Contrasting Cultures in Tan's Mother Tongue and Nguyen's The Happy Days Syndrome

The teenage years and transition to adulthood is in itself a very difficult period. Blending or fitting in are omnipresent issues that must be dealt with. For children of immigrants, this difficulty is only intensified through language. Both Amy Tan and Khang Nguyen strategically use narrative anecdotes and employ several rhetorical devices to illustrate this struggle in their works, “Mother Tongue” and “The Happy Days,” respectfully. Amy Tan chooses her childhood home as the primary setting of her work. This allows her to focus primarily on her conversations and interactions with her mother. However, she also gives several anecdotes in which her mother’s background and improper English negatively affected her, outside the home. Through her recollection of these events, she reveals both her immediate reactions and her thoughts and opinions looking back as an adult. Both the comparison of settings and changes in point of view, help to illustrate Tan’s intimate relationship with her mother, and her desire to understand it.

In contrast Khang describes his situation solely from the point of view of a young teenager desperate to fit in. He utilizes three main settings: his home, outside the home, and his bathroom. The first two settings allow him to clearly illustrate the differences and switch in lifestyle he deals with everyday. He speaks one way with his friends in public and in another language at home with his parents. When he attempts to integrate the two he finds himself painfully torn between both worlds. His friends poke fun when he speaks Vietnamese and his parents harshly criticize him when he attempts to use typical teenage slang.

The majority of the story is told from Khang’s teenage point of view, illustrating his buil...

... middle of paper ...

...emendous benefits. Through reflection, Nguyen like Tan, not only learned to understand but appreciate his multicultural background.

Their experience growing up as children of immigrants and later reflection on the events that ensued, aided both Amy Tan and Khang Nguyen in their self discoveries and understanding of their culture. Tan describes her experiences through several anecdotes, while Nguyen uses the different settings of school and his home to contrast two cultures. Tan’s title “Mother Tongue” encompasses both her initial perception of her mother’s English as separate English, limited and broken and her later feeling that, like her mother, her mother’s language is a distinct part of her. Nguyen’s title, “The Happy Days Syndrome”, compares his initial hatred of his culture and language to a syndrome, which he too is able to eventually understand and overcome.