The Jade Peony Analysis

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The major theme of Choy’s story collection, The Jade Peony, is based on the immigrant stories of the Chen family living in mid-20th century Canada. The first story ins based on Jook-Liang, which describes her own vision of becoming Shirley Temple in a conservative Chinese family. However, she is constantly struggling to come to terms with the reality of her new identity in Canada, especially in the case of her friendship with Wong Suk: “I, his Shirley Temple princess, always saw only a bandit-prince in disguise” (Choy, 1997, p.35). In this manner, Jook-Liang often imitates Shirley Temple, since she wants to become a popular western actor in the film industry. However, she must also conform to the strict patriarchal traditions of her family, …show more content…

In his own family relations, Jung-Sum must struggle with the Canadian and Chinese people that he encounters when he is boxing: “Jung-Sum is different,” I overheard her say to Mrs. Lim one day when I was waiting for a chance to do my daily round of shadow boxing” (Choy, 1997, p.87). In this way, Jung-Sum also differentiates his own identity from his Chinese family, which allows him to learn western sporting events, such as boxing. Jung-Sum is very similar to Jook-Liang because of their tendency to adopt western culture, which often goes against the Chinese traditions of the family unit. Often, this makes them appear as the “other” because they do not entirely fit into Chinese or Canadian ways of life. This is why they struggle through times of conflict in Vancouver society, which makes them vulnerable to differing people from differing backgrounds. This is also part of the confusion that Sek-Lung, the youngest son, experiences when he loses Poh-Poh and becomes obsessed with war games. These events define how the young people in the Chen family continually struggle with cultural assimilation and the conflicting sense of identity in Canadian society. These are the important aspects of conflict and cultural assimilation that occur in The Jade Peony, which reflect the struggles of Jook-Laing, Jung-Sum, and Sek-Lung in Vancouver’s

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