At the beginning of the OP, before the play, I thought you might be talking about Zoltarb (my son, who is now 18) at 11. Except he was never fat.
But after the dialog, I see that your Ben can’t hold a candle to obnoxious 11 year olds that I have given birth to. More than once I wondered out loud, to him, how it was that he had any friends. With any luck, your Ben will develope a wicked sense of humor, so that his obnoxiousness can be channelled in a more socially acceptable way.
My boy is still pretty obnoxious, but much more lovable, now that he’s older. Ask anybody.
csharp, since this is the Pit, even though you’re only 16, you’re sounding awfully stupid. That’s not borderline racist, it’s flat out.
If you like, come visit me here in Boulder and Ill be happy to introduce you to Asian pot-heads of less than perfect intelligence or industriousness happy to fuck up their lives by pulling 2.1’s, dropping out of school, getting knocked up at 18, or getting themselves head injuries by skateboarding off the loading docks sans helmets.
S’cool. “Asian” was the most concise wording I could think of. If you’re interested, what I actually meant by “Asian” was “The kids of the Perth mainland Chinese community, for whom it is considered normal to routinely bring home straight A reports (excluding phys ed and art, which aren’t real subjects) and several duxes, music awards and maths and science prizes too, and while it is theoretically possible for a child to crash and burn it certainly hasn’t happened yet and quite possibly never will as they all seem quite happy with their situation if a little zombie-like.” Really. I admit to being slightly facetious, but I am not exaggerating. Hell, I’m their token pothead and I still have a solid B average and a perfect attendance record, and I also don’t smoke pot. Welcome to the world of the squeaky-clean, I hope you enjoy your stay.
Is he first or second generation? Much of the over acheivement is cultural and parental pressure to acheive - I’ve seen some friends of mine totally crack under that and become the wildest underacheivers and party animals and then end up dropping out of school, and become cronically under employed - until they caved to pressure and got their act together and now are doing well. If his family is not recently immigrants, who knows - he could acheive or he could fail - being asian & smart is not a guarantee.
It sounds to me that Ben harps on his intelligence in a vain attempt to hide his flaws. I’m willing to bet that being the smart/fat kid in school is no picnic. He knows he is superior to others in matters intellectual and he has the scores to prove it. Of course, he won’t get laid till he pays for it but just remember, he may make enough money to pay for two at once.
Like I said - there is pressure, but it depends on the parents and is generally not as bad as people make it out to be. It also depends on the parents’ backgrounds. Ours all came over as students struggling to pay the bills and support a family and get settled in a new country so everyone studied during the day and worked factory jobs at night. They had a pretty kickass work ethic going which they passed onto their kids. There are the control freak parents who choose their kids’ electives and demand a quota of As or the dog goes back to the pound or something but I don’t think we know any. I mean I know the kind of people you’re talking about but it’s dangerous to assume every kid who does well is under pressure. And when I decided to drop out of the academic race to focus on art (and by “drop out” I mean “not try so hard”, not “drop out of school”) there wasn’t a collective gasp or anything. And they probably have higher-than-average IQs because their parents are all research scientists. I’m pretty sure our kids do well at school because of these combined factors, or in short because they are Asian, because when my friends and I talk about Asians we are talking about them. I’ll have to try not to say that so much online.
csharpmajor - I had friends similar Ben except they were first gen. Canadians from Korean, Vietnam, Russia, and Pakistan - all of them on the honor roll like I was in school. My dad was also very educated, and placed a high importance on grades, even though I never would have been punished for lower grades, I knew my dad would have been very disappointed in me. At the same time I never got praised for high grades, it was simply expected of me.
When your parents work so hard when the first come to a country (having the ambition plus multiple jobs and school - and also the adventerous spirit to move to a new country), of course there would be a strong work ethic that will rub off, and although the pressures aren’t overt - like sending fido back to the pound as you said, they are pressures. Most kids and teens try to live up to their parents expectations even if these are not set down as rules.
The community is probably pretty close, and the families are close knit in comparison to 4th & 5th generation families. In some ways it is harder to strike out as an individual - and also get attention as an individual (which I suspect is Ben’s problem, is that he wants to be noticed and he wants attention and is getting attention the only way he knows how). Maybe Ben’s parents don’t notice the effort he makes to get the awards or maybe other kids ignore him and tease him - and he just wants some attention & praise.
Once he gets a little older he may realize that bragging & whining is not the best way to get attention and learn to be more modest - or as someone else said - he may reach university and find out he isn’t the smartest person who ever lived, and decide rather than trying to be the best academically to run away to Paris to do improvisional mime based off the works of Kafka.
Sign me up for all three clubs – the “I thought this was about pubic lice” club, the “stupid food was the best retort ever” club, and the “hell yeah that’s totally racist” club.
I think the word “successful” is lynchpin of the debate here. There’s little doubt that this kid will end up at a great university and getting a decent job. But unless he ends up changing his attitude, he certainly isn’t going to maximize his potential. A lot of arrogant, smart kids will end up graduating from school, top honors, getting a great starting position, and then sitting there for the rest of their lives because nobody will ever see fit to promote them.
