The United States was founded by rebels. From the very beginning of its existence, American colonists defied their British rulers and fought victoriously in the American Revolutionary War. Every single one of our country's forefathers who signed the Declaration of Independence could be considered an insurgent. To this day American media celebrate the dissident. From Clark Gable to James Dean to Harrison Ford we Americans love to see lone wolves take on "The Man" and win. We deify Americans who break the mold and step on other people to get to the top, people like Microsoft's Bill Gates and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. That's the kind of heroes American love to worship--rule breakers and insubordinates.
However it can be difficult at times for an Asian American to adjust to this highly celebrated American culture of rebelliousness. Like any good kid growing up, but particularly in an Asian American household, I was always taught to obey the rules. I had to listen and follow my parents' instructions without question. Any deviation from the strict laws set by my parents, grandparents, or teachers would be seen as an embarrassment and bring shame to the family. To this day I am still trying to come to terms with my innate need to follow orders against the Western culture's expectations that to succeed one must make his own rules.
For instance, my elementary school daughter recently participated in her school's science fair. We had thought up multiple excellent projects she could conduct to show off her astute knowledge of science. But when we received the application, it said the project had to comply with this year's theme of environmentalism--another typical liberal brain washing subject. There went my ideas for studying things like thermodynamics in the kitchen or making astronomical observations, both of which I'm sure my daughter would have loved.
We searched through multiple science project books and came up with one that was healthy for the environment, easy to conduct, and understandable for elementary level school children. It took a few weeks to perform but we got all our observation data. We printed up multiple pictures and constructed a very pretty poster board for her presentation. We were all so proud of her hard work. On the day of the fair, we waited anxiously at home while the judges looked through all the experiments during school hours.
When we went to the public showing that evening, we were disappointed that our daughter's work was not recognized for its creativity nor appreciated for how much time she put into it. While walking around the gymnasium I started becoming disturbed by how few of the projects actually complied with the theme of environmentalism as spelled out in the rules. There were studies on how many Mentos candies does it take to blow up a soda bottle. Another project opened up multiple bags of Skittles to see the flavor distribution inside each bag. What the heck does that have to do with the environment?
But one of the grand prize winners made it clear that following the rules in America is for losers only. The kid demonstrated how to turn a Wet-Dry Vac into a hovercraft. Granted it was a pretty cool project and certainly drew plenty of attention on the floor of the fair. But first of all, it was more like a shop project than a science fair project. Second, there is no way the child did most of the carpentry and electrical work. And third, it had NOTHING to do with helping the environment. Sure it was loud and flashy and made people smile just watching it in action but this contraption was a detriment to our air and noise pollution, not a savior. In the meanwhile my daughter's quiet little experiment was stuck in a quiet corner of the floor barely drawing any recognition or even a second glance from all the passerby's.
So what should I teach my children after this episode? I comforted my daughter's deflated ego as any good parent would. I told her I thought her experiment was great. Her work was original and her conclusions matched her premises. She has nothing to be ashamed of for not winning any medals. But inside I was still seething with resentment for the typical American attitude of rewarding the showiest and most ostentatious subjects regardless of merit. I still have a lot of learning to do to succeed in this country. I hope my children will understand this need to disobey the rules more easily than me if they hope to get ahead in life in the U.S.
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