Asian-Americans: Smart, High-Incomes And ... Poor?

Tiger Babies Strike Back

Leehom Wang at the Oxford Union

Power training for the Asian athlete

Most of the time, people ask me what they should be doing to get big or get strong. Every once in a blue moon, however, I get the question, "How do you train, James?"

Through a lot of trial and error, I noticed I respond best to a certain range of reps and certain number of sets. Not all the time, but about 80% of the time, I get big and strong on 4-6 sets per exercise (totaling 8-10 sets per bodypart), 4-6 reps per set.

I also noticed that I respond to explosive movements: hang cleans, kettlebell swings, etc. I'm just geared to be fast and moving. My body just hates moving slow or being still. If I eat all the time, then my body swells up like a monster on the above parameters. If I just eat like a regular joe, then I just stay trim and lean.

Why am I like this? Well some people have a lot of fast-twitch muscle fiber, and I happen to be one of them. It means I like heavy weight and speed, so 4-6 reps is the sweet spot for me. 4-6 sets per exercise, totaling at 8-10 sets per bodypart is the amount of volume I respond to.  I'm what's called an easy-hardgainer.

How much volume (number of sets and reps) you can tolerate is contigent upon how much testosterone you have. There are many other hormones that contribute to muscularity and size. But in general, people with both a high amount of testosterone and a high amount of fast-twitch muscle fiber can tolerate and grow on a high number of sets at low reps/heavy weight. These people are what you call "easy gainers."  Every time they sneeze, they gain an ounce of muscle.

Some people are "hardgainers."  They have a difficult time putting on muscle, because they have low T and their muscles are primarily slow-twitch.  Slow-twitch endurance fibers have a far lower capacity for growth and size.  Too many people call themselves hardgainers, when in reality they just don't want to put in the hard work consistently in the gym.  But there is some scientific evidence to suggest that 1 in 6 people are non-responders to exercise, so the hardgainer could actually exist.

Some people are what trainer Christian Thibaudeau calls "easy-hardgainers."  These people have a lot of fast-twitch muscle fiber, so they respond best to heavy weight, low reps at high speeds. But because of their high metabolisms, easy-hardgainers have a difficult time gaining weight.  Easy-hardgainers "have great growth potential due to their fast-twitch dominance, but this potential is often hard to actualize because of their active metabolisms."

You will find many easy-hardgainers in the lower weight classes of weightlifting.  Even though they don't train for muscular size or bodybuilding, weightlifters in the lower weight classes tend to have phenomenally ripped, muscular physiques.  Training with heavy weights at ballistic speeds not only builds a lot of muscle in the easy-hardgainer, but it also places huge metabolic demands on his body.



From what I've seen in the gym, I think many Asian guys are easy-hardgainers. They can be quick and explosive on the athletic field or in the dojo or in the Octagon, but their hyperactive metabolisms will keep them pretty lean and trim.

Yet Asian men (like most men in commercial gyms), train as bodybuilders, since bodybuilding is the dominant training paradigm promoted in muscle mags, fitness mags and blogs.  Bodybuilders train with moderately heavy weights at higher reps: 8-12.  They also tend hit each body part with multiple exercises, not just one.

The bodybuilding method is a tried and true way to gain size for most people, but if you're an easy hardgainer, then the bodybuilding method may not be the best way for you to build muscle.  If you're an easy-hardgainer, then you should train more like an athlete as opposed to a bodybuilder.  You should train for speed, strength and power (which is a combination of strength and speed), and the muscle mass will come as a side effect.  Power athletes such as football players and weightlifters do not train specifically for size or looks.  They train specifically to become faster and stronger, and yet they get bigger and more muscular as a result.

If you're a skinny Asian guy who's been training as a bodybuilder without much success, then you may want to consider switching to performance-based power training.

'Starting from Scratch' - Behind the Scenes

SNEAK PEEK - Meet the Cast & Crew of 'Starting from Scratch' from Yellow Sun Films LLC on Vimeo.

ASIAN AMERICAN LEADERSHIP IN A WHITE AMERICAN WORLD

In this presentation, minister Greg Hsu discusses how to lead effectively without losing who you are and how to break the bamboo ceiling.

Chinese American Psychology

One of my professors during grad school was Chinese American psychologist Ben Tong.  I took a few Asian American Studies courses from him, and one course that he taught was Chinese American Psychology.  Professor Tong’s course had a profound influence on me, and you will find much of this influence in my writings.

The following is a composite article of three of Professor Tong’s writings:

The Ghetto of the Mind (Amerasia Journal 1971)

Warriors and Victims (1978)

Chinese American Culture and Identity (1998)

Chinese American Psychology

Sinologists are in general agreement that Confucian philosophy was exploited by the monarchy and scholar-official administrators as a device for social control of a numerically overwhelming peasant population in medieval China.

With a vigorous revival (later known as Neo-Confucianism) in the Tang dynasty, Confucian moral philosophy was exploited as a state ideology for (a) justifying centralized rule and (b) for the subjugation of aboriginal tribes, particularly those in south China.  Events during the late Tang and the early Sung dynasties caused the content of one of the Confucian norms (loyalty) to be radically altered.  “From its earlier meaning as an obligation tethered by moral judgment, it was redefined,” observed sinologist Arthur Wright, “as an unquestioning allegiance to a superior.”  Thus filial piety became, to borrow a term from psychologist Donald Lim, unconditional obedience.

“Imperial Confucian tradition” was a modified (some would say “distorted” or “maligned”) variety of Confucianism instituted by the ruling elite in ancient China following the passing of the Great Sage, a brand of Confucianism that has been effective for purposes of social control for over 2,000 years .  According to the eminent Sinologist Etienne Balaz,

“The scholar-officials and their state found in Confucianist doctrine an ideology that suited them perfectly… In Han times, shortly after the formation of the empire, it became state doctrine.  The virtues preached by Confucianism were exactly suited to the new hierarchical state: respect, humility, docility, obedience, submission, and subordination to elders and betters.”

It is important to bear in mind that imperial Confucianism is not to be confused with classical Confucianism, what the Master taught in the original.  Authoritative translations in English are widely available to remind us that in addition to such themes as deference, demeanor, and kindness, Master Kung’s philosophy was equally emphatic about cultivation of a high level of individual autonomy and integrity, in stark contrast to the rigid conformity demanded by patriarchal imperial authority:

“Love your father, love your teacher, love your emperor, but love the truth even more.”

“The authentic person is not an implement.”

“The mature individual can see a question from all sides without bias.”

“The small man is biased and can see a question only from one side.”

“Good people can stand alone without fear and can leave society without distress.”

My Comments: Confucius brought about a revolutionary way of thinking at a time when China was in perpetual war.  Confucius lived from 551-479 BC, and by that time China already had a 1500+ year history of constant warfare amongst various kingdoms.  Many philosophers at the time were looking at developing a mass psychology to bring about peace and institute personal and governmental ethics and codes of conduct to ameliorate the chaos of war, feuding clans and rampant acts of vengeance.  Sun Tzu was a contemporary of Confucius, and he wrote the Art of War, which taught how to win wars with the minimal necessary force and loss of life.

One of the things Classical Confucianism emphasized was the mutual obligation between ruler and ruled.   But when Confucianism was endorsed as state ideology, the state rewrote Confucianism and eliminated the obligations government had to its people.  Imperial Confucianism was used as a means to pacify extremely large and diverse populations (China’s population had already numbered at 86 million by 2 A.D.). 

It’s interesting to note that Christianity, a religion that initially started as a subversive religion for the oppressed, was co-opted by monarchs as a way to exert social control over pagan European cultures.

Given the tenacious entrenchment of Confucian values, how might one account for the aggressive, individualistic and volatile sensibility of the Cantonese?  We can begin by looking at two important variables, namely incomplete acculturation and perpetual social instability.

Because the ancient Chinese of North China – the Han people – did not succeed in absorbing a previously conquered Kwangtung until the Tang period (7^th-10^th century A.D.), the natives of the region (the so-called Yueh aborigines) were long in possession of a highly independent and sharply defined Cantonese culture.

The majority of the estimated 450,000 Americans of Chinese descent* trace their ancestry back to the southeastern Chinese province of Canton (Kwantung), to a ferociously independent people who, even after their conquest by the Chinese Empire (Tang Dynasty, 7^th century A.D.), continued to be what the Irish have always been to the British and what the Basque have been to the Spanish and French.

*This article was written 1978, so I’m sure now there are way more than 450,000 Chinese Americans, and significant number of them can trace their ancestry to places other than Guangdong. 

While the Cantonese are noted for a distinct warrior-like tendency toward independent, totally self-sufficient behavior, loyalty has always been just as important.  In an unstable, hostile, anarchist society, loyalty was always on people’s minds.  Autonomy by itself, without interpersonal connection, was individualized madness which left the person vulnerable to attack from every conceivable direction, while loyalty autonomy was pathos – one was then merely another man’s man and not a person in possession of his own life.

In these contexts, loyalty was given freely, voluntarily and on one’s own terms.  At the same time that very same loyalty could be withdrawn at any moment.

For the Cantonese, the only metaphor for life is war.  From their heterodox traditions, actual Cantonese social and political history and our understanding of the Cantonese sensibility as ferociously independent, aggressive and volatile, it is clear that everything a Cantonese does is tantamount to a warrior’s act.  To be sure, this is not as barbaric a phenomenon as it may sound to Western ears, because (1) it does not mean murderous violence in every instance; (2) it is not amoral, for the highest moral law – the only moral law – is that one must keep his/her word; and (3) it is not be equated with the narcissistic individualism of the West, because the individual is preoccupied with loyalty and does form (frequently spontaneous) alliance.

One is born, and one dies in war.  One never wins the war but that is life.  The only genuine source of dignity and self-respect – indeed, the only reliable means for survival – resides in the achievement of a warrior’s autonomy.

These themes have been aimed at the development of total autonomy and self-sufficiency in the individual child who, it is always assumed, must contend with an essentially indifferent and hostile world.  The central emphasis is to train the youngster to look after himself and, like the mythic Chinese warrior models of old, to rely on no one, to trust nothing that cannot be counted on, and above all, to keep one’s word.

This applies to every conceivable issue and circumstance in life, including emotional problems.  Powerful, untidy feelings are to be managed entirely on one’s own, without counsel or solace from other people.  Turning to family and friends is a final recourse but here we have a paradox: one can always call on significant others, yet they are in fact to be regarded as the absolute last resort.  An alliance or friendship carries with it the right to casually invade each other’s privacy, but this is not to be abused.  A sign of love, therefore, is never having to make demands.  One takes care of one’s own, beginning with oneself.

Naturally as might be expected, this rather severe style of child rearing and relating frequently resulted in the creation of arrogant, cocksure, untrusting and mildly neurotic individuals.  Those who do not come through psychologically intact very often exhibit symptom that Sue and Sue (1971) found in yellow male college students: “blunted affect, dependency, inferiority feelings, ruminations, somatic complaints and lack of social skills,” all pointing at times to a variety of “pseudo-neurotic schizophrenia.”  These traits, however, are also grounded in the experience of institutional white racism, as well as the lingering but persistent influence of orthodox Confucian values.

In summary then, when the Chinese American refers to his heritage, he must reckon with the historical reality that his was a peasant or merchant lineage, a traditionally unsophisticated and oppressed segment of Chinese society.  The scholar-official class did not emigrate to California and other parts of the world beyond the Middle Kingdom in search of better livelihood, since they already had full access to all the resources of Chinese society, including the power to define culture, relationships and identity itself.  The peasant adjusted to powerlessness by restricting his concerns to simply “taking care of his own,” for to meddle in affairs beyond his immediate village or clan community entailed enormous risks.  To give others the impression that you are satisfied with your lot, even if it is meager, and that you wish only to mind your own business, meant those with power would leave you alone.  Such was the psychology of peasant survival.

There was a time when the Cantonese peasant-laborer did not believe he was timid and accommodating and ignorant as he had wanted his oppressors to think.  The meek-and-mild mentality, the proclivity to mind one’s own business and to limit interaction to immediate relationships, was originally a façade, a conscious manufactured appearance – a survival mechanism to be activated or shelved at will, in requirements of the historical moment.  Assimilation of the southern Yueh peoples in the Chinese Empire had always been incomplete, largely because of geographical removal and the tradition of perpetual rebelliousness.  The Manchus, for example, conquered north China without a struggle but had to fight another 38 years to subdue the south.  When the Qing (Manchu) dynasty finally crumbled, it was southerners who initiated revolution.  South China, in short, had always been the most difficult region for dynastic regimes to conquer and reputedly the population to revolt with the greatest ferocity.

If the Sue’s timid and docile Traditionalist-Marginal Man syndrome typifies the personality makeup of the average Chinese American – and there is ample reason to believe their “test profiles” and studies – the etiological answer is to be, I would argue, in the transformation of the survival mechanism into an actual identity.  Somewhere along the way, the Chinese American came to believe he really was the graciously passive, sometimes loveable but always non-threatening Chink.

Ignorance or denial of his rural Cantonese peasant-laborer lineage – and the 150 year experience of his predecessors on these shores – kept the Chinese American trapped behind constrictive, deadening variations of the Chink stereotype.  Imported to America and reactivated for its function and adaptive value, the survival psychology of “meek and mildness” solidified and, in its all-too-successful response to total repression by white racism, became embedded in the Chinese American psyche as a permanent identity.