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'Tiger Moms' popular in China

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The strict parenting style advocated by Amy Chua, the Yale law professor, in her latest book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, is still popular in the country today, according to a recent survey.

Students of Gushan Middle School in Weihai, Shandong province, practice dancing on March 30.

Among 1,795 people polled online by China Youth Daily 's social research center, 94.9 percent said they know women who are strict mothers, and 55.1 percent said they see merit in Chua's parenting.

A majority of the respondents, 63.8 percent, said they are parents themselves, and 41.5 percent said they were born in the 1980s, China Youth Daily reported on Thursday.

A Beijing high school teacher, surnamed Liu, was quoted as saying that his wife had enrolled their daughter in violin and ballet classes at an early age and had resorted to scolding and spanking when the girl refused to go.

The report quoted Liu as saying that Chinese families often contain a strict mother and a gentle father and that discipline and guidance from mothers are essential in putting children on the path to future success.

But 41.2 percent of the respondents said the parenting of Tiger Moms is flawed and another 18 percent said Tiger Moms deprive their children of childhood fun and thus lack motherly qualities.

As for Chinese mothers, about 70 percent of the respondents said they subject their children to expectations that are too high and to unreasonable amounts of stress. They said Chinese mothers worry too much about good grades and not enough about tending to the development of children's personalities, and that they are ignorant of parenting techniques.

Li Chenguang, a 23-year-old employer at China Telecom in Beijing, said he came home late for dinner once when he was still a primary school student. Seeing him, his mother grabbed a broom and administered a spanking that left a bruise on his chin. He said the punishment still puzzles him to this day.