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.
Chua’s text is very harsh toned, yet effective due to the use of all three appeals: Ethos, Logos, and Pathos. The author is raised by Chinese parents, which defines a big part of who she is. In the text Chua uses Ethos to establish her personal experience with parenting. She chooses a hard, and a time consuming parenting technique “ The Chinese method” to raise both of her daughters. For instance:“ A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids well I can tell them, Bachour 2 !
In most cases they choose school and a classic instrument to be the first priorities for their kids. Amy Chua writes about improving the kid’s self-esteem as one of her three main differences between Chinese and Western family’s mind-sets. First, I’ve noticed that Western parents are extremely anxious about their children’s self-esteem. They worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children’s psyches.
There are distinct differences between the Chinese culture parenting style and the Western, but the key commonality is that both parents desire the success for their child’s future. Chua, starts her article by addressing the most common question. “How Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids?”(Chau1). Her answer is quite simple: most of the things that other children are allowed to do, hers were not. Take playing an instrument for an example.
Amy Chua has one statement that she uses “Chinese parents demand perfect grades because they believe that their child can get them” (p. 3 l 26) later in the article she add “Chinese parents can order their kids to get straight As… western parents can only ask their kids to they their best” (P 1, l 44). When she says that she indirectly means that Chinese parents are tougher than western parents. They don’t believe in their children, like Chinese parents do. They should rather make their child fell ashamed by using punishment, instead of always being careful and positive. Amy Chua gives a great example of the contrast between the cultures, she tell her readers how Chinese parents and western parents would react if their kid came home with an A minus “ the Chinese parent would gasp in horror and ask what went wrong” (p. 3 l 2) “A western parent would support and praise the child.” Later in the article Amy Chua comes with one of her statements, again“if a Chinese child gets a B – which would never happen” (p 3, l 21).
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.
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.
Compare/Contrast Essay In ancient Chinese and Indian societies, women were not thought highly of, however they did play differing significant roles in their own societies. Their main points of significance were found in the qualifications for a wife, duties inside the home, and the relationship between them and their husbands. Chinese and Indian women are very similar in their societies because, although they go about it in different ways, they both have the ultimate goal of making their husbands, families, and villages look good. Qualifications for a wife are where the Chinese and Indian women differ the most. Chinese women are supposed to appear modest, which is why they must ever use inappropriate language, always keep their clothes on and fresh, and hide their chastity, if they have any.
These two methods typically occur in two different cultures; western culture and Chinese culture. In the article “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” by Amy Chua, a professor at Yale Law School, USA she discusses the differences on how Chinese mothers raise their children opposed to how western mothers raise theirs and she tells us why she thinks that the Chinese method has worked best for her. We know from the article that Amy Chua is Chinese and that she has grown up in a Chinese household. She therefore knows how it is to be raised by parents who use very strict guidelines and methods on their children in terms of raising them. However Amy Chua, and a huge variety of Chinese parents, mostly mothers, seemingly think that these methods actually work, and therefore use them on their own children.
Responses to Tiger Mom Article In Paul, Annie Murphy’s article “The Roar of the Tiger Mom”, we read about how a mother Amy Chua raised her kids in a strict matter in order to make sure her two daughters were prepared for their futures. Amy Chua raised her daughters in Chinese tradition to which parents are strict with their children especially in school. Amy then became known as a tiger mom. Tiger Mom’s are defined as, a very strict mother who makes her children work particularly hard and restricts their free time so that they continually achieve the highest grades. Tiger Mom’s parenting is a form of empowerment in my opinion.