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Comment by mwhuang2 | Hacker News Reader

“There’s something in the upbringing that makes Asians shy,"

At my first internship, people were commenting on how timid I seemed. I was used to obeying my parents and teachers without question; all I did was try to keep my head down and work harder. This sort of upbringing makes for great workers but bad leaders. I hope to come out of my shell more during the rest of college and my formative years.

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This was(is?) definitely my problem.

But, after seeing how (corporate?)USA works, I was able to specifically account for it.

Here's a few things I did that might help you (list specifically geared towards individual contributors):

- made sure I was the one presenting/talking about my work (stand-ups/hackathons/etcs)

- made a list of my daily and weekly contributions that tied to big picture/visibility so I could bring those up during 1:1s. This helps a ton because I am better at "showing-off" with concrete things or in a situation that asks for it rather than just generally.

- made an effort to be a point of contact to external teams/divisions for my group/expertise.

Even now, I do tend towards "head down, work hard, hope for reward" by default. But, having a system helps me keep on track. Even now that I've got my own startup :)

As an asian, I think shyness is also genetic. My parents were pretty lax in terms of discipline. So lax, that I ended up going to a community college after high school and transferring to ucla after i got my act together. This didn't stop me from being shy. Shyness is just a heightened fear response that's triggered during social situations. I think for asians the threshold for this trigger just lower when compared to other races.

i'm asian and i think this theory is 100% full of shit.

you're making excuses for your under-developed social skills.

how embarrassing.

Speaking of "underdeveloped social skills", there's plenty of ways to disagree without coming off as a belligerent ass.

How would you like it if someone said that to you? Do you act this way in real life? Sometimes I think the internet acts as a sort of alternate reality where people can just act like assholes without consequences. On the internet people cowardly hide behind nicknames, but in the real world you're exposing your physical identity to everyone. Things can get really dangerous.

-Ryan Iwamoto

I think this is a cop-out.

I've met tonnes of asians who are great at social settings. Just like I've met tonnes who aren't. Just like I've met tonnes of (black|white|hispanic|etcs) ...

I have noticed that asians engineers in particular, in a corporate setting, tend towards "work hard + wait for reward" strategy. Maybe it's the intersection of what draws us to engineering and upbringing that results in this?

But yeah, to say it's genetic is silly :)

I'd be careful about having that mindset. Studies have shown that people conform to their stereotype e.g. Asian females taking a math test performed better when reminded they were Asian and worse when reminded they were female, because the stereotype is that Asians are better at math and females are worse at it (http://pss.sagepub.com/content/10/1/80.abstract).

I personally feel that few traits are truly immutable, and that a lot of it is really just in your head. People who conform to a belief end up becoming what they think, leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Chin up, I don't think it's genetic. This stereotype of being shy, socially awkward losers is beaten into Americans (asian or not) from a very early age. Just look at all of our media. Asians are either totally absent, or complete bottom feeders on the social ladder. I bet that a lot of your personality comes from the environment and expectations you grow up in.

It sucks, but the good thing is that it's never too late to change. There are tons of boss Asians. I was rather popular in high school (and I'm from the deep south, only Asian guy in my class) and college, and often find myself the center of attention in social situations. One of the upper level managers at my company is Asian and he's very social, and he even has an accent! I have plenty of other friends who are very extroverted and confident, and they're asian too.

It's a skill, like any other, and focused hard work will yield improvements.

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