The Daughters in The Joy Luck Club battle the cultural differences between the ancient values of their immigrant mothers and the American way of life they live in. In China, the mothers were taught strength of character was built through obedience. In modern American, the daughters are exposed to a society where women have more freedom of expression. Even clothing is different in each culture. The daughters are being raised on conflicting cultural differences.
When she travels to China, she discovers the Chinese essence within herself, thus realizing a deep connection to her mother that she had always ignored. She also brings Suyuan’s story to her long-lost twin daughters, and, once reunited with her half-sisters, gains an even more profound understanding of who her mother was.For the most part, Jing-mei’s fears echo those of her peers, the other daughters of the Joy Luck Club members. They have always identified with Americans but are beginning to regret having neglected their Chinese heritage. Her fears also speak to a reciprocal fear shared by the mothers, who wonder whether, by giving their daughters American opportunities and self-sufficiency, they have alienated them from their Chinese heritage.Jing-mei is representative in other ways as well. She believes that her mother’s constant criticism bespeaks a lack of affection, when in fact her mother’s severity and high expectations are expressions of love and faith in her daughter.
She then goes to the Hsus' house which felt, “heavy with greasy odors.” (Tan 15) She acts very courteous to everyone and respects the wishes of her elders as displayed when she accepts to take her mother’s place at the mahjong table. She feels out of place because she is younger than everyone else, and she finds out that her mother had made excuses for her to the other members. Although June dropped out of college, her mother told them that she might go back for a degree. “..but I know right away she’s lying. I know my mother probably told her I was going back to school to finish my degree.” (Tan 27) As the chapter is coming to an end and the night is at its peak, Jing-Mei starts to get up to leave but when the women stop her and tell June that her mother had left behind two infant twin daughters in China, she was shocked.
Katie Tava July 25, 2012 “The Struggle to Be an All-American” Part 1: Summary In “The Struggle to Be an All-American Girl,” Elizabeth Wong writes about her transformation from being a Chinese girl in to an American girl, as she moved to the U.S. Wong went to a Chinese school at the same time she attended American school because Wong’s mother wanted her and her brother to maintain the Chinese language as part of their heritage. Wong became embarrassed by her Chinese culture while studying in America. She said Chinese was, “ quick, it was loud, it was unbeautiful…. Chinese sounded pedestrian” (98). The desire to become American had become her dream.
This essay, mainly focusing on Suyuan Woo and her daughter June, is aiming to further analyze the causes and manifestations of this complicated mother-daughter relationship. The relationship is by no means conflicting and it is not hard to understand. First of all, the conflict is due to the daughters’ attitudes towards their Chineseness, which can be normally understood as the Chinese character and traditional culture, in all, it can be understood as the temperament of a Chinese. Different from their mothers, the daughter generation is born and raised in America, what they have experienced is enculturation, and they are trying to get rid of their Chineseness and every influence of the mother generation. Far from knowing Chinese culture and without the awareness to know, the mother generation is alien and ridiculous to them.
First she tried dancing and singing, “At first my mother thought I could become a Chinese Shirley Temple” (200). Because Jing Mei is a first generation Chinese American she has the same physical qualities as a young Chinese girl. There was no way she could look like Shirley Temple. Jing Mei has straight black hair and after a bad trip to the hair dresser her hair is in the style of Peter Pan. Jing Mei never wanted to do the things her mother wanted her to do.
The film, Army Nurse, is the story about the relation of women to the Party and society’s expectations of them as a good citizen under ‘People’s Republic of China’ which was established by Mao Zedong from 1966 to 1976. The film was released in China in 1986, when the 80’s was the beginning of an era in which there was an increased interest for the notion of individualism. For political and social reasons, the Party forced many Chinese to live under repressed conditions, giving up personal happiness. At the time, Chinese ideology strongly forced the submission of the subject to the Party, which means that ‘public duty’ is always priority over individual desire and interest. The era finally ended in the late 1970s and then the time came when the Chinese wound of the movement began to heal.
In the book, Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, a story is told about four mothers and four daughters. Each mother was born in China, and each daughter in America. Throughout the novel, Amy Tan repeatedly uses symbols and symbolism to represent what is going on in the mothers and daughters lives. A vase, a jade pendent, and a bible are all symbols that the author used to represent some aspect of both the daughters and their mothers lives. Lena St. Claire’s mother, Ying-ying, married a white businessman and brought her from China to America.
This shows the cultural differences (i.e. American and Chinese.) between the mother and daughter as well as the significance of material items that Chinese culture places on such things. It is only after Suyaun dies that June starts to comprehend that her jade pendant is actually an expression of love from her mother. “For a long time, I wanted to give you this necklace.
She felt that American school would be a better fit for her. Once Elizabeth got older she was given permission to stop attending Chinese school. Elizabeth’s struggles with her own heritage and the heritage of the country she lived in tore her. She so desperately wanted to fit into the American society, as she states “I thought of myself as multicultural. I preferred tacos to egg rolls; I enjoyed Cinco de Mayo more than Chinese New Year.” (Wong ,24) She favored the crisp new smells such as “the soft French perfume that my American teacher wore” (Wong ,24) over the mothball smell that the Chinese school held.