Why was the mother so mean

Some Singaporean mother are really like this.

Mothers are like that not only amongst Singaporean families, but Chinese families in general. The Chinese society is a credentialistic and meritocratic society, where academic achievements triumphs above all else (excluding morality, of course). Parents will always punish their child (some of those punishments could violate Geneva Conventions if used on POWs) if their academic achievements lags, for this invariably leads to a live of poverty and struggle.

As many Chinese societies began to get rich over the past 30-40 years, many parents who have now achieved a much better living standard than they had when they were little work very hard to ensure that their children will continue to enjoy that living standard, and education, in their eyes, is THE way to ensure it. There is no other way.

If a child does well in exams and grades, the parents will be very pleased, and a steady flow of presents and good words from relatives and parents will ensue. When they fall behind academically, punishment will come, and insulting words fly in like cruise missiles from parents and relatives alike. Relatives will belittle your entire family for being "stupid", and basically condemns you to a life of poverty and disdain. To lag behind academically brings shame and dishonor to the entire family. No joke.

As a man who has lived under such customs, and has partaken in some of them (not the hitting and abuse stuff, mind you), I understand what the parent's intentions were, even though I do not agree with it.

Now, as to the woman who was beating her son (Mrs. Liu), she fainted right after she had the argument with Mr. Liu over their son, and she was diagnosed with Leukemia, she desperately needed a bone marrow transplant. Terry Khoo (the fat boy)'s bone marrow saved her life, and solved the beef Mr. Liu had with Terry's father, whose brutish behavior caused much resentment between him and Mr. Liu. All is well.

Singaporean university student here.

I didn't see the mother as evil at all. Ultimately she just wanted what was best for her son - in this case, to get good grades, and this was the only way she knew how to go about that. It was an act of desperation more than anything else; the movie shows that hitting him did hurt her when she saw what it did to him, and she always tried to make up for it after that, but she didn't see any other way out of it. She thought that he was being disobedient on purpose. I doubt there was any malice involved.

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www.whoaisnotme.net

This definitely doesn't mean that she didn't love her son. In Chinese societies, parents believe that beating is one way to educate children. We have very different idea towards punishments from Western societies. Parents and teachers here believe that adequate beatings are sometimes inevitable, and they usually try not to injure the children by the beating. In Kok-Bin's case, the mother beats him first because she thought he was being lazy and not attentive, then because she hopes him remember the lesson and not to do it again.

That's how lots of mothers are, in all parts of the world. Mine was the same (Portuguese American).