[Berlin_Freeper]

- Her kids, Louisa and Sophia, were never allowed to have playdates, watch TV or get anything less than A's in school. They played instruments of her choosing (piano, violin) and practiced for hours under close watch. If they resisted, she pounced: at one moment she called her daughter “garbage,” in another “pathetic.”

Wait a minute...

this is not a Chinese thing. I know two Elite Liberal couples loaded with cash and prestige (friends of my wife) and both couples raise their kids exactly like that.

[tsomer]

this is not a Chinese thing...
Elite Liberal couples...raise their kids exactly like that.

I guess you could call it a Mandarin thing-- after the simplified Chinese dialect developed for their administrative class.

For centuries, future administrators were winnowed from the general population through a series of competitive examinations. These tests required 10 or more years of rigorous study to prepare for.

Did this arrangement work? The period in which it was applied corresponds to the eras of China's decadence, insularity and dimunition as a presence in the world?

Now, of course, it's already in a dominant position and is growing. So what is different today from it's earlier period?