Cultural Differences In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club
Culture and tradition is passed down to remember your beginnings.In the novel The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan she introduces cross cultural differences in the life of Jing mei Woo the daughter of Suyan Woo. Jing mei woo the narrator of the story who is the bridge between the relationships in the novel has a difficult time finding herself in the world because she does not understand who she is because of language barriers and cultural barrier within her life and of her mother. This leads to her regretting neglecting her chinese heritage. This can be seen by the mother of the story as well when when the mother's fear that they have alienated her daughter from chinese heritage by giving them american opportunities. Jing mei believes that the constant criticism of her mother is a form of lack of affection when in the eyes of her mother it is an expression of love and faith in her daughter.
The characters in the joy luck club all try to make peace when trying to translate ideas from …show more content…
their culture to another. This language barrier makes it difficult for everyday talk like describing thoughts and ideas. In the books Suyuan Woo can barely speak english while the daughter can also barely understand chinese so it is a communication barrier within them. This now becomes a matter of translating toward the end. Just like Jing mei woo who says “i can never remember things i didn't understand in the first place:(1) This culture difference makes both the mother and daughter able to have a full conversation where they both can understand each other on the daily basis.
A solution to their problem of speaking is storytelling. The mothers not being able to communicate brings them to telling story in the book. “And then we would talk into the night until the morning,saying stories about food times in the past and good times yet to come”(24) The story they told were to give advice to their daughters about their own experience. At the same time they tell stories about their past they also are passing down their past to their daughters in hope that they will never be forgotten. An example of this is Jing Mei when her mother told her about the kweilin story “i never thought my mother kweilin story was anything but a chinese fairy tale.(25) The downfall to the stories are that the daughters don't take the stories seriously and mostly ignore them as fairy tales because they don't understand the deep meaning within their stories.
Jing Mei also have a hard time finding herself because she can not connect to her chinese heritage while searching for it in her american surroundings.
Jing mei who went back go back to china to find her true chinese heritage “it's even become fashionable for american born chinese to use their chinese names(37)”. By keeping their chinese name they remember their heritage and accept it. Even though this was not always the case she has grown to to become more jovial about her life and about her culture after her mother's death.
Symbolism “jing mei called the jade pendant her mother,suyuan gave her life's importance”(197) First jing mei found the jewelry peace unstylish “the pendant was not a piece of jewelry i would have chosen for myself” (197) This pedant represented the cultural differences between her and her mother .This view of jing mei changes when suyan died “i now wear the pendant everyday”(197) and the pendant became a symbol of her mother's love and concern for her the whole
time.
Tan teachers that being in a new environment changes the whole lifestyle of a person and the future of their children because they don't hold the same culture and lifestyle. The language barrier that jing mei and Suyan face leads them to misunderstandings of what they want out of each other. The story telling that suppose to be past down for cultural reasons does have a meaning in the young american chinese girl of jing mei until it is too late. This shows a cross cultural difference of an immigrant parent from china and american born children that seem to share so much in common but seem to be two different types of people.
The characters in the joy luck club all try to make peace when trying to translate ideas from …show more content…
their culture to another. This language barrier makes it difficult for everyday talk like describing thoughts and ideas. In the books Suyuan Woo can barely speak english while the daughter can also barely understand chinese so it is a communication barrier within them. This now becomes a matter of translating toward the end. Just like Jing mei woo who says “i can never remember things i didn't understand in the first place:(1) This culture difference makes both the mother and daughter able to have a full conversation where they both can understand each other on the daily basis.
A solution to their problem of speaking is storytelling. The mothers not being able to communicate brings them to telling story in the book. “And then we would talk into the night until the morning,saying stories about food times in the past and good times yet to come”(24) The story they told were to give advice to their daughters about their own experience. At the same time they tell stories about their past they also are passing down their past to their daughters in hope that they will never be forgotten. An example of this is Jing Mei when her mother told her about the kweilin story “i never thought my mother kweilin story was anything but a chinese fairy tale.(25) The downfall to the stories are that the daughters don't take the stories seriously and mostly ignore them as fairy tales because they don't understand the deep meaning within their stories.
Jing Mei also have a hard time finding herself because she can not connect to her chinese heritage while searching for it in her american surroundings.
Jing mei who went back go back to china to find her true chinese heritage “it's even become fashionable for american born chinese to use their chinese names(37)”. By keeping their chinese name they remember their heritage and accept it. Even though this was not always the case she has grown to to become more jovial about her life and about her culture after her mother's death.
Symbolism “jing mei called the jade pendant her mother,suyuan gave her life's importance”(197) First jing mei found the jewelry peace unstylish “the pendant was not a piece of jewelry i would have chosen for myself” (197) This pedant represented the cultural differences between her and her mother .This view of jing mei changes when suyan died “i now wear the pendant everyday”(197) and the pendant became a symbol of her mother's love and concern for her the whole
time.
Tan teachers that being in a new environment changes the whole lifestyle of a person and the future of their children because they don't hold the same culture and lifestyle. The language barrier that jing mei and Suyan face leads them to misunderstandings of what they want out of each other. The story telling that suppose to be past down for cultural reasons does have a meaning in the young american chinese girl of jing mei until it is too late. This shows a cross cultural difference of an immigrant parent from china and american born children that seem to share so much in common but seem to be two different types of people.