This quote from the text stands out to me because it shows that Waverly’s mom cares more about herself than her community. Every Saturday, Waverly and her mom would go to the market. Not to purchase anything, but for Waverly’s mom to show off her daughter who became a national chess champion. Instead of focusing on how her family felt about Waverly’s sudden success and helping them cope with Waverly’s busy schedule, the mother chose to flaunt Waverly and boast about her accomplishments.
In Amy Tan’s short story, “The Rules of The Game,” Lindo is a definite ally to Waverly, although she may have trouble expressing it. For instance, in the beginning of the story, Waverly goes to her first official chess tournament. As she leaps up from her cold metal seat after being called to play, Lindo gives her a good luck charm. The author writes, “My mother unwrapped something in her lap. It was her chang, a small tablet of red jade which held the sun’s fire.
The more Waverly shows off her world, the more obvious the mutual nescience of culture between Americans and Chinese is. Waverly claims Old Li had once “cured a woman dying of an ancestral curse that had eluded the best of American doctors” (Bausch 1491). American doctors do not hold stock in ancestral curses, only science. But to the Chinese that diagnosis is completely sensible. Conjointly, when she explores the local seafood market “crowded with doomed fish and turtles struggling to gain footing on the slimy green-tiled sides,” she also sees a sign stating, “Within this store, is all for food, not for pet.”
The concept is similar, with the mother pushing the daughter very hard to succeed, with the latter demonizing the former as a result. Lindo left her life as an arranged wife to a wealthy (albeit not the nicest) family on her move to America, and like Suyuan she only wanted the best for her child. However, Waverly’s talents were realized early in comparison to June, so rather than have a story of a mother pressuring her child to try new things we have one of a mother pushing her daughter towards what she excels at (in Waverly’s case, this would be chess.) Waverly took this very differently from the intended message, and saw Lindo living vicariously through her, showing off her daughter to passerby like a trophy that she had worked on. Lindo did not know anything about chess, so while Waverly saw this as an insult to her talents and more as bragging rights for her mother, in actuality Lindo was just very excited and proud of her
June had an extraordinary life in America in comparison to her mother’s life in China. June being young and naive, she could have perceived the high prospects of her mother as tough and which lead to amp distress. But truly, these troubles were insignificant when contrasted to her mother’s loss of family, destruction of her homeland, and probable poverty stricken circumstances due to World War II. For this reason, it is understandable why June’s mother would become so outraged when June roared, “I wish I were dead! Like them” (Tan 389).
As Jing-mei says: “my mother and I never really understood one another. We translated each other’s meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more” (37). The Chinese language to Suyuan is much more than a language; instead, it is embodied by her memories of and history in China. She insists on speaking Chinese.
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
This peculiarly specific list showed that as a first-generation American, she was constantly scrutinizing the small actions that her mother demonstrated, and she was embarrassed, although it is not likely anyone else ever noticed. However, as she got older, Jing-Mei realized the fact that she was “becoming Chinese.” She still did not truly understand her mother or the beauty of Chinese culture, but her acceptance was the first step of the long excursion of
Throughout the entire novel, the mothers and daughters face inner struggles, family conflict, and societal collision. The divergence of cultures produces tension and miscommunication, which effectively causes the collision of American morals, beliefs, and priorities with Chinese culture which
To be orphaned from my native language felt, and still feels, like a crucial decision” (Lin 6). Yiyun Lin is caught between letting go her native language and wishes she can speak both because they both identify her. She struggles on choosing one of them and having one of them as a memory or a dream. This not only becomes a struggle for her, but an eye open decision on solving the problem of how she can combine a private language into a public language. “English is my private language.
but she is also nervous because she is going to meet her twin half-sisters, whom she has never met before and she will have to tell them about their mother’s death. Her mother had to abandon the half -sisters and her dream was to have a family reunion but before that could have happened she had passed away. Jing understood the language they were speaking but couldn’t speak it
She shows the reader how all over China, the language and culture is expressed differently. For example, in the north, where Wang lives, it’s mostly country and the language is spoken “...slow and deep and it wells from the throat” (107). While in the south “...the people spoke in syllables which splintered from their lips and from the ends of their tongues” (107).
Mother daughter relationship has always been special. They are close to each other and understand each other very well. For a mother, daughter is just an extension of her, a part of her. The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, illustrates what life is like for many foreigners in America who are trying to give their child the opportunities they most likely did not have themselves as children. Its a story about four Immigrant mothers fulfilling their duties as mothers.
After a careful analysis of the story, the reader understands how Jing-mei’s feelings toward her mother changed, why her feelings changed, and how those changed feelings affected the entire story. In the beginning of the passage, we learn that Jing-mei’s mother, has moved to America because she lost it all in China. We know this by the narrator reciting, “She had come here in 1949 after losing everything in China: her mother and father, her family home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin baby girls” (Tan 220). This information lets the reader realize that Jing-mei is all her mother has left.
Moreover, the author didn’t like the Chinese class, and she described it by having a disgusting smell. For instance, she said that the Chinese classroom smiled like Chinese medicine, and dirty closets. While she preferred the soft perfume of her American teacher that she wore in American school. In addition, her mother always forced her to speak in Chinese language instead of the English language because her mother didn’t know how to speak English well. In addition, the author’s father makes fun on his wife by naming her an English name.
