off are some of the people who do well and only have that breakdown when they’re out of their residency and realized they wanted to be a reporter or a chef or a businessman.
Well then, lets just dumb down the expectations of our kids shall we?
Sorry but there's other factors at work in Japan.
The author is writing from a resident American Asian's point of view...........And the last I've read, Asians have no higher rate of suicide here in the U.S. than any other race.
Lets look at this from a rational point of view: We criticize our schools for not properly educating our children and thus they fail. Then we criticize the parents for not being involved enough in their childrens education and thus they fail. Now we have an American Chinese who is explaining how her children have excelled in school and all you do is criticize her for her methods............ boy, is this confusing.
“And this sort of crap is why the suicide rate in Japan is so high.”
The subject here is China, not Japan. Which is rather like saying, “The subject here is Finland, not Botswana.”
I get the impression that more kids in Japan commit suicide because they’re picked on by their classmates than for any other reason.