Chinese and American Cultures
Chinese-Americans authors Amy Tan and Gish Jen have both grappled with the idea of mixed identity in America. For them, a generational problem develops over time, and cultural displacement occurs as family lines expand. While this is not the problem in and of itself, indeed, it is natural for current culture to gain foothold over distant culture, it serves as the backdrop for the disorientation that occurs between generations. In their novels, Tan and Jen pinpoint the cause of this unbalance in the active dismissal of Chinese mothers by their Chinese-American children.
In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan calls close attention to the idea of unrealization and forgetfulness. Through these two factors, Tan attempts to explain displacement on the pasts of both mothers and daughters. The daughters, we find, are lost and wandering, and the mothers themselves seem paralyzed by secret pasts of pain and sacrifice. For them, the past is a tenuous, ghostly thing that goes undigested for some time. For many of them, it is not ever talked about. The death of Suyuan Woo is attributed to this:
“ ‘ She had a new idea in her head,’ said my father. ‘But before it could come out of her mouth, the thought grew too big and burst. It must have been a very bad idea.’
“The doctor said she died of a cerebral aneurysm. And her friends at the Joy Luck Club said she died just like a rabbit: quickly and with unfinished business left behind” (Tan 19).
Suyuan had a secret that she had kept from her daughter, Jing-Mei her entire life: two sisters that had been left behind while she fled from China. While it cannot be said that this was what caused her to have an aneurysm, the symbolism of having unfinished business, and ...
... middle of paper ...
...er granddaughter eating the Chinese side. Addie in “Just Wait” is withdrawn from her entire family because she simply does not fit in and is placed, with a weak struggle, in the same category as her unwell brother. Duncan in “Duncan in China” cannot accept the China he visits because he only has images of the regal past in his head.
Both novel and short story collection reflect the fear of a past being unexplored and left behind. They express deep concern about a lost generation of Chinese-Americans and look desperately for the ignored, shut out past as a result.
Works Cited:
Jen, Gish. Who’s Irish? New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1999.
Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1989.
Xu, Ben. “Memory and the Ethnic Self; Reading Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club” in Memory, Narrative, and Identity: New Essays in Ethnic American Literatures. 261-77.
Amy Tan 's novel, The Joy Luck Club, explores the relationships and experiences of four Chinese mothers with that of their four Chinese-American daughters. The differences in the upbringing of those women born around the 1920’s in China, and their daughters born in California in the 80’s, is undeniable. The relationships between the two are difficult due to lack of understanding and the considerable amount of barriers that exist between them.
In The Joy Luck Club, Suyuan Woo is forced to abandon her twin daughters at the side of the road in a desperate act to give them a chance to live. Throughout her life she is haunted by this memory:
He, Qiang Shan. "Chinese-American Literature." New Immigrant Literatures in the United States: A Sourcebook to Our Multicultural Literary Heritage. Ed. Alpana Sharma Knippling. WEstport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1996. 44-65.
Tan exemplifies the cultural conflict through the different views of Suyuan and Jing Mei. Suyuan wants the best of both worlds for her daughter, a mix of an American identity and traditional Chinese values. In Two Kinds, Suyuan continuously tells Jing Mei a typical American belief that one can be what they desire to be in America (599). With that being said, Suyuan’s values and ways of doing things are completely in the ways of the Chinese
Chinese culture has played a very important role in the history of the United States; however, many Chinese Americans struggled with their identities, and other various struggles. To start, many Chinese Americans struggled with feeling inferior to the white race: “Those Chinese Americans who were exposed to a segregated but American education very quickly became aware of their inferior status. Many became ashamed of their appearance, status, and culture. Self-hatred and the need to be accepted by white society became their primary obsession,” (“Chinese Americans”, Para. 35). This quote shows how Americans were cruel and discriminatory over Chinese Americans. The way that the Chinese culture was looked upon was very unthinkable. Another struggle Chinese Americans faced in the assimilation into American culture is having to “separate” themselves from the white
As June progresses through the journey into finding herself, she came to know that her mother wish was to reunite her sister with her family because after all Suyuan meant long-cherished wish. Suyuan was the person who gave her daughter the pendant that helped her overcome the obstacles and was the factor that furthermore boosted June’s confidence in recovering her mother’s wish. According to June, she was nothing like her mother but she has forgotten the bond that only blood related relatives share. There is only one fact that June could not change which helped her find her twins sisters and that was the unmistakable facial features that the daughters had in common with their mother. June says, “The gray-green surface changes...open in surprise to see, at last, her long-cherished wish”(332). When June met her sisters, it was not just because she wanted to fulfill her mother’s wishes but strengthen the bond because of the one thing they have in common which was they were all part of their mother, Suyuan. After all, her name Jing Mei meant the pure essence and little sister, which means that she was made up of the essence of her sisters. This was the reward that her mother had given Jing Mei, two sisters and all the love that Suyuan gave June which she had not realized before.
Traditionally, Twinkies are usually thought of as cream-filled yellow sponge cakes. To Chinese Americans, a different image is conjured. When Chinese Americans integrate with the American culture so much that their Chinese culture is much less apparent, they are known as “Twinkies”: yellow on the outside and white on the inside. In Amy Tan’s essay “Mother Tongue” and Elizabeth Wong’s essay “The Struggle to be an All-American Girl”, both girls are Chinese American trying to fit in with the American society while their Chinese mother’s are very traditional at home. Tan and Wong are trying to please their image in America and their mothers at the same time. While these essays are similar because they focus on the native languages used in America and the struggles of being a Chinese American in America, they differ in both their attitudes toward their mothers and personal reflections of being Chinese American.
Chinese immigrants to the United States of America have experienced both setbacks and triumphs in the quest to seek a better life from themselves and their families. First arriving in America in the mid-1800s to seek jobs and escape poor conditions in their home country, the Chinese found work as labors and settled in areas known as Chinatowns (Takaki 181-183). In the early years, these immigrants experienced vast legal racism and sexism as women were forbidden to enter the country and the Chinese Exclusion Act prevented laborers from entering the country for years (Takaki 184-192). Today, the modern Chinese-American experience has changed from the experience of early Chinese immigrants. Many immigrants enter the country seeking better education as well employment (Yung, Chang, and Lai 244). Immigrant women have made great strides in achieving equality to men. Despite advancements, many immigrants still experience discrimination on some level. One example of a modern Chinese immigrant is “Ruby”, a college student who, with her parents, immigrated from Hong Kong to a suburb of Providence, Rhode Island, 7 years ago. Ruby’s story shares insight on the modern Chinese-American experience and the struggles this group still faces. Chinese immigrants have long maintained a presence in the United States, and despite many struggles, have eventually began to reap the benefits of this great nation.
As the four women entered America, which is far from their motherland China, they experience a change of culture, the American culture, which was dominant than the Chinese. The Chinese mothers are faced with a difficult task of how to raise their American-born daughters with an understanding of their heritage. The daughters clearly show a gap in culture between the Chinese culture and American culture. The mothers wanted their daughter to follow the Chinese traditions, but the daughters followed the American traditions and even some of them got married to American men. The mothers tried to tell their daughters the story about the Chinese ancestors but the daughter could not follow them and the daughters thought their mothers were backwards and did not know what they are saying. As much as the mothers tried to show love to their daughters, the daughters usually responded negatively. They often saw their mothers’ attempts to guidance as a failure to understand the American culture. Being Chinese and living in America, both the mothers and the daughters struggle with many issues like identity, language, translation, and others. The mothers try to reconcile their Chinese pasts with their American presents; the daughters try to find a balance between independence and loyalty to their heritage
In the book Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Suyuan Woo reluctantly left her twin daughters at the side of the road while fleeing from Kweilin. She had reached her limit which was brought upon by being forced to lighten her load while traveling on foot with two babies. Suyuan realized she did not have a high chance of survival with all the casualties from the war, so she trusted her faith in destiny as she carried her slings with her babies until her “hands began to bleed and became too slippery to hold on to anything” (14). By the time Suyuan arrived in Chungking she “had lost everything except three fancy silk dresses” (14). Her sacrifice showed how much Suyuan wanted what was best for her babies even if it meant she would lose them. When Suyuan
June-May fulfills her mother’s name and life goal, her long-cherished wish. She finally meets her twin sisters and in an essence fulfills and reunites her mother with her daughter through her. For when they are all together they are one; they are their mother. It is here that June-May fulfills the family portion of her Chinese culture of family. In addition, she fully embraces herself as Chinese. She realizes that family is made out of love and that family is the key to being Chinese. “And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood.” (Tan 159). Finally, her mother’s life burden is lifted and June-May’s doubts of being Chinese are set aside or as she says “After all these years, it can finally be let go,” (Tan 159).
Shortly after coming to the hotel, she has an intimate dinner with her father and Syan Yen. She feels the familiar taste in Chinese foods. After dinner, she asks her father consecutive questions about her mother’s untold story. ”What was that pork stuff she used to make that had the texture of sawdust? What were the names of the uncles who died in Shanghai? What had she dreamt all these years about her other daughters? All the times when she got mad at me, was she really thinking about them? Did she wish I were they? Did she regret that I wasn't?” (Tan 128). Jing-Mei's dad uncovers that the names of her two stepsisters, Chwun Yu and Chwun Hwa, signify “Spring Rain” and “Spring Flower”, which mirrors their cozy relationship as twins. Through her own name, Jing-Mei likewise shares a unique association with the twins as "Jing" signifies "superb" or 'immaculate substance', and "Mei" signifies 'younger sibling.' In picking the name of her most youthful little girl, Suyuan trusted it spoke to the purest pith of the main conceived she needed to abandon. As Jing-Mei mulls over the significance of her mom's name, which signifies “Long-Cherished Wish”, she understands that she has a much more grounded association with her Chinese roots and her mom's past than she ever suspected. "Your name also special," he says. I wonder if any name in Chinese is not something
“The minute our train leaves the Hong Kong border and enters Shenzhen, China, I feel different. I can feel the skin on my forehead tingling, my blood rushing through a new course, my bones aching with a familiar old pain. And I think, my mother was right. I am becoming Chinese. (179). In the story A Pair of Tickets by Amy Tan, the protagonist character, Jing-mei, finds herself in several difficult situations due to how her social and cultural upbringing has shaped her. She finds herself pulled between her Chinese DNA and her American background. While she was raised being told that she was Chinese and “it’s in her blood”, she does not identify as such, because she grew up in America and only sees herself as an American. After her mother’s passing,
Amy Tan’s ,“Mother Tongue” and Maxine Kingston’s essay, “No Name Woman” represent a balance in cultures when obtaining an identity in American culture. As first generation Chinese-Americans both Tan and Kingston faced many obstacles. Obstacles in language and appearance while balancing two cultures. Overcoming these obstacles that were faced and preserving heritage both women gained an identity as a successful American.
“Whenever she had to warn us about life, my mother told stories that ran like this one, a story to grow up on. She tested our strengths to establish realities”(5). In the book “The Woman Warrior,” Maxine Kingston is most interested in finding out about Chinese culture and history and relating them to her emerging American sense of self. One of the main ways she does so is listening to her mother’s talk-stories about the family’s Chinese past and applying them to her life.