Entries Tagged 'Children' ↓

It is kind of funny. When you are a child, you think of what it is like to grow up and be independent, and then once you become an adult you realize how short and precious childhood really is. A lot of people find my blog by searching terms relating to Asian parents pushing their kids. Today I want to address a few things about parents who push their children because they consider their children to be gifted.

I am not a parent, so I can only speak from the perspective of a child. My mom taught me to read Chinese at a very young age. My parents and their neighbors tell me that I was three when I started to read newspapers and books. I only have vague memories of those times. Anyway, I do remember people calling me a “sheng tong”, which means “god child” or “genius child”. So as a result my dad decided that I should go to elementary school early. In China you are supposed to enter first grade if you are age six by June 30th of the school year. I was born in the latter half the year, so I wasn’t supposed to enter elementary school until I was almost seven. As a result, my classmates were 1 to 2 years older than me. When you are five years old that age difference is huge. I was the puniest child in the class and I had trouble with holding a pencil and copying Chinese characters over and over again. Nevertheless I did pretty well in class, and beat out the older children in math and language tests.

I was a bit weird socially, though. I remember that none of the girls wanted to play with me for some reason and my best friends were boys. Maybe it is because my maturity level was the same as boys since it’s generally accepted that boys are 1 to 2 years less mature than girls. I liked bugs, dirt, and running around. I finished 4th grade in China, and all the friends I remember are boys. I also distinctly remember that one of the popular girls hated me because I did better than her academically.  It’s kind of funny how passive aggressive most girls are.

After 4th grade, I moved to America, and I didn’t know any English.  At first I was put into the fifth grade class.  Since I didn’t understand anything it was pretty tough.  So my mom decided that I should move down to the fourth grade class.  This turned out to be a good choice because they put me in an English as a second language class and I was with children my age.  After a year or so I was able to catch up in English and I was really glad to be with kids the same age as me.  I wasn’t a super popular kid, but it felt like I was on equal ground as everyone else. I have pretty fond memories of secondary school in America because for the most part I was normal, and I had plenty of friends.

When you are a kid, you really don’t want to be a freak, and being younger than everyone else sort of singles you out.  Life is especially tough for a teenager who is quite a bit younger than everyone else and sometimes the results are quite tragic.  For example, during my freshman year of college a boy jumped from the tenth floor of the math building and killed himself.  From his blog I found that he entered college at the age of 16, and was isolated for his whole life because he was younger than everyone else. Loneliness made him jump. It is great to be academically gifted, but I think we are such social creatures that we all want to have friends and be loved.

I think what parents should do is to foster their kids interests, but don’t push them into a social environment they can’t handle. I know a couple real geniuses who never skipped a single grade.  They took advanced classes in the fields they were interested in, but they chose to finish school at a normal age.   I also have a brilliant friend who skipped a grade and is now a PhD candidate at MIT, but her emotional IQ is quite above average and she is fine.  Each person is different, but everyone has  less than 20 years to be a child, and so many more years to worry about annoying things such as finances, jobs, and relationships. Why would anyone want to  rush into adulthood? So here I say to the parents out there, let your kids be kids just a bit longer even if they are gifted.  An extra one to two years of childhood is really priceless and I sincerely thank my mom for letting me flunk 4th grade and be normal.

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Our best man’s wife is giving birth this week. They are expecting a girl named Grace and we all can’t wait to meet her. On the note of childbirth, today I saw an extremely eye opening documentary called The Business of Being Born. This is a film made by Abby Epstein after her friend Ricky Lake (yes, the talk show host) didn’t have a good experience with having her first child in the hospital. It explored the history of childbirth in America and how as a society America has phased out natural births in favor of hospital births with various interventions. It also reveals a startling fact that America has the second highest infant and mother mortality rate out of the world’s developed countries even though 99% of American women give birth in a hospital. In contrast, developed countries such as Japan has a home birth rate as high as 70% and have a lower death rate. Here are some things I learned about the business of childbirth from this film, and it is really amazing. If you don’t want any spoilers or if you feel queasy about this subject you can stop reading right here.

1. The birthing position women are in in hospitals is highly unnatural - When you see women have babies in hospitals on TV you often see their legs up in stirrups and ten people telling her to push really hard. The film explained that this is the most unnatural position to have a baby because there is no way for the baby to come out when a woman is lying down. A doctor always has to use a clamp, hands, or a vacuum to extract the baby. It is much easier for a woman to have a baby standing up or squatting because gravity helps her do her work and the baby’s head will be lined up with the vaginal opening making the process natural. This made a lot of sense when a childbirth coach showed a fake hip and a baby trying to get out. When the hip is sideways the opening of the hip is angled in such a way that it is pretty much impossible for the baby to fall out. The baby also receives more stress in the horizontal position because it would be pushed up against the hip bone.

2. Hospitals want women out as quickly as possible - This makes sense for the hospital. They want their beds available so they could serve more people and make more money. The result is a great increase in Caesarean section procedures and the administration of drugs that speed up the delivery. They also say that the number of C-sections is higher during 4pm to 10pm because doctors just do not want to stay around. The average vaginal delivery takes 12 hours, but a C-section takes about 20 minutes. So when the doctors and hospitals want women out, they schedule a C-section. The fact is that C-sections are much more risky than vaginal delivery.

3. Home births are cheaper than hospital births - A midwife said that her fees are about $4000 for all of her services. Keep in mind that many of these midwives are highly trained and qualified to deliver babies. The main midwife they featured on the film is a certified nurse who graduated from Columbia and had been delivering babies in hospitals for five years before she became a midwife. In contrast, a vaginal birth in a hospital costs on average $13,000 and a C-Section is major surgery that often costs more than $30,000. The documentary also shows that in a hospital they often pump the mother with various drugs that eventually puts the baby in distress and require a C-Section. The caveat is that insurance companies rarely cover home births and midwives because they think it is crock and the hospitals are part of the institution that shun natural delivery.

4. Drugs and other interventions ruin the natural bonding experience - The film listed the type of drugs they typically use in a hospital and what each of those drugs do. One is the epidural, which takes away pain but also slows down contractions, then there is Pitocin, which is used to speed up contractions and causes pain. So the two drugs work against each other and the hospital would keep on adding drugs until the baby comes or the baby is distressed so they have to do a C-Section. It is pretty scary and there were other drugs used in the past that caused erupted uteruses and babies without arms and legs. The body itself naturally produces hormones that make the birthing process easier and less painful and these artificial drugs really screw it up.

Despite the film having scenes of several extremely explicit home births, it made me less afraid of having a baby because the births seemed less painful and stressful than what is usually shown in TV. In one woman’s birth she just seemed to lay back and sigh and moan a bit and then her baby slipped out into her tub. Then her older child came by and touched the baby and said “eww” like it is extremely natural and cool. There wasn’t any crazy screaming or large amounts of blood covering the sheets and the whole experience seemed beautiful and calm. The film’s message is that women should have a choice to have a natural birth, and it is completely safe as long as it is planned well and the woman doesn’t have any complications. If a woman is enduring a high risk pregnancy, the hospital is still recommended. I don’t know if I would have a natural home birth because it is still pretty scary to me, and I know my health insurance would cover my hospital care. I will try to refuse all those drugs in the hospital, though, but I don’t know what will happen. Anyway, I think a lot of the information presented in this movie made sense, and I will never look at a pregnant woman the same away again. I highly recommend this film, and I think anyone who wants a child in the future should watch it just to see what childbirth is really like.

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Recently I read an article about financial planners talking with their clients about their childhood.  The point is that events that happened in childhood often shape how we manage our money.  So I thought about it, and I took a trip down memory lane. Here are a couple of my most distinct childhood memories about money, and how they relate to how I manage money now.

The Crayon Incident

When I was 4 or 5 my mom sent me to the corner store to buy a box of crayons.  I think it cost about 8 fen (1 fen is 1/100th of a yuan, the official currency of China).  So I clutched the coins in my hand and walked to the store. When I got to the store I laid down my money and asked for the box of crayons, and the storekeeper told me that I didn’t have enough money!  It seems that I lost a couple coins on the way. So I walked home with the coins I had and told my mom.  My mom gave me a couple more coins and told me to try again.  So once again I skipped and hopped to the store.  I put down my coins again, and unfortunately I didn’t have enough money again.  So I sulked a little and went home.  My mom laughed at me a bit, and decided to come along.  She asked me where I walked and I showed her, and she found the three or four coins I dropped.  Finally I got my box of crayons with my mom’s help.

I still sort of remember the fence I walked by and the grass I hopped on, and my mom repeats this story ad nauseum to whoever would listen because she thinks it’s hilariously cute.  I think this is an incident that made me wary of carrying cash in my hands. It has been twenty years since it has happened, but I still don’t like carrying a lot of cash because I fear I would lose it. Another habit instilled by this event is that I look at the ground for lost money when I walk around.

The Photo Incident

When I was about 12 my family lived in Hawaii, and we were quite low income because my parents were both immigrant graduate students. My dad tells the story of being a minimum wage souvenir salesman in his memoir here.  Anyway, we needed some photos developed and my dad went to the supermarket and dropped off the film. They had an advertisement that said if you choose express developing and they don’t deliver the film by 9am then they will give you the photos for free.  My dad fell for the advertisement and ordered express development.  Then the next day he sent me to pick up the photos.  Usually it cost $4 to $5 to develop a roll, but because of my dad’s folly the final bill came out to be $11.29 or something.  I handed over the money on the verge of tears because it just felt like I lost something.  Then I went home with the photos and cried.  Then my mom asked me why I was crying and I said that dad made us pay extra money for photos.  She kind of laughed at me again, but chided my dad a little bit for falling for the supermarket’s ploy and making me cry.

Of course, these days my mom makes fun of me for this incident, too.  I cried because I felt tricked, but also because I knew that money was hard to come by in my family at that time.  This was a time when we bought the overripened produce and clipped every coupon to survive, and $11 was a lot of money. Because of this incident I am very against paying for extras tacked on by stores and anything that is “express” or “premium”.  For example, I don’t buy extra warranties offered by stores, and I always just get the cheapest or free shipping.

Anyway, this post was very therapeutic for me and I hope you were amused by it. It is kind of funny to look back, but these memories do explain why I have such a cautious and frugal attitude towards money.  What are some of your childhood memories about money? Do they explain how you treat money now?

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This is a continuation of my family’s immigration story as told by my dad. If you have missed the previous posts they are all in this category here:

Fifteen Years in America

Enjoy!

The next day, I arrived at Peter’s shop before 4pm. Peter introduced me to Meilan. Meilan is a Vietnamese born Chinese woman around 30 years old. She spoke both Mandarin and Cantonese fluently. She arrived in Hawaii in the mid 1970s with her parents as a refugee and worked with Peter for more than three years.

Peter told Meilan, “Please teach this man how to sell things here, and especially teach him how to price things and do solid business. Additionally you should teach him how to lock down the store at night. I have to go now. A few friends are waiting for me at a game of Mahjong.”

After Peter left, I learned a bit more about the marketplace from Meilan, and especially the skills involved in selling trinkets. Meilan told me that in these Waikiki stores generally the face price is ten times that of the wholesale price. If the item is a luxury item such as fine silver or gold jewelry then the markup is even higher. So even if a customer haggles, we could still sell it. However, we can’t sell our wares for too low of a price because our competitors sell similar things. People generally buy what is easy to sell, and if one store cuts the profit margin too low then the other stores would be quite angry. Additionally, Meilan told me a little bit about Peter. He was an international student from Taiwan. When he just arrived he worked at restaurants and went to school at the same time. After he got his degree, he bought this little shop in the international market place and became an entrepreneur. He and his wife also has an import and export company. In the few years prior to the recession their business was doing extremely well and they earned quite a good sum of money. Now business was not as profitable in Hawaii as years past, and Peter’s wife went back to Taiwan to find new opportunities. As a result Peter didn’t care about his little shop any longer, and he was glad to find me as a helper so he could go play Mahjong.

In the past I was just a professor of economics and only knew theoretic things about commerce. I didn’t know that in real life competition would be so fierce in a marketplace like this, and it really takes a good amount of work to be a good salesman.

To tell the truth, I manned the shop by myself on that first day, but after twelve hours of standing and hollering I did not even sell $100 worth of goods. After you take away my wage and rental fees from this bit of money, my boss Peter actually lost money. When he came to help me lock down the shop he checked out how much I sold. When he saw that I earned very little money he didn’t seem to disapprove. He said to me, “You just started! I really believe in you.”

That night, I felt a little depressed when I went home. If I couldn’t make a profit for Peter, how could I take his money? I had my heart set on being the best salesman in the entire marketplace.

When I set my heart on something, I always try to do my best. Thus I started studying other salespeople before and after my shifts. After a period of observations and experimentation, I discovered my own rules for being a good salesman. The following are some of my discoveries.

You must be direct and cordial, and call out to the customers first. The following is something I say often in Japanese, “Please take a look! We are having an 80 percent off sale right now!”

When two young Japanese ladies heard that there is an 80% off sale, they stopped in front of my shop. I really didn’t think that the little bit of Japanese I learned a long time ago could be so useful. However, if you want me to speak a lot of Japanese I would fail miserably. When the ladies came over I started to show them a selection of silver jewelry and other Hawaiian themed products.

“It is real silver, please try it on.” I picked out a silver dolphin ring and put it on one of the lady’s hands. Then I pointed to the dolphin and asked, “What do you call this in Japanese?”

The young lady looked at my sincere face and said, “Kore wa, nihongo de, iruka desu.” (This in Japanese is “iruka”) As she said this she lifted up her hand and admired the ring in the distance.

I stood behind her and started praising her, “Kawaii ne, anata wa hontoni kawaii.” (Very cute, you are really cute.)

Then I repeated what she taught me, “iruka, iruka”, and said “You are my Japanese teacher, and I am your student!”

The girl started to chuckle and said, “korewa, ikuradesuka?” (How much is this?)

Now I took the ring off her finger and checked the pricetag. It said $30, but I knew that the wholesale price was $2. So I plugged the price into my calculator and showed the lady that I took $24 dollars off, and sold it to her for $6. She was extremely excited that she got such a great deal, but actually the store still made a 200% profit. What is more important is that besides the small item she bought, she and her friend also bought some perfumes totaling over $150. My performance really surprised the Korean salesgirl across the way.

To be continued… More of my dad’s sales techniques in the next section! Stay tuned and subscribe to The Baglady if you don’t want to miss a thing.

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Merry Christmas everyone!

Speaking of Christmas, I find it funny that one of the most popular icons of Christmas is Santa Claus. I always knew that the jolly fat man riding with reindeers and elves is not real since he did not exist in China when I was growing up. When I moved to America I was still a child, but I was old enough to know that any presents I received were given by my parents. I really thought that American kids are really gullible to believe that a rotund man would come down their chimneys like a cat burglar and drop glitzy packages of presents. Yet year after year the lie is perpetuated and millions of children are disappointed when they find out the truth. So today, I’d like to salute those who really make the grand operation known as Christmas joyous and possible.

First I’d like to thank all of the dedicated United States Postal workers and the employees of other package delivery operations such as UPS, FedEx, and DHL for working overtime and getting billions of packages delivered this holiday season. One of my friends is a supervisor at UPS and he has been leaving his pregnant wife home to go to work everyday at midnight. During the holiday season the volume of deliveries grow so much that these real people have to work more to bring you that new sweater or digital camera. If you know one of these hardworking men and women go ahead and thank them this holiday! My parents usually give something for the mail lady during Christmas and I think it’s a well deserved gift.

Next I’d like to thank all of the operations departments of retailers such as Amazon, or Walmart. These big retailers have amazing operations facilities that serves so many transactions during the holidays in order to bring holiday cheer. I remember that one of my classmates used to work at Amazon and she said that during Christmas their project was titled “Project Saving Christmas”. Basically they ensured that everything was shipped out on time.

Now you may say, stop right there Baglady! You’re cheering for consumerism and spending! Well, actually I am saluting the people that make giving presents possible and these unsung heroes are the closest thing to real Santa Clauses. It is unfortunate that Christmas has become such a commercial holiday, but I do believe that Christmas is a celebration of Christ’s birth and giving presents during Christmas is a symbol of the gift of life Christ has given us. There is nothing wrong with making someone happy by giving them a gift! So finally, I would like to thank God, for letting me be on this earth this Christmas with my friends and family, and ultimately God is the one that makes everyone’s Christmas possible.

Have a safe and wonderful day today everyone!

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