Amy Tan Essay

765 Words4 Pages
I have read Amy Tan's essay, "Fish Cheeks," where she talks about her cultural background, how they used to celebrate Christmas Eve and what kind of food they usually have on the dinning table, compared to Americans that have some breads, pasta, roasted turkey, and wine; how her family and relatives behave every time they celebrate holydays, when her parents invite her American boyfriend, Robert, and his family to have a dinner at house on Christmas Eve; and how Robert reacted, and what he would think after that dinner in their house. I can say, Amy expect the worst that night, where she was not sure what her mother was trying to prove, why her mother preferred to have a Chinese dinner with Amy's favorite foods on the table, rather than an American dinner would suit Robert and his family's appetite, and also why her mother invited Robert and his family to a holiday dinner where all her relatives were there and behave badly even when they were in front of other guests. Amy's mother understood her feelings, and knows that Amy is ashamed of what happen during the dinner with Robert and his family, so after the dinner, her mother handed her a beige tweed mini-skirt, which every “American” girls wore, so she didn’t have to be ashamed because she didn’t wear what other American girls wore. Amy and her mother knew that whatever she wore or ate, she couldn't change her reality. She was still a Chinese girl, with Chinese culture. Base on my own experience, when I first came to United States, I encountered a roller-coaster-like emotion, where I felt afraid and left out, because I was not born and raised here; I was not confident talking with other people even though we came from different cultures, because I couldn't speak English fluently; and I sometimes felt rejected when I was
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