The Secret Language of Asian Tiger Parents

how to seem nice but actually WRECK other Asian kids

Growing up, I was a model Asian kid. I loved Chinese school, excelled at competition math, and felt bad whenever I played online games. In sixth grade, I was already taking ninth grade math at my local high school, and I won awards for being the top scoring female in various math competitions.

This made life a living hell for the other Asian girls my age. The summer before sixth grade, I was carpooling with another girl named Carolyn.

Carolyn’s dad was making the necessary “small talk”, aka doing reconnaissance by taking advantage of loose-lipped kids. This is a good tactical move because Asian parents tend to be secretive, but sometimes they haven’t trained their kids yet to keep success hacks to themselves. I, of course, am my parents' daughter, so of course I was tight-lipped. I wasn’t about to sabotage my own success one day.

Any new sports or hobbies I’m doing this summer? Nope. (I was, but I wasn’t going to tell a competitive Asian parent.) What other camps am I going to? No, besides the Chinese school camp which I knew Carolyn already knew about. Is there anything I’m excited for in middle school? No, it seems hard.

Then he hit the jackpot question. “So Valerie, what grade math are you going to be taking?”