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Amy Chua returned to Yale from a long, exhausting book tour in which one television interviewer had led off by noting that Internet commenters calling her a monster. By that point, she had become practiced at the special kind of self-presentation required of a person under public siege. "I do not think that Chinese parents are superior," she declared at the annual gathering of the Asian American Students Alliance. "I think there are many ways to be a good parent."
蔡美兒在結束了漫長疲憊的巡回售書活動之后回到了耶魯大學，途中一名電視臺的記者在采訪她一開始就引用了一些將其稱之為怪物的網絡評論家的言論。那個時候，她已經練就了在公眾批評的輿論下仍能進行自我展示的特殊能力。她在亞裔美國學生聯合會的年會上宣稱：“我認為中國的父母并沒有什么特別之處，我覺得要成為一個好父母有很多途徑。”
Much of her talk to the students, and indeed much of the conversation surrounding the book, was focused on her own parenting decisions. But just as interesting is how her parents parented her. Chua was plainly the product of a brute-force Chinese education. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother includes many lessons she was taught by her parents—"Be modest, be humble, be simple, her mother told her. "Never complain or make excuses," her father instructed. "If something seems unfair at school, just prove yourself by working twice as hard and being twice as good."
她對學生們說的話，以及書中所記錄的對話，確實很多都集中體現了她的為母之道。但同樣有趣的是她父母當初對她的教育方法。蔡美兒本身就是中國強力式教育的產物。《虎媽戰歌》中涵蓋了很多父母對她的諄諄教誨——她的母親告訴她：“要謙虛，要低調，要樸素。”她的父親教導她：“決不能抱怨，也決不要找借口。”“如果學校里發生什么看似不公平的事，你就得加倍努力，變得更加優秀，以此證明自己。”
In the book, Chua portrays her distaste for corporate law, which she practiced before going into academe. "My entire three years at the firm, I always felt like I was play-acting, ridiculous in my suit," she writes. This malaise extended even earlier, to her time as a student. "I didn't care about the rights of criminals the way others did, and I froze whenever a professor called on me. I also wasn't naturally skeptical and questioning; I just wanted to write down everything the professor said and memorize it."
在書中，蔡美兒描寫了她對進入學院之前一直在執業的公司法的厭惡之情，她在書中寫道：“在公司的整整三年中，我總覺得自己像是在演戲，穿著西裝的我顯得那么滑稽。”這種叛逆甚至在她早年上學的時候就已經發生。“我不像其他人那樣關心犯罪分子的權利，當教授點到我名的時候我直接無視他。當然我也不會有任何疑問，也不會去質問什么；我只是想把教授所講的一切都記下來并背下來。”
At the AASA gathering at Yale, Chua made the connection between her upbringing and her adult dissatisfaction. "My parents didn't sit around talking about politics and philosophy at the dinner table," she told the students.
在耶魯的全美學校管理者聯合會上，蔡將她的成長經歷與成年后的不悅聯系起來。她告訴學生：“我的父母不會在餐桌上談論政治和哲學。”
