We have all been in a situation where we have immigrated to a new country for different reasons regarding, better future, or education. In the book Jade of Peony, Wayson Choy describes a struggle of a Chinese immigrant family as they settle in Canada, through the perspective of three young children; Liang, Jung, and Sekky. Each child describes his or her struggle, while settling in a new country. The family struggles to keep their children tied to their Chinese customs and traditions as they fit in this new country. The Chinese culture needs to be more open minded as it limits the future generation’s potential. Chinese culture limitations are seen through the relationship expectations, education, gender roles and jobs.
Similarly, the relationship expectations in Chinese customs and traditions were strongly held onto. The daughters of the Chinese family were considered as a shame for the family. The sons of the family were given more honour than the daughters. In addition, some daughters were even discriminated. The only daughter in the family, Liang had to hear her grandmothers taunt: “If you want a place in this world [...] do not be born as a girl child” (Choy 27). The girls from the Chinese family were considered useless. They were always looked down upon in the family; they felt as if the girls cannot provide a family with wealth, this attitude would really affect the parents from Chinese family preferred boys as they thought; boys could work and provide the family income. Due to Chinese culture preference to having boys, girls often did not have the right to live. In the Chinese ethnicity, the family always obeyed the elder’s decision. When the family was trying to adapt to the new country and they were trying to learn th...
... middle of paper ...
...ulture resists the new generations potential, due to the gender roles and jobs.
In conclusion, Chinese cultures prohibition was seen, by examining the relationship expectations, education, and gender roles and jobs. The Chinese culture needs to be more cultivated as it constricts the newer generation’s capability in Canada. In Wayson Choy’s book The Jade of Peony, he describes the struggles of an immigrated Chinese family, as they tried to follow two cultures to adjust in a new country like Canada, but still held onto the old traditions of China, and the kids of the family struggled as they tried to follow these two cultures. We all know the struggles the Chinese immigrants had to face as they embraced a new life in a country like Canada. However, we remember and praise these immigrants for their determination as they, work hard to make a name in this country.
The novel “The Jade Peony” is narrated by three different characters throughout the story as it progresses. In part one of the book, it is narrated by a character named “Jook Liang” but usually just called Liang while in conversation. The reader is told the setting and time of the plot, which is in Vancouver, BC and in the time of the Great Depression (In the 1930s). We also learn the names of all the members in Liang’s family. An important figure in Liang’s portion of the story is a man named Wong-Suk. Wong-Suk and Liang become great friends, he occasionally tells her tales from the past. While Poh-Poh was helping Liang tie a ribbon for her tap dance shoes, we learn about her childhood. Poh-Poh was considered disfigured and her mom sold her to a family, where she
Zong L. & Perry, B. (2011). Chinese immigrants in Canada and social injustice: From overt to
In her book, The House of Lim, author Margery Wolf observes the Lims, a large Chinese family living in a small village in Taiwan in the early 1960s (Wolf iv). She utilizes her book to portray the Lim family through multiple generations. She provides audiences with a firsthand account of the family life and structure within this specific region and offers information on various customs that the Lims and other families participate in. She particularly mentions and explains the marriage customs that are the norm within the society. Through Wolf’s ethnography it can be argued that parents should not dec5pide whom their children marry. This argument is obvious through the decline in marriage to simpua, or little girls taken in and raised as future daughter-in-laws, and the influence parents have over their children (Freedman xi).
Traditional Chinese culture has a very strict set of rules which need to be followed. Only if one follows the rules, will they fit into the Chinese society. This is depicted in the book The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy and Iron Road directed by David Wu. The Jade Peony portrays a story about three Chinese-Canadian siblings living in Vancouver’s Chinatown: Jook-Liang, Jung-Sum, and Sek-Lung. Each child experiences different complications depending on their age and gender. Their Grandmother, Poh Poh, teaches them to balance their Chinese culture along with Canadian culture. Moreover, Iron Road portrays a story about a strong-willed 19 year old girl, Little Tiger, who presents herself as a boy in order to survive as an orphan in the male-dominated
This is evident in the persistence of elderly characters, such as Grandmother Poh-Poh, who instigate the old Chinese culture to avoid the younger children from following different traditions. As well, the Chinese Canadians look to the Vancouver heritage community known as Chinatown to maintain their identity using on their historical past, beliefs, and traditions. The novel uniquely “encodes stories about their origins, its inhabitants, and the broader society in which they are set,” (S. Source 1) to teach for future generations. In conclusion, this influential novel discusses the ability for many characters to sustain one sole
Before her first words she is already considered a disappointment, “a girl child is Mo Yung- useless” (32). From the time she is born, her grandmother, “the old one” (choy), relentlessly tells her how the world will treat her as a girl. She explains to Jook-Liang, ‘“If you want a place in this world… ‘do not be born a girl child’”(31). She is cast aside before she is given a chance and is never given the same opportunities as her brothers. Instead she is forced to help take care of her little brother (insert quote). The excitement surrounding a baby is always extreme, and it doubles in Chinese culture when that baby is a boy. When her little brother is born, she is truly considered to be nothing in the family. “ I recalled how Sekky had received twice the number of jade and gold bracelets that I had got as a baby, and how everyone at the baby banquet toasted his arrival and how only the woman noticed me in my new dress, and then only for a few minutes to compare Poh Poh and step mother’s embroidery”(32). She is a ghost in her own family, and treated as nothing from the moment she is born. It is because of her gender that she is looked upon as a burden and never given the same opportunities as her brothers so that she may excel in life. Through the shadowed life of Jook Liang one can see how gender roles are enforced by cultural
The author is a Canadian citizen with Chinese roots. To find a better living condition her grandfather abandoned his family, his country and ancestry and moved to Canada. Despite the inhospitable attitude of Canada towards the immigrants at those days, people from various parts of the world endured the difficult times with determination seeing the ray of hope at the other end. However, this perseverance presented the citizenship status for the progeny and a chance to live in the great land of Canada. Chong reinforces, “I belong to a community of values” (Chong, D. 2015. p. 5). Today, Canadian citizenship is valued worldwide and is a coveted title, because the people around the globe views Canadians as sophisticated and amiable.
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.
The demographics for this community are the majority of Chinese population residing in Canada was born outside the country, 60% of the Chinese population has no religious affiliation, and 89% of Chinese population has strong knowledge in one of Canada’s national language. The importance of these demographics is they show how the Chinese community has evolved in many years and how they have changed or one can say fit into Canadian society. Majority of Chinese population was born outside Canada; this is important as its shows that how this community even coming from a whole different country have come together with other communities to do better things. 60% of Chinese have no religious affiliation; this shows that even though all Chinese don’t have religious affiliation, they still come together with their community on special occasions. 89% of Chinese population is strong in one of the Canadian language; this shows that this community is trying to keep a relationship with society by learning to communicate in their language. In conclusion, this community evolving and fitting into this society and trying to maintain a relationship with the society.
“With time and maturity, Tan says, she gained a sense of pride in her heritage and formed a connection with her mother” (“The Joy Luck Club” 235). Like their author, the daughters in The Joy Luck Club experience a transformation in attitude towards their mothers and China over the course of the story, but the essential theme is more universal than that. Through the relationships of Chinese-born mothers and their American-born daughters, Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club speaks to not only generational and cultural struggles within immigrant families but the struggle of all people to discover a unique identity.
She started working at seventeen years old to support her family. In her situation, the necessity of supporting her family is very significant in her life. In Chinese tradition, parents do not expect anything from their sons and daughters, but the sense of respect towards the hard work that Chinese parents do for their kids is a must for successful men and women to support their parents with their free-will. These people are grateful that their parents gave them existence—creating opportunities for searching for ethical values that will help them succeed.
The Chinese immigrant experience has traveled through times of hardships, under the English man. They have struggled to keep themselves alive through racism, work, and acceptance. Although many have come to Canada for their lives’ and their children’s to be successful, and safe. It could not be just given until adversity gave them the life they hoped to one day life for. In the starting time of 1858, the Chinese community had started coming to different parts of Canada considering the push and pull factors that had led them here. Because of the lack of workers in the British Columbia region, the Chinese were able to receive jobs in gold mining. Most Chinese were told to build roads, clear areas, and construct highways, but were paid little because of racism. The Chinese today are considered one of the most successful races in Canada because of the push and pull factors that they had come across, the racism that declined them and the community of the Chinese at the present time.
In the process of settling into a new environment, they have endured new problems and conflicts between their old and new culture, creating a culture shock. The conflict involves not only the family stability and the social structure as well. They also find it difficult to preserve their traditional culture and language. Immigrants are destined to deal with two different cultures. This said they find it is very hard to balance between their old world identities and their chosen identities. “My two older teenage brothers and my sister, Liang, age 14, were embarrassed by my parent's behavior. What would the white people in Vancouver think of us? (page 203, paragraph 2, line
Kingston uses the story of her aunt to show the gender roles in China. Women had to take and respect gender roles that they were given. Women roles they had to follow were getting married, obey men, be a mother, and provide food. Women had to get married. Kingston states, “When the family found a young man in the next village to be her husband…she would be the first wife, an advantage secure now” (623). This quote shows how women had to get married, which is a role women in China had to follow. Moreover, marriage is a very important step in women lives. The marriage of a couple in the village where Kingston’s aunt lived was very important because any thing an individual would do would affect the village and create social disorder. Men dominated women physically and mentally. In paragraph eighteen, “they both gav...
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).