They can be noticed firstly in the words and behaviors. For instance, the eldest sister can’t help moving away and getting married the moment she’s just got a kiss after several years of abstinency; the elder one feels disgusted with the remarks of so-called keeping the relationship as friends; the father frequently refers to that “Don’t forget to come back for the Sunday dinner” while they can’t get a happy reunion all the time. Digging these simple sentences and practices, we may find there being enormous difference in the life style between east and west cultures, to be more specific, different mode of thinking and dealing with emotions. Chinese people tend to think in a more compromising way while the American are inclined to pay more attention to sense of individualism no matter what it’ll cost. Jiazhen is the very example of a mixture of two cultures.
Lena St. Claire’s mother, Ying-ying, married a white businessman and brought her from China to America. Because of a language barrier between Ying-ying and her husband—he spoke English and she spoke Chinese—her cultural identity remained unchanged throughout their marriage. When Ying-ying is forced to stay at Lena and Harold’s house, she immediately sees what she believes are flaws in their house. Lena hates the fact that Ying-ying is constantly aware of these small imperfections. Furthermore, Lena is critical of Ying-ying for voicing her opinion on these imperfections in order to get her way.
Simon Popovic Com/Lit 02/14/13 In her essay Fish Cheeks, Amy tan invites over the minister's son, whom she is in love with, and his family. Amy Tan's family makes all of Amy's favorite traditional Chinese food, but she gets completely embarrassed once the minister and his family arrive. I have also been embarassed by my families' Albanian traditions. Albanian parents tend to be overly strict. My father has basically had me on a leash since the day I was born.
Velez2 Jennifer Velez Comp107 Miss Atzeni 3/22/2012 The Struggle to Be an All-American Girl By Elizabeth Wong In Elizabeth Wong’s writing on how she struggled to be an “All-American” girl, she expresses the strict religion and culture brought on by her single-parent raising mother, when all she only wanted was to fit in with American culture. While Elizabeth and her brother wanted to play childhood games, such as ghost hunt, with their friends their mother was stern on the importance of learning the language of their heritage. She would walk them seven long blocks to Chinese school, no matter how often they pleaded with her to not attend. Elizabeth wasn’t fond of the smell of the school or that the learning was restricted. She felt that American school would be a better fit for her.
Amy Tan and Maya Angelou Compare and Contrast Essay Authors Amy Tan and Maya Angelou both show their feelings in personal narratives “ Champion of the World “ and “Fish Cheeks”. In the story “Fish Cheeks” it describes a young American Asian girl who invites her crush over for a traditional Asian Christmas Eve dinner. Her grandparents embarrass her by eating fast and eating sloppy. Her mom makes an embarrassing comment and tells it to the whole table. At the end of the story she finds out later in her life that the dinner helped her and the comment her mom made to her helped her later on in life.
170-171) “There are all these new books out there portraying Asian mothers as scheming, callous, indifferent people indifferent to their kids’ true interests.” The negative focus on Asian upbringing combined with the title, will be enough reason for pause in many Western parents’ bodies. This pause will by time build to a rage. This is caused by the way Amy Chua describes Chinese parents as good parents and Western parents as questionable parents – means that you are to make questions about whether the western parents are good or bad. It is all provocation. Amy Chua draws the reader into this rage.
Amy Tan grew up with the persistent desire to become more “Americanized”. Critic, Bella Adams stated, “Although Americanization had it’s advantages…it also demanded that Amy ignore her Chinese cultural background, often out of shame.” As she matured, Amy became ashamed of her Chinese features, even attempting to sleep with a clothespin on her nose in order to “Westernize” her face (Adams NP). Adding to her lack of identity, at age fourteen Amy
She also imagines the conflict between her grandmother and the white dentist Dr. Lincoln after he said he would rather stick his hand in a dog’s mouth than treat Marguerite’s problem. By confronting racism at her very young age, Marguerite proves to be a courageous girl. Mrs. Cullican tries to call her “Mary” just because her real name “Marguerite” is too long , she breaks her white boss’s heirloom china as an act of resistance. During her stay with her father, Daddy Bailey, they go to Mexico, where he gets drunk. Not wanting to sleep in the car, Marguerite drives back to the border successfully, even though she does not know how to drive.
On New Year’s Eve, Loung has her ‘greatest dream…’ and her ‘…worse nightmare’ she dreams about sitting alone on a long table filled with her ‘…favourite food in the world’, in her dream although Loung claims that ‘…everything looks and tastes so real…’ she is anxious because she is frightened of the Khmer Rouge soldiers taking her food away. The reason behind this dream is Loung’s shame in stealing food from her family, she feels guilty ‘because she hides food from even Geak’ and she sits away from all the others in the hope that they won’t want to take her food. Loung resorts to stealing food because the Khmer Rouge rations very minimal food to her family leading to the many deaths of starvation and from food poisoning, Loung is in despair as she remembers her birthday with eating a piece of charcoal instead the birthday cakes she used to have, ‘…I pick up a couple more pieces for later and put them in my pockets as I head toward home’. Whilst Keav is at a Kong Cha Lat, a messenger comes to Ma and Pa saying that Keav is very ill and is asking for her parents. Loung, who remains at home, imagines Keav’s
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.