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Influence of popular culture in American society
China culture in brief
Influence of popular culture in American society
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This little short story is about a fourteen years old Chinese girl named Amy. Who she had a crush on the minister son named Robert. After she found out that her parents invited the minister family on charismas eve diner, Amy was worried that Robert wouldn’t like her because of her family and tradition. Right from the start Robert seem that didn’t like how her parent acting. Amy family was licking chopsticks and reaching to the food instead of passing it. The main thing that Amy was embarrassed the most was the food. Her parents made chinses food instead of American food in charismas eve. Robert seemed that he didn’t like the food and the way her parent acted in diner. Once they left, Amy mother knew that Amy wasn’t happy. Her mom said “You
Gish Jen’s story titled Who’s Irish is a story about a chinese grandmother who was struggling to adapt to a different culture. Throughout the story, the grandmother’s perception and understanding conflicted with that of her daughter, Natalie, her son-in-law, John Shae, and, her granddaughter, Sophie. The narrator is a Chinese Grandmother who was nameless and spoke in the first person point of view. When the Grandmother first immigrated to the United States along with her daughter and her husband (who passed away,) she found success through her restaurant. She believed that her hardwork and dedication gave rise to her success in a different country. This was why the grandmother does not like her in-laws. She presumes that because they are
As the four women entered America, which is far from their motherland China, they experience a change of culture, the American culture, which was dominant than the Chinese. The Chinese mothers are faced with a difficult task of how to raise their American-born daughters with an understanding of their heritage. The daughters clearly show a gap in culture between the Chinese culture and American culture. The mothers wanted their daughter to follow the Chinese traditions, but the daughters followed the American traditions and even some of them got married to American men. The mothers tried to tell their daughters the story about the Chinese ancestors but the daughter could not follow them and the daughters thought their mothers were backwards and did not know what they are saying. As much as the mothers tried to show love to their daughters, the daughters usually responded negatively. They often saw their mothers’ attempts to guidance as a failure to understand the American culture. Being Chinese and living in America, both the mothers and the daughters struggle with many issues like identity, language, translation, and others. The mothers try to reconcile their Chinese pasts with their American presents; the daughters try to find a balance between independence and loyalty to their heritage
It begins with a happy 9-year-old girl named Ling who lives in a hospital complex with her father, a very successful surgeon, and her mother, a well-known doctor. Her mother, known as Mrs. Chang, is very strict, always nagging Ling to act like a woman and to be perfect in almost every way. Ling believes it is because her mother never wanted to have a daughter. Father, on the other hand, Mr. Chang, spent much time with Ling, and got very close to her, teaching her reading and English lessons. He would
Everyone seeks the comfort of the stability in their own home. Ellen Foster knows her home is rather abnormal. Enduring physical, mental, and sexual abuse from her family, Ellen learns early on that what she wants is what she cannot seem to find: a loving home. Through challenging adversities in the novel, Ellen finally found a family that suited her needs, in a foster home. Once she had at last found her place that she felt fit, her first thought was to invite her best friend, Starletta, to present her pride of her new, blissful, life. This passage, references to history, repayment, and equality serve to emphasize Ellen’s desire to atone for thinking she was better than Starletta in the past. Ellen’s journey of finding a stable home life leads to her discovery of the love of her true friend.
Originally the narrator admired her father greatly, mirroring his every move: “I walked proudly, stretching my legs to match his steps. I was overjoyed when my feet kept time with his, right, then left, then right, and we walked like a single unit”(329). The narrator’s love for her father and admiration for him was described mainly through their experiences together in the kitchen. Food was a way that the father was able to maintain Malaysian culture that he loved so dearly, while also passing some of those traits on to his daughter. It is a major theme of the story. The afternoon cooking show, “Wok with Yan” (329) provided a showed the close relationship father and daughter had because of food. Her father doing tricks with orange peels was yet another example of the power that food had in keeping them so close, in a foreign country. Rice was the feature food that was given the most attention by the narrator. The narrator’s father washed and rinsed the rice thoroughly, dealing with any imperfection to create a pure authentic dish. He used time in the kitchen as a way to teach his daughter about the culture. Although the narrator paid close attention to her father’s tendencies, she was never able to prepare the rice with the patience and care that her father
In Li-Young Lee’s poem “Eating Together”, the author describes the cultural values of his family and days ahead of them without his father who lost his life last week. “My mother who will/taste the sweetest meat of the head” indicates that his mother will take over the role of head of family moving forward. Lee is so proud of his food and tradition, and mentions how they do prepare food and sit together when it is time for meal. They are fond of eating together. He respects his father and remember his role of head of family till last week. Lee definitely misses his father on dining table but fully aware that death is inevitable. When Lee writes, “Then he lay down / to sleep like a snow – cover road” symbolizes the death of his father was quietly
At the end of the story, the boy decides to finally eat. Though he still has no money to pay for food he decides to go to a restaurant and leave without paying. The narrator says, “He did not dare to look at her: it seemed to him that if he did so she would become aware of his frame of mind and his shameful intentions” (1158). The boy’s plan to eat the food and leave without paying starts to make him feel guilty. Even though he still feels too embarrassed to look at the waitress, he puts his need to eat before his feelings. After that moment the boy starts to cry in front of the waitress. She brings another plate of cookies to the boy and he eats them. The narrator says, “He ate slowly, without thinking about anything, as if nothing had happened, as if he were in his own house and his mother were that lady behind the counter” (1158). In this moment, the boy eats and does not think about himself crying. He eats the cookies and is comfortable because he feels like he is at home. He also feels comfort because he imagines the waitress is his mother. The boy relating the woman to his mother shows the reason why he must eat, because his mother is important to
In conclusion, from the short story I believe that assumption, attitudes and the connection between Amy and her mother run through most of immigrant family in America. living your dreams is much better than living in someone’s dream, therefore, I believe that Amy was right in a certain way for fighting for her own dreams and hopes. However, Amy mother was trying to help her daughter to live the American dreams that she dreamt about. But at the same time she wanted to impact the Chinese culture to her
“ Only a month into the After, I’d started searching houses, looking for signs of life.” Amy has dealt with many conflicts that has changed her life. Amy has a lot of internal and external conflicts that have changed her and has changed the way she has to live. It’s clear that Amy’s life has modified in a way because of the conflicts she has had to go through.
Once they were back home, they sat at the dining table and started to eat the food. After 30 minutes her Aunt called and asked her to bring over some food. When she walked over to her Aunt’s place the air was colder, but still fresh and crispy. Once she was inside her Aunt’s place she sat down at the kitchen table and said hello to her cousins and Aunt. After grabbing a glass of water from her Aunt’s refrigerator her Aunt asked her to take care of her cousins while they went out to pick up food. She gladly said yes, even though she didn’t want to, but she knew she couldn’t complain and say no. After 10 minutes her Aunt and Uncle left to pick up the food from Boston Market and she was left alone with her cousins. When her Aunt and Uncle came back they started to cook and the house was filled with the smell of turkey, ham, pumpkin and apple pie and mash potatoes with gravy. At 4:00 pm her family came over to her Aunt's place and said hello and sat down at the dining table and waited for the food to be finished cooking. Once the food was ready they all sat down and said thank you to her Aunt and Uncle for cooking the food and talked with each other while they all ate the creamy warm mash potatoes with gravy and the warm and juicy ham and turkey. After everyone finished the food they all enjoyed the sweet and creamy pumpkin and apple pie. After finishing the dinner, everyone said goodbye
In this story, the main character Amy is chinese and seems to hate everything about her culture because she feels it humiliates her. Both main characters in these stories feel humiliation and hate towards the wrong things. In addition, both these characters show that they matured. In “Fish Cheeks,” the author shows that Amy matured when she wrote, “And even though I didn't agree with her then, I knew that she understood how much I had suffered during the evening's was able to fully appreciate her lesson and the true purpose behind our particular menu.” In “The dinner. It wasn't until many year later – long after I had gotten over my crush on Robert – that I Parsley Garden,” William Saroyan shows Al Condraj matured when he wrote, “I worked all day,” Al said. “Mr. Clemmer gave me the hammer after I’d worked for one hour, but I went right on working. The fellow who caught me yesterday and showed me what to do, and we worked together. We didn’t talk, but at the end of the day he took me to Mr. Clemmer’s office and he told Mr. Clemmer that I’d worked hard all day ought to be paid at least a dollar.” Both these characters had similar problems and then similar growth and maturity towards the end of their
“Paper Menagerie,” by Ken Liu, is an emotional story of a selfish son and his interactions with his out-of-place mother, who had immigrated from Asia to be his father’s wife. Jack is a half-Chinese, half-American boy who lives in Connecticut. In the beginning of the story, he is very attached to his mother, but certain incidents with other kids make him want to be as distant as possible from his Chinese mom. He demands that his mom converts to being a “normal” white American mom and that he and his family should give up all Asian customs. This beautiful story shows that selfishly basing your actions on the need to fit in can harm yourself and others.
The complexitities of any mother-daughter relationship go much deeper then just their physical features that resemble one another. In Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club, the stories of eight Chinese women are told. Together this group of women forms four sets of mother and daughter pairs. The trials and triumphs, similarities and differences, of each relationship with their daughter are described, exposing the inner makings of four perfectly matched pairs. Three generations of the Hsu family illustrate how both characteristics and values get passed on through generations, even with the obstacles of different cultures and language.
In current society, these stereotypes are frowned upon, and are being shown to be less and less true. Today, stereotypes of race and ethnicity are weaker than they used to be when cultures were more isolated and less diverse. The son character in “A Family Supper”, displays this letting go of old stereotypes and culture, and an accepting of modernization and globalization. He and his father represent the huge leap that mankind has taken from isolated nation-states to a global community that has rapidly occurred within the last several decades. A dramatic difference is displayed between the father and son when it is mentioned that the father’s colleague committed suicide. The father explains to his son, “After the firm’s collapse, Watanabe killed himself. He didn’t wish to live with the disgrace.” The son, who has been out of the secluded, Japanese society, is clearly shocked by this. It is implied that the son disgraced his family by leaving their isolated, Japanese society and left to join modern civilization. This can be important knowledge for a freshman to have, depending on the way it is interpreted. This statement shows that today’s society is a new one that disregards the tacit rules of segregation, and lets a person choose his or her own
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.