An essay titled "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior"-- written by Chinese-American Amy Chua and published last Saturday in The Wall Street Journal -- stoked strong emotions and struck a special nerve here in Hong Kong. The story even drew a response from the city's leading English-language paper, the South China Morning Post, which featured a story with the headline "Tough-love Chinese mother draws shock and awe,"on Thursday.

But parents in Hong Kong may be a special case: The city is largely Chinese, but it has a large...