A leading Chinese-American scholar has ignited a debate about an age-old East-West divide - parenting.
Amy Chua, an influential political writer and law professor at Yale University, wrote an incendiary column in The Wall Street Journal over the weekend arguing Chinese mothers are better at raising children than women in the West.
Her column has been debated in major US newspapers and top-rating TV shows such as Today, and picked up by the international media. And it has generated intense interest among parents in Hong Kong, whose own upbringing methods are similar to that described by Chua, if not even more extreme.
Provocatively titled 'Why Chinese mothers are superior', the 2,500-plus-word column - which at times borders on hilarity because of the extreme approach Chua describes in disciplining her two young daughters, Sophia and Louisa - has generated more than 3,000 reader responses on the Journal's website, some with praise but most with vitriol.
She proudly declared she once kept a daughter up late at night to get a piano piece right, without food and washroom breaks. At another time, she upset guests at a party by telling everyone she once called her older daughter 'garbage' because she was being disrespectful.
A few Journal readers admire her honesty, but many accuse her of child abuse. Several posts even threaten violence to Chua, not only for her parenting style but for, as they say, being a racist.
'What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it,' Chua writes. 'To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences.'