It isn’t until after her death that the whereabouts of the two sisters are discovered. Jing-mei now carriers the burden of having to meet her sisters without their mother, not knowing the reaction the sisters will have towards her. In the beginning of the story, Amy Tan illustrates the transformations of Jing-mei, and her father, while also creating a visual of China during a train ride from Hong Kong to Shenzhen. It isn’t until Jing-mei arrives in China, her mother’s words come back to haunt her “someday you will see, it is in your blood,
This is the first time that Kingston explicitly tells which additions to the story are her own. Not only is she referencing the story at hand, but she is also alluding to her life. While her mother very much colored her childhood, Kingston will be dictating the direction of the rest of her life. Kingston tells the story of Ts’ai Yen, a poetess captured and made to live with barbarians. Towards the end of the tale, Kingston tells of a song Ts’ai Yen sings: “Her words seemed to be Chinese, but the barbarians understood their sadness and anger…her children did not laugh, but eventually sang along” (209).
and Two Kinds, are about mother-daughter conflicts and the cultural barrier, due to Chinese immigrant mothers and American born daughters, that stands between them. Though these two stories share some similarities, they both offer a different conflict resolution; Two Kinds resolves the conflict and in Who’s Irish? the conflict stays the same. In Who’s Irish, the narrator is a fierce, sixty-eight year old Chinese immigrant. Even though she views America in a positive way, she still keeps her Asian manners and finds it hard to accept the American way of parenting children.
The stories focus on the relationships between four, Chinese mothers who migrate to the United States and their Chinese-American daughters. The daughters find it to be a struggle to try to hold on to their traditional Chinese roots that their parents are trying to preserve, as they seek to fit into the over-bearing American culture. The stories explore issues of tradition, immigration, ethnicity, language, and identity. The Joy Luck Club displays the cultural divide that exists between Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans born and raised in the United States. Even though it is within the same culture, the film shows how Chinese immigrants are forced to “adjust” and give up much of their identity in order to thrive in America.
Setting of Amy Tan’s “A Pair of Tickets” Amy Tan’s “A Pair of Tickets” tells the story of a young girl “Jing-mei” whom has just lost her mother and is visiting her traditional Chinese family that she has never met. The setting of the story is Guangzhou China, where both Jing’s parents are originally from. This setting unintentionally causes Jing-Mei to learn more about her recently deceased mother’s past life and while doing so Jing-mei unintentionally finds the true Chinese heritage that she has always had within herself. In this short story, the setting of China has a tremendous impact on what is occurring internally to Jing-Mei; the narrator. Growing up in the United States Jing-Mei was extremely comfortable with American culture.
That point of view sounds strange to the readers; however, it was typical in China’s society. It reflects erroneous custom existed for a long time. For instance, every single Chinese girl had to get married at very young age to give born to children and take care of their husbands and family if they do not want the society to judge them like odd people. Obviously, Beina was not an exception. Not just because she was afraid that no one loves her as she was getting older, but she also desires an own family, a love to fulfill her lonely heart.
Unbound Feet The immigration of Chinese women was one of the most overlooked and understudied significant event in women’s history, until now. Their rise from being considered slaves, to gaining respect and credibility, is one of the most influential for women’s equality across America. In Unbound Feet, Judy Yung examines the hardships and rise of Chinese women as they immigrate to America to fulfill their dreams, yet are bound by discrimination and bind together to rise above racism and sexism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Yung examines the immigration and rise of the culture in five decades. Yung asks herself “What sociohistorical forces were at play that can explain social change for Chinese American women in the first half of the twentieth century?” (Yung, 5) The book tells of their oppression in America through prostitution, gender roles, anti-Chinese immigration laws, and class discrimination.
Although she shocked the world with her western behavior, she still faced internal conflict in preserving her Chinese ideals. Although Yu-I was born into “changing times” and considered modern, she still chose to keep some traditional Chinese values in her life. In the beginning of Yu-i’s childhood around the age of 3, her mother began the ancient tradition in China of binding the feet. Many girls went through this grueling ritual to reshape their
Kingston’s mother tends to find her own comfort zone with the Chinese for awhile, to escape the baggage of carrying two cultural identities. Kingston shows how her mother is this mysterical priest that can save lives, but behind an unknown Chinese immigrant. When Brave Orchid was offered to sleep in the room of the “sitting ghost,” she said, “’If I
Bradley Metcalfe ENG101-2 Professor Lunstrum September 30, 2014 Title Leaving everything you once knew is a hard and difficult task. There are people going through it each and everyday, whether it is running from war, prosecution, or just changing towns immigration is a hard part of life. When women immigrate to America they face more abuse, oppression, and loneliness making it hard to assimilate with the culture and surroundings. During the early years of Chinese immigration, women came over alone, often trafficked forced to be prostitutes. Fathers are thought to be loving and caring people, but during this time of immigration fathers would abandon their daughters or sell them to brothel owners.