Re "The Roar of the Tiger Mom" [Jan. 31]: As a young Chinese American who has been on the receiving end of this sort of discipline, I can say that the ways of the tiger mom are effective and laudable to an extent. What worries me is the lack of creativity Asians instill in their children. Without creativity, we can only follow paths that someone else has made instead of making our own paths. Grace Wu, FREMONT, CALIF., U.S. It is disturbing ...

On May 4, 2000, Lucie Blackman, wearing high heels and a silver and black ensemble coordinated to match her Samsonite luggage, disembarked from a 13-hour Virgin Atlantic flight from London to Tokyo and stepped into Japan's national nightmare. A former British Airways stewardess who prided herself on being, "chic, sophisticated and smart," Lucie sometimes did her hair even before going to the gym for a workout. So it made sense she would have her hair freshly coiffed now, the natural ...

He is a millionaire many times over but lives in two small, slovenly kept hotel rooms. He travels with the fastest crowd in the country but rarely drinks and never snorts or smokes. He is offered the best jobs in his profession but turns most of them down. His idea of sin is to eat ice cream. His idea of a great time is to talk on the phone. His idea of heaven is to spend hours debating the pros ...

The five sport-utility vehicles sat abandoned in the darkness. A faint beeping sound signaled that their doors were open. Some of the Iraqi police who arrived at the scene initially feared going near the cars, thinking the sound meant they were rigged to explode. Finally a few ventured closer. In the back of two of the vehicles were the four Americans. One of them was alive, though barely. Handcuffed, he had been shot in the back of the head, but ...

The celebrities and the superrich who live in Isleworth, including Tiger Woods, would like to project a common touch. Every Halloween, residents of the gated golf community near Orlando, Fla., decorate their golf carts and drive trick-or-treaters door-to-door. They share lunches and dinners at the country club, play pickup basketball games and hold community events. "It's pretty normal," says Rav Mehta, CEO of a software-development firm who lives just outside Isleworth's vine-covered walls but has many friends inside. Normal ...

On a recent Sunday afternoon, Joy Santiago, a real estate agent, stood atop the front steps of a vacant eight-bedroom Colonial-style mansion, bullhorn in hand. "All right, 10 minutes," she declared, ushering in the 50 or so people on the Lonely Homes Tour, an aggressive effort to sell foreclosed properties in Indian Village, one of Detroit's last solidly middle-class neighborhoods. Even with an abundance of home bargains — the redbrick, 97-year-old Colonial's asking price was $29,000 ...

Veteran Kenny Perry charged to the top of the Tour Championship leader board with a six-under 64 at East Lake to overtake world number one Tiger Woods. The 49-year-old American will take a two-shot lead into the final round as Woods struggled to a one-under 69 in the final event of the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup series. Woods was expected to cruise to victory to clinch the 10 million on offer for the series, but Perry gatecrashed the party in ...

Kate Winslet has one more reason to call 2009 a great year. Not only did "The Reader" and "Revolutionary Road" actress dominate this year's awards circuit, she looked great doing it, earning the title of "best red carpet" on People magazine's 10 Best Dressed List. People's annual list was revealed Wednesday, giving kudos to the ladies who know how to take the best of fashion and consistently spin it to fit their style. (The magazine is part of Time ...

Chinese leaders Monday mourned the death of Zhuo Lin, wife of former national leader Deng Xiaoping. Zhuo, a former consultant of the Central Military Commission General Office, died July 29 at age 93 and was cremated Monday, state-run news agency Xinhua reported. She was "an excellent Communist Party of China member and time-honored loyal communist fighter," the party said in a written statement. Zhuo stood by Deng through decades of what CNN once described as "amazing comebacks" from "political purges." ...

Think you should haggle only when buying a car or shopping in the streets of Morocco? In this recession, if you're not bargaining for everything everywhere, you're needlessly draining your wallet. According to the consulting firm America's Research Group, in October, 56% of consumers said they had recently tried to negotiate at retail outlets other than car dealerships. Of those hagglers, 50% got deals. When the company repeated the survey in May, 72% of consumers said they had tried ...