Jing-mei alludes to the future life and memories the sisters and she will form as a result of this overdue family reunion. In addition to completing her own journey, Jing-mei also completes her mother’s journey. By sharing all the stories and memories from her mother’s life in China, her mother was in a sense, right aside her in
As discussed in the previous chapter, cultural and language barrier have caused serious obstacles for the mothers and daughters. Not being able to see and think from each other’s perspective blocks the path to effective communication which result in silence between them. The focus of this chapter is to analysis in details of Jing-mei’s change after her mother’s death and her trip to China to meet her lost sisters, which symbolizes that her split identity is healed and her relationship with her mother is reconciled as well. The mother-daughter relationships between the other mothers and daughters in The Joy Luck Club will also be studied When Jing-mei is young, she is the same as the other three daughters - an outsider of their mothers’ world. She laughs at her mother’s “fractured English” and she “[grows] impatient” when her mother speaks Chinese (40).
By using her own memories and stories, Ji-li Jiang generates a sense of sympathy in the hearts of readers for a young, confused girl who was unwillingly tossed into the whirlpool of madness that was the Chinese Cultural
as Ying Zheng ("Qin Shi Huang, Emperor of China")(“Shi Huangdi”). His parents, Zhuang Xiang and Dowan Zhao, the king and queen, did not actually have him. His mother had become pregnant with a wealthy merchant, Lu Buwei, and made Zhuang Xiang think that he was
He kept these inside him for years and was unwilling to share his memories or open up his feelings of his childhood trauma. Thi Bui expresses her curiosity about her parents’ history, especially her father’s, regarding what he became and what in turn may have also influenced or shaped her to become what she is now. Traditionally and culturally speaking, Asian immigrant families in America are not outspoken about their past, they keep their traditions alive, and they are willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of the younger
Through analyzing the stories about their lives’ hardships and experiences, it is revealed that Suyuan’s American Dream is achieved by Jing-mei by going back to her own country, retrieving her two sisters, and makes the family whole again. The story of Suyuan and Jing-mei chasing their American Dream teaches us a lesson: Never gives up your dreams casually. One day, you will be thankful for your persistence, when the dream comes
“Her actions remind me that, even under unbearable circumstances, one can still believe in justice,” in David Henry Hwang’s foreword, in Ji-Li Jiang’s memoir Red Scarf Girl, commemorated even during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution anyone can overcome adversity (9). Ji-Li Jiang was a young teenager at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, and living through a very political time in China’s history made Ji-Li into the person she is today. Ji-Li’s intelligence, her choices, and family devotion made her into the headstrong and successful person she is today. Even when Ji-li thought she was unintelligent, others saw she was wise. There were many moments when Ji-Li was reminded she was very smart.
Ji-li doesn’t really know of course and so Du Hai says that her grandfather is a landlord and that Ji-li’s father is a rightist. Ji-li is flabbergasted and runs out of the classroom, feeling embarrassed and humiliated she goes home. In the book it says, “I could say nothing now. Through my tears I could see everyone staring at me. I wished I had never been born.
Jing-Mei then decides to reunite with her sisters in China, anxiously stating, “I lay awake thinking about my mother’s story, realizing how much I have never known about her, grieving that my sisters and I had both lost her“ (271). At this point in the story, it becomes evident Jing-Mei no longer despises her mother for her distasteful tendencies. Instead, she aspires to see her mother one last time. Remorseful of her incapacity to connect with her mother on a deeper level, Jing-Mei feels inept to fill in for her mother at the mahjong table. Michelle Gaffner also notes the tension put on relationships due to cultural indifferences in her article “Negotiating the Geography of Mother-Daughter Relationships in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club” when she writes, “The mother-daughter relationships in both China and the United States represented in The Joy Luck Club not only provide a link between the past and the present but also suggest how the ability, or the inability, for mothers and daughters to share geographically informed cultural stories influences both mother-daughter relationships and individual and cultural identity” (83).
Chong for piano lessons and practice, in expectation of complete success at a talent show. As a result of her ignorance, Jing-Mei dwindles in her rigorously long hours confined to the piano bench, and in rebellion to her mother’s irrational standards, performs egregiously. Shortly after the incident, mother and daughter quarrel ferociously and disown the family ties. Nothing mends until years later, when Jing-Mei’s mother offers her the very piano she had practiced on in her miserable childhood, symbolizing peace between the jostled family that had never been set right. In the realistic short story “Two Kinds by Amy Tan, Jing-Mei’s mother does not allow Jing-Mei to stay true to herself by forcing her to take challenging tests, pushing her to play piano, and arguing about what kind of daughter she