Imagine a relationship between a coach and a player. The job of the coach is to make his student better at the sport; therefore, he puts pressure upon the player and expects him to show off the skills that he teaches him. This pressure and expectation can lead to the player winning or losing depending on the player’s motivation. Also, depending upon the result of the competition, the coach and the player can have a strong relationship or a weak one with growing distances and irritation if the two do not get along. Likewise, in the novel, The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, the mothers develop many expectations of their daughters as they begin to worry about their daughters’ future. Although having expectations from a child can lead to a negative effect in a relationship, it can also have a positive outcome in a relationship.
One type of effect the Chinese mothers’ expectations has in their relationship with their “Americanized” daughter is negative since the mothers are unable to achieve anything. An-Mei Hsu expects her daughter to listen and obey as the young ones do in Chinese culture, but instead receives a rebellious and stubborn daughter, “‘You only have to listen to me.’ And I cried, ‘But Old Mr. Chou listens to you too.’ More than thirty years later, my mother was still trying to make me listen’” (186-187). Instead of the circumstances improving, the mother is never able to achieve anything; her forcing and pushing her daughter to the Chinese culture goes to a waste. They are both similar in this sense because both are stubborn; the daughter learns to be stubborn through American culture and wants to keep herself the way she is, whereas the mother wants to remove this teaching from American culture and does not give u...
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... freedom which leads to disobedience; the point that English eventually leads to disobedience makes the mothers unhappy and becomes a factor that causes a difference between them. Hopes can lead to various outcomes; sometimes they are completed whereas sometimes they remain as wishes.
A person may have the desire to do everything but it is only one or two things he can do in life. Especially today, although nothing is impossible, it is highly unlikely for one to be able to do all the desired things in life because of how there are too many people competing for the same thing or it takes a lot of effort and dedication to keep up and work hard until reaching the goal. Therefore, humans are given the ability to choose between things because having too many expectations or too few is not good. When these hopes are shattered, they result in a very negative outcome.
The author uses different points of view to create tension in the story. The mom acts in a way that neglects the daughters interests. This makes them both feel less connected and leaves the daughter feeling hopeless. In paragraph 9, “‘It’s strange actually. I wasn’t expecting it, but then at the last minute the funding came through.’ She folded her arms across her waist. ‘I’m going to Costa Rica to finish my research.” This made the narrator/daughter angry and flustered with her mom’s actions. She has trouble remaining connected with her parent because they both want different things which leaves on character feeling betrayed. “Opportunity? For me? Or for you?” (34). Both of their actions and responses create tension in this story. Their communication lacks and this results in pressure on both
One of the greatest examples Tan presents in her story, is Suyuan’s unrelenting goal of turning Jing Mei into a prodigy. The Ed Sullivan Show brings Suyuan into making her daughter take piano lessons (601). Another example of this cultural conflict is when Jing Mei wants badly to express to her mom to let her be. Unlike her mother, Jing Mei doesn’t believe she could be anything, she could only be herself (606,607). According to the previously mentioned article, “Intergenerational Cultural Conflicts in Norms of Parental Warmth Among Chinese American immigrants, immigrant parents gravitate towards maintaining the values of their country of origin, even though the dominant culture also calls for socialization to American society. In the the Chinese culture, one is expected to be hardworking and
Jing-mei finds her cultural identity when she becomes and adult. One half of her wants to be that perfect, obedient child that her mother wants. The other half wants to have attention from her mother. She is that “Pleading Child” and “Perfectly Contented” daughter. Although Jing-mei and her mother’s culture clashed, she was able to find who she really
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.
Similarly, Wong also grew up in America with a traditional Chinese mother. In contrast, Wong’s upbringing involves her mother forcing her into attending two different schools. After her American school day, Wong continues on with Chinese school to learn both cultures. Her mother felt it was her duty to “[. . .] learn the language of [her] heritage” (Wong 144). This puts a burden on Wong as she starts to despise the Chinese culture.
Our mothers have played very valuable roles in making us who a we are and what we have become of ourselves. They have been the shoulder we can lean on when there was no one else to turn to. They have been the ones we can count on when there was no one else. They have been the ones who love of us for who we are and forgive us when no one else wouldn’t. In Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds,” the character Jing-mei experiences being raised by a mother who has overwhelming expectations for her daughter, causes Jing-mei to struggle with who she wants to be. “Only two kind of daughters,” “Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!”(476). When a mother pushes her daughter to hard the daughter rebels, but realizes in the end that their mothers only wanted the best for them and had their best interest at heart.
The Chinese mothers, so concentrated on the cultures of their own, don't want to realize what is going on around them. They don't want to accept the fact that their daughters are growing up in a culture so different from their own. Lindo Jong, says to her daughter, Waverly- "I once sacrificed my life to keep my parents' promise. This means nothing to you because to you, promises mean nothing. A daughter can promise to come to dinner, but if she has a headache, a traffic jam, if she wants to watch a favorite movie on T.V., she no longer has a promise."(Tan 42) Ying Ying St.Clair remarks- "...because I remained quiet for so long, now my daughter does not hear me. She sits by her fancy swimming pool and hears only her Sony Walkman, her cordless phone, her big, important husband asking her why they have charcoal and no lighter fluid."(Tan 64)
There are big differences in how Chinese mothers act towards their children compared to Western mothers including the expression of feelings and approval, the worth of their children, and what is best for them. Amy Chua (2011) incorporates her own personal experiences of being a Chinese mother within her article and compares that to what she witnesses in America.
The word happiness comes from the word happy, which means to feel or show pleasure or contentment. In the novel, “The Joy Luck Club”, two daughters of the mothers in Joy Luck Club begin to compete with each other. Waverly Jong, is a child chess prodigy. June Woo, struggles to master the piano. The rivalry reflects values of success and worth depicted in the novel, “The Joy Luck Club”. In this novel, happiness does not truly come from the word happy.
Chua believes that Chinese parents force their children to be academically successful in order to reach “higher” goals in life. She emphasizes this when she states “…Chinese parents have … higher dreams for their children…” (Chua 8). Although Amy set higher s...
America was not everything the mothers had expected for their daughters. The mothers always wanted to give their daughters the feather to tell of their hardships, but they never could. They wanted to wait until the day that they could speak perfect American English. However, they never learned to speak their language, which prevented them from communicating with their daughters. All the mothers in The Joy Luck Club had so much hope for their daughters in America, but instead their lives ended up mirroring their mother’s life in China. All the relationships had many hardships because of miscommunication from their different cultures. As they grew older the children realized that their ...
Oftentimes the children of immigrants to the United States lose the sense of cultural background in which their parents had tried so desperately to instill within them. According to Walter Shear, “It is an unseen terror that runs through both the distinct social spectrum experienced by the mothers in China and the lack of such social definition in the daughters’ lives.” This “unseen terror” is portrayed in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club as four Chinese women and their American-born daughters struggle to understand one another’s culture and values. The second-generation women in The Joy Luck Club prove to lose their sense of Chinese values, becoming Americanized.
In the short story, "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan, a Chinese mother and daughter are at odds with each other. The mother pushes her daughter to become a prodigy, while the daughter (like most children with immigrant parents) seeks to find herself in a world that demands her Americanization. This is the theme of the story, conflicting values. In a society that values individuality, the daughter sought to be an individual, while her mother demanded she do what was suggested. This is a conflict within itself. The daughter must deal with an internal and external conflict. Internally, she struggles to find herself. Externally, she struggles with the burden of failing to meet her mother’s expectations. Being a first-generation Asian American, I have faced the same issues that the daughter has been through in the story.
For many of us growing up, our mothers have been a part of who we are. They have been there when our world was falling apart, when we fell ill to the flu, and most importantly, the one to love us when we needed it the most. In “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, it begins with a brief introduction to one mother’s interpretation of the American Dream. Losing her family in China, she now hopes to recapture part of her loss through her daughter. However, the young girl, Ni Kan, mimics her mother’s dreams and ultimately rebels against them.
...ith Jing Mei and her mother, it is compounded by the fact that there are dual nationalities involved as well. Not only did the mother’s good intentions bring about failure and disappointment from Jing Mei, but rooted in her mother’s culture was the belief that children are to be obedient and give respect to their elders. "Only two kinds of daughters.....those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!" (Tan1) is the comment made by her mother when Jing Mei refuses to continue with piano lessons. In the end, this story shows that not only is the mother-daughter relationship intricately complex but is made even more so with cultural and generational differences added to the mix.