Why Asian parents care about grades?
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In the famous ancient Chinese enlightenment books, there is a saying that “萬般皆下品 唯有讀書高”, meaning that all occupations are inferior and only study is the right way to go. In modern understanding, this is undoubtedly a very radical and biased statement, but this concept is so deeply engrained in the minds of most Asians, especially the Chinese, that the phrase is a Chinese belief that controls Asian parents like a computer code.
“萬般皆下品 唯有讀書高”
“To be a scholar is to be the top of society.”
In ancient China, the definition of a successful person was to become an official, and when a commoner became an official, he gained fame and wealth. If you want to become an officer, you have to take an imperial examination. The imperial examination system was an important political system in ancient China, a system of selecting talent through examinations, the only way for commoners to advance their social and economic status. It consisted of a number of examinations, the main content of which was the memorization of ancient classical texts and the writing of an essay, which was subject to extremely strict regulations and harsh restrictions, including the content, length, rhetorical style, number of words and even the tone of pronunciation, in order to pass the assessment. Most of them were very poor and wanted to achieve fame, power and wealth, so there was a great deal of respect for the scholars and every commoner’s family wanted their children to study for the exam.
It was not until the early twentieth century that the system was abolished due to its backwardness, but the knowledge that had been instilled in the people for years would not be eradicated anytime soon. It is easy to see why Asian parents have such high expectations of their children’s grades.
In modern society, even if we don’t stay in school, there are still plenty of opportunities — athletes, professional tradesmen, business, and careers in the performing arts and creative industries — but when we go back in time, there are only four careers for civilians — scholar, farmer, craftsman and businessman. If I did not have the ability to study, I could only spend my life ploughing and growing vegetables, or I could become an artisan, which usually meant someone with professional skills or someone who did manual work, such as making daily necessities and cultural goods, or an inventor, but at that time it was common to think that an artisan was someone who did dirty work and therefore had a low status. The last category was the merchant, but the merchant’s status was the lowest of the four professions because the society was closed and the merchant was regarded as a person who only cared about his own interests. The merchant was regarded as a person with nothing more than money, and this was the reason why he was ranked the lowest. This is why the merchant was ranked last. It is clear from this that the status of the scholar was indeed more respectable and admired than that of the peasant, the artisan and the merchant.
In the 21st century, careers have become more diversified and the desire to lead a good life is no longer limited to becoming a doctor, lawyer, civil servant or any other kind of professional, but different interests can be developed into careers. I believed that the concept of Asian parenting will gradually become obsolete in the 21st century. Although there are many cases of parents pushing their children too hard and causing sadness, but based on years of history and understanding the reasons why they are so persistent, we will know that the responsibility does not completely lie with them and time will wash it all away, which is something that Asian children have to face nowadays.
