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). In the scene, Kingston alludes to a conversation that goes beyond understand or interpretation and transcends to a state of peace between the two cultures, barbarian and native. Without even knowing the language or the culture, the barbarians understand the truth of the words. Music is a universal expression that unites. Although the children, representing Americanized Chinese, are rather separated from their mother’s culture, they still find a tune they can relate to.
Name: Instructor: Course: Date: “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan The article “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan is mainly about the author’s thoughts and judgments on broken English in comparison to Standard English. Tan is an American writer who was born in China and is torn between two different worlds: the American society and the Chinese society, which have very diverse societal behaviors and values (Tan 142-146). Tan describes how she relates with her mother who, according to her, speaks broken English. She talks about the limitations of her mother’s English including its advantages and disadvantages. This paper provides a summary of the article, including its major themes.
Unlke Yunior, she did not grow up in another country. Her struggle deals with finding an identity as a Chinese- American. Unlike the Domincan culture, which seems to be outspoken and open, the Chinese seem to encourage silence and secrets. The novel begins with Kingston’s mother saying, “You must not tell anyone,” before sharing the story with her daughter. - Silence is encouraged in their culture, allowing Kingston to develop into a shy, awkward girl with trouble adjusting.
Miss Strangeworth is an extremely censorious individual. She is judgemental of peoples actions in her town and believes that she needs to keep everyone in line, especially if they are acting a different way then Miss Strangeworth believes is correct. “ Didn’t you see an idiot child before? Some people just shouldn't have children, should they?”(Sightline 252). Miss Strangeworth wrote this letter to Helen and Dan Crane because she didn't agree with their parenting skills, so to Miss Strangeworth they were wrong.
However, the tone quickly changes as Song begins to miss and need China. After describing an unfriendly run in with a landlord Song says “You find you need China: your one fragile identification, a jade link handcuffed to your wrist” (Song). Here we see Song relating to the sister across seas and knowing that she needs to be back with her family and the people that love her, like her mother. These two contrasting section of the poem are used to show that even though life may be tough and strenuous in China, the life lived in America can also be not as forgiving. Family and culture seem to always win the battle against rebellion to a new land, resulting in the speaker’s sister’s
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.
Those who inflict the discrimination are also affected as they have the assumption that people have less value or are inferior to them, which leads them to have a false view/ distorted view of the world. They can also become isolated and experience feelings similar to that of the person they discriminated against, as the wider community and families of those affected may be outraged by their behaviour causing them to be excluded from certain
Shu Wens Chinese background makes it difficult for her to try to fit in to the Tibetan culture. The Tibetan culture is progressively adopted although Wen does start to loose her set of values and ethics of her own Chinese culture. Even though the clash between the two diverse cultures take place, and confining to her Chinese culture by writing in her tabloid, her attire and form of language does begin to soak up with the Tibetan people. During the development of her sense of identity in the 30-year period her Chinese individuality is neglected and her identity is modified. Nevertheless, we
Daniel Poleshchuk 10/3/12 E1FC Assignment: Writing About Literature Final Draft In “Rules of the Game,” by Amy Tan, Waverly’s mother is more of an adversary than an ally. Waverly’s mother acts as an adversary to Waverly because she doesn’t allow her daughter to embrace American culture. Waverly has been raised in America and has been living here for a long time, experiencing the ways of the country; her mother, however, has little respect to the American way of life and work ethic and depicts this when she says, “Chinese people do many things…Not lazy like American people” (3). Her condescending outburst makes it clear that she does not intend for Waverly to be at all like American children, who are
When this kind of effect happens to a certain group or population, it could have harmful consequences towards their identity. It is because indigenous Australians economic status, sex, race and ethnicity area affected by the change and became the target for racist comments and ruined their “identity”, in fact, they did not have to face situations like this (racism) prior to the Assimilation Policy, putting them at a higher risk for developing mental problems, that greatly affect the total well being of an individual, tribe or culture (AIHIN 2013). Racism, one out of five Australians experience it everyday (All together now 2014). And it has brought varying effects to people in Australia, especially the Indigenous Australians. Racism has given them the wrong identity of being violent, unhealthy, sickly, poor and uneducated; it is just traumatic, when in fact all of these happened because of their exposure to racism (Creative Spirits 2013).