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Comment by JasonMoyMN79 | Hacker News Reader

This is what I never understood about Asian over-achieving kids. My high school in Minnesota was full of them. They were trying so hard to be perfect, forced by their parents to take violin and piano lessons, score perfect SAT scores, get into Harvard and MIT. But what happened to them? I've been to my high school reunions, and the truth is, none of them turned out to be anything remarkable. None of them are particularly wealthy or famous. They all got regular jobs and are slaving away in corporate America. Not that that's a bad thing. It's just not that different from anyone else.

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"I've been to my high school reunions, and the truth is, none of them turned out to be anything remarkable."

80% of Asian kids in America go on to higher (+12) education. 53% degree attainment (other races are less than 30%). Comprising less than 10% of the population, Asian populations at the Ivy League are ~25%+ (nearly or more than 30% at Stanford and MIT). Asians in America make more on average than all other races.

Asians seem to be attaining alot in a country where they are less than 10% of the population and objective metrics of achievement are even possible. There could be something about the "bamboo ceiling", but Asians are doing objectively better, on average, than the average white, black, or hispanic person.

Yea, if you measure success in terms of going to Ivy League schools. Hate to break it to you though, attending an Ivy League does not equate to success in life, nor does it always result in success. The whole point of the article is, what happens AFTER they get that degree?

I answered that, they earn more money on average than whites, blacks, and hispanics.

What other markers are there "in life" than earning money to measure success? It's not like they're just adrift in an ocean of nothingness delivering lunches, whipping lattes and mowing the corporate office lawn. They are achieving more in academics and cash than other races. What's more to "success in life" than education and cash?

I guess it's not the achievement, it's the expectation. Asians achieve more, yet are looked upon as still inferior by others arbitrarily moving the yardstick from "make more money" to "be CEO". So, when Asians do get there (either by founding their own companies or moving into it) it'll be "yeah, but can they dunk a basket or sing like Britney".

I think I detect a higher expectation from simply being born a certain way. I guess simply being Asian is alot to live up to.

I think it is only fair to warn you, you should probably not pursue a degree in mind-reading. You are not very good at it.

What actually happened was my eyes missed "Asians in America make more on average than all other races", so what I read was a comment purely about academic successes equating to life success. Anyway, I think you need to quantify just how much more, on average, if you are going to use that as the metric that proves the academic success really brings success in life.

"Anyway, I think you need to quantify just how much more, on average"

As of 2007 census numbers, $80000 (median) in Asian households vs $65000, $41000, and $42000 in White, Black, and Hispanic households respectively.

> What other markers are there "in life" than earning money to measure success?

With all due respect, I sincerely hope you are not serious. Using your metrics, Hassanal Bolkiah would be more successful than Albert Einstein.

Talking about expectation, I would not expect someone with 1000+ karma to be so narrow-minded.

Pretty simple really. Most start off more highly paid than most - but the pay difference drops off over time. Most lead unassuming, mundane existences.

A large portion live with the nagging dissatisfaction that they struggled so much harder than everyone else, sacrificed so much more, and yet somehow the payoff doesn't seem commensurate. They were at the top end of the distribution all their life, but now practically define normality.

Most will look around them and realize it could be much worse - they could be running a laundromat. They will then quietly accept their mundane, normal, and honestly, somewhat boring existence in good grace.

Some cannot get over the fact that they threw their childhood, adolescence, and prime years away for a shot at mediocrity. Some have become miserable in this process - this goes double for those who had a real passion for something off the beaten Asian track (art, literature, music, etc). Some of these people will eventually crack and throw it all away to pursue what they actually wanted to do.

If they fail, they will be used as examples on why straying from The Path(tm) is unwise.

If they succeed, they will be praised and looked upon in admiration as a triumphant success of the immigrant community. They will, ironically, be used as examples of how It Works(tm) whenever this exact issue comes up in conversation.

"They will then quietly accept their mundane, normal, and honestly, somewhat boring existence in good grace."

Wow, that is some kind of assumption. Wishful thinking, or perhaps projecting?

"Some have become miserable in this process - this goes double for those who had a real passion for something off the beaten Asian track (art, literature, music, etc). Some of these people will eventually crack and throw it all away to pursue what they actually wanted to do."

Just as a data point apropos of nothing, every single winning team in the television show "America's best dance crew" has either been exclusively or overwhelmingly Asian. That's after 5 seasons.

So, I think you might be conflating the "typical chinese tiger child" with all Asian/East Asian parents. You may need to head to the West Coast to see how much culturally different the kids (and their parents) are there.

Surprise, I grew up on the West Coast. Tiger kids are tiger kids - there isn't a huge gradient from coast to coast.

> "Wishful thinking, or perhaps projecting?"

On the contrary, I'd be delighted if more Asians broke the mold and had the resolve and determination to buck expectations. It is difficult, and most will never go through with it, but I suspect most will think about it, a lot.

> "every single winning team in the television show "America's best dance crew" has either been exclusively or overwhelmingly Asian. That's after 5 seasons."

That fact alone is pointless without knowing how many Asian dance crews have entered. Like I said, most will never buck the trend and go against the grain - especially in such a dramatic way as pursuing dance and popular music. Maybe Asians would win more if more of them pursued this - or maybe they won't. It's all supposition.

"That fact alone is pointless without knowing how many Asian dance crews have entered. Like I said, most will never buck the trend and go against the grain - especially in such a dramatic way as pursuing dance and popular music."

That's specious reasoning, simply because if you're going to accept foremost the idea that all Asian kids are going to MIT and/or studying CS and pre-Med and doing almost nothing else, then it only stands to reason that a preponderance of them are not going to be pursuing dance and pop music in any significant number. Or, at least, that's what you claim.

Speaking of Pop music, in 2010, the Far East Movement had the #1 pop song in the country for a month. Bruno Mars is Filipino, and has had 3 of his songs in the top 10 songs.

So, either alot of them are pursuing dance and pop music in significant numbers, or Asians are so talented in either that they simply will themselves to greatness even though there are so few in pursuit of it. They simply excel in spite of themselves and in their cultural vacuum of tigers and testing.

Actually, my uncle was an Electrical Engineer making a little under than 100k, quit and ran a single laundromat in a posh neighborhood and makes just under 200k profit. True story.

"Asian populations at the Ivy League are ~25%+ (nearly or more than 30% at Stanford and MIT)"

This is simply not correct. If you find yourself saying something like "nearly or more than" after a number with as little precision as 30%, then please don't use it as evidence

He has two numbers, and each statement refers to the other.

http://tech.mit.edu/V130/N14/admissions.html The accepted class is fifty three percent male and forty seven percent female. The racial breakdown for those who listed it is thirty six percent Caucasian, thirty percent Asian, fourteen percent Hispanic, nine percent African-American. Seven percent admitted are international students, who faced a three percent admit rate.

As someone who fits that profile with scary accuracy, I can maybe elaborate on the phenomenon. Asian-American children grow up with much external motivation, which gives them a sense of purpose and work ethic. The problem is, external motivation alone can only help in accomplishing mechanical goals that require little creativity or thought and have clear cut evaluation systems. This is not a problem for taking tests, banging out classical piano pieces with no expression, gaming the college admission system, or editing financial models.

But of course after the shelter of academia is left behind, we find ourselves in a world that has no strict system of evaluation. This is where Asian-Americans seem to struggle. I know I do. What makes a trend take off? What does success even mean anymore? I think this is what makes Asian-Americans grasp for job options that are able to provide external motivation and reward which manifests itself in a more conservative attitude.

There is truly and honestly a crab mentality going on, and it's because of guys like this. Personally, I'm getting tired of all this raging against the stereotype. What if some of us actually like math? What if some of us actually like coding all day? I often get the impression that past school, it is no longer acceptable to overachieve. Corporate America will do just fine.

Is the Tiger Mom thing a problem? Yes. But this is not the answer.

The issue is when your parents and peers judge you based on your math and earning/technical abilities not because they actually enjoy intrinsically math or coding - but for what they stand for symbolically in the Asian American community, tokens you collect so you could get into MIT or get a six-figure job in Corporate America.

Late-night hacking marathons is very different from cramming SAT test exams because of the external pressure imposed by your parents to get their approval. Hacking up a machine learning project is very different from slaving away at your cubicle coding up an accounting module because you need to meet a benchmark to make a certain amount of money to be deemed "normal."

Not to mention wider society - it's difficult to countersignal that you are intrinsically driven.

The metric the families probably care about is how the childrens' careers compare to the parents. Dirt poor immigrant to corporate America in one generation sounds pretty good to me.

I think to really get at this you need to understand that eastern culture is not about glorification of the individual like western culture is. Couple that with the above comment, I believe that a large majority of immigrant parents, who came to the US with a few hundred dollars and barely speaking english, want their children to live stress free lives. They took a lot of risk coming to the US, and worked harder than most of us will probably know. We are the benefactors of their hard work.

If you had next to nothing for resources and don't have old family wealth, how would you try to help your children live a better life? I don't think you'd go teach them the Lean Startup method. You'd probably use what you had available to you. Go to school. And since you're there, you might as well make the most of it. One thing you can make your children do is study hard. Don't understand something? repeat it as many times as necessary to memorize it.

I don't think necessarily it's about what the "best" way, but rather the most reliable way. I would probably guess that those who worked really hard in school, got outstanding grades, and went to good schools, they are all moderately successful, if not at least comfortable.

Maybe very few hit a home run, but very very very few struck out.

This needs to be repeated. Asian parents in America aren't pushing their kids to be millionaires. They push them to guarantee they have a good life at a comfortable white collar job. That is the goal--not starting the next Facebook or being an all star athlete. Remember, these immigrant parents typically came to America with nothing working low-paying blue collar jobs.

Let's play silly pseudo evolutionary psychology. Asians come from long over-populated, labor intensive cultures. Rice paddy agriculture is one seriously backbreaking way to earn a living. The Chinese world also has a millennia old exam culture.

I really think the Asian grind mentality is a product of thousands of years of history. There were different pressures in East Asia.

White nations historically maintained much lower population densities, leaving things less competitive. Whites have pursued more capital intensive, less labor intensive ways to earn a living (e.g. massive thousand year old stone barns for dairy cows and cheese making).

So asians come here to this white nation with the built-in grind mentality. It doesn't work.

What I don't understand is why our overlords are so hell bent on turning this nation in to an overpopulated, hyper-competitive place where everyone has to grind. Stop letting people in, please.

What makes you think it doesn't work? Specifically, what do you mean by "work"?

What I don't understand is why our overlords are so hell bent on turning this nation in to an overpopulated, hyper-competitive place where everyone has to grind.

Because they make more money that way.

>It's just not that different from anyone else.

from the article:

"They earn a higher median family income than any other ethnic group in America, including whites. "

that isn't so small of a result considering that corporate environment doesn't automatically translate better educational achievements into higher salary. Or does it?

perhaps, but how many of them are poor? Not defending anyone here, just playing devil's advocate

I can tell you from my experience that, parents of the current 2nd gen Asian-American children were mostly very poor, parents of the current 1st gen Asian-American kids (who just immigrated in recent years) are mostly wealthier than the average family in their home country (some are equivalent to a middle class American family, some are super rich)

Remarkable success tends to have some correlation with taking chances.

Doing phenomenally well in school might coincide with a risk averse approach toward life.

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