While, both are extremely dedicated to what they are doing. Chunming from “Factory Girls” and Guo Hulin from “Eating Bitterness” are both driven by extravagant situations but have their own personal challenges to overcome in their everyday life. Chunming being successful is spiritually driven while being morally confused. Yet, Guo Hulin is morally focused and clear, while being spiritually unsettled and confused. Chunming ‘s day to day tasks has brought her to the center of being spiritually driven while being morally confused. She spends tons of extra time everyday trying to meet her needs. Through her career she suffers through many difficult intervals in her life, by trying to make the best of her time to become what she wants to. She spends days trying to find new jobs, she takes many challenges. “Since I have come to …show more content…
She has many things going on through her mind. When she becomes a little bit more successful she decides that what she has been chasing hasn’t met her needs. She feels like she’s missing things. She wants to have a boyfriend, but yet she keeps changing her mind due to the fact that she thinks none of the guys are good enough for her. “25- year old accountant seeks a Guangdong man with a professional skill, an apartment, a loving heart, and a sense of responsibility” (p.213). She decides to open her own business with a partner, but at the end of the day. She isn’t so happy with all the process she has made; she just wants to see a better meaningful life then just work and money. “We haven’t made big money yet,” Chunming said. “But even if I make a lot of money, it wont satisfy me. Just to make money is not enough meaning in life” (p. 359). Chunming realizes how far she came, she is confused and finally decides that the entire struggle she made isn’t what she wanted, that she wants to go back to learning English. So that she lives a peaceful life. “I want to learn English so I can live a happier life” (p.
The journey from Chongqing to America was one with many obstacles and Suyuan sacrificed so much for her daughter hoping that one day June will be successful. The support and care that Suyuan provided for June ended when she suddenly passes away which forces June discerns how little she actually knows about her own mother. This seemingly ordinary life of June disappears as she discovers her mother’s past which included siblings that have been abandoned and thus attempts to find her long lost sisters. This idea was brought up by the Aunties of the Joy Luck Club that her mother founded which can be seen as the call to an adventure. The purpose of this journey was not only to find her sisters but to also discover her mother for who Suyuan truly was. In June’s eyes, Suyuan was always impossible to please and she was never on the same page as her mother who believes a person could be anything they wanted in America-the land of opportunities. But as the Joy Luck Club reminds June of how smart, dutiful, and kind her
In the beginning, Jing-mei, is “just as excited as my mother,”(469). Jing-mei was eagerly hoping to make her mother proud. However, her mother’s obsession with becoming a prodigy discouraged Jing-mei. The daily test began to aggravated Jing-mei because they made her feel less sma...
Anna Julia Cooper’s, Womanhood a Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress, an excerpt from A Voice from the South, discusses the state of race and gender in America with an emphasis on African American women of the south. She contributes a number of things to the destitute state African American woman became accustom to and believe education and elevation of the black woman would change not only the state of the African American community but the nation as well. Cooper’s analysis is based around three concepts, the merging of the Barbaric with Christianity, the Feudal system, and the regeneration of the black woman.
Loung and Chou are contrasting characters throughout the novel and contradict each other at every term. Loung is very rambunctious and and is not afraid to say what is on her mind. Since
Traditions in Chinese culture are long-rooted and are taken very seriously from generation to generation. However, there must always be room for modern change in order for society to grow and strive across the globe. In Bound Feet and Western Dress the conflict between Chinese traditions and modern change arises. With this conflict it is important to discuss the different meanings of liberation for men and women and they way in which Chang Yu-I was able to obtain liberation throughout her life.
Wang Lung starts off poor, but happy. While he is not satisfied with his place in life, especially compared to the seemingly mighty and rich House of Hwang, Wang Lung is pleased to have a wife, Olan. Olan helps him in the fields, in addition to all of her housework, and she bears him sons. With her help, Wang Lung becomes successful and rich. His displeasure in his place in life is evident with Olan; while he is pleased to have her as his wife, he is upset that he cannot afford to have a wife with bound feet. Although he is disappointed in Olan’s appearance, it does not truly affect him until he becomes rich, at which point he decides that she is too ugly and he must take another wife, against his father’s wishes.
The narrator explains a quote she remembered that her mother said using the English that her mother uses, “Du Yusong having business like fruit stand. Like off the street kind. He is like Du Zong—but not Tsung-ming Island people. The local people call putong, the river east side, he belong to that side local people. The man want to ask Du Zong father wasn’t look down on him, but didn’t take seriously, until that man big like become a mafia. Now important person, very hard to inviting him. Respect for making big celebration, he shows up. Mean gives lots of respect. Chinese custom. Chinese social life that way. If too important won’t have to stay too long. He come to my wedding. I didn’t see, I heard it. I gone to boy’s side, they have YMCA dinner. Chinese age I was nineteen.”(108). Another example is when her (the author) mother use to have her call people on the phone pretending it was her. “Why he don’t send me my check, already two weeks late. So mad he lie to me, losing me money.” (110). After these incidents had occurred a while back, the author says: “I began to write stories using all the Englishes I grew up with: the English I spoke to my mother, the English she used with me, my translation of her English, and what I imagined to be her translation of her Chinese.” (113). This quote not only shows examples of the different Englishes in her novel, but it also explains how she begins to write stories using her
Cao Xueqin’s Story of the Stone is a classic in Chinese literature, showcasing the life and exploits of the wealthy Jia clan during the feudal era. Through Cao’s depiction, the reader is afforded a glimpse into the customs and lifestyle of the time. Chinese mode of thought is depicted as it occurred in daily life, with the coexisting beliefs of Confucianism and Taoism. While the positive aspects of both ideologies are presented, Cao ultimately depicts Taoism as the paramount, essential system of belief that guides the character Bao-yu to his eventual enlightenment.
Chang portrays the complexity of Henry’s character by showing the conflict that he faces both in his personal and professional life. His confusion towards his own Cultural identity is noticed in his relationships with his co-workers as well as with his family. His personal relationship with his family, especially with his father and his wife exemplifies the clash between the two cultures which seems to tear Henry apart. Leila, Henry’s wife, seems to epitomize the traditional American Culture which Henry tries very hard to be a part of. Her forthright nature along with the independence and individuality contradicts the stereotypical qualities of an Asian wife. However, Henry’s desperation is seen in his forgiving attitude towards Leila’s action and behavior. His deter...
However, Chunming possesses a different approach to searching for a better life. Not only that, Chunming stresses the real meaning of “purpose” moving to the city. However, the difference with Chunming is, she does not only promote self-purpose to herself, but to other struggling Chinese workers as well. This is evident in the diaries she makes. In one of her diary entries, she states, “What’s important is: What kind of person do you want to become in the future?
She honored her parents as she should, but longed for them to pass. In the beginning of the story she said "I had never expected my parents to take so long to die.” She had taken care of them all of her life she was in her fifty’s and her parents in their ninety’s. She was ready to live and break free of all the rules and duties put upon her, they were like chains binding her and holding her down. She was ready to explore to go on journeys and adventures she was already aging all she wanted was to be free. Her parents’ death let her run free, she left Hong Kong to start over and maybe find love, in any way possible, maybe even through food or luxuries. She wanted to be rebellious of her parents I’m sure she knew they wouldn’t approve but she didn’t care she wanted change. All her life she had followed so many rules, she had to fight to teach, to learn, to be with friends, her fight was finally over. She now had no one to rebel against, she now had the freedom to
Most of the conflicts that June and her mother face are based on misunderstandings and negligence concerning each other's feelings and beliefs. June does not understand or even fully know her mother because she does not know about her tragic past and t he pain she still feels from the memory of it. Because Suyuan lost two daughters in China, and her entire family was killed in the war, she leaves this place behind her and places all of her hopes in America and her family there. She wants the very best for her daughter June. Even her name, Suyuan, meaning "long-cherished wish," speaks of this hope for Jing-Mei, meaning "the pure, essential, best quality younger sister." Suyuan tells her daughter June that she can be anything she wants to be, and that she has great talent. At first June is excited and dreams about what she will become: "In all my imaginings, I was filled with a sense that I would soon become perfect. My mother and father would adore me. I would be beyond reproach. I would never feel the need to sulk for anything." (Tan 143) Suyuan pushes June to be successful in many different areas such as dance, academics, trivia, and piano.
Loung Ung is a very outgoing individual. She is very joyful and very adventurous compared to her siblings( Meng, Khouy, Keav, Kim, Chou, and Geak) who were very coshes and mature. Throughout the book Loung makes many difficult journeys during her Cambodian youth. Having to go from a large privileged family to being an orphan was very irritating for the young girl. She wasn't able to grasp the fact that her live was being torn apart because of something she had nothing to do with. Being the curious girl she is, she always asked “Why?” That question was one of the million she asked her father but that was the only one he couldn't answer.
This story sets the stage for conflict between the Chinese mothers and their American daughters. The issue of the language barrier is a constant theme in both The Joy Luck Club and The Woman Warrior. The English language plays a major role in assimilating the new world. For Tan, there is a conflict between Chinese and English, in her real life and in her story. Tan herself stopped speaking Chinese at age five. Tan’s mother, Daisy, however, speaks "in a combination of English and Mandarin" (Cliff notes 6). Tan was taunted in high school for her mother’s heavy Shanghai accent (Cliff notes 6). Because Daisy never became fluent in English, the language problem only escalated between the two women. (Cliff notes 6) Tan expresses this stress in her novel with the character Jing-mei. Jing-mei admits that she has trouble understanding her mother’s meaning. "See daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English" (Tan 40).
“Factory Girls” by Leslie T. Chang provides an inside look on migration in the inner cities of China. The book follows the lives of women who have left their home villages to work in factories. Primarily, Chang focuses on the lives of two women, Min and Chunming. Min left her village at the age of sixteen with her older sister to chuqu, or to go out, and see the world. She often changed jobs while in Dongguan because she is never satisfied with her position. Chang met Chunming at a dating agency where men and women could mingle with one another. Chunming began her career at a toy factory. In her diary, she often wrote out the goals she wanted to accomplish and how to accomplish them. She was very determined to become successful. Her persistence