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. All of the other mother-daughter pairs experience the same misunderstanding, which in some ways may be seen to stem from cultural differences. What Tan portrays as the traditional Chinese values of filial obedience, criticism-enveloped expressions of love, and the concealment of excessive emotions all clash with the daughters’ “American” ideas about autonomy, free and open speech,
Far from knowing Chinese culture and without the awareness to know, the mother generation is alien and ridiculous to them. June considers her mother and Auntie Am-mei’s dress as “too fancy for real Chinese people and too strange for American parties”, and she even imagined Joy Luck “was a shameful Chinese custom, like the secret gathering of the Ku Klux Kan or the tom-tom dancers of TV Indians preparing for war. (Tan 28)” The daughter is not only ignorant to Chinese culture, but also initiatively wants to get rid
Amy Chua is a professor of Law at Yale, an author of “World on Fire”, and a Chinese mother. In Chua’s “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” (an excerpt from Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother), Chua takes a serious approach demonstrating the Chinese parenting method, and how it is effective in her life. Her main claim from this article is to state the differences between Western; Chinese parents, and how great Chinese parenting method is. The text is also connected to the identity theme; it conveys different aspects of figuring out one’s self , and how the parenting method is a big part of that. Chua’s text is very harsh toned, yet effective due to the use of all three appeals: Ethos, Logos, and Pathos.
This paper will explore the ways in which Jen constructs complexity in the secondary characters in her short story “Who’s Irish.” One of the secondary characters used in the story “Who’s Irish,” is named Sophie. She is half Chinese and half Irish. Since the grandmother is full Chinese, she expects Sophie to act respectful and obey her like any other little Chinese girl would. “Nothing the matter with Sophie’s outside, that’s the truth. It is inside that she is not like any Chinese girl I ever see” (107).
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.
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”. This quote reveals that Atticus is mainly focusing on the racial aspect of prejudice as it is the most dominant form of prejudice in TKAM. As well as showing that he understands the ethic of empathy and understanding, that he preaches to Scout and Jem. Atticus also proves how the people of Maycomb do not understand Negros as they have not experienced the abuse that comes with the colour of your skin. In the novel there is also the aspect of classism in prejudice with the hierarchy of families being instilled into the society of Maycomb.
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.
On this model I was only at step one at the beginning of your class. Even though I am apart of the dominant culture, I knew nothing of my heritage and did not really care. Same with racism, I never knew how bad it really was and the things our country has done to people until it was brought up. I feel that because of this class, I have become much more aware of racism that exists around. Because of my awareness of racism, I am now bothered by acts and behaviors that might not have bothered me in the past.
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.
The point that Amy Chua stresses the most in Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is the difference between “Chinese parenting” and “Western parenting.” It is clear that in her opinion Chinese children excel more than American children because they are constantly being pushed by their mothers to be the best at everything they do. There are even studies Chua quotes that suggest the same thing: In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that ‘stressing academic success is not good for children’ or that ‘parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun.’ By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers said that they believe their children can be ‘the best’ students, that ‘academic achievement reflects successful parenting,’ and that if children did not excel at school then there was ‘a problem’ and ‘parents were not doing there job.’ (5). Whether this study and her book proved that Chinese parenting is better than Western parenting is not the point to be made. However there is much to be said for parents encouraging their children to strive to do well and not give up. A child who grows up to have poor work ethics and a track record of laziness will typically come from an upbringing where they were neglected or never pushed to do much of anything.