I never had very strict parents so I cannot personally relate to Le, but I understand the premise of the story. These are just some of my thoughts on the story.
Obviously, Le had a pretty strict and abusive childhood, as is common place for many Asian households. Le claims that his father can "hit him with a cane 20 times and make it look like 1". He was subject to lots of restriction and thus, once he had the chance, he established his own freedom elsewhere, away from the influence of his father. And what do ya know, this man gets into drugs and a fucked up life. Honestly, tiger parenting is not the way to do things. Sure, it is tough love or whatever, but not having access to any autonomy is a dehumanizing thing. This is why Le wanted to leave home. His job as a lawyer reminded him of everything he hated, specifically the way his father treated him. He did not want his past haunting him, so he had so leave.
That's a very important part of this story: the past. Le wants to use his father's past to his own advantage to create a story for his class, claiming that addressing and reliving the past helps people remember it. However, his father claims that the people who remember the past are those who have lived it, which may bring up bad memories. Thus, he claims it is better to just forget about it and move on. This is alluding to Le's father's past during the Vietnam war. He hates to talk about to past and remember the "10 hours of laying in the mud" at My Lai. The father is only able to talk about the war when he is drunk, further proving he wishes to move on and forget about the past. Burning Le's story is symbolic for his father's attempt to forget about his gruesome past, something the Le's cannot understand.
In essence, the two are not very different. Le's moved away to escape the memories of his abusive childhood and the father seems to be very content about his life, trying to shelter himself from the war.
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