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Amy Tan is a Chinese American writer, whose short stories portray the theme that finding the balance between heritage and culture is not always easy. This is seen through Amy Tan’s own life experience and through a couple of the many short stories she has written, for example, “Two Kinds”, “Rice Husband”, and “A Pair of Tickets”. In the following short stories, the daughter becomes everything the mother wished for, but meanwhile, the daughter becomes more American like and loses her Chinese values. Due to this fact, the mother and daughter find it hard to communicate (Rozakis 13).
Amy Tan was born in Oakland, California in 1951. Amy Tan’s name in Chinese is An-mei, whose meaning is “blessing from America” (Huntley 1). Amy was the middle child of John and Daisy, who had arrived to America in 1944 and were mandarin-speaking (Ho 40). They were also first generation Chinese Americans and were married in the U.S. Tan has two older brothers Peter and John, named after her father. Her father, John was an electrical engineer, trained in Beijing (Ho 40). When he arrived to America, he was offered a place to study in Stanford but refused it to instead become a minister. Amy’s mother, Daisy, had been married before, but she decided to abandon the marriage since it had become abusive. The price for leaving her first marriage was also having to leave behind three children (Ho 40). As Huntley states, Tan’s parents’ unusual backgrounds would further on provide her with material for her novels (1).
Tan describes her childhood as lonely and isolated. Her early childhood also involved a lot of moving, form house to house (Ho 40). She lived the classic minority experience (Huntley 2). At school she was usually the only Chinese student in her c...
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...impacted millions of women worldwide. Tan’s works not only captured Chinese women’s attention but women with all kinds of cultural background and it helped them reconnect with their heritage as well.
Works Cited
Bloom, Harold, and Stephen Souris. Amy Tan. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2000. Print. Pages: 1, 2, 66, 70
Ho, Wendy. In Her Mother's House: The Politics of Asian American Mother-daughter Writing. Walnut Creek: AltaMira, 1999. Print. Pages: 22,23,40,49
Huntley, E. D. Amy Tan: A Critical Companion. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1998. Print. Pages: 1, 2, 41, 42
Rozakis, Laurie Neu., Garey Carey, and James L. Roberts. The Joy Luck Club: Notes ... Lincoln, Neb.: Cliffs Notes, 1994. 1999. Web. 21 Mar. 2014. Pages: 12, 13, 45
Yuan, Yuan. Ideas of Home: Literature of Asian Migration. Ed. Geoffrey Kain. East Lansing: Michigan State UP, 1997. Print. Pages: 158,162
Tachiki, Amy; Wong, Eddie; Odo, Franklin, eds. (1971). Roots: An Asian American Reader. University of California, Los Angeles Press.
amy tan, a gifted writer, had the chance to change those images, to dispel the public's misconceptions and to forge a new asian american identity. instead, she copped out on her obligations, meekly reinforcing every conceivable stereotype.
Tan exemplifies the cultural conflict through the different views of Suyuan and Jing Mei. Suyuan wants the best of both worlds for her daughter, a mix of an American identity and traditional Chinese values. In Two Kinds, Suyuan continuously tells Jing Mei a typical American belief that one can be what they desire to be in America (599). With that being said, Suyuan’s values and ways of doing things are completely in the ways of the Chinese
Amy Tan, in ?Mother Tongue,? Does an excellent job at fully explaining her self through many different ways. It?s not hard to see the compassion and love she has for her mother and for her work. I do feel that her mother could have improved the situation of parents and children switching rolls, but she did the best she could, especially given the circumstances she was under. All in all, Amy just really wanted to be respected by her critics and given the chance to prove who she is. Her time came, and she successfully accomplished her goals. The only person who really means something to her is her mother, and her mother?s reaction to her first finished work will always stay with her, ?so easy to read? (39).
Amy Ruth Tan was born to John and Daisy Tan on February 19, 2952 (“Amy Tan Biography”). Although Amy Tan’s parents were both born in China, she was American born. Daisy Tan was born to a wealthy family in Shanghai, China. John Tan, on the other hand, was an electrical engineer and Baptist minister. Amy Tan’s parents met in a dangerous decade of the 1940’s in China while battles were being fought on all fronts. John Tan was working for the United States Information Service during WWII, which made it fairly easy for him to escape China for the U.S. when the war ended. Daisy Tan, however, was not as fortunate; she had been imprisoned. She escaped in 1949 right before the Communist takeover; she left on the last boat to deport from Shanghai to the U.S. Shortly after Daisy arrived in the U.S., her and John Tan arranged to be married. Amy Tan’s parents had two other children besides her; they were John Jr. and Peter Tan. The Tan clan moved around many times while Amy Tan was growing up, finally settling in Santa Clara, California (Chatfield-Taylor 190).
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.
Amy Tan’s “A Pair of Tickets” follows a thirty-six year old woman named June May who has found herself lost from her own heritage and with loads of questions that were left without answers about her ancestry. According to “Explanation of Amy Tan’s A Pair of Tickets by Lit Finder Contemporary Collection” “this novel is a collection of sixteen interrelated stories centered on the diverse emotional relationships of four different mother-daughter pairs”. Growing and being raised in San Francisco California as a Chinese-American June May never believed or felt as if she were actually really Chinese even though her Mother was from China and had immigrated to the United States. Following the death of her mother June
Similarly, Wong also grew up in America with a traditional Chinese mother. In contrast, Wong’s upbringing involves her mother forcing her into attending two different schools. After her American school day, Wong continues on with Chinese school to learn both cultures. Her mother felt it was her duty to “[. . .] learn the language of [her] heritage” (Wong 144). This puts a burden on Wong as she starts to despise the Chinese culture.
In the work of Amy Tan’s “Mother’s Tongue” she provides a look into how she adapted her language to assimilate into American culture. She made changes to her language because her mother heavily relied on her for translation. She was the voice of her mother, relaying information in standard English to those who were unable to understand her mother’s broken english. She tells about her mother’s broken english and its impact on her communication to those outside their culture. Her mothers broken english limited others’ perception of her intelligence, and even her own perception of her mother was scewed: Tan said, “I know this for a fact, because when I was growing up, my mothers ‘limited’ English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English. I believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say.” (419) The use of standard english was a critical component to Tan’s assimilation into American culture. Standard English was an element she acquired to help her mother but more importantly is was an element that helped in her gain success as a writer. Tan changed her ‘Englishes’ (family talk) to include standard English that she had learnt in school and through books, the forms of English that she did not use at home with her mother. (417-418) Tan realized the ch...
In the story "A Pair of Tickets," by Amy Tan, a woman by the name of Jing-mei struggles with her identity as a Chinese female. Throughout her childhood, she "vigorously denied" (857) that she had any Chinese under her skin. Then her mother dies when Jing-Mei is in her 30's, and only three months after her father receives a letter from her twin daughters, Jing-Mei's half sisters. It is when Jing-mei hears her sisters are alive, that she and her dad take a trip overseas to meet her relatives and finally unites with her sisters. This story focuses on a woman's philosophical struggle to accept her true identity.
In the short story, "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan, a Chinese mother and daughter are at odds with each other. The mother pushes her daughter to become a prodigy, while the daughter (like most children with immigrant parents) seeks to find herself in a world that demands her Americanization. This is the theme of the story, conflicting values. In a society that values individuality, the daughter sought to be an individual, while her mother demanded she do what was suggested. This is a conflict within itself. The daughter must deal with an internal and external conflict. Internally, she struggles to find herself. Externally, she struggles with the burden of failing to meet her mother’s expectations. Being a first-generation Asian American, I have faced the same issues that the daughter has been through in the story.
“Whenever she had to warn us about life, my mother told stories that ran like this one, a story to grow up on. She tested our strengths to establish realities”(5). In the book “The Woman Warrior,” Maxine Kingston is most interested in finding out about Chinese culture and history and relating them to her emerging American sense of self. One of the main ways she does so is listening to her mother’s talk-stories about the family’s Chinese past and applying them to her life.
The second and third sections are about the daughters' lives, and the vignettes in each section trace their personality growth and development. Through the eyes of the daughters, we can also see the continuation of the mothers' stories, how they learned to cope in America. In these sections, Amy Tan explores the difficulties in growing up as a Chinese-American and the problems assimilating into modern society. The Chinese-American daughters try their best to become "Americanized," at the same time casting off their heritage while their mothers watch on, dismayed. Social pressures to become like everyone else, and not to be different are what motivate the daughters to resent their nationality. This was a greater problem for Chinese-American daughters that grew up in the 50's, when it was not well accepted to be of an "ethnic" background.
In her short story "Two Kinds," Amy Tan utilizes the daughter's point of view to share a mother's attempts to control her daughter's hopes and dreams, providing a further understanding of how their relationship sours. The daughter has grown into a young woman and is telling the story of her coming of age in a family that had emigrated from China. In particular, she tells that her mother's attempted parental guidance was dominated by foolish hopes and dreams. This double perspective allows both the naivety of a young girl trying to identify herself and the hindsight and judgment of a mature woman.
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).