Flop Bott: Imperial Mother Part II. The Finale

They called him 'The Bird' because it was the only generic term the POWs could use to let each other know when the pshycohtic monster was headed their way.

His real name was Mutsushiro Watanabe. Born to a wealthy woman, the prison warden for the American soldiers had lived "a privileged life.. studied at prestigious Waseda University...enjoyed French" and swimming in private swimming pools at the beautiful homes his fam owned. He also was obsessed with nihilism. Unbroken; A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. Random House. Copy rite 2010. p. 233. By Laura Hillenbrand.)

Louie, the hero of the book Unbroken, said that this man's relatives all held coveted military positions. The Bird, ranked in lesser positions and finally placed over a POW camp, became so jealous of this that he went berserk and took it out on the others on his own team and of course on the prisoners.

Whenever he was about to morph into the crazed torture addict, his upper lip twitched. What I found amazing was that on occasion, he would go back to the prisoner he'd whipped for 5 hours or the man he'd tied up for a few days and cry to them. Beg of their forgiveness. Then turn on a dime and beat them again.

Obviously, his "teammates" didn't want to hang out with him so he'd resort to a prisoner, bringing him into his office to play cards or talk. And when his prison camp was captured in 42 by the Russians, The Bird, deserted his post as guard and went underground til McArthur stopped looking for him.

I haven't read the book in a bit because of the emotional investment of reading about that kind of suffering. As I mentioned in the previous post I came across an article by Amy Chua I thought I had accidentally picked up the book.

When I was reading why she was Superior to western mothers

(they had to play piano AND violin)

and she described how she pounded the song: 'The Little White Donkey' into her 7 year old, I had to do a double take. Was I reading Unbroken or the paper?

She described the cute, little obedient 'donkey' following its master in a complicated piano piece. I wouldn't know. However, did play 'The Little Burro' for one recital around the same age, but it wasn't even close to the complicatedness of poor Lulu's training. And we couldn't afford lessons with 7 kids in the fam. And I wasn't about to use my paper route money on piano lessons.

I thought I was watching The Bird unleash his mental games on a prisoner as I read how Ms. C "taught" her daughter to play. There was retaliation. The girl ripped up the score. It was encased in protective plastic, (maybe the same kind of protection we give the United States Constitution to keep it safe) little white donkey, I mean Lulu was kept from eating dinner, using the bathroom or getting water until her right and left fingers synchronized.

Poor Amy lost her voice from yelling at her that she was garbage, had told her she would miss Christmas for the next three, four years, that the Dollhouse she had was going to the Salvation Army.

Miraculously, Lulu played the piece. She kept playing and was happy. They cuddled together that night in bed, giggling and laughing at jokes. Again, The Bird's crazy bi-polar shift in attitude comes to mind.

I had to look through it a couple times to see if it was a joke. Did the WSJ really print this to make a point that the Chinese women are better mothers because they only play violin and piano 4 hours a day, and drill math and science. And that's why America has such pathetic scores in education?

Three different pictures came to mind as I read her article.

The first: Star Wars. Amy hasn't seen movies and neither have her kids. So they won't get the analogy. You don't have to be a Star Wars geek to recall the cool footage where there are legions of "Clones". The same looking, thinking, and acting. With the flip of a switch they fight for somebody else. NO Q's asked.

What Amy will recall is Hitler's version of Star Wars and his minions of brainwashed individuals that eventually took out the Jews because they were sub par. The Germans were too "Superior" to have that kind of muck running around! (Dr. Chua, a Law Professor at Yale, married a fellow Law professor, who happens to be Jewish. Way to stack the genetic IQ odds in your favor!!!)

And finally, a scene from Stephen Ambrose's book The Wild Blue. Boys from all walks of life. Dr.s, Lawyers, merchants, farm boys who'd never owned a pair of shoes or graduated HS, figfhting to free those under Iron Fists. Yet, these men, who were actually boys cause they were around 17 and up, would be jovial boys and play baseball, tackle football but when it came to suiting up, they got their game faces on, became men and entering metal heaps of freedom in the form of B-17's and fought.
Amy's parenting tactics don't allow for playing sports or having friends, or any other reindeer games for that matter.

After reading the comments posted for her article I was relieved to see several Asians feel appalled that she would group them in with her. But that is part of Amy's mental game; to help sell her books and essays. Another interesting tidbit is she wrote a book touting that; exporting the free market breeds ethnic hatred. I couldn't have seen more purposely weaving of ethnic rivalry than in the title of her self appraising article in WSJ. But you know moms... we all like to brag about how cool our kids are.

The woman was too 'weak' to put herself in a class of her own. Or at least own up to the fact she is on par with The Bird up there. She wanted to start a "fight". (Don't worry, folks, she can handle criticism. She was taught that she was superior to begin with and that tearing her down, was actually building her up by her parents. So this is like a compliment to her.)

This is my take on what defines Superiority. Freedom and this country's infancy may bring some interesting side effects that the world loves to point out but I can promise anyone with Ms. C's mentality: the only way you will find out whether someone is, truly wise, courageous and loyal, a leader vs. being a 'little white donkey', is if they are put in an environment of freedom.

The true test comes when and in a place where a man/woman is free to choose for him/herself whether to master and govern his mind, on his own free will.

When one is a slave, (or hostage, denied and reigned upon) subject to a master who dictates his will over theirs, we can't tell the strength of the person but only the weakness. Individuals dependent upon Superiors, and Puppets in their master's hand. Granted who knows what we would resort to under fear?

Bravo to Ms. Chua who cloned herself without the use of science. I would have placed this article in that section of the WSJ.

The article helped me realize that allowing your underpants to get so tightly wrapped around the axle, can get you published.