Having a clash of culture, need some Asian Parent advice.

First off, I'm not Asian, I'm white. But I have lived in Asia for the last year and a half now teaching and I have become abundantly aware of the Asian parent phenomenon. I want to laugh about it and think of it as funny, but I just can't. I need some perspective from people who have more life experience with it than I do.

I am not a prejudiced person, at all. But seeing the way that so many Asians treat their family members has caused me to lose respect for their culture, and for them as individuals.

The thing is, we so often just excuse people's behavior as "culture," but there's a lot more to it than that. I think they know what they're doing, and that they are doing it to be malicious. And I see no reason to think otherwise. I don't want to be "that guy" who thinks that way, but I see no reason to call a spade a spade.

I have known so many Asian girls who are rail thin and heard nothing from their mothers except how fat and ugly they are, and now have terrible self esteem. They are taught that sex is bad and that you're a slut if you leave the house alone or live alone. Boys are not allowed to go out either, not encouraged to do any kind of activity that allows for social development or creativity.

Everything they do is designed to foster submissiveness and dependency in their children. Even the things that are supposedly for the kid's well being. Studying 8 hours a day in middle school? This is utter nonsense, there isn't a middle school in the world where this is necessary if you are studying correctly. And there isn't a shred of evidence anywhere that being nothing but a catatonic bookworm makes people successful. Because the goal isn't to make the kid successful - it's to beat him down, and dominate him.

The Asian parent appreciation for success and hard work is actually nauseatingly childish and superficial. They want bragging rights. They want to send their kid to Harvard so they can smugly say that their kid went to Harvard. They lust for status symbols like some B-list coke fiend celebrity wannabe. It has nothing to do with living a satisfying life, with having children who are fulfilled in their meaningful occupation and at peace with themselves. It's about cheap images of status seeking bullshit.

I live in Korea now, but one particular friend I had from Bengladesh was repeatedly raped by a family member when she was a kid. They lived in America at the time, and had for a while. When my friend told her mother, her mother literally told her to shut up and not talk about things like that, that it would look bad if people knew. Essentially, the Asian popularity pissing contest was more important to her than the life and well being of her daughter. And this isn't unusual, either. She was very dark skinned, as Bengalis often are. Every time she sees anyone in her family, the only thing she hears is how fat, and ugly, and black she is. And now that she lives in Korea - it's the only thing that she hears from Koreans either. She's a small brown woman, so she has to put up with it. I'm a large, blonde haired, blue eyed man - so Asian people are nice to me. But my friend, who was born and raised in America, is experiencing a very crucial aspect of what we seem to joke about regarding what it means to have Asian parents - that they are shallow, malicious, and care less than nothing about your well being.

I want to laugh at all of these things but I don't think it's funny. It's abuse. I don't think it's culture. I think it's a whole lot of people who are really rotten people and make malicious choices to act out their rottenness.

The reason I'm posting it here is that I want there to be something I'm missing. I don't want to think of them this way. I want to have missed some aspect to the story that someone can point out to me so I can realize that they're not as bad as they seem.

Thanks for your perspective!