Writing with Logic, Deep Thinking, and "Flair"

Recently, my mother has been worrying that my brother's writing is not
up to par with his classmates and the requirements for getting into
elite colleges. Besides the fact that he is still only in 7th grade,
a period of time that is really premature is judging the readiness for
college-level writing, I suppose the fear is legitimate for a parent
who does not know better. Chinese people can't stress enough about
the importance of writing in American education system (primarily
because Chinese people generally believe in technical stuff, such as
engineering, medicine, and sciences, as the only legitimate education
for preparation for good jobs...and because they generally suck at
English writing) as Chinese kids, even those that have lived most of
their lives in the US, tend to fall apart on the writing section of
the SAT and in English classes both in high school and college.

Having taught writing for so long to high school students in Korea, I
have a general grasp of what are the major concerns of the students
and parents with regard to English writing. They seem rather
convinced that the mentality of Asians are different from native
English speakers (culturally speaking, I suppose, not to mention the
fact that the grammar is quite different) so that even if an Asian kid
spend his/her whole life in the States, he still would have more
trouble with English compared to the white classmates. Often
mentioned examples include the articles ("the" "a") and idioms ("too
cultural" to be understood by Asians, so they say). It is as if the
Asians have injected themselves with a dose of pessimism in that
Asians will never be as good as whites in using "their" language.

Of course, this sort of mentality is not complete bullshit. In
reality, it is true that Asians tend to lean more toward
sciences/economics than humanities when picking majors in college and
they tend to work as professionals in fields that require less writing
than quantitative work. But, is it really because Asians can't write
as well as whites (and other races)? I mean, for an Asian-American
born and bred in the States, there should be no restriction for
him/her to be just as good, if not better, than anyone else in
writing, right? Why do people always go along with the stereotype that
Asians are bunch of science nerds because they can't write for shit?
And we are Asian people satisfied with such perceived mediocrity in
writing, just because its in English?

Reviewing my brother's 7th grade level writing kind of gives me an
answer...yeah, of course, there are some grammatical errors here and
there that detracts from the consistent flow of the writing and
expression of intended meaning, but who doesn't at this stage of life?
7th graders write as if they talk, and no 7th grader can really talk
without rambling on just to get some simple idea across to the
listener. This is not an Asian phenomenon, its just a "premature kid"
phenomenon that is completely uncorrelated with race. The main
problem with the writing lies with substance. My brother's writing
clearly lacks the logic and depth required for analysis of a literary
work. His so-called essay is simply a reiteration of what happened in
the literary work itself while simply putting forward a very
generalized statement as the thesis.

As much as prematurity defines the 7th grader, such lack of thinking
on his part is not acceptable. There should at least be some sort of
conscious effort in displaying his personal opinion on the matter
without resorting some cliche that can easily be supported by some
reprocessed storyline from the literary work itself. And even then,
in the process of reprocessing the storyline, my brother clearly shows
that he cannot even logically arrange the different facts from the
story to make a convincing argument to support the simple thesis.
Without logical order, the writing just seem to go nowhere, meandering
without move toward some sort of analytic climax.

This lack of ability to logically put forward strong opinions, above
anything else, may be the ultimate reason why Asians do not write as
well as other ethnicities. Think about it, in Confucian culture, the
emphasis on social hierarchy with the younger generations obeying the
elders means that the opinions of the younger ones means absolutely
nothing in front the elders. The younger ones don't need to think
independently, they just need to comprehend the opinions of the elders
and execute them as command without hesitation or second thoughts
about their costs and benefits.

In other words, by living in a socially hierarchical society, the
Asians have learned not to think when they are still young, because
having and expressing personal opinions often means conflicts with
elders that they cannot possibly win. Of course, such values are
completely inconsistent with that of America, where children are asked
for opinions on every matter and to argue logically with others to
support their personal opinions. In Asia, the kids are simply told by
the adults that "kids don't shit" and promptly told to shut up, giving
the kids no chance in developing their critical thinking skills.

Learning grammar is easy. Just take a few classes, study hard, and you
will be fine in a few months. But learning to write with substance
takes training. It takes development of an independent and
self-confident mentality that simply does not exist for anyone growing
up in a traditional Asian family where independent thinking is
suppressed in order to preserve the top-down social hierarchy. I have
to say that even as I say all this, I know I would be able to disagree
with my parents on many matters as they would tell me that by
disagreeing with them, I am being "not filial" and "not understand the
way of the world."

So, for all the Asian kids out there trying to improve their writing,
my best advice to you is to stop being influenced by your parents'
dictatorial traditions and learn to think about things not reachable
by your parents' limited way of thinking. Only by completely escaping
your own sense of guilt by disobeying parents' opinions can you truly
become able to opinionate freely on any matter you wish.