Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother Read Online Free PDF Page B

that you like doing things your own way. Am I right?”
    Lulu shot a furtive glance at me—she knew I was displeased—then gave a small nod.
    “There are eight blocks,” the woman went on casually. “You were correct—even if you arrived at the answer in an unusual way. It’s an admirable thing to want to find your own path. That’s something we try to encourage at this school.”
    I relaxed, finally allowing myself to breathe. The woman liked Lulu, I could tell. In fact, a lot of people liked Lulu—there was something almost magnetic about her inability to ingratiate. Thank God we live in America, I thought to myself, where no doubt because of the American Revolution rebelliousness is valued. In China, they’d have sent Lulu to a labor camp.
    Ironically, Lulu ended up loving her New York school, while Sophia, who’d always been a little shy, had a harder time. At our parent conference, Sophia’s teacher told us that while she’d never taught a better student, she worried about Sophia socially, because she spent every lunch and recess alone, wandering around the yard with a book. Jed and I panicked, but when we asked Sophia about school, she insisted that she was having fun.
    We made it through that semester in New York City, just barely. I even managed to get an offer from NYU, which I almost took. But then a series of unexpected events unfolded. I published a law review article on democratization and ethnicity in developing countries, which got a lot of attention in policy-making circles. Because of that article,Yale unrejected me, offering to make me a tenured professor. Seven years after I couldn’t make it through lunch, I accepted, even though it was a little bittersweet. Nomadic no longer, Jed could finally stop commuting, and Sophia and Lulu settled once and for all into a grade school in New Haven.
    By that time, Lulu had also started taking piano lessons with Sophia’s teacher Michelle at the Neighborhood Music School. I felt like I was leading a double life. I would get up at five in the morning and spend half my day writing and acting like a Yale law professor, then rush back home for my daily practice sessions with my two daughters, which in Lulu’s case always involved mutual threats, blackmail, and extortion.
    As it turns out, Lulu was a natural musician, with close to perfect pitch. Unfortunately, she hated drilling and wouldn’t concentrate during practice, preferring instead to talk about the birds outside the window or the lines on my face. Still, she progressed quickly through the Suzuki piano books and was a great performer. At recitals, she was never flawless like her sister, but what she lacked in technical precision she more than made up for with a style and musicality every bit the equal of Sophia’s.
    Around that time, I decided that Lulu should start a different instrument. Friends with older children had advised me that it was better to have my two daughters pursue different interests, to minimize competition between them. This made especially good sense because Sophia had really started to take off in piano, winning lots of local prizes and often being invited by teachers, churches, and community organizations to perform. Everywhere we went, Lulu had to hear raves about her sister.
    Naturally the question arose as to what new instrument Lulu should pick up. My in-laws, liberal intellectual Jews, had strong views about this. They knew of Lulu’s headstrong personality and had overheard the screaming and yelling during our practice sessions. They urged me to go with something low-pressure.
    “How about the recorder?” my father-in-law, Sy, suggested. A big strapping man who looks exactly like Zeus, Sy had a thriving psychotherapy practice in Washington, D.C. He’s actually very musical, with a powerful, deep voice. In fact, Jed’s sister also has a beautiful voice, suggesting which side of the family Sophia and Lulu got their musical genes from.
    “The recorder ?” my