The Bamboo Ceiling?

I was thinking about black/white race relations today (and what a Godawful mess it all is) without even considering Asian people. Now I'm completely nonplussed. EDIT: I'm still in the process of reading this and it is interesting that they're blaming it more on the whole "Tiger Mother" upbringing than overt racism. Their admittance that it tends to dampen the social persona a bit is definitely a problem for moving up in a workplace environment. I work at an ad agency and have been told by my boss time and again that how sociable a person is when he interviews them is about half of their qualifications for working there (versus their ability to design/portfolio/experience).

11 pages?

I aint reading that shit.

While not Asian-American, I am an Asian in a white society and I really can't help but find similarities between me and the people interviewed by the writer. Much of what occurred to those people occurred to me too: the Asian subservient upbringing, academic focus (shit I attended a selective high school where the final exam average is comparable to an A+), studied bloody hard all throughout college, became a meticulous 'doer', came out of college and thought "fuck I did that all wrong!"

I can also see in terms of academics Asians dominate, but from all the interviews I've had with companies while looking for my job Asians appear to be few and far between in the management levels.

From an article a few years back over here, there was a study done that indicate that people bearing an Asian name on the Resume/CV is less likely to be chosen compared with someone with identical skills but with a western name, although I will refuse to consider this as outright racism.

The problem I face right now, as with many Asians, is that we are much too well trained in technical areas ('doer'), do not sell ourselves enough (too humble), and not enough focus on the soft skills that are much more important on the upper levels of companies - I do believe that is the main reason we don't see as many Asians in the higher management levels as we should in proportion to the number of Asian employees on lower levels.


I actually have a little post it note on my laptop at work saying 'FUCK YOU!' to remind me about it.

Rings quite true in my experience. I was raised fairly asian (parents loosened up) but in a rich white community so I'm in this like weird white/asian limbo.

Interesting article. Must work on soft skills.

Never been interviewed by an Asian.


1st page basically sums it up, the rest wasn't organized well nor enlightening.

poor Stuy, always doomed to be #2 at best.

i think this article speaks to how terrible it must be growing up in NYC with its filth, overcrowding, and ethnic ghettoes as much as anything else. for such a diverse city it's amazingly well self-segregated

i went to a similar school and i think most of the asians were fairly well rounded.

This phenomenon is very clear at Stuy. Though I am racially Asian, my family in China has long since given up on genuine hard work, and my parents are both of means. I found myself hanging out with white people much more than Asians, where friendships seemed superficially based on going to the movies and hanging out half an hour after school, if not degeneracy. Now I go to school in the South, one of the few remaining old wealth schools in the country, where I have met few Asians at all, not to speak of Asian friends. This is not something the community can criticize the government--I hope no one is insinuating Asians need their own feminist movement or NAACP to achieve workplace parity. We have that; from there, everything else is within the reach of anyone who has the real smarts.

Fuck workplace and education equality (I didn't bother to read all 11 pages). I just want social equality and to be treated the same without any underlying stereotypes. EDIT: I have now read the whole thing. I have learned nothing new.

me too.

since i work for an asian manufacturer it's even weirder because i find myself having this problem where they WANT me to be like these people (ie. humility, being a doer, etc.). I am a doer but if I see something that's not right I will be very outright about it...

I read 3 paragraphs, skimmed the rest of the page and said "fuck this" when I saw the 11 pages. Being a visible minority is tough - but Asian's are relatively high up on the totem pole.

asian writers...

Just finished reading it. Great article that resonates with what I've seen, especially in engineering grad school.

I read it. Some of it was very interesting. I enjoyed the part about the guys going to pick-up boot camp.

However, the drift of the article forces you to conclude that the author's rage is unjustified even on his own terms. The set-up is that Asians are getting the shaft because of unconcious racism. But the payoff is that there are cultural issues at play. In other words, the "problem" identified has an internal, not an external, cause.

I also find it funny how diversity is supposedly so great but what a terrible thing it is that Asians are different than whites, so the solution is less diversity--make the Asians more white. Except that, in his own case, the author rejects that. Though he also says that he does not feel culturally Asian.

Basically, he is a shy introvert pissed off that being shy and introverted has not gotten him rich or laid. Well, duh. Then he tries to blame that on his being Asian. No, sorry, does not compute.

The message I took out of it was that it's a struggle to break from what's been ingrained in you for 18 years. To me, the underlying message is that Asian parents want for their kids the same thing that let them make a substantial leap from a modest life abroad to a comfortable life here. The parents think that those same principles (standardized test gaming, a focus on fitting in, etc.) that let them make their leap will directly enable their kids to make a similar leap. I see many of his examples all the time among Asians in engineering. The parents have a PhD, work at a reputable company in middle management, and then rinse and repeat with the kids. I think the bamboo ceiling results from Asian parents trying too hard to find a path to make their kids happy, the best example of which they have being their own. However, the path the parents took often doesn't translate.