"being a Chinese mother entails never letting one's child...not be the No. 1 student in every subject". All fine, I guess, if there is only one "chinese" student in the class. But what if there are 10 such students in the class, each of whose parents demand they be the "no. 1" student?

What if this approach were to be widely adopted by parents of all cultures, so that two thirds of the students had parents demanding they be "no. 1"? Only one student would reap the family praise of achieving that status, while the rest would be degraded as "garbage" for the rest of their lives.....