All asians share the same parents. This is the conclusion I reached after reading the autobiographies of two Asian actors: Jimmy O Yang’s How to American and Simu Liu’s We Were Dreamers.

Although the two characters can’t be more different from each other – Jimmy the comedian will make you crack up every few lines, while at times Simu’s brutal honesty and vulnerability put you on the edge of tears – the core theme of both stories is one and the same: the clash between the expectations of Asian parents and a kind of black-sheep kid who has a slightly different dream.

The over-achieving mindset and high expectations imposed by Asian parents are often a source of both motivation and stress for their children. These expectations often stem from a desire for their kids to have stable and successful futures, but they can sometimes go too far. The relentless push for academic excellence, career achievements, and societal norms can suffocate a child’s individuality and unique passions.

The hivemind mentality among Asian parents, where there’s a collective belief in a narrow path to success, can be detrimental. It destroys the uniqueness that each child brings to the table. It’s as if there’s a pre-defined mold that every child must fit into, regardless of their inherent talents and interests.

This conformity-driven approach creates a significant clash between the older and younger generations. Younger individuals, exposed to a more diverse and accepting world, yearn to break free from these traditional constraints and carve out their own paths. They rebel against the notion that success can only be defined in a particular way.

The result is a generational divide, with parents struggling to understand their children’s desires for self-expression and children feeling frustrated by the lack of support for their unconventional dreams.

For both Jimmy and Simu, they had happy endings, beating the odds. One can’t help but wonder, though, what if they had failed in the end. BTW, what are the odds of winning big in Hollywood again? For every successful Jimmy and Simu, there must be thousands, if not more, unlucky Jimmy and Simu still struggling or having accepted failure. How would the family drama have played out in this case? Would the parents have accepted the child with open arms again and helped them get back on track, or would it have been a different story altogether? And would this still have been a happy ending?