Sisters spill 'secrets to success'

The idea came to her while reading a newspaper story that included a surprising statistic: Although Asians make up only about 4 percent of the U.S. population, they number about 20 percent of students at Ivy League colleges.

Dr. Soo Kim Abboud, a surgeon and assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, started thinking about those numbers. She talked with her sister, Jane Kim, who graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill and Temple Law School, and became an attorney at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The sisters grew up in Raleigh.

Each is driven and successful, and they chatted about how they came to be that way.

"We came to the conclusion that our parents did a lot when we were younger to make sure that we got the best education and maximized our potential in school," said Abboud, who is Korean-American, "and that made a big difference."

So the sisters wrote a book, "Top of the Class: How Asian Parents Raise High Achievers -- and How You Can Too."

The book, said Abboud, 32, is "part memoir, part how-to book and part tribute to our parents."

"Top of the Class" is divided into 17 chapters, or "secrets" that the sisters think are important to raising high-achieving children. Secret 3 is "instill a respect and desire for delayed gratification and sacrifice." Secret 9 is "teach your child the art of valuing academic success over social status or popularity."

The sisters emphasize that achievement is the result of parenting and hard work, not genetics.

"We wanted to counter any stereotypes that Asians are naturally more gifted," Abboud said. Neither of the sisters has children.

Monica Ma knows about the parenting and the hard work. Ma, 20, is from Cary and is a student at UNC-Chapel Hill. When she's not studying -- Ma is working on a double major in biology and psychology and a minor in chemistry -- she works part time at Adler Eye Associates in Chapel Hill. She plans on a career as an eye doctor.

"My parents have held education very high from Day One," Ma said. She was born in China, and moved here at age 4. Her parents came to America for grad school. "I'm glad they taught me how important education is, because I don't think I'd be here right now if they didn't."

Ma is vice president of the Asian Students Association at UNC. We took the book to a recent ASA meeting to ask students what they thought of the idea of "Top of the Class" -- that there are tips gleaned from Asian culture that parents can use to help raise high-achieving kids.

Several students were skeptical about the book's premise (we didn't ask them to read it). Arman Tolentino, ASA president, wondered if the book was pigeonholing Asian-Americans. Sure, the stereotype that all Asians are high-achieving is a positive one, but it's still a stereotype.

"No stereotype is good," said Tolentino, 22, a Filipino-American from Miami.

Lana Doan said the importance of education was passed on to her at an early age. Doan, 20, grew up in Charlotte but was born in Vietnam. "My parents didn't have all the stuff that we have now. They had to go to the fields and do their work. They couldn't go to school because they had to help the family."

Now Doan's parents tell her to "get a good education and then sit in an executive chair and do whatever you want, instead of having to go out and do actual labor."

Part of the Asian-American emphasis on education comes from the fact that many parents came from places were there weren't a lot of opportunities, Doan said. "They came over to the United States for a reason, and that was to give their children a better education and better lifestyle."

"Top of the Class" isn't an academic book. It's written in a conversational style, augmented with anecdotes from the sisters' childhood.

"This is more of a personal-experience type book. We're not including a lot of stats. We're not researchers. We're not educators," Abboud said.

At the end of each chapter, the sisters share a to-do list for each secret.

Some of the secrets fly against traditional American child-rearing wisdom. Secret 11 is "forget the 'do whatever makes you happy' mentality and strive for professions with financial security and intellectual fulfillment."

"You can't do just what makes you happy," Abboud said. "You obviously have to love what you do in order to be successful at it. But we're just saying that you can't forget that financial and professional security adds to that happiness."

The sisters came to Raleigh in the mid-'80s when their parents Jae and Dae Kim, came to the Triangle and dad, Jae, worked for Nortel Networks.

He has since retired from the telecommunications company, and works as chief information officer for the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources in Raleigh. He's happy with the book. "It's a great compliment for me and my wife," he said, noting that his daughters' education "was the No. 1 priority in our lives."

And that didn't stop when they left home.

"I helped her even when she was in law school," he said of his youngest daughter, Jane, with a laugh. "People in America will say that's crazy, but that's our culture."