Conflict emerges between Chinese and American cultures when Chinese parents try to discipline their American children. The “Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan, portrays the clash between Chinese and American cultures thoroughly. There are four mothers and four daughters, each mother emigrated from China and each daughter was born in the United States. Each daughter has a hard time understanding their mothers and how and what they want to teach them. Their mother’s presuppose them for eminence but they fail and chagrin their mothers. It is similar for Amy Tan, the author of the Joy Luck Club, “born in the US to immigrant parents from China” (amytan.net). She experiences a personal battle between Chinese and American cultures. Tan’s life is similar to her characters’ life, “[Amy Tan] failed her mother’s expectations that she become a doctor and concert pianist. She settled on writing fiction” (amytan.net). Tan’s life is portrayed in the book through the daughters of the Joy Luck Club. Chinese and American cultures are heavily analyzed within the Joy Luck Club.
Culture is important to many families. Chinese Culture is the background culture of each mother and daughter of the Joy Luck Club. In the Chinese Culture, honor and Family are salient, “Culture is the way of living which a group of people has developed from one generation to the next” (brooklyn.cuny.edu). The Japanese invaded China before World War II. After the Japanese infringed in China, aggregation was altered, “The Japanese conquest of the China mainland featured incredible atrocities, the most famous of which was the massacre of thousands in Nanjing” (learnoutloud.com). Many villages were raided and razed forcing many Chinese to abscond. Some absconded across China, others who w...
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...ate in order to have better lives. But these American born Chinese do not belong with anyone, not the Americans and not the Chinese but have instead formed American Chinese and have created better lives for themselves and their families.
Works Cited
Tan, Amy. Joy Luck Club. Print.
Brett, Melendy. The Oriental Americans. Print.
Deidre, Hunter. We the Chinese Voices from China. Print.
Martin, Emily. Women in Chinese Society. Print.
"Amy Tan Overview." Amy Tan "The Joy Luck Club". N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Jun 2010.
Wine, Sherwin. "Japanese Invasion of China 1937."Japanese Invasion of China. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Jun 2010. .
Tan, Amy. "AmyTan.net." Amy Tan Official Bio. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Jun 2010. .
Amy Tan 's novel, The Joy Luck Club, explores the relationships and experiences of four Chinese mothers with that of their four Chinese-American daughters. The differences in the upbringing of those women born around the 1920’s in China, and their daughters born in California in the 80’s, is undeniable. The relationships between the two are difficult due to lack of understanding and the considerable amount of barriers that exist between them.
Traditions, heritage and culture are three of the most important aspects of Chinese culture. Passed down from mother to daughter, these traditions are expected to carry on for years to come. In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, daughters Waverly, Lena, Rose and June thoughts about their culture are congested by Americanization while on their quests towards self-actualization. Each daughter struggles to find balance between Chinese heritage and American values through marriage and professional careers.
When Chinese immigrants enter the United States of America, it is evident from the start that they are in a world far different than their homeland. Face to face with a dominant culture that often times acts and thinks in ways contrary to their previous lives, immigrants are on a difficult path of attempting to become an American. Chinese immigrants find themselves often caught between two worlds: the old world of structured, traditional and didactic China and the new world of mobile, young and prosperous America. They nostalgically look back at China longing for a simpler life but look at the United States as a land of opportunity and freedom that they did not know in China. For this is why they came to America in the first place, to provide for their children and themselves what they could not in China. To do this, of course, they are faced with the challenge of assimilating. Learning the language, acquiring education, owning property, etc. are all ways to seize the American Dream. However this poses a problem for the Chinese immigrant for, in the process of assimilation, they lose some of their Chinese culture. This especially rings true for the children of Chinese immigrants: the second-generation Chinese Americans.
The Joy Luck Club is an emotional tale about four women who saw life as they had seen it back in China. Because the Chinese were very stereotypic, women were treated as second class citizens and were often abused. Through sad and painful experiences, these four women had tried to raise their daughters to live the American dream by giving them love and support, such things which were not available to them when they were young. These women revealed their individual accounts in narrative form as they relived it in their memories. These flashbacks transport us to the minds of these women and we see the events occur through their eyes. There were many conflicts and misunderstandings between the two generations due to their differences in upbringing and childhood. In the end, however, these conflicts would bring mother and daughter together to form a bond that would last forever.
Here is a journey that not only started "a thousand Li away", but from generations upon generations of tradition. The Joy Luck Club travels over time and continents to present the background and turmoil of eight amazing women. All of these women have had to deal with the issues of culture, gender, and family, each in their own way, yet all similarly. Amy Tan dedicates her novel to her mother with the comment "You asked me once what I would remember… This, and much more." Each of the mothers in Tan's novel wanted to teach their daughters the lessons learned in China while giving them the comforts of America. But language and culture barriers diverge the women until they were almost lost to each other. Each character had to take their own journey to finally understand what drove them apart and find their common ground.
The movie, The Joy Luck Club, focuses around the lives of four Chinese mothers and their Chinese-American daughters. The story takes place a few months after Junes mother, Suyuan has died. The mothers and daughters hold very different principles, where the mothers are still very traditional to their Chinese upbringings the daughters are much more “American.” The movie can be viewed from the Feminist Literary Theory, since the 8 main characters are female. The women’s life stories are told through a series of flashback scenes that deal heavily with female gender roles and the expectations of women. While the mothers and their daughter grew up in vastly different worlds, some of their experiences and circumstances correlate solely due to that fact that they experienced them because they are females.
In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan explores mother-daughter relationships, and at a lower level, relationships between friends, lovers, and even enemies. The mother-daughter relationships are most likely different aspects of Tan's relationship with her mother, and perhaps some parts are entirely figments of her imagination. In this book, she presents the conflicting views and the stories of both sides, providing the reader--and ultimately, the characters--with an understanding of the mentalities of both mother and daughter, and why each one is the way she is.
First, we studied the various conflicts that Chinese Americans face. One way that we did this was by watching a movie regarding this subject called Joy Luck Club, which contains several stories, each one showing different conflicts. The first conflict that we saw was that many times, Chinese Americans do not want to be recognized as Chinese. They feel that it would be easier if they were recognized as American. They do not want to have anything to do with their Chinese side. We saw an example of this in the movie when one of the daughters, Lena, tried to open her eyes as far as possible so that she would appear American. The parents of Chinese American children also face conflict in that they want their children to succeed and have as much opportunity as possible, and so many times they alienate them from their Chinese identity.
Xu, Ben. Memory and the Ethnic Self: Reading Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. An excerpt from MELEUS, Vol. 19, No.1 (Spring 1994). 1994. The Society for Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S. 5 May 2010.
Chinese-Americans authors Amy Tan and Gish Jen have both grappled with the idea of mixed identity in America. For them, a generational problem develops over time, and cultural displacement occurs as family lines expand. While this is not the problem in and of itself, indeed, it is natural for current culture to gain foothold over distant culture, it serves as the backdrop for the disorientation that occurs between generations. In their novels, Tan and Jen pinpoint the cause of this unbalance in the active dismissal of Chinese mothers by their Chinese-American children.
In the Joy Luck Club, the author Amy Tan, focuses on mother-daughter relationships. She examines the lives of four women who emigrated from China, and the lives of four of their American-born daughters. The mothers: Suyuan Woo, An-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-Ying St. Clair had all experienced some life-changing horror before coming to America, and this has forever tainted their perspective on how they want their children raised. The four daughters: Waverly, Lena, Rose, and Jing-Mei are all Americans. Even though they absorb some of the traditions of Chinese culture they are raised in America and American ideals and values. This inability to communicate and the clash between cultures create rifts between mothers and daughters.
Chinese Americans have always felt different in their ways of life than the rest of society. Chinese Americans were very heavily prejudiced and discriminated against because of their culture. The immigrants from China to the United States have always faced more difficulties in accepting who they are and their own culture, and some continue to face these struggles. From various articles of research and also the short story “Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan, it is clear that Chinese Americans struggle with accepting themselves and their culture.
The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan is a piece of literature that displays the power of femininity. Through the past couple of centuries the role that women play in society has drastically changed. Women in various societies have experienced turmoil due to being discriminated against and looked down upon often. Women were viewed upon as being the house caregiver and leaving majority of the other jobs in society to men. Women have moved up the social ladder, politics, jobs, and in households. Femininity is shown throughout The Joy Luck Club. These women each have their own life experiences and stories but through it all they remained strong. Rules and regulations for women in China were very restrictive. Women had to live up to the ideal model of being obedient, hard working, bearing children, hide her unhappiness, and to not complain about anything. In China the women had little worth and were only seen as valuable to their immediate family members. Most of the mothers left China for the reason of improving their daughter’s lives in America. The novel demonstrates various characteristics of how women are represented. The theme of women is demonstrated through the hardships experienced, ethics and self-worth.
When analyzing the Joy Luck club it is important to consider the life of the author. It is apparent after studying both The Joy Luck Club and Amy Tan that there are some incredible similarities among the two, particularly the story of mother Suyuan-Woo and her daughter Jing-Mei Woo. Suyuan is a main character and plays an extremely important role in the novel even though she passed away. She created the Joy Luck club years ago and is the main reason why this tight kit family exists today. Suyuan decided to create the Joy Luck club during a ve...
Lindo Jong provides the reader with a summary of her difficulty in passing along the Chinese culture to her daughter: “I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these two things do not mix? I taught her how American circumstances work. If you are born poor here, it's no lasting shame . . . You do not have to sit like a Buddha under a tree letting pigeons drop their dirty business on your head . . . In America, nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you. . . . but I couldn't teach her about Chinese character . . . How to know your own worth and polish it, never flashing it around like a cheap ring. Why Chinese thinking is best”(Tan 289).