Rant of the Exiles

Every generation overcompensates for the preceding one. A teacher at my kids' former school shared how, as a child, she used to challenge her parents' decisions by asking why. And she would be rewarded by their terse response "Because I said so". She hated it. So much so that since then she has made it her mission (in line with the school's child-centered philosophy) to explain to her students in every situation the reasoning behind her requests. I've seen this first-hand in the classroom. A couple years ago, my son's teacher (not the one above) would bring teaching to a halt for several minutes so she could explain to a disruptive student why his behavior was causing the class problems, ask him to consider other options, and then respectfully wait for him to come to a decision. It was maddening, for both me and my son. John Rosemond has a solution that these teachers would hate. He advocates "because I said so" (BISS) because: I ha...

 According to one source , Jeremy Lin is an average point guard in the National Basketball Association. His season stats are pretty good but not All-Star caliber. His scoring is down slightly from last season because he has a different team and a different role. I couldn't be more ecstatic about this. It means that Jeremy is an ordinary NBA player. It means that he's not that big of a deal. It means that he's getting by at his job. To be average in an elite cadre of 500 of the best basketball players and top athletes in the world is nothing short of extraordinary. For overachieving Asian Americans, being average is garbage. Getting a "C" is failure. Getting a "satisfactory" is humiliating. Most of us won't attempt anything where we can only "get by". But the reality is there has never been an average Asian American NBA player. Yao Ming is exceptional both in ability but also in height. Being 7'6" does not make you normal....

I can't find recent data. Most of the stuff is at least five years old but by these estimates, the Asian American divorce rate is about 5%. I've got research from 2002 , 2008 for Asian Americans, and 2008 for Chinese Americans. The latest census data do not break out by race. In any case, a 5% divorce rate is about half the national average. Less divorce is a good thing. I would imagine that divorce does not bode well for personal fulfillment and many studies have shown it has a negative impact on children (too lazy to cite all the sources here). Of course, as one source argues, a lower divorce rate does not equate to a healthy marriage. There can be all kinds of abuse, dysfunction, and strife within marriage. All in all though, a lower divorce rate is one advantage of late marriage for Asian American men (and women). However, I believe a lower divorce rate is correlated with later marriage and there is no causation between the two. People who tend to be conservative, ...

Some responses to my last posts about why Asian American men marry later : desire for comfort, preference and privilege, aging well (decision paralysis because of too many options?), perfectionism, poor parental models of marriage, screwed up idea of relationships, low emotional intelligence, and being the most unappealing men in America (more on this in a future post). With the exception of us of being unappealing, I don't get how all these factors are unique to Asian American men but not women. I wonder if there's something unique about the way men respond to these factors that make marriage less accessible (or attractive) for us. For instance, low emotional intelligence may affect men more than women since men initiate and lead relationships. Similarly, having a conservative, risk-averse outlook is less attractive in a man than a woman. It will also keep a guy from asking girls out. I told my brother about my suspicions. When I got to the one about us maturing later, h...

The National Marriage Project recently released a report called " Knot Yet: The Benefits and Costs of Delayed Marriage in America ". Many of us are aware that the average age of first marriage (27 for women and 29 for men) in the United States is at an all-time high.  But for Asian American men (but not women), it's much  higher . According to this 2010 study, white American men marry at age 28 while white women marry at age 26.  Asian American men marry two years later at age 30 while Asian American women marry at the same age as white women - 26. This gender gap is the widest of all ethnic groups. In fact, the only ethnic group that marries later is African Americans (And we all know black people don't get hitched because  marriage is for white people ). But if Asians are the model minority and the most assimilated to white culture, Asian American marriage patterns should more closely resemble that of white Americans. So how come Asian American m...

I enjoy Jay Caspian Kang's writing at Grantland , a sports journalism website. But his recent NY Times article takes his craft to another level. Kang writes about the Oikos nursing school massacre in Oakland last April. He compares it with the Virginia Tech massacre five years earlier. Both involved Koreans. In an interview with Korean-American child psychiatrist, Winston Chung, Kang writes: “In Korean culture,” Chung explained, “denial and avoidance are the status quo. Under all that  suppression, emotional turmoil festers. When it’s not addressed, it can turn explosive. There’s this dark side that needs to be dealt with, but the Korean community as a whole will not acknowledge that               something is up. Nobody will say anything about anything. “I know this shooting had something to do with   han , with hwabyung , [two Korean terms meaning hopeless anger] Chung went on. “I feel almost guilty saying that, knowing how hurtful tho...

This post was inspired by the song "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore and this post . In a recent Toastmasters meeting, a woman said in reference to dressing well, "When you look good, you feel good." I don't totally agree but I think I get it. Style matters. The clothes you wear convey individuality and confidence. Individuality makes you stand out from everyone else. And confidence kills. I know Asian guys that dress well. Too bad most of them aren't not Christians. We're taught in the church that substance trumps style. That's true. And yet it doesn't mean style is meaningless. Style can express substance. Guys tend to shun vivid colors, outlandish looks, and clothes for young children (like footie pajamas). But if you're different and you know it, let it show. Let it shine. I went shopping at Goodwill recently. One was bright yellow. Before buying it, I asked myself: "Is this me?" I thought about it for a minute. I don...