Many Chinese mothers and Americanized daughters have trouble understanding each other and this problem can only be solved through accepting each other's values and their differences. In the chapter,Two Kinds, from the book "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan exposes the values of a Chinese mother, Suyuan and her Americanized daughter, Jing-mei about living in America. After seeing many articles and stories about prodigies, Suyuan innocently believes her daughter can be one too. At first, Jing-mei was ecstatic about the idea but through constant disappointment from her mother, Jing-mei became idiotically determined to disappoint her mother even more. Pursuing this further, Suyuan thought Jing-mei can be a virtuoso pianist…
Lindo Jong’s early life, her ordinary world, starts in China. Lindo grows up in a moderately wealthy family, and early in her life, is pledged to marry to a much richer husband, Tyan-Yu. A flood eventually rips Lindo from the comfort of her family, which results in her living with her fiance. This acts as Lino’s call to adventure, which was not her marriage with Tyan-Yu. Lindo’s call to adventure is her self-determination. Up until this point, Lindo does not fully understand the implications of her marriage. As she becomes subjected to more unequal treatment by her mother-in-law, Lindo begins to realize what her future holds as Tyan-Yu’s husband. This continuous mistreatment allows…
The Joy Luck club centers on four, middle-aged, Chinese immigrants, Suyuan Woo, An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying St. Clair. Although the relationships that exist between each of the four women are important, it is the exploration into each woman’s relationship with her first generation daughter that is central to the plot line. Through this exploration, the generational and cultural gaps that exist between the each of the women and their daughters are exposed; allowing several interesting connections to course material to be made.…
Each girl eventually recognizes how the older generation played a significant part in shaping their identities causing them to embrace their Chinese heritage. The short stories focus on the first American mothers and their American Chinese daughters.…
The Joy Luck Club review by Bapalapa2 states how the mothers in the stories are not to far off with their beliefs they have for their daughters. The mothers want their daughters to grow up in America and have opportunities, but also want their daughters to retain Chinese values and customs. The daughter is quite similar in ways too. They are Americanize and can’t grasp the importance of their Chinese inheritance. The Joy Luck Club Club review by Krikus talks about the daugthers especially the young chess champion Waverly who learns the trick of the chessboard did not apply when opposing mother. Who notify her “strongest wind cannot be seen”.…
As its complex structure suggests, the book tries to organize the the stories of mother and daughter with the intention of reaching the same destination: the daughter's recovery of her cultural and ethnic identity as Chinese by overcoming the generational gap and the cultural differences between herself and her mother. The mother intend to hand over their "good intentions" and "usable past" in China to their daughter in America. Amy Tan, depicts the relationship between Jing-mei, a young Chinese-American girl, and her mother, a Chinese immigrant, her mother. She does not have something special things. However, her normal life has changed a little because of her mother.…
Amy Tan allows us to deepen our understanding of her world by finding every day items and ideas that Americans can relate to such as a mother’s desire to do the best for their children, or using meals to represent a nurturing love, or a vase to represent a rocky foundation, or the pain that comes from hiding your true self. The use of figurative language in this novel removes the barriers from both the Chinese and the American cultures and customs therefore allowing us to examine each other not through the eyes of a specific race but through the eyes of one race, the human race.…
Children often do not understand our parent’s intentions for growth until we are able to empathize with them. When a child is misunderstood by their parent, they feel neglected and have trouble understanding others. In the Joy Luck Club, four Chinese women immigrate to the United States in the mid-1900s during the Chinese Communist Revolutions. Settling in a Americanized country proved to be challenging due to cultural differences, language barriers, and conflicted history in China. The relationships these women formed with their daughters were influenced by new and old customs. In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan illustrates how a relationship between a parent and child can change over time due to vast differences in beliefs and expectations.…
Only one kind of daughter can live in this hous. Obedient daughter” she shouted in chinese. “Then I wish I wasn’t your daughter, I wish you weren’t my mother” (Chunk 6 paragraph 11, 12). As a Chinese immigrant Jing Mei’s mother gets the idea from television shows and magazines and she does not question the validity of these sources. She meanswhile pushes her daughter to be the best but on the other hand Jing Mei cannot see the value of showing dedication to her mother’s goal, practicing a skill, or collaborating with her mother’s plan because they are both separated by a factor; Culture. After her mother’s death she gains insight into her mother’s underlying motives. In addition Rudy Puana learned to be true in spite of his difficulties in life.…
One of the greatest things a woman can become is a mother. Bringing a life into the world, caring for it, and then nurturing it into a productive member of society is a full time and sometimes trying job. Asian women who immigrated to America were women who took part in this life role. These women had not only one job, as mother, they had three. Playing the triple role of being a wife, mother, and moneymaker proved to be more of a challenge then they had ever expected. In Chinese culture, family and home are synonymous. They even shared the same character in Chinese. Women in all classes were regarded as inferior to men and were expected to remain at home, attentive to family and domestic responsibilities (Takaki, 36). After their immigration to America, Asian women found themselves thrust into a position in which they had never truly been before. While still in Asia, they remained in the home making sure to upkeep an honorable household and to take care of the family. In the new world, they were forced to join the working society, the…
The novel Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan is about four Chinese American immigrant families in San Francisco who…
Belonging to culture and place is often the most complex battle; the inability to be compatible with ones ethnicity and area of habitual residence causes the belonging experience to be limited. This is highlighted in The Joy Luck Club, where June struggles to communicate with her mother, disassociating herself from her upbringing. The rhetorical question “these kinds of explanations made me feel my mother and I spoke two different languages, which we did. I talked to her in English, she answered back in Chinese” emphasizes the juxtaposing ideas of two different languages. This clearly depicts the lack of understanding and the cultural barrier, separating mother and daughter.…
When Amy Tan falls in love with the minister’s son at the young age of fourteen, she takes for granted what her mother was trying to show her about life. Young Amy’s trying to impress her boyfriend by appearing as a traditional American girl not wanting to appear in any way Chinese American. Tan, still not experiencing life yet, had not grasped that being different is what makes someone who they are. It wasn’t until many years later that she came to realize that all her mother was trying to express to her was that she should be proud of her Chinese heritage. “But inside you must always be Chinese. You must be proud you are different. Your only shame is to have shame.” (117) She was not appreciating the diversity of different cultures and how both cultures have their own richness and value. Tan was embarrassed the whole time at Christmas dinner when she was trying to impress her young love Robert not realizing that her mother was making the meal for her. “For Christmas Eve that year, she had chosen all my favorite foods.” (117)…
For centuries, millions of people have immigrated to the United States of America. America is a colonized country. Unless one is a Native American, all people in America have had ancestors who have immigrated to America in the past few centuries. Most of these immigrants faced challenges on their road to the better life that they thought America would provide for them. The Germans, Irish, Japanese and the Chinese immigrants have all faced challenges in America. Some questions arose about whether one could keep the culture from their past country and still be given American opportunities. In the book, “The Joy Luck Club,” by Amy Tan, Lindo Jong, one of the Chinese mothers who immigrated said that it was impossible to have American circumstances…
One of the major ICC themes in the movie is the conflict between individualism and collectivism. Although not explicitly expressed, it has a strong impact on the whole course of the movie. The 4 immigrant Chinese mothers, having spent their childhood in Mainland China, embodied a strong collectivistic value. This is a dominant value in Asian culture, especially that of China. In such society, the priority of a group far exceeds that of an individual, and group-oriented interdependence is greatly emphasized. The negative experiences in China have, to a large extent, shaped the mindset of the 4 mothers. This is not the case for their daughters, who were born and raised in America, and embeded with the American values. They see themselves as independent individuals and their outlooks on lives greatly reflect the individualistic nature of their generation. This gave rise to a series of conflicts between them and their mothers.…