Expectation of Asian Families

“I got 97% for my maths.”

“What!!! Your sister got 99% for her maths when she was in your grade. Even when I was your age I was the top of the school”…and by now you would have shut down and started nodding dumbly at whatever your family is saying. Many of you might have encountered this, and if you would, I would happily, "stress" over the expectations of Asian families. 

I expect that many of you like me must go through this everyday. The on-going nagging is one to drive you crazy and there have been many times when they did catch me online and then lecture me endlessly when I was actually doing my homework *cough*. Then they send you to the most dreaded things in the whole entire world.

They send you to tutoring colleges. James An, Pre-Uni, Swot Shop and North Shore are just to name a few. The most terrifying thing, however, isn’t the numerous amounts of tutoring colleges…it’s the fact that they are all run by Asians. They all have a close resemblance to your parents and their little rants on being the best. It’s amazing how we all know of the expectations of Asian families.

When I was young, it was dragons, unicorns, fairies and other weird and wonderful creatures. Then, I got carted off to school where there was a dreaded thing called science. Science proved that all the magical creatures are not true and that bought me to near tears. That’s why I am always in mortal peril when I get my science mark back, not only from my traumatising memory, but also from my parents, true story.

I know that I am aiming at the cliché parents and relatives that have an ongoing speech…and no it’s not on I love Chairman Mao and I love the communist party. Take my relatives for example. All my relatives in China and they all say the same thing. Once you come back, you will have a competition with your sister, and the smartest will win and get a prize. This was spoken in Shanghainese of course.

That’s fine for Diana who is an absolute nerd and will definitely ace everything she does, me on the other hand, the last time I did something school related, was to see if any of the teachers had Facebook, Twitter or Youtube, or in short, YouTwitFace. Along with how many followers, friends and whatnot they had on you twit face. I go off track when I’m studying.

Compare this against a grammar Nazi who successfully got into the OC, got into an amazing selective school, which is Sydney Girls, regardless of what you think about the Asian filled James Ruse, and is currently attending the University of Sydney. Did I mention that she’s 6 ½ years older than me? Your family turns into your rivals and your friends are also your rivals. Go take a walk and you’ll see all your rivals.

No matter how many musician ships, ballet lessons or Chinese classes, we still have the nagging and the expectations. As my father once did say … ‘I have two daughters. One’s made in China and one’s made in Australia. So far the made in China one is better than the one that’s made in Australia’. I’m ‘Made in Australia’ and he said it in front of me ... Great motivation! Now if you’ll excuse me … I must prove my father wrong, attend my tutoring class and fulfil my family’s expectations.