Video: Tiger Mother Bares Teeth, Laughs On Colbert Report

Chinese-American mother, Yale professor, watercooler topic, and modern Asian-Americans' bete noire Amy Chua appeared on the Colbert Report last night to discuss her parenting memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which is #4 on Amazon.com and #5 on the NY Times hardcover non-fiction list, marking 2 1/2 weeks since the controversy-stirring excerpt from the book was printed in the Wall Street Journal under the title "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior." On the show, Chua maintained her book was parody, "It's supposed to be funny, it's a self-parody."

Stephen Colbert addressed the geopolitical context, "We are terrified afraid of the Chinese ever since the [2008 Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony]. We think they have more discipline than we do!... Can your kids paint with their feet, be human drums, and fly around the stadium?!" And when Chua said that Colbert could be a Chinese Mother, because it's more about values than specifically being Chinese (or a mother), he noted, "I do have the hips for it."

Chua said that if there's one misconception about this book, it's that the book is a parenting book, a common refrain from her past weeks' interviews. We're just sad that Colbert didn't bring up Chua's feelings when she found out one of her Samoyeds was "average" on the intelligence scale!

She spoke to Jezebel about the furor her book as caused and noted the silver lining:

Well knock on wood, but my sister just said that this has brought the whole family together. And this sounds like a big cliché, but my daughters, they are holding up way better than I am. All of their friends are supporting them, their teachers are supporting them, they appear to lead normal lives at school, where a few students submitted nice things to the New York Times saying that Sophia's nice and easy to work with. As far as I can tell, they don't see any pressure at all.

[My daughters are] both kind, generous, brave, outspoken, and hilarious, with enormous wells of inner strength. I'm the one that feels that some days I'm going to crack. They go to the internet and they seem to find these few nice things that they can find; they text it to me and they send me notes that say, "I love you, you're doing great."

... My mother is frankly furious. She just feels like I'm incredibly misunderstood. She's really upset at the way things have played out.

Maybe Chua's mother should write a Tiger Grandmother book! But, as fourfour points out, "Instead of clutching my pearls reading about her boorish mothering, I held my stomach in laughter while reading this book as camp... Simply put, "If the next time’s not PERFECT, I’m going to TAKE ALL YOUR STUFFED ANIMALS AND BURN THEM!” is the new "NO WIRE HANGERS!" ("You already have a pet. Your violin is your pet," is a close runner-up.)"