"The Joy Luck Club"
posted by Mrs. Woods | Friday, November 30, 2007
Woods' English 2A
This blog is intended to be used as a discussion forum for Mrs. Woods' 2A students from Piedmont Hills High School. The blog will allow each student to offer responses and reactions to the novels read outside of class. This blog will also allow you to read the reactions of others.
68 Comments:
“The Replacement”
The Joy Luck Club
1. My first reaction to Jing-Mei’s “family” is that they’re a lot like my family. They aren’t really related, but their families have known each other for so long that they feel like a family. It reminds me of my neighbors. They’ve lived next door to us for so long that we do everything with them; holidays, weekends, parties. Jing-Mei’s family has get-togethers too, the Joy Luck Club, a mini party their mothers started back when they all lived in Kweilin. It became a tradition in the family, much like my family has a tradition to do Christmas and thanksgiving dinner with our neighbors. Another thing I noticed is that some of her “aunties” don’t really know her. They still think of her as a younger person, still in school, and they don’t know much about her. I think older people are just like that, because whenever I see a grandparent that doesn’t see me very often, they think I’m always younger then I am, or that I’m still doing something I did a couple years back.
I have questions about the Kweilin story, like how Suyuan describes it. When she describes it, she talks about how wonderful and magical it is, about how everyone dreamed of going to Kweilin, but when she tells Jing-Mei about actually going there, she says seeing the mountains made her laugh and shudder at the same time. Then she compares the mountains to giant fried fish. Is that good or bad? Maybe she likes fish, and the mountains make her happy because they remind her of them; or maybe she’s describing how the mountains look like a piece of fried fish, ugly and brown, saying that maybe her thoughts of magical mountains were wrong…
2. I think the relationship between Auntie An-Mei and Auntie Lin as competitive. The scene is on page 24, when the women are playing a game of mahjong. They’re trying to keep conversation going with stories about family, but Auntie An-Mei’s family wasn’t very good when she visited. They didn’t care about all the gifts she brought for them, they just wanted the money she brought and for her to pay for everything and spoil them all. Auntie Lin was saying how good and rich her family was, making Auntie An-Mei ashamed.
3. Amy Tan uses flashbacks to help explain a lot of what’s happening in this chapter. She also uses foreshadowing in those flashbacks. The Kweilin story tells about two lost infants, and in the end of the chapter, the aunties give Jing-Mei a letter from them, her sisters.
4. I think this chapter connects to the allegory at the beginning by telling about how much Suyuan sacrificed to get away from Kweilin and move to America. The allegory talks about how a mother wasted money on a swan she couldn’t keep. Suyuan loses all her belongings and two children escaping from Kweilin in order to live in America. Then the allegory tells how the mother gave her child the feather, explaining about it. Suyuan tells Jing-Mei what she lost to get where she was in America.
Great start to your blogs Kristin! Great depth of reflection and analysis! This is a great model for the rest of the 2As!
“A Mother’s Doubt”
I am writing about the first chapter “The Joy Luck Club”. Jing-Mei Woo reminded me of myself; always hearing stories about her parents and never really wanting to hear about them. I wondered how her mother felt when she was telling her about those stories. Was she sad or regretful about leaving her young children? Were all of the stories she said true, or did she ever make some up to conveniently fit the circumstances? Then, when Jing-Mei Woo told the Joy Luck Club aunties that she knew nothing about her mother, I could feel their panic. Having a child and living with them for more than 18 years, then hearing them say that they know nothing about you must be the most devastating thing they could say.
The relationship between Jing-Mei Woo and her mother can only be described as an unfortunately classical relationship between an Asian parent and child. This kind of parent is always nagging at their child to try harder, and never give him or her compliments, no matter how well they do. This is shown when Jing-Mei Woo protests to her mother “that parents shouldn’t criticize children. They should encourage instead…and [that] when [they] criticize, it just means that [they’re] expecting failure” (20). “That’s the trouble,” her mother retorted, “You never rise. Lazy to get up. Lazy to rise to expectations,” (20).
In this chapter, Amy Tan frequently used flashbacks between in the past when Jing-Mei Woo was hearing about stories from her mother, to present time when she first was at the Joy Luck Club. This improved the story because it introduced the readers to Jing-Mei Woo’s mother, even though she was already dead.
This chapter connected to the allegory in the start of the section in that Jing-Mei Woo, like the daughter in the allegory, was also insolent towards what her mother had done for her. In ignoring complaining about not being able to get a transistor radio, she showed that she was similar to the daughter; swallowing more coca-cola than sorrow, and being spoiled.
The Beginning of an End
“The Joy Luck Club”
1.I thought this chapter was very well-written and that there was much to learn from it. The flow of one thing to the next was smooth. It was nice that people of different ethnicities tolerated each other when the Japanese came. (This was when June was remembering her mom's Kweilin story.) I can't imagine people in today's world being unable to get along with one another just because the other person was of a different ethnicity. I also can't imagine living in a time when a war was going on so close to me. The way June's mother described it made it sound very unbearable. I can't “imagine how it is, to want to be neither inside nor outside, to want to be nowhere and disappear”(9). In my opinion, the news reporters of Kweilin were seriously cruel to report that there were great Kuomintang victories when, really, there weren't. “...and on top of these papers... lay rows of people—men, women, and children who had never lost hope, but had lost their lives instead”(13). That passage made me feel sorry for them because they were given lies, and whether they believed it or not, it was too late to run, and they all died. Auntie An-mei's relatives gave me a bad impression of the people in China. They seemed greedy and selfish to just take all the gifts she brought and then ask if there was more. It also seems inconsiderate to invite random friends to dinner and make Auntie An-mei pay for everything. The women in the Joy Luck Club seemed to have liked June's mom very much, and must've respected and thought of her as a dear friend to have been so generous as to give so much money to June just so she can go to Hong Kong and tell her half-sisters about the mother they never knew. The Joy Luck Club seems like a good idea. I didn't think it was wrong that June's mom and her friends were celebrating while everyone else was sad. When there's a possibility that you could die tomorrow, I don't see any reason not to live today to its fullest. When June's mother asked her, “Why do you think you are missing something you never had?”, I thought that she could have asked herself the same question (13). June had said that with her mother, “something was always missing. Something always needed improving. Something was not in the balance.” It's like her mom was missing her the two daughters she had lost way back in the past. She never really had them, never really had the chance to raise them, and yet, she misses them.
2.I see June's relationship with her mom as effortless and open. I think they understand that they'll never completely understand each other. Her mom told her that Kweilin story in great detail and expressed her thoughts on the events going on back then. And you'd have to have a good relationship with your mom to beg her to buy you something (like how June begged her mom for a transistor radio). I don't think that you can beg someone for something if your relationship with that person isn't open and secure because you would be afraid that that person would think that you're pathetic. June said so herself that she and her mom were never on the same page. “We translated each other's meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more”(27). Although there were misunderstandings, I think that June and her mom were open with each other because she said that she had an argument with her mom about her being a “failure” and how she should go back to school to finish college. If I didn't have a tight bond with someone and that person was saying that my life has been a failure, I'd take it more as an insult than as advice to step it up.
3.Amy Tan used about 6 flashbacks in this chapter. It very much helps the story because we wouldn't have understood what was going on if she didn't have June remember her mom's Kweilin story. She also uses imagery often to give readers a better picture of the story. For example, on the top of page 8, Tan had June's mom really describe what she saw when she came to Kweilin, which was not at all how June's mom had pictured it, and much more. Many similes can be found in this chapter. They improve what certain things resemble, and give you a better idea of them. June's mom said that “you can't stay in the dark for so long. Something inside of you starts to fade and you become like a starving person, crazy-hungry for light”(9). That simile made me see that people lost their sanity during that war because they were scared and hiding out and craving for light. Tan also used some metaphors. Metaphors can give any description some pizazz, making it sound a little poetic. One metaphor was when June's mom said she was “waiting with nervous feet”(9). That sounds a lot more interesting than just saying that you were nervous. Another metaphor is when June thought that “it seems to me my mother's life has been shelved for new business”(17). I thought that sentence was very creative.
4.I think that the main conflict in this chapter is human vs. self, and it's internal. Everyone has to deal with the fact that Suyuan died. They have to choose whether to let it go or embrace it. The Joy Luck Club could've been thrown away, but the people in it wanted to let it go on with June in her mother's place. June has to decide if she really wants to take her mother's place or not, and later on she has to decide if she should go to Hong Kong or not to tell her half-sisters about Suyuan, or try her best to just forget about Suyuan. June's dad is also troubled. June said, “It's as though everything were the same to him, nothing stands out. He has always been politely indifferent. But what's the Chinese word that means indifferent because you can't see any differences? That's how troubled I think he is by my mother's death”(15). Overall, this chapter is about Suyuan and how the people who loved her have to go on with life without her. At the end, they choose to embrace her death instead of pushing it aside. And June is replacing her mom “at the mah jong table, on the East, where things begin”(32).
“From the East…”
The Joy Luck Club
1. Then I first read about Jing-Mei Woo’s mother, Suyuan, I felt that she remind me of my mother in many ways. Both my mother and Suyuan were forced out of their countries from a fear of the Communists that slowly invaded their homes. After I had read about Suyuan and her predicament, I felt a deep kind of sympathy towards my own mother. Did she leave anything behind in Vietnam that she truly loved? Was she like Suyuan when she first arrived in America, only possessing a few treasured items from her past life?
Another point in the chapter that puzzled me was Suyuan’s story about Kweilin, the original Joy Luck club, and her ever-changing endings to the story. Suyuan repeatedly finishes her stories in a happy note with a happy ending. However, her endings always change. In my opinion, Suyuan’s story always ends in a happy ending because she is trying to give herself a hope of finding her children that she left. On the other hand, she could be trying to hide her tragedies from her Americanized daughter who grew up in a world without many worries.
2. The two characters that I would compare from this chapter are Jing-Wei and her mother, Suyuan. Their relationship can be described as a huge “misunderstanding”. After talking to Auntie Lin, Jing-Wei realizes that she and her mother don’t really understand each other. Jing-Mei fears that if she travels back to her half-sister, she would not know enough about her mother to tell him about anything. Their gap is due to the fact that Suyuan grew up with Chinese standards and traditions while Jing-Mei “June” was raised in the fast-paced, advanced America.
3. The writing technique that Amy Tan uses frequently in the chapter is flashbacks to explain that is occurring in the chapter. This improves the story because it helps readers learn about Jing-Wei’s mother without having to actually meet her (because she’s dead).
4. The chapter connects itself back to the allegory from the beginning of the section because it tells of a daughter that doesn’t understand or known the sorrows that her mother has experienced. This character and Jing-Mei reflect each other. Jing-Mei doesn’t appreciate her good fortune merely because she doesn’t understand her own mother’s story. Also, the single feather told in the allegory can be reflected on the Chinese dresses that Suyuan brings to America.
“Bursting Ideas”
The Joy Luck Club
1. It was surprising how this chapter hits close to home for me. I could empathize with Jing-mei when she attempted to play mah jong and socialize with her “aunties”. Her aunts closely remind me of my aunts, who never really knew me that well but thought I was a white-washed schoolgirl. Also, like how Suyuan critizes Jing-mei, my parents often criticize me also, even though I know they love me.
I also thought that Suyuan’s story about Kweilin was very interesting. When Suyuan explained that when she arrived in Chungking, she had lost everything except for her silk dresses that she wore, I wanted to know more about how she lost the babies. I first thought that they died of starvation at first, but when Jing-mei was thinking about the babies could have been lying on the side of the road, I was horrified at the fact that Suyuan may have just thrown these babies, leaving them to die. I was glad that they survived though.
2. I think that the relationship between Jing-mei and her mother, Suyuan, is
misinterpreted. The communication between them and the meaning behind that are usually lost in translation and one thinks the other means something else. It is shown when June says, “My mother and I never really understood each other. We translated each other's meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more” (27). The cultural gap between them affect their ability to understand one another badly.
3. The flashbacks Amy Tan uses in this chapter improves the story because not only can we look at the background of the Joy Luck Club and how it originated, but we can see Suyuan’s personality by the way she tells her story.
4. The chapter relates to the allegory in the beginning because it shows a gap between the mothers’ generation and the daughters’ generation. In the allegory, the daughter doesn’t appreciate the feather and the sentimental feelings that lie within it. In the chapter, the Joy Luck Club can also be viewed as the “feather” as it means a great deal to the mom and is also brought over from China. Jing-mei, like the daughter in the allegory, doesn’t appreciate the Joy Luck Club at first.
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1. "Old Values Lose Their Meaning"
2. "The Joy Luck Club"
3. The author, Amy Tan, chose this story for the opening vignette, which I agree was a very wise decision. In my opinion, the character of Jing-Mei is revealed quite truthfully through the text in that she feels awkward attending the Joy Luck meetings in place of her late mother and feels bored at the mahjong table. Not only does she feel this way because she is only half the age of the others, but because the other attendees are her mother's old friends. They have known Jing-Mei's family for all their lives but are not familiar with Jing-Mei for herself, which causes some discomfort when the "aunties" interrogate her with questions about school and such after she has been dropped out for years now. She is a representation of the younger generation: the American-born Chinese daughters.
After Jing-Mei's mother told her the story of how Joy Luck began multiple times, she is finally informed that she has twin sisters who have been living in China all these years. It surprised me that the half-sisters have lived their whole lives without knowing who their mother was. For this fact, the aunties hand Jing-Mei $1,200 for a trip overseas to her sisters to enlighten them of their mother's life. However, I sense that Jing-Mei does not know her mother quite well enough to take on such a task.
4. Suyuan, the mother of Jing-Mei, experienced a lot throughout her journey to America. She had to leave behind almost all she possessed, including two of her three daughters. The only things she had the opportunity of keeping three silk dresses. I believe that while these dresses signify her only connections from her former life in China, her daughter Jing-Mei represents the connection to her new life in the States. Revealed to the readers, this pair of mother and daughter speak and respond to each other in two completely different languages: Suyuan in Chinese and Jing-Mei in English. But while one is able to convert what the other is saying into her own native language and interpret it in her mind, there is a void deep down where these translated words are lost. It is as though the mother can only comprehend the daughter but she cannot genuinely understand her, and vice versa. This is why Jing-Mei feels painfully about going to China and speaking to her half-sisters about a mother she barely identifies with.
5. The symbolism (as mentioned above) that the author applies in this story is utilized very effectively. Although this writing technique is insufficient in this particular chapter, its scarcity makes me see its association to its true meaning on a deeper scale. This improves the story in a way that forces readers to reflect on such meanings and gives much more insight.
6. (b. What is the main conflict in the chapter? Is it internal or external, human vs. self, vs. society, vs. nature, vs. human and how do you know?)
The main conflict in this chapter is internal, regarding Jing-Mei with herself. She doubts her mother's ability to enlighten her about Chinese culture and continues to believe that her mom had failed at American culture. Jing-Mei fears for her unknowingness of her mother and for what she can do for her sisters. This insecurity is shown at the end of the chapter in which Jing-Mei wells up after the aunts hand her the money for her trip.
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“Beginnings”
Focusing on:“The Joy Luck Club”
When I first read, “'What will I say? What can I tell them about my mother? I don’t know anything. She was my mother,'” I was as astonished as the three mothers who were staring at Jing-Mei as she blurted these words out. I was bewildered at what she said because I believe that no matter how much a person may believe that they do not fully know another person, they are still revealed to some real aspects of that person. I was later convinced, however, by the reasons why she might have said this and was finally able to understand her and agree with her. I believe that, just like Jing-Mei, everyone gets confused and starts to question themselves about why they are in a certain relationship or who the person they are in a relationship with really is. Even though she may have lived with her mother for many years, Jing-Mei still did not feel that she had been exposed to the true nature of her own mother-or in other words had never truly understood or connected to her Chinese mother who had lost everything and started anew in America. This chapter really made me wonder, how well do I know the people in my life and how well do they know me? A scene that made me feel outraged was the dinner scene, in which all the men left right after eating and the women “as if on cue” stopped eating in response and started cleaning and washing. I felt a great injustice when I read that women had to do all the work, while the men sat back like kings. Even though this scenario is something that I see every two weeks at my church house meetings, I found reading about it, in a sense, a check to reality. Connecting this scene to the happenings at my church house meetings, made me realize how much my culture influenced both the Korean people in my life and my own life. One question I have about this chapter is the interpretation or true meaning behind the following quote,“We translated each other’s meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more.” Is Amy Tan trying to say that June did not understand what her mom said and that her mother understood what she said or is Tan trying to say that June never listened to what her mom said and that her mom always listened to what she said? I just wanted to know which interpretation was correct.
The relationship between Jing-Mei and her mother can be described as a “miscommunication.” One scene in which this is portrayed is when Jing-Mei starts to reflect upon their relationship and thinks to herself, "I had always assumed we had an unspoken understanding about these things," and then admits to herself and realizes that, "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." June realizes that she and her mother had never understood each other in the same way, and that the reason for it was because of a miscommunication between them.
I noticed that Amy Tan used a lot of imagery throughout her vignette. For example, instead of just writing that all of Auntie An-Mei’s relatives asked for things while she was broke, Tan expressed this by saying,“everyone had a palm out and she was the only one who left with an empty hand,” making readers imagine a circle of people with their hands out surrounding a woman with her hands shaking vulnerably. Her use of imagery improves her writing because it helps readers create their own picture of a particular scene, which ultimately helps them remember that scene through their own image of it. The main conflict of this chapter is Jing Mei’s struggle to replace her mother at the mah- jong table. This conflict is an inner conflict, or in other words, a human vs. self conflict. June struggles with her own ignorance of her mother’s intentions and wishes and tries her best to recoup and fulfill them by doing the only thing she can do now that her mother has passed away, and this is by taking her mother’s spot at the mah-jong and becoming the new east.
"An Untold Story"
The Joy Luck Club
From the very beginning of this vignette, I can sense the dark truth that is hidden behind Jing-mei’s mother’s story. When I talk or even think about Jing-mei in retrospect, I’m at ends as to whether I should refer to her has Jing-mei or June. As the story is told (which is told from the first person perspective of Jing-mei), she is comfortably referred to as Jing-mei, yet is awkwardly introduced as June. I’m compelled to say her American name, being an American-born myself, but to stay true to the morals and values of this story, I will use her Chinese name, Jing-mei.
During the retelling of her mother’s story, she casually drops suspicious hints of a past life through word choice. When she says “first husband”, I immediately figure that’s not Jing-mei’s father. When she talks about her “two babies”, I’m immediately puzzled at the thought of two children, which leads me to think if Jing-Mei has a sister that isn’t being mentioned. When her mother finally tells her that one of those babies wasn’t her, it puzzled me even further. Why had her mother told this story over and over without the slightest mention that this story was in no relation to Jing-mei? Why would she go on telling the story without mentioning the vital truth that these people are not who she perceived them to be? It seems misleading to me. She keeps telling the ending of her story differently, yet this ending seems to be the only one that matters.
I feel somewhat cruel for ridiculing someone who is fictionally dead, but Jing-mei’s father was right when he said she had a “new idea” inside her head when she died. At the end of the vignette, you can conclude that finding her lost children was her new idea. But what does it mean then if she died from it? Was it really a “bad idea” just as her father said? Maybe her children were never meant to be found if she died before she got the chance to meet them. What Joy Luck.
The relationship between Jing-mei and her mother is like a fond annoyance. They obviously disappoint one another yet keep their tolerance. Her mother is constantly complaining, wishing her daughter finished college. Jing-mei is put off by her mother’s demands. It’s a very normal mother-daughter relationship. The relationship between Jing-mei’s mother and her aunties seem close yet removed to a certain extent. Her mother found something wrong with all of her friends and revealed them to Jing-mei. Yet they are the closest friends who know everything about one another.
What I think is the theme or life lesson is how everyone has a story to tell and it shouldn’t be left unheard. Near the end of the vignette, when the aunties reveal that she must go and find her children and tell them about her mother, Jing-mei says she doesn’t know anything about her mother. She then realizes that compared to her lost children, she knew everything about her. And her mother’s story that was heard countless times is unheard of by those children. Although Jing-mei felt burdened to hear her mother’s story, it should be told once more, to keep her mother alive.
1) “The Mother I Never Know”
2) “The Joy Luck Club”
3) Like Kristen, the first thing that jumped out at me in this chapter was how similar it was to my family; then again, I think it’s the Asian traditional way of life. I call close family friends with the title of “Auntie” and “Uncle” too. While reading, I felt so connected to Jing-Mei (June)! This is the first novel I have ever read where I could take the place of a character and relate to them and not just have to imagine that wizards and unicorns are real. When she says that her mother’s stories are always the same with the exception of the ending, I was just nodding my head along with her. My mom always does that, as though I have not heard a certain story before when it may be the 5th time I’ve heard it. Most of the times, I don’t appreciate what she tells me, just staying silent and agreeing so I can leave but reading about how June lost her mother, and these stories are all she has left, it created a newfound attitude of respect for my own mother’s stories. Also, something else that I found true in my life is in the line “…everyone had a palm out and she was the only one who left with an empty hand,” (25) which described what had happened to An-mei during her visit to China. This isn’t something I go through, but I’ve seen it happen to my parents when they visit relatives in Vietnam. The people in those countries feel like if one is from America, then they must be rich, when that is totally not true! They have a very stereotypical view on American life and are disillusioned that Americans just don’t suffer. They have absolutely no idea that so many people who live here in the US are homeless, unemployed, etc. I think that since they truly have endured a lot in their lifetimes, they grow a little selfish inside. In addition, there was one line in the chapter that I felt was just the epitome of all parent-child relationships of those from immigrants to the US and first generation American born children and it was, “I had always assumed we had an unspoken understanding about these things: that she didn’t mean I was a failure, and I really meant I would try to respect her opinions more” (27). It really summed up my own life.
4) The relationship between Jing-mei and her mother, Suyaun Woo, would be categorized as “distant” to me. The bond that they share seems just like the one that my mother and I have: “My mother and I never really understood one another” (27). Suyaun even speaks to Jing-mei in Chinese while Jing-mei responds in English. To her mother, Jing-mei has definitely lost her Chinese background and become “white-washed” while her mother only has her Chinese culture so they can’t relate. As a result, they aren’t very close. Suyuan had come to America hoping for a better life for her and her children, but now, the culture clash between Jing-mei and herself has caused a huge rift in their connection.
5) The one writing technique that really stood out for me was the flashbacks. I think in this chapter they’re the most important because it is the only tangible piece of Suyuan that both Jing-mei and the reader has. Jing-mei, having lost her mother, holds onto the fond memories through what she remembers her mother telling her and as the reader, through flashbacks, one gets a sense of what Suyuan was like and how hard her life must have been. The audience will never get to hear Suyaun’s thoughts, so the flashbacks create a sense of depth in her character despite her not being a physical figure in the story.
6) This chapter connects to the allegory right as it approaches the ending. In the allegory, a mother tries to tell her daughter that the feather she had carried from Shanghai represented the hopes and dreams that she had for her daughter. She is never able to tell her daughter, who is completely unaware of the story her mother holds inside. Jing-mei, comes to the realization that her aunties “see their own daughters” in her, “just as ignorant, just as unmindful of the truths and hopes they have brought to America” (31). Jing-mei finally understands what her mother brought to America and during her mother’s life she never was able to see that Suyuan had had nothing but hope for a better life.
uh I meant "1) 'The Mother I Never Knew'"
sorry Mrs. Woods for having to post again just to change one word! I can't scrap my previous comment since Blogger is giving me technical difficulties about my account ):
1. The Two Children Left Behind
2. The Joy Luck Club
3. My thoughts on the chapter are that I really liked the reason why the women created the joy luck club. The reason was that the women would either sit and cry about what was lost and what they don't have, or they could celebrate what they do have. I like the idea of forgetting your troubles, even if for just one day in the entire week, and have a good time with your friends. The silly weekly tradition carried on until they were having children, and their children were having children. This warms my heart because of the strength of the bond these friends had.
I also thought that it was sad that An-Mei Hsu's gifts were rejected by her family on her trip back to China. It really annoyed me that her family could be so greedy and leech $9000 from her and her husband.
4. Lindo Jong and Suyuan Woo were very competitive with one another. They weren't competitive because of their own talents, but by how good and talented their daughters were. The scene that supports this is when Jing-Mei told of all the things they would compete about.
5. A writing technique Amy Tan uses well to enhance the story is flashbacks. The story about the people living in Kweilin leaving because of the Japanese invading sets up the rest of Jing-Mei's story in this novel. Without that flashback, we would not have been able to imagine that struggle that her mother had, the pain it must have felt to abandon her own daughters in China, or why Jing-Mei was needed to go back to China to visit.
6. A few things I learned about Chinese culture are a few food dishes people in China ate. I learned that they played mah jong to pass the time. I also saw how competitive parents were when it came to education and their children. They also seemed to value family if they told Jing-Mei to find her long-lost sisters and tell them about the mother they never had.
Eileen Ly (from Period 7~~)
1. The Simple Joys Born from Despair
2. The Joy Luck Club
3. I felt touched when I read about the beginnings of the Joy Luck Club that Jing-mei’s mom had started. To think that such a happy, go-lucky idea could have been born from despair and hunger in a time of chaos and fear. To me, it shows how her mom really was a strong-hearted person, like a woman with the heart of a tiger. She didn’t allow herself to be bunched into a corner by fear; she fought back and set it upon herself to make happiness where it couldn’t be found. Suyuan Woo was an individual who believed that “to despair was to wish for something lost or to prolong what was already unbearable” and a person could only “ choose [their] own happiness” (11-12). I would definitely hold that philosophy to be true. Additionally, as Jing-mei recalls her mother’s story, she begins to doubt herself. Can she replace her mom at Joy Luck? Never, she realizes. Jing-mei indirectly tells herself that she could never be the cunning, smart woman her mother was. Perhaps she also feels that she never really got to know her mom and her hopes and dreams in America. Near the end of the excerpt, when her aunts tell her to speak of her mother to her sisters, Jing-mei says, “I don’t know anything. She was my mother.” This shows her awareness of the little acknowledgement she gave her mom while she was still alive. It somewhat applies to the every day Chinese or Vietnamese family. The parents come through many hardships just to get to America whether it is because of war or famine. They get jobs, get married, and learn English. Having kids, they think of only the best for their children. But what do the children do? They become blind to their parents. Instead of taking time to understand, they are “unmindful of all the truths and hopes [the parents] have brought to America” (31). The American children drink Coca-Cola, the sweet, tangy symbol of America culture, but do they really leave enough space in their stomach for their heritage, their cultural identities?
4. Jing-mei and her relationship with her mom are best described as open and differential. Her mom, Suyuan, seems to speak to her daughter excessively as seen in the flashbacks. Within them, she shares her personal philosophies, her way of thinking. Jing-mei, whether she recognizes it or not, is being taught of her heritage. Through every story that her mom tells, every opinion that she bluntly says, her relationship with her daughter gets closer and closer. Maybe Suyuan Woo hopes to share a part of her for her daughter to pass on forever to her children. In this way the relationship is extremely open and close. How can you get close to someone if you don’t share a part of you with them? However, Jing-mei gets put down by her mom’s proud character. She seems a bit beaten down by her mom’s stubbornness as seen in the flashback where Jing-mei tells her mom, “Parents shouldn’t criticize their children…when you criticize, it just means you’re expecting failure” (30). To that, Suyuan retorts, “That’s the trouble, you never rise. Lazy to get up. Lazy to rise to expectations” (30), demonstrating her amazing brusqueness.” Jing-mei and her mother’s personality and life style are what differentiate them from each other.
5. Tan uses many flashbacks within her story. It gives the story spice and individuality because instead of following the plain, old boring plot chart, it mixes up the scenes a bit while portraying Suyuan’s character accurately. Imagery is used often poetically as expressed in Suyuan’s story about the origins of the joy luck club. For example, the quote “I thought up Joy Luck on a summer night that was so hot, even the moths had fainted to the ground, their wings were so heavy with the damp heat” (9), gives the reader more “imagination juice” that saying, “The club was founded on a hot summer night.” In addition to imagery, Tan uses similes for describing people as in the line, “When the sirens cried out to warn us of bombers, my neighbors and I jumped to our feet and scurried to the deep caves to hide like wild animals” (9), or the line, “Something inside of you starts to fade and you become like a starving person, crazy-hungry for light” (9).
6. Make your own happiness, even if there may seem to be nothing to make it from. This theme is strongly seen in Suyuan’s story of the Joy Luck Club’s beginnings. The quote, “What was worse, we asked ourselves, to sit and wait for our own deaths with proper somber faces? Or to choose our own happiness?” (12), shows the human spirit and its ability to innovate and improvise even in dire situations where joy seems lost and long forgotten.
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Rikki Dionisio, Period 6
1. When Traditional Values Become Non Existent
2. I will be focusing on the chapter “The Joy Luck Club”.
3. I believe the chapter was well written and is the beginning of many more great chapters to come. The word choice and tone of the story omits the many emotions the character feels. Even as Jing-mei is telling the story about her mother you can feel the emotions the mother was feeling as if she was telling the story herself. Suyuan’s story of Kweilin is very interesting. She was forced to leave her country because of the political chaos inhabiting it. She was forced to leave many possessions behind in China and come to a country and start her life completely anew. All she had from her previous life was a feather and silk dresses, and the silk dresses she had to have hidden away. I could only imagine having to leave my place of origin and start my life somewhere new without my belongings.
4. I will be talking about the relationship between Jing-mei and her mother, Suyuan. I believe that on the surface is seems that Suyuan lacks affection towards her daughter. Suyuan seems very distant with her daughter, possibly partly because of the lack of communication and understanding of each other. Suyuan seems to put in an effort to shed light on their Chinese culture and immerse Jing-mei into it but Jing-mei does not see the importance of learning much about it. Jing-mei even admits that there is some type of “barrier” between her and her mother. Jing-mei says, “My mother and I never really understood each other.” (27) The cultural gap between them affects their ability to fully understand each other.
5. A technique Tan seems plenty of are flashbacks. It provides a much easier look into the life of the mothers because it is told as it is happening and not by the daughters who did not experience the events themselves. The flashbacks foreshadow important details/events that will occur later in the chapter. An example is the Kweilin story about the two infant children who are lost, then at the end of the chapter Jing-mei receives a letter saying the two infant children are her sisters. Also, the flashbacks provide a deeper insight into the life of a character because it shows tragic events that they endured while providing more supporting evidence to future events.
6. I learned many things about Chinese culture in just this chapter alone. I learned that many American born Chinese are put into the same position as June because their parents are trying to summerge them into Chinese culture, while the child does not want to kow much. The fact the Suyuan speaks to Jing-mei in Chinese and Jing-mei answers in English shows how much she cared about learning the Chinese language.
1. Unfinished Business
2. “The Joy Luck Club”
3. While reading this chapter, one of my first thoughts was that the characters introduced so far were so realistic. They each had their quirks – Jing-mei’s father with his smoking habit and Ying-ying’s with her loud voice – and their own personality. It was enjoyable seeing a diverse yet believable cast of characters. In “The Joy Luck Club”, we learn, though Jing-mei, a portion of her mother’s (Suyuan) personality and beliefs. So far, my opinion of Jing-mei’s mother is that she is insatiable and a bit of a nag, however, she cares a lot about her daughter.
I felt horrible as Jing-mei was retelling her mother’s Kweilin story and described the death and poverty she had experienced. The one-liners about limbs hanging from telephone wires and dogs chewing severed hands were sickening to imagine. The idea that people were so hungry that they resorted to eating rats and garbage was depressing. I respect her ability to maintain her hope and will to live by forming the Joy Luck Club despite the chaos that surrounds her.
One part that confused me though was when An-mei and was giving clothes and candy to her relatives. The text says that nobody wanted the “useless clothes” and threw her candies in the air, so why was An-mei the only one who left with nothing? If the relatives didn’t want candy and clothes, why did they take it?
4. I would describe Jing-mei and Suyuan’s relationship as off-balanced. They do not see each other eye to eye. In the chapter, Jing-mei just “assumed” they understood each other until Auntie Lin brought up that her mother told her that Jing-mei was going back to school to finish her degree. Suyuan reached this conclusion based on a conversation with her daughter in the past, but Jing-mei really had no intention to go back. Suyuan read too much into what her daughter was saying and misunderstood while Jing-mei simply assumed that they were on the same page. It’s clear to her now that they weren’t.
5. One writing technique that Amy Tan used is flashbacks. The flashbacks help her audience better understand Jing-mei’s mother. It gives readers a glimpse of how difficult life was for her during the massacres. While effectively learning Suyuan’s story, readers can also infer how frightened and horrified she was although they are hearing the story secondhand from Jing-mei. The flashbacks make up for Suyuan’s lack of presence in the book by giving the audience background information about her life and hints on her feelings and emotions.
6. After reading this chapter, I learned a few things about Chinese culture. Typically, when eating, the Chinese are not afraid to help themselves to whatever they liked. This ethnic group is also family-oriented as An-mei has shown by giving gifts to her extended family to lending her cousin’s uncle five thousand dollars. I also learned about a bit of mannerisms that Chinese people have. Like when a person wants to leave, it was polite to encourage the person to stay even if you don’t want them to.
Lost
“Joy Luck Club”
1. I thought this first vignette showed the tragedies that people in China had to face during that time. It showed in detail the tragedies that Jing-Mei’s mother, Suyuan, had to face and how little Jing-Mei understood her; I feel sorry for Suyuan because Jing-Mei, despite being told many stories of China by Suyuan, seems to not have learned about her heritage. Therefore, I believe that Jing-Mei is lost and is not capable of taking over her mother’s spot in the Joy Luck Club. I feel hopeful, however, that she be able to regain her roots when she travels to China to find her long-lost sisters.
2. Jing-Mei and Suyuan’s relationship is contradicting. I think it can be described as distant but still close. Through the stories that Suyuan tells Jing-Mei, they have a close connection. However, because Jing-Mei believes that she does not know her mother well enough to find her sisters, she makes their relationship feel secluded. It is shown at the end of the vignette, where she is shown hesitant and does not know if she can keep her promise to her aunties.
3. Amy Tan’s use of flashbacks stood out to me. Although it confused me sometimes, I think it showed the memories of Suyuan very well. It shows the difficulties and struggles of Suyuan as if the reader was running with her to a supposedly peaceful place.
4. The allegory was about a woman who wished for her daughter to have a better life but in the process, her daughter instead became oblivious to her heritage and her mother’s pain and hope she put into her daughter. This chapter shows how Jing-Mei is also Americanized and can’t connect to her heritage either, just like the woman’s daughter in the allegory. It also shows that the 3 aunts’ daughters was also ignorant to the heritage and the hopes they brought to America.
1.“Succession”
2.The Joy Luck Club
3.Throughout the chapter, I kept getting a sense of nostalgia. When I was small my parents and my “aunties” and “uncles” of no blood relation would hold little parties similar to those of the Joy Luck club. They would cook mountains of food, discuss their favorite Filipino dramas, gossip, and just laugh the night away. Back then I didn’t understand those get-togethers; in fact, I was a little irritated because I never wanted to get dragged along. Over the years, however, we’ve been drifting apart as a “family.” Now my parents don’t even bother to go to any of the gathering. It’s sad. I wish I could have preserved our tradition like June did with the Joy Luck Club.
The idea of the Joy Luck Club left a strong impression on me. I think it’s brilliant to have a moment where nothing bad can happen and joy and fortune is given to everyone in the club. My father always tells me to step back if you’re feeling overwhelmed or too stressed; step back and take a few moments for yourself. You can’t let the burdens of life crush you. It touched me that in Suyuan didn’t give into despair in Kweilin; she had the strength to step back and create happiness and fortune of her own.
Another thing that I felt that I could relate to in the story was An-Mei’s trip to China. I feel that whenever someone comes back to their home country from the U.S., people believe that they are automatically rich. When my family went back to the Philippines, we were swamped with relatives: cousins, second-degree cousins, third-degree cousins. Distant relative after distant relative came after us with an “empty hand” (25). I hated it but at the same time I couldn’t blame them; compared to the living conditions in U.S., their lives were hard. However, their greed and ungratefulness was still a shock to me.
4. Words like “estranged” and “separated” come to mind when I think about June and her mother Suyuan’s relationship. They were “separated” by their communication barrier. Suyuan would often throw Chinese expressions at June that she would never “remember” and never “understand”. And whenever they would converse, Suyuan would speak to June in Chinese but June would reply in English. There’s no doubt that that barrier had a strain on their relationship. It seems that June was never very close to her mother. When confronted by her aunties with the task of meeting her half sisters, June feels immense apprehension because she feels that there is nothing she “ can tell them about [their] mother” because she never truly knew “anything” about her mother (31).
5.Amy Tan uses many flashbacks in this chapter. Her use of flashbacks is somewhat of an offbeat way to introduce her story. She used them to set up one of the main conflicts of the story: Jing-Wei’s reunion with her half sisters. The constant time changes keep the audience on their toes throughout the chapter. Although, at the same time, it could confuse and put off the reader.
6.In this chapter, I learned that the Chinese mentality is naturally competitive. Even among your friends, you are competing. For example, Auntie Lindo and Auntie Woo were both “best friends and arch enemies” (27). Throughout June and Waverly’s lives, they’ve compared to one another. Though the rivalry seems friendly, it seems like it could take a toll on June and Waverly’s psyche. I also learned that Chinese people are keen on gambling. And view gambling as a strategy game than just a luck-based means to win money.
Unfufilled Dreams From the East
The Joy Luck Club
1. When I read the part about Suyuan bringing only one suitcase full of “fancy silk dresses” and no cotton shirts or wool pants for her husband, I thought it was pretty funny. If she had time to pack silk dresses, why did she not have time to pack a couple of shirts and pants for her husband? As I read on to the history of the Joy Luck Club and the story of Kweilin, I realized that Kweilin was everybody’s dream. It was as though anyone who climbed to the peaks of Kweilin would “feel such happiness it would be enough to never have worries” in their lves ever again. However, these dreams were false. As everyone started moving into Kweilin, Kweilin lost its beauty o Suyuan. Because of the depressing environment of Kweilin, Suyuan decided to host a Joy Luck Club in order to raise money and their spirits. The Joy Luck Club showed that despite all the suffereing and unbearable things that had happened to them, they did not wish back for something that was already lost, did not “prolong what was already unbearable.” They decided to live the best life they could and not dwell on the past, where all their miseries lay. Suyuan left Kweilin when the Japanese invaded, forcing her to leave all her joy behind and to escape with her children. However, by the time she arrived in Chungking, she had lost everything, including her babies. This part of the chapter affected me the most. It was very depressing and sad to think that her babies were given up on, to think that she was in such a troublesome position that she couldn’t even take her children with her. It is later revealed in the story that here children were still alive, and that made me wonder how were they still alive? Had someone taken the babies from Suyuan when she was on the edge of survival? Or had she left the children somewhere, and someone had found them and taken them in?
2. June Woo and her mother Suyuan Woo had a very awkward relationship. Though June Woo was told stories about her mother’s past, she still felt that she didn’t know her mother. Suyuan had always criticized June, making June think that Suyuan expected her to fail. Suyuan had only meant for June’s good, but had a Chinese way of showing it. The aunts of the Joy Luck Club tell June to tell her half sisters all about her mother, but she asks, “What will I say? What can I tell them about my mother? I don’t know anything. She was my mother.” This shows that June doesn’t think that she knows her mother very well.
3. In this chapter, Amy Tan uses a lot of flashbacks. These flashbacks explain what happened in the past, and how it is important to the present. They also show who Suyuan Woo was and how she reacted to hard situations, even though she has already died. Without the flashbacks, the story probably would not make sense.
4. The chapter relates to the allegory at the beginning of the section because both the chapter and the allegory are explaining what hardships mothers lost in order to arrive in America. In the allegory, the mother spends a fortune for the swan, only to have it taken away when she reaches America. Suyuan lost many things in China, including her children, in order to reach a safer and better life. The mother in the allegory gives the feather to her daughter so that she will know where she comes from. Suyuan tells June stories of when she was in China, so that June will know of her past, and what she had lost and gained in coming to America.
Brian Tat
The Beginning of the East
The Joy Luck Club
I like how Amy Tan starts the story with an introduction of the mothers and how they all unite under the “Joy Luck Club.” I believe that this vignette is the exposition, where it introduces the characters and setting. As I read the chapter, I began thinking why the book was named after the first chapter. How important is the “Joy Luck Club” to have Amy Tan name the book after? It surprises me that Suyuan had a wonderful and heavenly perspective of Kweilin, because I knew, in reality, that there was no such place where you would “feel such happiness it would be enough to never have worries in your life ever again” (7). I like Suyuan’s method of letting go of the dreadful past and how she started to see things in a better perspective by creating the “Joy Luck Club.” I notice that the mother repeatedly uses the “Joy Luck Club” to help move on with her life. Instead of being depressed about her lost babies, she instead raises June, in her way, creating her own happiness. By focusing on the things she has in the present, Suyuan truly learns to let go of what was lost. I was devastated, at first, hearing that she had to abandoned her two babies on her voyage to Chungking. When June asks about the babies, I could immediately tell that the babies would be mentioned in the chapter later when the question wasn’t fully answered. I was happy, in response, to hear that the babies did survive and that Suyuan had discovered them once again.
The incident, in which Auntie An-mei returns to visit her family, is truly heartbreaking. The scene, where she returns to China to give her brother gifts, supports the heartbreaking relationship. When Auntie An-mei arrives at the village, her brother’s whole family is there waiting with empty palms out. She gave them everything she had for “she was the only one who left with an empty hand” (25). I see Suyuan and June’s relationship as a demanding one. This is evident when Suyuan tries to convince June to return back to college and finish her education. Suyuan had high expectations for June and would usually compare her with Waverly. However, June did not complete her college years and dropped out. In some way, June sees herself as a failure of Suyuan’s expectations.
I notice that Amy Tan uses flashbacks to describe the hardships of Suyuan’s past. It helps the reader understand what the main character will face. It would be awkward to have the babies in Kweilin come from nowhere, if the flashbacks weren’t present. Another use of a literary device Amy Tan uses is imagery. I notice Amy Tan’s use of imagery throughout the story to give the audience a more imaginative look into the story. On page 7, she has the character Suyuan vividly describe Kweilin. There is great description about what Suyuan imagines the city like the white mists around the top of the peeks and the “magic moss greening the banks.” (7). Amy Tan uses imagery to show the audience of the character’s imagination and how greatly it affected the character, allowing the audience to understand the character’s perspective more in depth. For example, on page 13, it is described of the deaths of many people, in which Suyuan thinks of “like fresh fish from a butcher, lay rows of people—men, women, and children who had never lost hope, but had lost their lives instead.” (13). By reading the statement, the audience can imagine the image and relate to the character’s feeling, understanding the character.
I believe the theme of the chapter is “We can let fear consume and devour us or we can choose to create our own happiness.” I think that the theme was most hinted by Suyuan’s own questions on page 12. Suyuan faces a difficult situation, in which she could have her fear and misery to take her. Suyuan, however, decides to forget the horrible past and move on with her life by forging the Joy Luck Club. She even forgets about the two babies left on her voyage to Chungking, by raising June. Instead of grieving about lost things in the past, she looks forward to the future.
1. “The Legacy of the East”
2. “The Joy Luck Club”
3. When I began reading this chapter I learned that Amy Tan has a good way of showing Chinese heritage. She shows this by the various traditions, relationships, and beliefs of the people in the book. The speech of the characters also lets me get a closer look into Chinese heritage. In this chapter, there were many events that affected me by making me think more in depth. When I first read of Suyuan making the Joy Luck Club in Kweilin to escape all the devastation around her, I thought this was a splendid idea, making a temporary happiness in a world of chaos. This type of gathering reminded me of the boys in A Separate Peace, who made up games and a “suicide” club for fun as an escape to all the chaos of the war around them. Another event that affected me was after Suyuan tells Jing-mei about how she left everything when fleeing from Kweilin, including her two babies from another husband. When I heard this, I was shocked because I originally pictured one of those babies to be Jing-mei. I was also baffled because I now wondered who this past lover of Suyuan was, and what had happened to him that caused her to remarry. I also was curious to how I would feel if I were in Jing-mei’s place, finding out my mother had another life in China before she married my dad. I was also struck when reading about Jing-mei’s aunties who tell her to go to China to meet her long lost half-sisters and to tell them about their mom. When I read this, I wondered how crazy and daunting this task must have felt for Jing-mei. But I then understood that it would’ve been the right thing to do because it’s what her mother had wanted and so, she should go. When I learned that Jing-mei was taking her mother’s place at the mah jong table, I was curious to what emotions she would feel. Would she fell like she needed to meet the high expectations of her mom? Would she have to be playing mahjong with these elderly women the rest of her life? The last part of this chapter that left me thinking was the last sentence stating: “I am sitting at my mother’s place at the mah jong table, on the East, where things begin.” I questioned what Tan meant by “where things begin.” It was such a vague term, but I think her overall intention was to let us know that Jing-mei’s trip to China will show her the origin of her Chinese heritage, as well as the beginning of her mom’s journey of escaping the war.
4. I believe that the relationship between Suyuan Woo and Lindo Jong can be described as friendly and competitive. Page 37 describes the relationship between the two women very well, and states that the two were best friends. On the page, Jing-mei describes their relationship as competitive because they would always try to see which daughter was the best and which one was more successful. She describes the too being “both best friends and arch enemies who spent a lifetime comparing their children” (37). These little acts of friendly competition were done to improve their daughters, but mostly because they were best friends.
5. In this chapter, Amy Tan uses a lot of flashbacks in order for the reader to get the background information on what is happening. Usually the flashbacks in this chapter are coming from Jing-mei who begins to remember all of the past stories her mother had told her about escaping Kweilin when she was younger. Other flashbacks consist of Jing-mei remembering her mother’s charm, character, or attitudes towards certain people. Because Jing-mei took her mother’s place at the mah jong table, she remembered her mother, and thus began having old memories.
6. (b. What is the main conflict in the chapter? Is it internal or external, human vs. self, vs. society, vs. nature, vs. human and how do you know?)
I believe the main conflict in this chapter is internal. It is internal for Jing-mei because she is struggling with making the decision of doing her mother’s unfinished business. When Jing-mei, although she didn’t want to, made the decision to take her mother’s spot at the mah jong table, she is faced with a task of going to go to China to find her half-sisters and tell them about their mother. This was extremely difficult for her because she doesn’t know what to say and Jing-mei feels like she would be incompetent at the task. But overall, she decides to go and carry out her mom’s last wishes and thus ends her internal conflict.
“The Lucky Ones”
2. Feathers from a Thousand Li Away: “JING-MEI WOO: The Joy Luck Club”
3. Throughout this chapter, I kept on thinking about how much these Chinese families were just like all of the families I knew that had immigrated to America. I especially thought about my family, and how we compared. I had always thought about how my parents always complained about me and my brother, and how we always discount the knowledge they have. As Jing-Mei is told by her “aunties” that it is preposterous for a daughter to not know her mother, she realizes that, “they are frightened,” and that because of how Jing-Mei said she did not know her own mother, they saw their own daughters whom are just as, “ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have brought to America. They [saw] daughters who grow impatient when their mothers speak in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English. They [saw] that joy and luck [does] not mean the same to their daughter, that to these closed American-born minds ‘joy luck’ is not a word, it does not exist” (31). All of these fears that Jing-Mei saw in the aunties stood out to me, not because of freshness or realization, but because of familiarity. My parents have both constantly told me that my brother and I think that they’re “stupid” and that we think we know so much, just because we know better English, and that we depreciate them and all they’ve gone through to get her. In a way, I see that as their way of saying we have crushed, “all of the truths and hopes they have brought to America.” It made me feel as though my brother and I (mostly my brother) have been forgetting all of the things my parents went through just to go to America and make a new life for their family and the future generations to come. And mostly, this quote made me realize evermore that there are many kids that treat their parents this way. It made me feel a bit sad that we kids do not realize how much we have been given, the chance that our parents made for us, and that without them we would not be able to have all we are given today. Often, I had thought that my parents and my brother and I had completely different circumstances – my parents suffered the suppression of freedom, due to the communism that changed their lives, and my brother and I go through a different type of suppression, where we are put under our parents’ control and we are obligated to monotonous days of stress and pressures that are put upon us not because of our parents, but the expectations of others and ourselves. But from this chapter, I realized that these two situations are incomparable, for the suppression our parents’ went through was much more traumatic then ours. The things they saw, the things they had to do in order to free themselves are scars that they hold and even though they may tell us their stories, we will never actually go through it, and thus we will never truly comprehend what they have felt. Of course, if we have feelings we may feel a little sad, but once we go through our lives, or what we may consider horrible and worthless, we again pity ourselves and discount all that our parents’ have done for us. Even Jing-Mei feels the say way, as she said she, “never thought her mother’s Kweilin story was anything but a Chinese fairy tale” (12). The text helped me gain insight from the other side of the fence; the aunties are more than likely feeling just the way other parents are feeling today. I feel it is amazing how we belittle elders and their experiences, as though anything we have gone through is comparable.
Another section of the chapter that made me think, “Wow, this is just like my family!” was the part where An-Mei Hsu’s family in China had taken so much away from her as she came back to visit. Every single time my family returns to Vietnam, we spend weeks – often months – looking for gifts to bring back to our family. Sometimes, when we give them their gifts, they act as though the gifts are worth nothing, acting as though they deserved better. Though not all of them act this way, a rare few tend to constantly ask for more. My mother used to tell me that when she first married my father, they did not have any money and sometimes they couldn’t eat at all. The very house they lived in was very small and other than that, they did not have enough to afford anything else. When I asked her why, my mom said that it was because they were always sending all they could to Vietnam, to the remainder of their relatives that still resided there. Both An-Mei Hsu’s story and my parents’ story made me angry. An-Mei Hsu’s brother and my own family expected us to be wealthy, just because we went to America. I felt as though both parties depreciated all the hard work the Hsu’s and my parents’ did to get to America, as though they assumed we were living large now that we were in America, not realizing that there was a chance we did not make it, that we could possibly be living meagerly just for them.
4. From this chapter, I would say that Lindo Jong and Suyuan Woo’s relationship would be a great example of “friendly competition”. Lindo and Suyuan, “were both best friends and arch enemies who spent a lifetime comparing their children” (27), as they compared everything from belly buttons to intelligence. But despite their constant competition, and how much Suyuan resented listening to Lindo’s child, Waverly Jong’s, achievements, they were still best friends. This is shown as Suyuan listens to Lindo anyway, even though she hates it. Furthermore, I feel that they relationship is strong because of the competition. If Suyuan and Lindo did not think that their relationship could still be strong with the competition, I am sure they would not risk it. In some situations, people’s relationship with one another is ruined due to competition, so the fact that Suyuan and Lindo were consistently best friends surely shows their strong friendship. Also, Lindo was one of the few that were told about Suyuan’s discovery of her lost children. This further depicts their closeness, for even Suyuan’s husband did not know about Suyuan’s children while she was still alive.
5. In this chapter, Amy Tan uses and abundance of flashbacks. These flashbacks improve the story greatly, as they give us background information, and examples of the difficulties and challenges Suyuan Woo went through. These experiences allow us to realize much she went through and allows us to connect it to the allegory at the beginning of the section, and why children should know what their parents went through in order to reach America – what many consider the definition of freedom. It further improves the story as it sets up the plot in an interesting way, rather than having Jing-Mei, the narrator of this chapter, say, “My mother had two kids and a husband before me and my father.” Not only does it let us know this, but it also expresses the true meaning of the Joy Luck Club, and how important it is to the characters. Another thing that the flashbacks show is the character of Suyuan, which is important for this chapter because it lets us know who raised Jing-Mei and how, which shows the values of Suyuan and the culture of the typical Chinese-American.
6. What is the main conflict in the chapter? Is it internal or external, human vs. self, vs. society, vs. nature, vs. human and how do you know?
After reading this chapter, I feel its main conflict is internal, because of Jing-Mei Woo’s constant contemplation as to her worth in replacing her mother. While she was alive, Suyuan Woo, Jing-Mei’s mother had always criticized her. Even Jing-Mei had said that, “[her] mother was always displeased with all her friends, with [her], and even with [her] father. Something was always missing. Something always needed improving. Something was not in balance. This one or that had too much of one element, not enough of another” (19). The criticism that Jing-Mei went through growing up gave her constant self-doubt, and because all those close to her had consider her mom to be so great, it is even harder for Jing-Mei to feel as though she can live up to the expectations of her mother’s friends and family to replace her mother at the Mahjong table. The self-doubt inside her becomes exponential as her mother dies, causing Jing-Mei to think about her mother (as she did for the majority of the chapter), and about how she never really knew her mother. She is faced with a challenge to overcome her internal conflict as her aunties tell her that she needs to go to China and tell her sisters all about her mother, which Jing-Mei considers difficult, especially as she tells them, “‘What will I say? What can I tell them about my mother? I don’t know anything. She was my mother’” (31). These things, to me, exemplify the conflict as being Jing-Mei’s trouble of overcoming her self-doubt, living up to her deceased mother’s expectations, and therefore becoming worthy of taking her mother’s seat at the Mahjong table.
1.“Where Things Begin”
2.“The Joy Luck Club”
3.Upon reading the first chapter, I found that I could relate with many of the things Jing-Mei experiences – the big “family” consisting of extended family members and close friends, the never-ending gossip between each other, and weekly gatherings resembling that of a feast. I liked how Amy Tan had many of the Chinese women make grammatical errors. This gave them more personality, a better image of how they would be in actuality. My initial reaction toward Jing-Mei’s relationship with her mother was that they were both 100% content with each other. As I read on, it slowly came to me that they were barely ever on equal terms. I disliked the fact that the “aunties” were what helped create a gap between the mother-daughter relationship. The constant competition of who-had-the-best-daughter between the Joy Luck Club ladies created a constant struggle between Jing-Mei and her mother. Jing-Mei was often pressured into doing things just to try and beat the other ladies’ daughters. I don’t find anything good about this because it goes further into creating the distance between her and her mother. It pained me to think that Suyuan Woo died, only leaving behind Jing-Mei a seat at the Joy Luck Club, which did not mean much (to Jing-Mei) at the time. Though, at the end of the first chapter, I found some solace in knowing that Suyuan gave Jing-Mei something to fill their familial gap.
4.Jing-Mei and Suyuan is an unsettled pair. Naturally, they love each other, but they are not at peace. Jing-Mei has yet to find the reason behind all that her mother has ever said to her. Her mother, on the other hand, has not found comfort yet because of her two daughters that she left behind in China. The depth of their relationship is put on display when Jing-Mei remembers the story that her mother has always told her, the one with the changing endings, the one when Jing-Mei discovers that her mother had abandoned and lost “everything except for three fancy silk dresses” (14). Jing-Mei is only at the tip of the iceberg of what her mother has always tried to pass on to her. The beginning of an understanding between them is developed when Jing-Mei is directed to go to China to see the two long-lost daughters.
5.Flashbacks and foreshadowing are the two writing techniques I have appreciated the most so far in reading The Joy Luck Club. I chose both the flashbacks and the foreshadowing because they are parallel to each other, and even within one another. The flashbacks told in Jing-Mei’s point of view tell of her passed mother’s life and stories. Within these flashbacks, their relationship becomes more well-defined each time, and more background information about the book is gained overall. Foreshadowing is also found in this first chapter, when Jing-Mei flashes back to a time where Suyuan tells her about the abandoned babies. As the reader, you come to wonder about those babies, and assume that it will play as a big motivational factor of the book. This gives the story more of a plot, and the reader more direction.
6.This chapter is more than connected to the allegory in the beginning; it is a shorter version with the feelings openly said. The “old woman” represents Suyuan. Suyuan traveled far with all that she had, and in the end, had to give up everything except for some silk dresses. She only had the memory of her harsh trip, and the knowledge that her two lost children were out there, somewhere, to give to her too-Americanized daughter, Jing-Mei. This was the swan feather. The daughter that grew up “swallowing more Coca-Cola than sorrow” (3) was Jing-Mei. Jing-Mei swallowed more of the American culture around her, while her mother had tried to pass down her experiences, which never got through to Jing-Mei. She could not empathize with her mother, but felt rather puzzled, and took it more for granted than a precious gift showing “all [her] good intentions” (4) that she longed for Jing-Mei to understand.
“The better half of mixed intentions”
The Joy Luck Club
1.) The start of this section shows many traditions of China and the fear during the Japanese invasion. It also shows things people did to survive this time. I also like the idea of her Joy Luck club, forgetting all your troubles and sorrow for one day, so you do not drown in it. It may look wasteful, and crazy, but it is better then wallowing in your despair. In these times, hope and happiness can be more rare then food and shelter. The final ending to Suyuan’s story, the true ending, it struck me that nobody should have to make that sort of choice, between your life and that of your children. It also states on of the purposes of the club in this chapter, to have fun and see who is lucky. That’s why they have the stocks instead of playing mah jong for money. They think the stocks are random so they see how much luck they have. The mah jong is for fun, to bond and forget about the troubles each week, just like in the original. But, I think it also has another reason. It’s to pass on the traditions and the stories of the old onto the new. That is why Jing-Mei takes over for her mother, to learn the traditions and values and hopes all the members had for America. Eventually, the members hope, the daughters will take over and continue the traditions and remember the values their mothers had. That’s why I think they all reacted so strongly when Jing-Mei said she did not know her mother. This is their fear, that their children do not understand them or what made them important.
2.) For Suyuan’s relationship with the rest of the club, I think she is the most level headed, the one who finds the faults within everyone and tries to change it. Everyone respects her, she founded the club, but she also knows what is wrong with everyone. She tells Jing-Mei that she tries to do to many things and finishes nothing, and its true. Suyuan says that An-Mei has no backbone, she can not refuse anyone and this was shown in her trip to China with her greedy relatives. But she is also kind to, I don’t believe she hurts anyone just to make them feel bad. She never told anyone, except Jing-Mei, about An-Mei’s relatives because that is unnecessary and would do more evil then good.
3.) Uses word choice and similes and metaphors very effectively, especially in the part where she is describing Kweilin. She starts off describing a beautiful place that is like paradise. But when she sees the real thing, she describes it again but in scarier, darker tones. It’s the same place, but different because of her description. This is showing how the things around Suyuan effected her perception.
4.) We learn many things about Chinese culture in this chapter. You can see some of the Ying and Yang concept in the mention of the red bean and black bean soups. Ying Yang and balance are both shown later with Suyuan saying how some people had too little or too much on a certain element. We also saw traditional foods in the original Joy Luck club. The dumplings for money, long noodles for long life, boiled peanuts for sons, and oranges for sweet and plentiful life. These also showed the things the Chinese valued. There were also descriptions of the traditional dresses that they wore when visiting each other in the Joy Luck club meetings. Later, we see more examples of food, like wanton soup, chaswei, and chow mein. Actually, I am amazed that she can put so much culture in, and have a story and character development.
1. “In my Mother’s Footsteps”
2. “The Joy Luck Club”
3. When the story opens up to the death of Jing-mei Woo’s mother, Suyuan, I felt slightly shocked at what insignificance her father, and friends had given this situation. Her father jokes that she was killed by her own thoughts while her friends compares her death to a rabbit’s, and yet she had only passed away recently. Being her mother’s daughter, she had to carry on her mother’s position in “The Joy Luck Club”. As she describes her mother’s life in China, I had a sense of great sympathy for all those refugees that had to go through the war and turmoil. For her mother’s situation, was there a war against the Japanese that going on at that time? That was a bit confusing, and also why was Kweilin considered such a nice place before people had even seen it?
I think the scene that stood out the most was the way her mother carried two babies on her soulders, her bags of food and clothes, but after running away for so long, the pain had gotten to her, and she lost hopein saving what she had. She ended up abandoning everything and kept her strength to live. I also thought she was a very smart woman when the idea of Joy Luck Club came up. Even though times were hard, she knew she only had once to live life, and she wanted to make the best out of what she had. The Joy Lucky Club allowed her to kick back with her firneds, and have fun for a change.
Now that she’s gone, I think Jing-mei takes great pride in taking part in this club, to pass on her mother’s legacies and to pass on what was left to be known of the Chinese heritage. At the end, her aunties request that she go back to China and see her long lost sisters for the first time. It was surprising how much they supported her in hopes of getting her to share her mother’s success to the ones back in China.
4. The relationship between Auntie An-mei and Auntie Lin can be described as an affectionate animosity. Auntie Lin had a family that donated to the poor people of China, she knew she was more fortunate than those of China so she wanted to do good deeds for others. On the other hand Auntie An-mei had a son who was arrested for stealing, a family who squandered money on junk food, and things that weren’t necessities. The two obviously had very different situations, and in the scene when Auntie Lin brags about the humility of her family, Auntie An-mei is clearly hurt while “Auntie Lin is oblivious to [her] pain. (26)” Auntie Lin may not be purposely bringing up these topics, but by doing so it still creates a slight feeling tension and jealousy. Still, they remain close friends and share the happiness and pains of being Chinese immigrants as members of the Joy Luck Club.
5. Amy Tan uses the technique of symbolism many times in this chapter. The game “mah-jong” can be seen as a symbolism of a distraction the women’s pains. Suyuan had categorized certain personalities in symbols like fire, wood, or water, comparing a person to the characteristics of the inanimate object itself. For example she states “too much fire, and you have a bad temper”, “too much wood…unable to stand on your own”, and “too much water and you flowed in too many directions(19). Lastly the biggest symbolism was Suyuan’s death. The wise words of the old woman had been passed on to her friends and her one daughter in America. It stands for a new beginning, and a challenge for Jing-mei to pass on the Chinese heritage.
I think Tan’s use of symbolism strengthens this story because through these certain Chinese games like “mah-jong”, a part of the Chinese culture is revealed as well as representing a specific idea or moral that she wants to weave across the story. It is probable that throughout this story, the game of “mah-jong” will probably be brought up repeatedly to bring up the joys of the trivial game. Also the way Tan symbolizes characteristics with fire, wood, and water reveals the perspective of life towards Chinese people indirectly. Suyuan’s death is not only a loss of a loved one, but actually stands for something much deeper. By using symbolism, Tan is able to give the reader a sense of wonder, and a chance to look into the deeper meanings of simple objects or events.
6. What I learned about the Chinese culture was that they played a gambling game called “mah-jong”, but it acted like a stress reliever or a pastime activity like what we consider surfing the internet. Also the Chinese take a lot of consideration of saving money, because of the poor lives they had to overcome in China. Of course they didn’t want to go back to suffering in poverty, so in America, the Chinese don’t take their money for granted. From the way the women talk about the people from their homeland, it can be seen that the Chinese love their families very much, and take pride from where they originally came from.
“BitterSweet”
CH. The Joy Luck Club
3. After reading this funny yet touching chapter, I realized that some of Jing-Mei Woo’s situations are a lot like mine. Having the typical Chinese parents, I know the feeling of never being able to satisfy them; no matter if its grades, talents, or habits, they always find another person that is better and compare me to them. However, I started to realize that the more my parents compared me to someone better, the more I was determined to work harder. Even though Jing-Mei thinks that all of Suyuan and the aunties’ pushing and comparing are bothersome, I think that one day she will realize how important their words were to her. A scene that really popped out at me was on page 31 when Jing-Mei begins to understand that her “aunties” were frightened about the fact that their daughters didn’t know anything about them. It is surprising when I thought back to it because I thought that parents were always eager to tell their stories to us especially the “Well, back in those days when I was a kid….” ones.
One part I didn’t understand was how come even though Auntie Lin and Auntie An-mei are close friends, Auntie Lin not aware of Auntie An-mei’s feelings when she talked about her family back in China. Auntie An-mei had nine thousand dollars robbed of her by her family in China and she was ashamed of it. However, Auntie Lin kept on bragging as if she was unaware to that fact. Is there some bitterness underneath all the shared laughter and gossip? Or was Auntie Lin really oblivious of Auntie An-mei’s story?
4. I would describe the relationship between Jing-Mei and Suyuan as shallow yet typical. Jing-Mei does not know much about her mom and Suyuan never really understood her daughter’s feelings. For example in the scene where Jing-Mei tells her mom, “You know, people rise to other people’s expectations. And when you criticize, it just means you’re expecting failure” (20). Yet, Suyuan responded with “That’s the trouble…you never rise. Lazy to get up. Lazy to rise to expectations.” Suyuan does not understand Jing-Mei’s point, and instead, pushes herself further away from a good relationship with her daughter.
5. Amy Tan constantly uses a lot of flashbacks to bring us into the past and get a better view of the event that happens next in the present. It helps us to understand and get background knowledge of the story.
6. The main conflict in this chapter is human vs. human. Jing-Mei vs. her mom and her aunties. While trying to fit in to the American cultures, Jing-Mei has to battle against Suyuan and the rest of the aunties’ definition of the status quo. The American ways differ from the Chinese ways so much that it not only harms their relationships, but also causes a blockade in their understandings for each other.
(YAY! finally done! XD)
1. “The End Marks a New Beginning”
2. The Joy Luck Club
3. At first, I was horrified at the happenings in Kwelin. People were forced to live on the streets. No matter how rich or poor people were before, they were all the same level when they “shared the same sidewalk to spit on and suffered the same fast-moving diarrhea” (Tan 9). Even though it was nice that the four young women were able to find refuge by creating the Joy Luck Club, I thought it was wrong for them to be feasting when so many others on the streets were “starving, eating rats, and later, the garbage that the poorest rats used to feed on” (Tan 11). I felt really devastated when Suyuan told June that she dropped her babies. I wonder what happened to the two daughters? I thought it was terrible how all of An-mei’s relatives in China took advantage of her. Who could be so greedy when a relative comes to visit? It was depressing when I found out Suyuan was going to visit her daughters in China if she hadn’t died.
4. Suyuan Woo and Lindo Jong’s relationship would be categorized as competitive. When Waverly Jong and Jing-mei Woo were born at around the same time, the two mothers compared everything from earlobes to hair to see who was better. Instead of bettering themselves, they pushed the daughters to surpass each other.
5. In this chapter, Tan uses a lot of flashbacks. It helps improve the story by giving the characters more depth. When I knew what the characters had to go through in the past, I had a better idea of what kind of person they are in the present.
6. This chapter is connected to the allegory in the beginning because they both have to do with passing down heritage. The Americanized daughters have do not know much about their own heritage. Now that June’s mother is gone, she realizes how little she knows about her mother. She must tell her sisters back in China about a woman she never knew very well. In the allegory, the mother did not get to pass down the heritage in the swan feather.
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“Struggle”
The Joy Luck Club
1.My reaction to this chapter was that it was very depressing, when she talks about Jing-mei Woo’s journey from Kweilin, because it was really hard. She was struggling for to get to the next city away from the Japanese. When she talked about the two babies she was carrying, and how she lost nearly everything. The people there had to struggle and give up so much for their lives and seeing the agony of the other people. When she saw the newspaper with all the people there dead, who gave up their lives. The mood was slightly raised when it returned to her playing mah jong. The main character is struggling to try and understand her mother and trying to replace her.
2.I would say June and her mother’s relationship was difficult. Living with a mother who was very wise and always felt like something was out of balance is difficult. She doesn’t really understand her mother and they were never really “alike”. Her mother was very different from her and they had very different views. The scene where June remembered her mother saying “you don’t know a percent of me! How can you be like me?, was shocking. I could never picture a mother saying that to her daughter. I see there relationship is really difficult.
3.Tan uses a lot of flashbacks in her story, how June is recalling all the events that she had with her mother. Such as the time where her mother talked about her struggle escaping Kweilin, or how she told June that they weren’t alike.
4.The main conflict in this chapter is Human vs. Society. June is struggling with herself to try to replace with her mom in the Joy Luck Club. She is trying to be more like her mom and trying to understand her. When Auntie Lin said, “Did you learn anything from you mother?”
-Brendan Nghiem
Jane Wong
( 6th period)
1. “The First Piece of a Puzzle”
2. “Joy Luck Club”
3. In the chapter, “Joy Luck Club,” I thought that it was quite a start for the first chapter. The beginning emphasizes how June, the daughter of the mother that started the club, lost her mother two months ago. Now she is learning to adapt to the club in the place of her mother. It must be hard for her because she does not think that she can take the place of her mother when her mother has gone through so much compared to herself. I can understand how Jing-mei feels because it seems that her mother expected a lot from when her mother was alive. Today, a lot of kids’ parents put a lot of pressure on them too and the kids never seem to have their own freedom to do whatever they want to do. The Joy Luck Club reminds me of traditional occasions and groups of important meetings, except the Joy Luck Club is actually a monthly gathering. Like Girl Scouts, girls gather together on weekly meetings and discuss what their new activities will be. In the Joy Luck Club, they discuss what has happened and talk about old stories that make them reflect back and laugh. It actually sounds like a very “joyful” get-together. This also reminds me of Christmas because a lot of families and relative friends come together once a year on that special day to celebrate their time together. Like the aunties in the club, they are all close together, but not related. So it is kind of like relative friends that almost seem to be related in some way. They all create this type of bond that is indescribable, but only endearing and lovable. It is like the characters cherish each other greatly and are there for each other just like how friends will always be there for a friend that is in need of some hands. I have a question about what June’s mother meant when she asked June,"What do you think you are missing something you never had?” (13). I did not understand why her mother asked June this. Was it because her mother had gone through way too much to know that things like a radio did not even matter if one had it or not? From the beginning, June says something about how she thought that the Chinese clothes the aunties wore were too "fancy for real Chinese people" and how they were "too strange for American parties" (16). I want to know if June later finds out if she wants to take back what she has thought about in the past or not because it seems to me that she is beginning to see this other side of her own heritage, in her mother's perspective slowly. Also, what did June mean when she said, "The M&M's were thrown in the air, gone" (26). Was June saying it was like candy thrown away?
4. Suyuan, the mother of June, and June herself had a complex relationship. They seem to have a hard time communicating with each other at times. " I was responsible, no matter who did it" (16). On this page, June talks about how she rememebrs that when they were children, she had to take care of the Hsus' younger children. Her mother said she was responsible for whatever that she did. It seems to the reader that it was kind of unfair because it did not make sense to say that it was all entirely June's responsibility to take care of all the children. Also, on the same page, she talks about the way the aunties dressed for the Joy Luck Club. She was clearly on a different page as her mother Suyuan, who followed the traditions of wearing fancy clothes. June did not seem to understand why they all dressed and acted the way they did. She seemed to be ashamed of this traditional heritage background. When June wonders if her mother only told her stories about the aunties to June and not anyone else, it seems that she is questioning herself about the way her mother acts to her. At times it seems as though her mother is very strict and has different endings to every story, and at others, it seems that her mother is revealing as many things to her as possible. Their relationship do not seem very stable . It does not seem close, but not too far because her mother does tell her her stories back in the days.
5. I noticed that Amy Tan brings back a lot of flashbacks on when her mother tells her stories. It starts out from the present where she reveals that her mother has passed away for nearly two months already. Then she goes back to the past and talks and describes about how her mother was like when she was alive. She emphasizes the things that her mother tells her and the stories that never have an ending. I think that it is quite a brilliant way to start off a chapter with flashbacks without actually stating the obvious. She uses different signs to bring the reader back to the past. Amy Tan also uses events that let the reader know what her mother was like back then and describes how the environment and relationship was like from the past.
6. The theme of this chapter is revealed in the last line, where it says, " where things begin" (32). I believe that this is the theme because in this chapter, it shows the start of a young woman who has to take the place of her passed away mother. She has to learn how to deal with the Joy Luck Club and adapt to it just like how her mother did. She is beginning to see this other side of the Club where it seems to the reader that she is going to learn much more about her own heritage than she ever thought she would. It is kind of like where things are actually initiating because it is the rise of a new thought in her life and how it will probably change herself forever internally and externally and change all the things that she had questioned and doubted the Chinese culture. It is the start of where she begins to find who she really is and who she really can be for the present and the future while handling new obstacles each and every step along the way.
1. “The Unfortunate Beginnings”
2. “The Joy Luck Club”
3. My reaction to this chapter is that all the women of the joy luck club are a typical family. Amy Tan made the character of Suyuan Woo a typical Chinese mother. She has very high standards and criticizes much of what the others around her do. I felt Suyuan’s death was a tragedy because she finally receives a letter confirming the location of her two children she had been dying to finally reunite, but then passes away leaving the responsibility of visiting them to her daughter June. And I feel sympathy for June having to take on such a responsibility of visiting her stepsisters whom she’d never met and talk about her mother, not even knowing what to say. Also, June has to take her mother’s seat at the mahjong table. Similarly to June, I don’t have a close relationship with my aunts, and could never sit at a table with only them being there; it would be too uncomfortable.
4. The relationship between, Suyuan Woo and Lindo Jong, I would have to describe as unusual. June explains how “Auntie Lin and [her] mother were both best friends and arch enemies who spent a lifetime comparing their children” (27). This quote from Joy Luck Club, I would have to say is another way of saying one of the very common quotes “keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” Their relationship is unusual because being best friends shouldn’t be based on competitions. June doesn’t have a very close relationship with her mother and for her to know her mom and aunt are also arch enemies, means their completive sides are quite noticeable.
5. I think flashbacks are quite helpful in this chapter because it gives you a sense of what is going on in the present and why it has an impact in the future. For instance, the flashback explains Suyuan’s journey to America and how she had to leave her two daughters behind and now June finds out, after her mother’s death, that her mother has been looking for them. And that shows the two daughters will have an impact in the story either early or later on in the story. Imagery also gives your imagination a sense of direction. Imagery gives you a full visualization, and lets you have the feeling that you are there at that area that’s being explained.
6. The main conflict in this chapter is human vs. society; because society was the reason why Suyuan had to leave her daughters behind and carry on with her journey to America, and that’s what is causing June’s problems at the end of the chapter. She has to try to finish what her mom’s intentions were; but also because of society June doesn’t quite know enough about her mother’s Chinese background to even explain her own mother to her stepsisters.
1. “The East corner of the mah jong table”
2. FEATHERS FROM A THOUSAND LI AWAY: “JING-MEI WOO: The Joy Luck Club”
3. My reaction to how Jing-Mei addresses people in the Joy Luck Club is that I address family friends the same as she does. I instantly thought about how I call my parent’s friends Aunt and Uncle even though I am not related to them when I read the part where she “always called these old family friends Auntie and Uncle” (15). She respects her mother’s friends by treating them as her own family. I felt that the people in the Joy Luck Club Suyuan Woo started in China found a way to be joyful by stepping outside of reality and holding parties each week even though they were all miserable. They had extreme amount of hope and happiness compared to the people in the city. I felt sorrow for the two babies Suyuan carried with her from Kweilin to Chungking. It was a gloomy moment for me when I realized that the babies didn’t make it to Chungking. When I read the part where Auntie Ying announced that Jing-Mei’s sisters were alive, I was surprised and confused at the same time because I thought that they died. Was abandoning her children an act of love? I wonder what Suyuan’s reason was for leaving her babies behind.
4. Auntie An-mei and her brother’s relationship can be characterized as controlling. Auntie An-mei cared tremendously for her brother and his family. She saved two thousand dollars and bought many items to bring with her to China to give to him. She thought that her brother would appreciate the things she bought for him. However, when she arrived, all she received in return was “an empty hand” (25). “Auntie An-Mei and Uncle George were shaken down” (26) because they used a large sum of money for 26 people during their trip. Her own brother only looked up to her for financial support. He controlled her into spending money when all she wanted was to help him out. It is depressing to learn that money is something that can change family relationships around.
5. In this chapter, I noticed that Amy Tan used many flashbacks. Jing-Mei recalls many memories of her mother’s stories and experiences. The flashbacks improve the story by allowing readers to understand Suyuan’s character even though June is telling the story. Tan also uses imagery in this chapter. For example, when Suyuan described the people in the city, she recalled that peasants “Emptied their noses into their hands and pushed people around and gave everybody their dirty diseases” (9). Instead of being straightforward she describes things in detail. Tan also uses similes. Suyuan recalled that people “would come back out [of the caves] like newborn kittens scratching our way back to the city”(9) after bombing sounds fainted away.
6. I am learning many things about the Chinese culture while reading this novel. I learned that silk dresses were important to women when I read the part where Suyuan “left China with one stiff leather trunk filled only with fancy silk dresses” (6). She did not care about anything else. I guess that the silk dresses are essential in Chinese culture. Also, when Suyuan arrived to Chungking, she “had lost everything except for three fancy silk dresses” (14) which showed me that aside from her babies and food, the silk dresses meant a great deal to her.
1. “Restoring Lost Generations”
2. The Joy Luck Club
3. As the opening vignette progresses, I can identify more and more with Jing-mei “June” Woo. We are alike in many ways; one being that she feels distant with her mother, the one person the “aunties” feel should be “in her bones”. I feel sorry for June, but also guilty myself because I too, barely know my own mother. Jing-mei describes her conversations with her mother as them speaking “two different languages”, which is literally true but also has a deeper meaning. Both mother and daughter do not attempt to listen or truly understand what each other are saying but rather choose to stay in their own comfort zone. The “aunties” are the same way; they look down on Jing-mei because they don’t put any effort into knowing Jing-mei. Instead, they look at her as ignorant which puts her in an awkward position trying to take over her mother’s chair at the mah jong table. Even her mother doubts that she could ever replace her because Jing-mei fails to know even a “percent of [her]”. The author casts a dark mood when her mother starts to speak about her past. I sense that there are a lot of secrets and sorrow behind her mother’s tough exterior. It is upsetting to see that Jing-mei is completely oblivious to her mother’s past but those are the same circumstances for me and my mother. I’m confused that she didn’t show more concern and curiosity when finding out she had two long lost sisters. Was she not surprised because she had already figured this out on her own? And why aren’t the men at all involved in this situation? I am glad to see that Jing-mei is setting off for unfinished business for the sake of her mother and also for her.
4. Jing-mei and her mother, Suyuan Woo’s relationship can be described as distant. Their communication can be said to be little to none. Jing-mei admits that they never understood each other. The scene where her mother lies to Auntie Lin that Jing-mei is going back to school to get a doctorate shows this distant relationship. Instead of hearing out Jing-mei, she is blinded by her own hopes. She wants a better life for her daughter but she doesn’t see what Jing-mei truly wants. It seems selfish of her mother to do this but then again, she just wants what is best for her daughter.
5. Amy tan uses a lot of foreshadowing in this chapter. She uses it when Suyuan Woo talks about her past in China which shows that she had a very difficult life. It improves the story by making the reader look forward to learning more of what Suyuan Woo leaves behind in her homeland. The reader can infer that there are many secrets to come and that’s what Jing-mei is about to discover and she will find that she and her mother have more in common than what she had anticipated. The flashbacks Amy Tan uses make the reader more excited because lets them care for the characters the more we learn about them. Suyuan is the foundation of this chapter; she was the first to create the Joy Luck club. By providing flashbacks, it makes the reader sympathize for Suyuan’s character because otherwise, her character can seem very agitating and rude.
6. The scene where the aunties are looking at Jing-mei with doubtful faces but she reassures them that she will carry out what her mother was meaning to do all her life shows the theme. The chapter is trying to point out that from generation to generation, stories and lessons will be lost unless somebody carries on the memories. The aunties are frightened and even Jing-mei still doubts that she can do this. As everyone is taking turns telling what Jing-mei should pass on to her other sisters, it hits her that she had not taken the time to get to know her mother. As the daughter, she realizes how much she has missed out on and how she should’ve taken the time out to connect with her Suyuan. Now, Jing-mei is given the chance to make it up to her mother by going to her mother’s homeland.
Four walls that separate wind
“ The Joy luck Club”
Thoughts:This chapter mostly consists of the reminiscing of June’s mothers past. We hear about her ordeal during the war in china. All she had to suffer through like hiding out in damp mountain caves and carrying her possessions until her hands bled. It amazed me that she had enough hope to start the joyluck club. Everyone else would huff and complain about them and how they can feast when men were starving. But, I think Jing-Mei’s mother had the right idea. Throwing a party each week to forget your troubles is exactly what people need during these times.
I know that when I wake up with a kinky shoulder or throbbing headache I don’t want to do anything but lay in bed. My mom can tell when I feel this way and usually make me a special breakfast or takes me out. That way I can forget my pain and have a good time. Sort of like a small joy luck party.
Relationships: Also, I noticed the comment of how June’s mother always had something to complain about. About how something is always out of balance. Perhaps it is a Chinese way of thinking, sort of feng shui thinking. Every element needs to be harmonized to be perfect. Nobody can be perfect though. I think that this constant negativity helped build the awkward chasm between the mother and daughter.
Technique: Amy Tam creates bold visual pictures with simile. Her description about the men and woman strewn on top of newspapers like dead fish really left me surprised. I thought about the market where salmon and flounders are lined up in the ice with blank eyes. Within the simile, are also ironic word choices. Like hope, victory, and fresh. The vast difference really added to the story by way of contrasting sharply with what really happened
Main: I think the main conflict in this story is between the internal battle of June. She is at battle with the fact that she never knew her mother that well. The aunts are also afraid that their daughters do not understand them. As in the last paragraphs they express their fears. That they don’t understand what joy luck really means. I think they wish that the language barrier was not so great so that the stories they tell don’t have meaning.
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“Searching What was Never Lost"
The Joy Luck Club
1.Reading this chapter, I was stunned at the similarities between my mother and June’s mother, Suyuan, stories. Not the fact that Suyuan left her babies behind, but in order to escape and find freedom, she had to leave everything behind except for the clothes she had on her. Just like my mother’s stories about her brothers who had to escape from the Communists during the Vietnam War. I realized that when my mom tries to tell me stories, she was just trying to past down some of her past, her heritage. After I finished the chapter, I really regret not listening to her. Feeling a bit sad, I did not want to be like June, who was at her mid-30s and barely knew her own mother. What surprised me was her late husband. What happened to him? Suyuan barely said anything about him except that June’s father was not her first husband.
2.The relationship between June and her mother, Suyuan, were misleading and dull. They barely knew one another but deep down, they loved each other very much. When June walked into the room, she instantly knew which seat her mother use to sit in. One could tell she was connected with her mother, as if when her mother past away, a part of her stayed with her daughter. A part of her will always live on inside of her daughter. Then, June said she didn’t “know anything” (31) about her mother. All those years her mother was alive, and yet when someone asked her to tell them about her own mother, she couldn’t come up with a single thing.
3.Amy Tan’s use of flashbacks twisted the story up. Realizing the reader could get confused with her flashbacks, she puts a sign every time she flashes. It was very thought out which made the story flow even more. Her use of words made understanding of the characters more believable. She compared people with five elements. She describes the father with “too much fire” which means he is short tempered. She describes June with “too much water”, making her “flow in too many directions” which describes her as indecisive (19).
4.The main conflict in this chapter was June and herself. Externally, she is searching in hopes of finding out her heritage – and her mother. Through all these years, she had a poor relationship with her mother. Over and over again, she would repeat that her mother would tell her the same story with different endings. Maybe June was too ignorant to understand what her mom was trying to tell her. Now it was too late to find out. I think throughout the book, June will slowly find this lost heritage and her connection with her mother when she visits China, “where things begin.”
1. A Mother’s Secret
2. The Joy Luck Club
3. When reading this chapter, the Joy Luck Club reminds me of my own family. Auntie An-Mei, Auntie Lin, and Auntie Ying would be my aunts, and Suyuan would be my own mother. I think this because Joy Luck Club is a gathering of good friends, kind of like a party. In my family, everyone- men and women eat together and then the men watch football while the women go and gossip about family matters. In Joy Luck, the uncles and aunts eat as a group, and then the men play cards while the ladies leave to another room and play Chinese mah jong. As I read more, I begin to realize how similar Suyuan and my mother are. Like my mom, Suyuan has high expectations for her daughter, Jing-Mei. At the end of page 19, Suyuan says Jing-Mei has “too much water” and “flowed in too many directions” because she has changed her career numerous times. Suyuan also says her daughter never rises because she’s lazy and “lazy to rise to expectations.” Like Suyuan, my mom has accelerated standards for my brothers and me. She wants nothing but the best of us, always raising expectations once we meet the previous one. I think Suyuan doesn’t purposely try to criticize Jing-Mei; but, to motivate her because she only wants the best for her daughter and her daughter’s future.
4. I would describe Auntie Lin and Suyuan’s relationship as rivalrous. On page 27, the book states, “Auntie Lin and my mother were both best friends and arch enemies who spent a lifetime comparing their children.” The relationship is very competitive because the book says Suyuan and Auntie Lin would compare things such as: “the creases in our belly buttons,” and how fast their daughters healed when they scraped their knees.
5. A writing technique Amy Tan uses in the chapter, “The Joy Luck Club,” to improve the story is symbolism. One symbol Tan uses is the East. The East is where her mother came from, the side of the mah jong table Suyuan and Jing-Mei sit at, and where Jing-Mei’s unknown sisters are located. The symbols force the readers to think or reflect on meanings that are much more deeper than they seem.
6. When reading this chapter, I learned a bit about the Chinese culture. One thing that I see is Chinese parents who live in America want their children to have good futures and have high expectations for them. Another thing I learned is mah jong is a highly entertaining game the Chinese enjoy playing.
"The Lucky Ones"
{The Joy Luck Club}
This chapter opens with the death of Suyuan, the mother of Jing- Mei. She tells us how her mother had imigrated from a town full of refugees in Kweilin, China to San Francisco. I'm pretty sure any Asian can relate to the fact that Jing-Mei's mom always tells her stories of how she came to America. I thought of all the times my family told their own imigration stories to me and my sister. They want us to know all the hardships they faced and to make sure we understand how lucky we are to be living in a country where we can express ourselves freely and be judged not by our husbands, but for who we are. I can't imagine how horrible it must've been to live in such a devastating and frightening environment. I think it's incredible that Suyuan and her friends were able to create the Joy Luck Club as a means to escape all the depressing and tragic things that were happening in the War. That for a little while, they were able to pretend everything was all right as they cooked grand feasts, played Mahjong, and swapped stories in the night like girls at a slumber party. I think they were wise and strong to not be engulfed by all the sadness that surrounded them and choose rather to be optimistic and hopeful. Suyuan explained to Jing-Mei the reason of the club's name, "And each week, we could hope to be lucky. That hope was our only joy. And that's how we came to call our little parties Joy Luck." I think all Asian cultures believe in luck and that it would being them happiness or joy. Red and Yellow are the prominent colors during New Years and they stand for Luck. My parents had dogs that were named Lucky and it was a common name for most pets.
Again, I bet any Asian can relate to having parents who are always comparing you to their relative's or friend's sons or daughters. It's always a competition as to who's more successful in everything, from sports to academics. You have to live up to not only expectations from your parents, but you also have to surpass the achievements of others; you have to be the best. And if there's something bad happening in your life, no matter how hard you try to hide it, everyone will eventually know because it gets around by word of mouth.
The way Jing-Mei's Aunties and Uncles all sit around, chat, eat, and play Mah-Jong reminds me of my family and relative's get togethers. It doesn't happen as frequently as theirs, but the atmosphere is always the same. They talk about what's happening in their lives, tell stories, eat peanuts or dried squid (in my family) and laugh about the old times. Old friends revisiting the past together and enjoying the better life, the lucky life. Every time I see them I feel like I'm missing so much of the past. I respect my parents and my relatives so much more for the lives that they lead and think about the person that they were, the person that I never got to know.
Jing-Mei's relationship with her mother is ignorant. Jing-Mei (June) has stated before that "[her] mother and [her] never really understood each other" (27). They hear each other's words but Jing-Mei's not really listening to them like her mother is to hers. It's like they're each on the other side of the world, metaphorically that is. They're two people who love each other but deep down they're really strangers to one another. They might tell stories about their life, and live under the same roof, but they grew up in different places in different time eras. They're not kindred spirits until they fully understand who the other person is.
The techniques Amy Tan uses in this chapter are flashbacks, imagery, and symbolism. The strongest is the flashbacks because it gives us a background behind Suyuan and so then we can better understand the life she lead before she came to America. It indirectly characterizes the relationships betweeen the characters, between Jing-Mei (June) and her mom, and between her mom and her mom's friends. We're able to gain a deeper insight or behind the scenes look in some situations and events that occur. We know how and why certain things come to be.
I think the theme or life lesson in this chapter is we must know the stories of our ancestors and understand the hardships that they faced. If we do, then we will have more appreciation for what they have given us, the joy and luck that they've made for us. Another life lesson would be that we choose our own happiness, we make our own luck in this world. The Joy Luck Club was a club of women who chose to live a life of hopeful joy. Even though in reality there was a War raging on and life seemed like being down a mine with no air or light at the top, they persevered and in the end, they were "the lucky ones" (32).
“A Lifetime Waiting”
The Joy Luck Club
1. The chapter I read is the Joy Luck Club. I found this chapter sort of amusing. I recognized a lot of the things she mentioned such as red bean soup. It was fun for me to be able to say, “Oh, yeah, I know that!” I also enjoyed reading about China and Japan during the war because my grandma also went through that and in a way I am also learning about my grandma. I began to like Jing-Mei Woo’s mom when she created the Joy Luck Club during the war. I think that when situations are as awful as the one she was in, the only thing to do is to make the best of it and try to forget all the awful stuff around you. One of the parts that struck me the most was when the three mothers in the Joy Luck Club in San Francisco were so worried when Jing-Mei said that she did not know her mother. I felt really bad for them because they had given everything they had and had the best intentions for their daughters, but it seemed as though the daughters do not feel particularly grateful or respectful towards their mothers. Not only that, but at least for Jing-Mei she has been trying to sever her connection with Chinese culture and forget about her past. I really empathized with the mothers who were worried that their daughters do not know who they are and will forget everything they have ever stood for.
2. One of the relationships I found slightly comical is between Jing-Mei Woo’s mom and Auntie Lin. These two women are great friends but they are also always competing against one another. They remind me of siblings who love each other, but are also always trying to outdo the other. The adjective that comes to mind when I think about these two women is love-hate. Their subtle rivalry is shown in the beginning of the book when Jing-Mei recounts her conversation between her and her mother. Her mother had said, “Auntie Lin cooked red bean soup for Joy Luck. I’m going to cook Black sesame-seed soup” (5). Jing-Mei had to remind her mother and say, “Don’t show off” (5). Another example of their competiveness is when Jing-Mei remembers how the two mothers would compare their children’s hair, achievements, appetite, and many other things.
3. I appreciate Amy Tan’s word choice in The Joy Luck Club. When she describes Auntie Lin she uses words with a slight negative connotation such as “bragging,” and “comparing” to give the reader the feel that Auntie Lin may not be evil, but she is certainly not a mild and an easy to get a long with person. Also when Jing Mei’s mother describes the city of Kweilin with words like “monstrous,” “strange,” and “beautiful” to show how awe inspiring and great the mountains looked.
4. I think the life lesson to be learned from this chapter is that in the most awful situations we need to learn to bond together and help each other out. Just like the four women in China who were starving and had to take care of their family. They came together and tried to have fun because they knew there was nothing they could do to change anything, so might as well make the best of their situation. The four women in San Francisco also did this. They came together and helped each other out. They were also able to draw strength from one another to help them face their problems.
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“Other Side of the World”
1. At the start of this novel where we learn that Jing-Mei (“June”) Woo’s mother Suyuan has died of a cerebral aneurysm and thirty-six-year-old June is now asked by her father to take her mother’s place in the upcoming meeting of the Joy Luck Club. I found the relationship and bonds that were formed between Suyuan and the other Chinese families whom she first met at the first Chinese Baptist Church were very much in common and had a lot of similarities with my family and their friends. In the story, the Hsus, the Jongs, and the St. Clairs family seem really close to one another looking by how they interact with one another, which is talking in a friendly and caring way, almost as if they’re related to each other. I feel that my family is like theirs because my family is friends with lots of other families and they also consider them as close as family too. Many times, they have little parties at each other’s house and just like how the families in the Joy Luck Club meet to play Mah Jong every meeting, my family always would sing some karaoke with their friends as their way of having fun. Although they are very close to each other, there’s always this sense of rivalry between my family and their friends where one family wants their kid to be better than their friends. While reading this chapter, I find myself drawn to June’s character and can empathize with her on so many levels about the kind of attitude that we harbor towards our relatives. Because June was born and raised in America, she is in some ways disconnected with her Chinese cultural heritage and further on in the chapter she even alludes to the communication troubles she had with her mother: “I can never remember things I didn’t understand in the first place.” That quote struck a cord in me and I felt that I could relate to her in so many ways because I too have felt a sense of loneliness towards my older relatives who speak Vietnamese as their main language. My observation on how June’s aunties is that they treat her like she is still a little kid, not fully matured yet and ignorant of her Chinese culture. Their behavior towards her feels almost patronizing. Because of that I feel that the aunties don’t truly know who June is, just like how June doesn’t really know anything about her heritage too. At the end of the chapter June takes the 1,200 dollar gift from the Joy Luck Club and is going to use it in order to visit her two half-sisters whom she recently discovered she had. To me, I thought that this was like June’s first step that she took towards accepting her cultural heritage, appreciating it finally, and am really excited to see what she’s going to uncover about her past.
2. The relationship between Jing-Mei Woo and her mother, Suyuan is a perfect example of the typical relationship between Asian parents and their child. Asian parents tell their kids to be the best in school no matter what and they always expect their children to get straight A’s. The trouble with that is the parents always push their kids to try harder in order to be better than everyone else and the kids in return don’t receive any encouraging words from them despite all of the hard work that they do. This is shown when Jing-Mei argues with her mother “that parents shouldn’t criticize children. They should encourage instead” and then their kids will have the confidence to pursue their many goals and ambitions. (20)
3. Amy Tan includes a lot of flashbacks which does two important things for the reader. One thing that the flashback about the mom’s many stories from her past that she tells June, each time changing the ending is that they give us a glimpse of June’s mom, Suyuan’s life when she was still alive. The second thing that the flashbacks gives us is some foreshadowing, in which when Suyuan tells June the story of her having to leave Kweilin and eventually abandoning her two baby daughters. This story foreshadows what June later finds out from her aunties and she receives a letter from those two daughters, her half-sisters who are still alive.
4. This chapter is connected back to the allegory from the start of the section because Jing-Mei’s character is very similar to the duck that wished to be a goose but got transformed into a goose. Jing-Mei’s mother, Suyuan is the old woman who hopes that her daughter will be transformed like the duck once she lands in American, where she will “speak only perfect American English…and know [her] meaning” (3). Like the duck, the daughter is ironically transformed into a Chinese-American woman who has become so ignorant and too disconnected with her heritage that she can no longer communicate well with her mother. Her life is changed so much that she can’t revert back to being Chinese, just like the swan that can’t change back into a duck again. When the immigration officials took the swan away from the woman, all what was left was a single feather that relates back to Suyuan and it symbolizes her hopes and cultural heritage that she hoped to pass to her daughter.
-Diana Nguyen ♥
1) “Start of Something New”
2) Joy Luck Club
3) They say that one cannot judge a book by its cover, but that’s exactly what I did. Looking at the cover, I assumed that the story would be boring and too long-winded. After being five or six pages into the chapter, however, I came to realization that I could actually relate with the character Jing-Mei “June” Woo. When I read the allegory at the start of the section, I felt guilty after reading about how Jing-Mei “grew up speaking only English” (Tan 3). Her actions reminded me of myself. As a young child, I remember that I always used to speak my own ethnic language, Cambodian. As I grew older, those Cambodian words and phrases never came from my lips again. I stopped speaking the language entirely and felt accountable for that because I wanted to become more Americanized. When I read about Jing-Mei, I was reminded of my own mother. During car trips, or even when I’m sitting down trying to finish up my homework, my mom tells me stories about her childhood in Cambodia and how she adapted to the living conditions in America. Whenever possible, I would eventually drown her voice out and turn the volume of my iPod just a little louder. As I read Jing-Mei’s story of the Joy Luck Club, I felt as if I was placed in her shoes. I felt like the other women in the Joy Luck Club were scolding me when they said, “Imagine, a daughter not knowing her own mother” (31). That line hit really close to home and I almost shed a tear.
4) The two characters that I would compare from this chapter are Jing-Mei and her mother, Suyuan. Their relationship can be described as “distant”. Even with all the stories that Jing-Mei has heard from her mother, she doesn’t “know anything”, even though “she was [her] mother” (31). In that scene, Jing-Mei said that she’s not going to be able to tell her half-sisters about their mother or her life stories. She came to realization that she has been acting ignorant when her mother spoke to her in Chinese. Now that her mother has passed away, she doesn’t know if she could pick up the broken pieces of their relationship.
5) A writing technique that helped Amy Tan to improve The Joy Luck Club was the use of flashbacks. They were significant to the story because they're the only concrete piece of information that the reader and Jing-Mei have of Suyuan. Some of the flashbacks also gave some foreshadowing to the rest of the story. Suyuan mentioned that she had to abandon her two babies in Kweilin. From that line, I figured that Jing-Mei and those babies would eventually find their way to each others’ lives.
6) I learned different things about Chinese culture that I never knew before reading this vignette. I learned about what their traditional meals were. I also learned about a bit of mannerisms that Chinese people have. For instance, if a person wishes to leave, it is polite to encourage the person to stay even if you don’t want them to. I also noticed how the Chinese women in the Joy Luck Club were very cautious about have clean things, such as food and having good hygiene. I also became aware that many Chinese parents, like my own, are very competitive when it came to education and their children.
Raymond Yeh
1. The Inheritance
2. The Joy Luck Club
3. My first reaction was how well Amy Tan portrays the Chinese characters. They speak both Mandarin Chinese and broken English, making them feel like real authentic Chinese immigrants. She also vividly describes the setting and way that the characters interact with each other at the Joy Luck Club. The foods, sights, and smells Tan mentions were so well illustrated that you can almost taste, see, and smell the scene. When the chapter goes into a flashback about June’s mother, I felt sorry for all the hardships that she had to go through. I was actually surprised that she abandoned her children and continued on by herself. If she really did care about her children, she should have rested for awhile. They were just moving from one city to another; it was not as if the Japanese were deliberately trying to hunt them down. I also thought it was kind of unfortunate for the mother to have searched for her daughter for many years and die just after finding out their address.
4. It seems that June and her mother did not get along with each other very well. Her mother had come to America in hopes of raising a perfect daughter. She kept on pushing June and compared her with other mothers’ daughters. June seems to think that she did not a strong relationship with her mother because she “had an unspoken understanding about things (27).” In reality though, June’s mother had always loved her the way she was. She had left June two of her most treasured belongings: her two twin daughter.
5. Tan uses a lot of flashbacks in this chapter. They mainly tell us background information about June’s mother, Suyuan Woo. Knowing more about her past can tell us why she acted the way she did during the present. It gives us a better image of the character and adds a lot more depth.
6. Tan is able to flawlessly weave many aspects of Chinese culture into the story. One of the most visible elements is the game of mah jong. We learn that it is a gambling game and played using mah jong pai’s on a hongmu table. Players also have to say phrases such as “Pung!” and “Chr!” and exclaim “ai ya!” as an expression of frustration, annoyance, or anger. We also learn a bit about Chinese history when Tan describes the Japanese invasion and bombing of the city of Kweilin.
1. “Surprising Truths”
2. “The Joy Luck Club”
3. In this chapter, I learned of Suyuan Woo’s past and about the Joy Luck Club through the eyes of Jing-mei “June” Woo. Suyuan’s death was only 2 months prior, and immediately June was called by her father to replace Suyuan at the Mahjong table. Mahjong was the game that the female club members played to entertain themselves and share stories, events, and thoughts of that week. June is trying very hard to become a substitute for her mother at the club. At the beginning of the chapter, I discovered Suyuan had died. It started the whole book off on a sad note. Amy Tan mentioned that the week before Suyuan died, she was about to cook some black sesame-seed soup for the club’s next meeting. It gave me a sort of personal connection with her because my aunt makes terrific black sesame-seed soup, so I kind of integrated my aunt’s personality with Suyuan in my mind. Then I realized again she was dead, and I felt very sorrowful for her death. As I continue on I learn some of Suyuan’s characteristics, such as her dreams about Kweilin and her escape to Kweilin in order to evade the Japanese soldiers invading China. I enjoyed reading her dream of the beauty that Kweilin possessed, but I was heartbroken like her when she arrived there only to have the beautiful area destroyed by the masses of refugees from all around Kweilin swarming in. Her story of the making of the Joy Luck Club seemed illogical and greedy to me. It reminded me of Marie Antoinette’s spending on luxurious items while all around her in France people were starving to death. They should have saved the money or gave it to others who desperately needed food. It gave me the impression that Suyuan was so scared she went insane. After she left Kweilin, the journey to Chunking was difficult for her and her 2 babies. After the wagon carrying her possessions broke, she continued on with her children and had clothing and food carried in each hand. She could not continue with the burden that she carried, so she left all the things and arrived at Chungking with some silk dresses. I expected her to have brought the baby, but when June asked her what happened to the babies, her simple statement that “Your father is not my first husband. You are not those babies” (14) shocked me. It made her seem like a cold uncaring mother, completely contradicting my first impression of her. Next the story returns to June arriving at the Joy Luck Club meeting. Throughout the scene where June is at the Joy Luck Club, I had a strange and uncomfortable feeling that nobody really cared for Suyuan. Even her friends in the club didn’t seem to care. As I approached the end of the chapter, I discovered that Suyuan received word that her lost daughters were found and she was going to pay them a visit, but died before she could depart for China. The female members of the Joy Luck Club donated money to June so she could visit her lost sisters in China. I thought that it was their token of goodwill and loving memory to Suyuan by giving her daughter June the money to visit June’s long lost sisters, but it turns out they were just afraid that their own children will be like June, becoming distant to their parents. They wanted her to care for her family like their hopes for their own children. It made my blood boil because my last hope that someone cared for this sometimes warm yet realistic mother was shattered by the other female club members’ fear for their own loneliness.
4. June and Suyuan had a sometimes close and sometimes distant relationship. The mother and daughter were close because June remembers something Suyuan told her and she thought that “my (June’s) mother never told anybody but me this shameful story of Auntie An-mei’s greedy family” (26). They were secrets Suyuan didn’t tell her other friends in the club but only to June. On the other hand, they were distant because June plainly stated that “My (June’s) mother and I never really understood one another”(27).
5. Amy Tan loved to use flashbacks in this chapter. Most of the things we learned about Suyuan were through June’s flashbacks of tales that Suyuan told her. We learn of the reason her life in China was destroyed by the Japanese, her tale of coming to the United States, and a tale of An-mei Hsu. Imagery also was used so that when I read the section where Suyuan was in Kweilin and went on her journey to Chungking, I felt I was in her same condition of hardships and in her shoes during the long grueling journey to Chungking. I also felt like a member of the Joy Luck Club when I read about the club’s meeting because of her writing incorporated with imagery.
6. b) The main conflict in the story is human vs. society. I think so because while June doesn’t want to be in the Joy Luck club, she is forced to by her dad to replace her mom. The society, in this case the Joy Luck Club and its members, all have thoughts that are different from hers. She does not know Chinese culture as well as the club members do. Even though she was involuntarily chosen to be her mother’s replacement, she tries really hard to take her mother’s spot, and to do so, she has to be more like her and the rest of the members of the Joy Luck Club.
1. A Different Truth Unveiled
2. Feathers from a Thousand Li Away “Jing-mei Woo: The Joy Luck Club”
3. Although this was just the very first chapter, the content was deep and it pulled me in to try to find more understanding. Unlike Jing-mei (June) Woo, I’ve actually always known quite a bit about my parents, their life and where they come from having visited Vietnam numerous times myself. Stories that my mommy and daddy have told me swam in the cramped pool at the back of my mind. Although they never seemed of great importance to me just then, they all had a lesson, a reason for being told. Jing-mei may not have understood the reasons of her mother’s stories, at least not until it was too late. That was what made me really sad. Jing-mei regrets not having learned more about her own mother. Unlike her sisters, Suyuan was someone Jing-mei knew all her life, yet she did no better of learning from Suyuan than a complete stranger because even she doubted her own knowledge. It can be implied that she later pitied her mother for not being able to fulfill her last wish of finding her long-lost daughters back in China. It was just like the time that my mother told me (five years after I quit piano) that learning how to play the piano was her childhood dream, but it was never fulfilled because her family was too poor to support that wish. It gave me the feeling that I could have done more, more to make her proud because she was able to let me to take piano lessons. Although she didn’t say it, I know I disappointed her by saying that I wanted to quit.
New questions arose as I finished this chapter. I wondered about things like why didn’t Jing-mei’s mother tell her earlier about the two babies she had left behind? Why not pour all of her thoughts out if it meant that she will give her own daughter a full understanding about her troubles? Will Jing-mei be able to find the two sisters that she has never known and be able to tell them all about her great mother that she never fully understood herself?
4. Jing-mei and her mother, Suyuan, have a somewhat shallow relationship. Again, it doesn’t seem as though they understood or were open to each other enough. Each had her own secret. Like Suyuan, she kept the story about her two lost daughters to herself and didn’t talk about what bothered her until much later. Jing-mei disappoints her mother by her indecisiveness. She ditches one degree in a specific subject for another only to leave that one too. Jing-mei didn’t spend the time to talk to her mother. It was usually her mother talks and she listened. She “never thought [her] mother’s Kweilin story was anything but a Chinese fairy tale,” (12). It could be implied that she didn’t take the time and didn’t have the interest to ask her mother for the true story since the “endings always changed” (12).
5. In this chapter, Amy Tan used the technique of flashbacks most often. It enabled the reader to learn about Suyuan Woo indirectly through her daughter, Jing-mei Woo. It gives us the impression that we were there listening to the stories of Kweilin that Suyuan told. It gives us background and personality facts about the person who raised Jing-mei and who started the “Joy Luck” club. Flashbacks such as those that Tan used improve the story because it provides an unusual interest in the story. It kind of gave the impression that I was being told a story. Another very important technique I noticed tan use was symbolism. “East was referred to many times in the story, from when Jing-mei first decided where her mother once sat at the mah jong table and at the end of the chapter where she says “and I am sitting at the mah jong table, on the East, where things began,” (32). The “East” refers to China, where Suyuan cam from. It improves the story because it creates a somewhat parallel structure. Her mother can be compared to “China” which is in the east. Her mother sits on the east side of the mah jong table. China was where Suyuan was born. Her mother was the one who stated the joy luck club.
6. This chapter is connected to the allegory in the beginning of the section because they both have someone who immigrated to America from China seeking for a better future. Suyuan is that old lady and her daughter did indeed “[swallow] more Coca-Cola than sorrow” (3). Jing-mei didn’t experience the troubles that her mother faced and therefore didn’t car much about the stories that her mother told her. The feather represents the fact that Suyuan’s two lost daughters were still alive. Suyuan wanted to tell her family about rediscovering the existence of her two daughters, but she waited… She waited not to tell her daughter in perfect American English, but she waited until it was too late
The Messenger Needed
The Joy Luck Club
1.My reaction is that the story is sad but had funny moments that lightened up the mood. When I read this chapter, I felt sorry for Suyuan for having to lose everything precious to her and leaving her two babies in the process to being free. The part I enjoyed about this chapter was how her “aunties” made jokes and they seemed more lively then the rest of them. I was confused throughout the story for short time, but then I got on track and realized that June was in her mid-30. Before I read the book, in my mind it appeared to me as the main character would be a young child but I guess it did not turn out the way I expected. The question I have is how do the babies she abandoned feel and what must they think of their mother?
2.The relationship between June and Suyuan were distant yet close. I feel it is distance because June says “I don’t know anything. She was my mother”(31). It seemed they were close since Suyuan would always like to tell June about her stories showing she enjoyed to interact with June in some way.
3.A technique Amy Tan uses is flashback. The flashback helped me picture what was it was like and how the setting is like with signs indicating when it was going to appear It allows the reader to understand Suyuan and how some events came to happen with these flashbacks.
4.When I read this, I learned about the Chinese culture. I learn how June’s mother would always compare her to other parents child showing Chinese parents have high expectations for their children so they would have a good future. I also learned “mah-jong” is a game that they gambled and enjoyed playing.
“Rising of the New East”
The Joy Luck Club
1. This is an amazing opening chapter to the book. I love how it is an easy read and how well everything flows. The information given leaves one feeling a mixture of emotions and one is also able to dream up detailed images of what had been. The story that Suyuan Woo constantly tells Jing-mei about Kweilin with the “changed” ending left me feeling sorrowful and sympathetic. It is sad to hear how Suyuan left her two daughters to the side of the road and lost her husband to the war and basically had to start a new life from scratch again. The descriptions Amy Tan gives about the atmosphere when Jing-mei is at the Joy Luck Club meeting makes the readers feel as if they are present. I thought it was pretty awesome how there were also Chinese words included throughout the text such as “hong mu” because I actually knew what Tan was referring to.
2. Suyuan Woo and her daughter, Jing-mei, have a semi-distant relationship with each other because of miscommunication and assumptions. Although they talk to each other and share stories, sometimes one does not understand the other and tells others a different story. It may mostly be because Suyuan speaks Chinese and Jing-mei speaks English that causes these misunderstandings. When Jing-mei is asked about school from her auntie, it threw her off because she was not attending school anymore and concluded that her mother must have told her that she was since Suyuan wanted Jing-mei to go back to school. There is another scene where the aunties ask Jing-mei to go back to China to tell her sisters about their mom and she responds with, “What can I tell them about my mother? I don’t know anything.” This shows that even though Suyuan was Jing-mei’s mother, they did not bond enough to leave anything memorable or lasting for Jing-mei to tell others about her. Major distance is shown between them too when Jing-mei was not fully accepted by her mother since Suyuan once said, “ You don’t even know little percent of me! How can you be me?” in response to Jing-mei’s comment about how others say how much the two look alike.
3. Amy Tan used many techniques in the first vignette but the two that improved the story the most were flashbacks and symbolism. The flashbacks used from Suyuan’s past really helped one comprehend and realize how hard life was back in China. It also gave good background information as to how Suyuan was affected from her experiences and how others jumped to the conclusion that she died because of her depressing thoughts. The symbol of the direction East connected to Suyuan helped the vignette flow as well which made for a perfect ending.
4. I think the main conflict in this chapter is how Jing-mei is hesitant to take the position of her mother in the Joy Luck Club because she does not really know anything about her. This is an external conflict dealing with human versus self. Jing-mei hits reality numerous times throughout the chapter of how she knows nothing about her mother and is nothing like her. From not knowing how to play mah jong , to not having any good lasting impressions of her mother to share, Jing-mei wonders if she is the right person to take Suyuan’s place. She had the choice of not attending the meeting but ends up taking the offer and going anyway because she feels obligated to since her father told her and the aunties need a fourth person to play with.
Per. 7 Peter thai sorry for posting again
1. "The Fourth Corner"
2. The Joy Luck Club
3. This vignette was well written and I enjoyed reading every page! I liked the word choices that Amy Tan used to describe Suyuan’s story of Kweilin. While I was reading the story, I felt as if I was walking in Suyuan’s shoes. I was able to imagine every word Tan wrote on page 13. I was stunned when I read that Suyuan was forced to leave China and come to a new country to start her life afresh. It must have been hard to leave most of her valuable belongings, such as her daughters, behind. I don’t know how I would live without my belongings and then go into an unknown country knowing that I might not ever go back to my homeland.
I also like the idea of the Joy Luck Club because it served as a small utopia to the members of that club especially since the atmosphere during that time was very critical. It must have been interesting to sit with your friends in a place full of laughter, where all troubles were erased. It brought a smile onto my face when I read page 12. It was amazing how a small meeting wiped the sorrow and misery off many people’s faces. Despite the happiness in the Joy Luck Club, there was also despair and chaos outside those walls. I was sickened when I read that “…arms and legs hang[ed] from telephone wires and starving dogs [ran] down the streets with half-chewed hands dangling from their jaws” (pg. 12). This line was so depressing and I was horrified by the thought of people having to eat rats and garbage to survive. The Joy Luck Club was a pillar of friendship and happiness and it was astonishing how they were able to discard the horrific situations around them.
4. Usually the bondage between a mother and daughter is very strong, but Jing-mei and her mother, Suyuan Woo, have a very distant relationship. Jing-mei realizes the distance between their relationship when she finds out that her mother lied to Auntie Line about her going back to school to get a doctorate. Jing-mei also admits the fact that “[her mother] and [her] never really understood one another” (page 27). Another scene where the distance between their relationship is shown is where Jing-mei feels that her mother’s criticism is detrimental, where as Suyuan feels that criticism is healthy. The gap between their relationship is most likely due to their different generations. Jing-mei grew up in modernized America, while her mother, Suyuan, was raised in a traditional Chinese society.
5. Amy Tan used flashbacks to help her audience understand what was currently happening in the chapter. She also used foreshadowing in her flashbacks to highlight important events that were going to occur later in the chapter. An example of this is when Suyuan speaks of her two lost infants, and later in the chapter they are found when Jing-mei receives a letter from her aunts regarding her older sisters.
6. In order to connect between two different generations, one has to understand the other person’s perspective. The theme of this chapter is shown when Jing-mei realizes that her Chinese heritage needs to be passed down in order for it to be preserved. She did not understand the importance of her mother’s values and beliefs, until she was gone. Jing-mei shows that one should try to retain as much of their heritage as they can before it is too late.
Michelle Vu
Period.07
1. The East, Where Things Begin
2. The Joy Luck Club
3. First off, this chapter was a bit confusing. It starts off with the fact that Jing-Mei's mother had died. Then it goes into the stories her mother told her about her life in China. Jing-Mei's mother, Suyuan, traveled to Kweilin because of the war. She described the hills of Kweilin as looking like "fried fish heads," then calls them beautiful. What??? Then we find out about how the Joy Luck Club started and why. It was pretty interesting. However, Suyuan ended up having to leave Kweilin for Chungking because it wasn't safe anymore. On her way the Chungking, we find out she had to leave her two daughters. That was surprising! I was pretty much appalled at the thought of two abandoned babies. Then the story moves back to present time. Jing-Mei and her father are at the Hsus's. She takes her mother's place in the Joy Luck Club. Everyone seems to get along, although the mothers seem to have some friendly competition. They like to compare their children. Jing-Mei joins her "aunties" at the mah jong table and immediately knows that her mother's side was the East. I thought that was cool, at least she knows some things about her mother. After they play for a while, before Jing-Mei leaves, the aunts tell her that her mother wanted to find her lost daughters and that they had an address. I was shocked that the babies had survived. Did someone find them and raised them? Wasn't everyone having a hard time? How did they manage to take care of the babies?
4. Jing-mei & Suyuan
I guess you could say they were kind of distant. I mean, they were mother and daughter but they spoke mostly different languages and didn't always understand each other. Jing-Mei spoke to her mother in English and Suyuan responded in Chinese and some broken English. Suyuan told her daughter a lot of stories about her past, but it seems like Jing-Mei didn't really grasp what her mother was trying to tell her or teach her. However, after her mother's death, I think Jing-Mei will try harder to embrace her Chinese heritage.
5. Amy Tan uses a lot of flashbacks in this chapter, mainly because Suyuan had already died and the reader needs to know more about her and what her life was like. The first half of the chapter was basically the story of Suyuan in Kweilin, China and how she started the Joy Luck Club. Tan also uses foreshadowing. In the very beginning of the chapter, it said Suyuan "died just like a rabbit: quickly and with unfinished business left behind." At first I was a bit confused because I didn't know what the unfinished business was and how it had anything to do with a rabbit. However, by the end of the chapter I find out that Suyuan wanted to find her two lost daughters before she died, so that explains the unfinished business part. I still don't understand the rabbit thing...
6. (d) In the allegory at the beginning of the chapter, the mother wanted to tell her daughter about the feather and her good intentions in "perfect American English." However, she kept waiting until she could, but that day never came. The chapter relates to this allegory because Jing-Mei and Suyuan also had a difference in the languages they spoke. Suyuan's English was never perfect and Jing-Mei's Chinese wasn't that great. There were probably a lot of things Suyuan wanted to tell her daughter, but never could. Both stories show the difference between the mother and the American-born daughter.
Dan Truong
Period 06
A Lingering Bitterness
(On "The Joy Luck Club")
3) I thought that the first chapter in Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club was likely to be one of the most important chapters in the book, because it shared the same title as the book. I thought it was a little difficult to express my reactions to the first chapter because there was not a lot to react to.
My first reaction to how Jing-Mei's mother tells her stories about her past was feeling empathetic. My mother always finds time while stuck in traffic, or even during a 10-minute ride on the way to school, to pass on a story about my relatives or a story about big events that happened to her in the past. A lot of the times I can tell that she changed the story around so it has a moral ending. I do differ from Jing-Mei though, because I actually enjoy listening to these stories and if it is the first time I’ve heard the story told I usually learn from it. Another thing I felt I could relate to were Jing-Mei’s “family” that mainly consisted of friends who shared the same difficulties back in China. Although they are friends and find joy within each other, there is still a lot of disapproval going on between the mothers. Jing-Mei’s mother especially shows this through her actions; she seems to be “always displeased” (19) with all of her friends and everybody else. I felt annoyed throughout the story with the bitterness of Jing-Mei’s mother. From what Jing-Mei says, she seems to spite everyone for everything they do, allowing the ghost of her past to still linger and spur her irritation.
4) I felt that Jing-Mei’s relationship with her mother was a wreck. Jing-Mei was only able to speak English, while her mother was fluent only in Chinese. I think that miscommunication was the main cause of their confusing relationship. The scene where Jing-Mei questions her mother about Jewish mah jong illustrates these misunderstandings between the two.
5) Word choice was definitely a writing technique that Tan used in her novel. Instead of directly telling the reader Jing-Mei’s thoughts about her Chinese heritage, Tan reveals them through her word choice. This improves the story because it allows the reader to think more. An example would be when she labels her mother and Auntie An-mei’s Chinese dresses as “funny” and “strange”. She also compares the Joy Luck meetings to “secret gathering[s] of the Ku Klux Klan” (16) and is shameful about them.
Tan also uses flashbacks as a writing technique. As an alternative to simply stating how Jing-mei’s mother was like, her character can be indirectly developed through her words and actions in the flashbacks. These flashbacks also enhance the story by giving the Joy Luck Club a background.
6c) What I liked about this book was that the story not only included humor and had an interesting plot, it taught me a few things about Chinese culture. I found out what China was like during the Japanese War. I learned that people were forced to leave their homes and precious treasure along the way, leaving many homeless and poor. I also learned of some of the dishes that the Chinese eat. I saw how competitive people to each other.
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Bye!
“The East: Where the Sun Rises, Where the Wind Originates, Where Things Begin”
The Joy Luck Club
1.As I read the first chapter, “The Joy Luck Club”, I was immediately drawn to the story. Perhaps it’s the similarities I share with June, knowing the expectations, the customs, the hardships, the ways of life, and Chinese culture in general. The way their different families bonded together or grieved for close ones was a lot like my own family and their family friends. When Auntie Lin made comments about “Jewish mah jong” (33), I was immediately reminded of my own family members and the dislikes for anything that was not Chinese. Maybe it is because I am born in America that I find there is no difference between things that are “Chinese” and things that are not. And then, when June realizes that her aunties were “frightened” because they “saw their own daughters” in her, “just as ignorant,” or “impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese” and “think they’re stupid when they explain things in fractured English” (40), I thought of my own relationship with my mother. Everything that was mentioned was the perfect description of the relationship between me and my mother. I feel that, perhaps, June’s relationship with her mother is not only a reflection of Amy Tan’s relationship with her mother, but a reflection of mine as well.
However, I do not understand what June’s father meant when he said that “she was killed by her own thoughts” and how a new idea could have possibly grew too big and burst. Is he referring to Suyuan Woo’s cerebral aneurysm to an ancient Chinese saying?
2.June Woo and her mother, Suyuan, seem to have that stereotypical Asian mother-daughter relationship. I’d call their relationship normal. From what June recalls, her mother had always “compared the creases in our belly buttons, how shapely our earlobes were, how fast we healed when we scraped our knees, how thick and dark our hair, how many shoes we wore out in on year, and later, how smart Waverly was at playing chess, how many trophies she had won last month, how many newspapers had printed her name, how many cities she had visited.” Like those stereotypical Asian parent-child relationships, Suyuan would boast about her child and compare her to Waverly Jong. And if when June fell short of her expectations or could not compare to Waverly , Suyuan would push her harder and harder, trying to “cultivate some hidden genius” (38) in June by forcing her to learn piano. June has the rebellious attitude towards her mom, and they simply did not understand each others’ needs. These relationships between mother and daughter or parent and child are still very common in our society, so I find June and her mother’s relationship very typical and ordinary.
3.Amy Tan’s use of flashbacks heavily influences the flow of the first vignette. Through flashbacks, she is able to give some background information on Suyuan and her life in China. Because Suyuan has already passed away, the only way to portray her challenges before she arrived in America is through the use of flashbacks. By adding flashbacks, Tan is allowing her readers to experience Suyuan’s difficulties first-hand without having someone else just frankly stating what happened. Using flashbacks also helps explain the real reason behind the founding of the Joy Luck Club, how the aunties met, and how June factors into all of this.
4.In this first chapter, “The Joy Luck Club,” I believe that the life lesson Amy Tan is trying to teach her readers is that, “Communication is the key to success.” Throughout this chapter, June and her mother do not understand each other. June even says that she and her mother “never really understood each other” (37). This problem arises not only because of the different wants and needs that the mother and daughter have, but also because of their separation in languages. June said she could “never remember things [she] didn’t understand in the first place” (19) when she tried to explain the Chinese expressions her mother had said when she was comparing the two soups. Due to problems in their communication, their relationship as parent and child did not succeed. Even in society today, communication is a problem and only once that problem is overcome can we truly succeed.
1. “My Mother’s Fairy Tale”
2. “The Joy Luck Club”
3. I thought this chapter was an excellent start to the story. The author gave us just about enough background information for us to understand what is happening, but to still keep us wanting to know more. From the very beginning, I felt a connection with Jing-Mei. She is constantly hearing her mother’s story of leaving her home country, even though she has heard it countless times before. My mother does the same thing. Whenever I’m around, she tends to retell her story about escaping from Vietnam and how fortunate we are to already live here. What I wonder is why did Suyuan always change the ending of her story? And when she told her story about arriving to Kweilin, why did she say she laughed and shuddered as she saw the hills? Was it because she thought it was beautiful and she finally reached it? Or was it not exactly what she expected? Another similarity I found was how I call my parent’s close family friends “aunt” and “uncle” too, even if they are not directly related to me. Like Jing-Mei, they are like family, yet they do not exactly know me. They always ask me what grade I am in and always seem to think I’m older than I really am. When I heard that Suyuan had two other daughters that she left behind, it made me curious about why she left them. And in what conditions? Did she leave them on the side of the road like Jing-Mei thought? Or did she give them to someone? Lastly, it gave me a warm feeling to know that Suyuan had true friends who were willing to come together and use their money in order for Jing-Mei to go to Hong Kong to find her half-sisters. It shows that they really cared for her and just wanted her to get her wish.
4. From this chapter, it is obvious that Jing-Mei and Suyuan have a typical Asian mother to American daughter relationship. I would say that they are “misunderstood” by one another. When Jing-Mei says that she “[felt] my mother and I spoke two different languages” (23) it showed how she would say and mean one thing, while her mother translated it into something completely different. Suyuan expects Jing-Mei to go far in life and to go back to school, yet she criticizes her and says she is “lazy to rise to expectations” (20). Suyuan could see that as her way of convincing her into going back to school, but Jing-Mei could see it as an insult. They both interpret things differently.
5. In this chapter, Amy Tan uses a number of flashbacks. I think it improves the story because it helps the reader understand more about the past and how it affects the future. These flashbacks help us to go back in time with Suyuan and witness all her pain and agony, with the escape from home. It shows us what she values in her life and why she thrives for Jing-Mei to have a good life.
6. I think the main conflict in this chapter is human vs. self, which is what Jing-Mei deals with internally. Not only does she have to deal with her mother’s death, but she has to decide whether or not she wants to take her spot in The Joy Luck Club. Jing-Mei also feels that she does not know her own mother like a daughter should. When she says “I don’t know anything. She was my mother” (31) I think she realizes how little she is connected with her mother. At the end of the chapter, Jing-Mei learns that she has two half-sisters, which could be a lot to handle. She has to understand that her mother her other daughters before herself, and that they are back in China. Jing-Mei has to deal with the fact that she must go back to Hong Kong and tell them everything about their mother, yet she claims she knows barely anything at all.
“The East: Where Things Begin”
The Joy Luck Club
1. I thought this chapter was very relatable. I see many similarities between my mother-daughter relationship and Jing-Mei Woo’s. I feel a strong connection between Jing-Mei Woo and myself. As with Suyuan and Jing-Mei, my mother and I, being from different generations, don’t really understand one another. Her beliefs often correlate with those of a traditional Indian society, while mine are more modern and Americanized. When Jing-Mei described how she used psychology to try to explain to her mother why criticism is detrimental to children, and that instead parents should use encouragement, I found my self remembering a conversation with my own mother in which I had said the exact same things! And my mother, like Jing-Mei’s, felt that the criticism was healthy, and that the only way to get me to rise to her expectations was to raise them too high, so that I might reach her real expectations, which were lower. Needless to say, I felt a strong link between Jing-Mei and myself. Another link I felt is that even though Jing-Mei is not related to her “aunties,” she still refers to them as such. I myself call and older woman or man “auntie” or “uncle.” I feel this is a sign of respect to an older generation, as well as an endearment. Like Jing-Mei, I feel the pressure of living up to my mother’s expectations. Mothers expect much, and when one fails to meet those expectations, it is often very disappointing. Another thing I connected with is when Jing-Mei talked about Auntie An-Mei had to bring so many things for her relatives in China. When my mother and my siblings went to India, we brought a large suitcase full of presents for all of my cousins. I found it kind of pointless because almost everything we brought could have been bought over there. But my mother felt that she should give everyone something since it was her first time returning to India in five years. Another scene that resonated with me was when Suyuan spoke of her past to Jing-Mei. It made me realize just how easy I have it here in America. In America, we are free to pursue our own happiness, however that may be. I also have a great family that loves me, and a really easy life. In comparison to Suyuan, my problems seem like nothing. Reading this chapter has made me feel a new appreciation for my life.
2. The relationship between Jing-Mei and Suyuan Woo seems to be detached. Their relationship is one based on incomprehension and gaps. Neither mother nor daughter understands each other. The gap between their generations serves as an effective barrier to any attempts at comprehension. This is shown where Jing-Mei realizes she and her mother “never really understood one another. [They] translated each other’s meanings and [she] seemed to hear less that what was said, while her mother seemed to hear more” (27). Because their lives were so different, Jing-Mei and her mother cannot communicate effectively, and there cannot be any attachments between them because there is no appreciation of one another’s abilities and experiences.
3. Amy Tan uses a lot of is flashbacks. This enhances the story because you really get a sense of how the character thought and felt while going through that experience. This is also important because, since Suyuan is gone, there is not really an opportunity to get to know her. Since Suyuan cannot physically tell her story, Tan uses Jing-Mei to tell it through flashbacks. With flashbacks, the reader can really understand Suyuan’s thoughts and feelings.
4. One of the themes of “The Joy Luck Club” is that the way to bridge the gap between two generations is through understanding. Jing-Mei, who recognizes the mother-daughter gap from both perspectives, is an excellent example of this. At the end of the chapter she realizes that her aunts “see daughters who will bear grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from generation to generation” (31). In her understanding of both her own generation, and that of her mother’s, she effectively bridges the gap between the two generations and preserves her heritage.
1. “A Mother’s Untold Story“
2. The Joy Luck Club
3. I have been played the guilt card! Reading this chapter reminds me of my own mother, of all the sacrifices she made for me and what we have now. The thought of how the mother slowly dropped everything on her journey to Chungking, trying to live and prevail in hopes of raising a family someday. Then there was the scene when Jing-mei’s mother could no longer endure the pain bestowed on upon her sore body, thus leaving her with the decision of abandoning her young infants. Even after many years, the mother still carries the burden of abandoning her babies, leaving her to try to find them once more. I also find myself similar to Jing-mei. Being forced to attend family gatherings with old uncles who snore louder than thunder and loud aunts who talk as if the crowd is all death is a very awkward and uttermost uncomfortable situation to be in. I too, do not feel as though I belong among my fellow relatives, even though they are my blood and skin. Like Jing-mei, I too have been told countless stories of my mother’s past and childhood years. I could remember them clearly, each have a life-lesson in particular. My mother would always bring these stories up when I did something wrong. She wanted to teach me something and also show me how different she had it when she was my age. I really did not bother to care for them until now. Like Jing-mei’s mother’s death, I do not want to regret any of it because I want to be happy and satisfied with my own mother.
4. I think there was competitiveness between Auntie Lin and Auntie An-mei as the mah jong game was occurring. Auntie Lin putted down Auntie An-mei with her story about China and their wealth, knowing that Auntie An-mei had a bad experience in the past with money and visiting China. As Auntie Lin’s story progressed, Auntie An-mei started to feel more and more ashamed and foolish. (24-26)
5. Amy Tan did a terrific job of flashback between in between the chapter. Through her flashbacks did we learn more about the story, plot, and even the characters. Flashing back also allowed the foreshadowing of Suyuan Woo’s infant daughters and how they were revealed in the end of the chapter.
6. This chapter brings us back to the allegory of how the mother lost her swan and all she had left was a feather, the feather being the stories and knowledge told by Suyuan to her daughter, Jing-mei. The swan would represent the items and things left behind or abandoned by the mother through her journey to America. In the end of the allegory, the mother gave the daughter the swan feather. In the story, Suyuan explained her journey from Kweilin to Chungkin and all her lost possessions and hard sacrifices.
1. “A Mother’s Untold Story“
2. The Joy Luck Club
3. I have been played the guilt card! Reading this chapter reminds me of my own mother, of all the sacrifices she made for me and what we have now. The thought of how the mother slowly dropped everything on her journey to Chungking, trying to live and prevail in hopes of raising a family someday. Then there was the scene when Jing-mei’s mother could no longer endure the pain bestowed on upon her sore body, thus leaving her with the decision of abandoning her young infants. Even after many years, the mother still carries the burden of abandoning her babies, leaving her to try to find them once more. I also find myself similar to Jing-mei. Being forced to attend family gatherings with old uncles who snore louder than thunder and loud aunts who talk as if the crowd is all death is a very awkward and uttermost uncomfortable situation to be in. I too, do not feel as though I belong among my fellow relatives, even though they are my blood and skin. Like Jing-mei, I too have been told countless stories of my mother’s past and childhood years. I could remember them clearly, each have a life-lesson in particular. My mother would always bring these stories up when I did something wrong. She wanted to teach me something and also show me how different she had it when she was my age. I really did not bother to care for them until now. Like Jing-mei’s mother’s death, I do not want to regret any of it because I want to be happy and satisfied with my own mother.
4. I think there was competitiveness between Auntie Lin and Auntie An-mei as the mah jong game was occurring. Auntie Lin putted down Auntie An-mei with her story about China and their wealth, knowing that Auntie An-mei had a bad experience in the past with money and visiting China. As Auntie Lin’s story progressed, Auntie An-mei started to feel more and more ashamed and foolish. (24-26)
5. Amy Tan did a terrific job of flashback between in between the chapter. Through her flashbacks did we learn more about the story, plot, and even the characters. Flashing back also allowed the foreshadowing of Suyuan Woo’s infant daughters and how they were revealed in the end of the chapter.
6. This chapter brings us back to the allegory of how the mother lost her swan and all she had left was a feather, the feather being the stories and knowledge told by Suyuan to her daughter, Jing-mei. The swan would represent the items and things left behind or abandoned by the mother through her journey to America. In the end of the allegory, the mother gave the daughter the swan feather. In the story, Suyuan explained her journey from Kweilin to Chungkin and all her lost possessions and hard sacrifices.
Johnny Chu
Period 7
1. The Rising Sun
2. The Joy Luck Club
3. In this chapter we learn about June or Jing-Mei and the death of her mother. June feels that she doesn’t know anything about her heritage since she was born and raised in America. The worse thing is that she doesn’t even really know Chinese leading to the miscommunication between mother and daughter. It was the day that the members of the joy luck come together and get reunited. As June plays Mah Jong with the joy luck aunties she learns a lot about her mother. The shocking thing is that her mother actually had other kids that were left behind during the Japanese invasion. It comes to me that why would a mother leave their children behind. This scenario usually does not happen no matter what since children are literally the most important thing to mothers. Every weekend the aunties and uncles of the Joy Luck Club would come together and reunite to tell each other what happened. It seems to be like a formal meeting at first because there is actually a president of the club that announces things. After that they would just casually talk and then they would play Mah Jong and cards.
4. The relationships between the aunties and June are very close. They would talk a lot and not stop while playing Mah Jong. However, the children of the aunties all have husbands and are around 20-30 years old. Everyone in the Joy Luck are close together and have great times together. Auntie An-Mei’s relatives were all greedy and wasted her 9000 dollars causing her to regret going back. They did not really care if she came back to china or not, but they only cared for the money she brought along. Now June will soon go back to Shanghai to go find her long lost siblings. Their relationships and ties are not close since it would be their first time meeting together.
5. Amy Tan uses the view of third person to tell the story. She used it for June telling her mother’s story. This technique uses another character to tell someone else’s story.
6c. In Chinese culture everyone has close ties. They are very casual as in they talk to each other loudly. The Chinese people love to play Mah Jong especially the women since they can gossip while they talk. On the other hand men like to play cards.
(If you can't figure it out, think name game 7th period)
"Not the first. . ."
"The Joy Luck Club"
The first reaction the chapter elicited was resentment. After reading the first chapter, all I remember was the resentment aimed at the aunts of The Joy Luck Club. I thought that their little game of shooting each other down was just downright pathetic. I think that type of behavior just sets a bad example. On the inside, they all might realize its a joke, but as the children see it, they begin to think that its the right thing to do because they need to be better than everyone else, because the children can't see the underlying emotion, even if the adults can. I think they only play this game because the level of their own self-esteem is so low that they feel the need to put everyone down to add a point or two to their score on who is better. I also think their their self-esteem is so low because "They are frightened," that "they see their own daughters ... who grow impatient when their mothers talk in chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English." They also have even more fear when "They see [their] daughters who well bear children wiithoutand connecting hope passed from generation to generation," (31). They fear anything that can put them down, like losing in Mah Jong, when they fear and wonder if "[Jing-Mei] wins like [her] mother," (22). Although, I felt sympathy to some of the characters, like Jing-Mei. Jing-Mei and Suyuan's relationship is similar to my own relationship to my mother in some aspects. My mother always nags me, no matter what I do, whether I bring 100%'s home from W.H.A.P. and encouraging compliments, or when I bear failures from English 2A with poignant comments from Mrs. Woods.
Their relationship and my relationship with my mother actually grow parallel further into the book, but that is for later chapters. We can see the relationship between Jing-Mei and her mother through the flashbacks that Amy Tan uses well. Tan's special style uses flashbacks that adequately gets her point across. It improves the story for it helps gets both the chapter's, character's, and Tan's message across the table. There are many problems in this chapter. One is the internal battle of Jing-Mei's. The problem is that Jing-Mei must deal the fact that she was not the first. In one aspect is that she must take her mother's place. By taking her place, she must deal in the word games and plotting of the Aunts. Also, it means that she must live up to her Mother's name. This intense pressure can subjugate someone to something they are not use to, breaking them, changing them for sometimes the worst. Also, in the beginning of the book, she learns that she was not the first child her mother had. Not even the second at any rate. She must deal with the fact she was not the first in that aspect too. When she sees the letter from her sisters that are written in flawless calligraphy, she feels that she has been lowered, though not intentionally, by the fact at how smart her sisters must be, or so she thinks. All of this strains her. putter her into an uncomfortable position. She then realizes is in the East, where everything starts over, where she is the second time again, or the third.
LOL very nice.
you made it just in time.
Margaret Trask Per. 7
1. “Chinese Mah Jong”
2. The Joy Luck Club
3. I loved hearing about the hilarious way that the Hsus keep the plastic on their furniture even if it became yellowed with age. I’ve been to houses like that, but the furniture was still fairly new at the time. The story about the origination of the Joy Luck Club in China was really inspiring, because to hear about someone surviving like that and losing everything yet coming back in the end is inspiring. The spark of hope that she carried all the way to America with her and shared with the people there in similar situations reminds me of someone lighting candles. One by one, she lit up their lives with the light of joy and forgotten traditions.
4. Jing-Mei and her mother had a mentoring yet detached relationship. Suyuan was mentoring in her influence of her daughter’s opinions. In the scene where Jing-Mei is playing Mah Jong with the rest of the women in the Joy Luck Club, she continuously refers to memories of her mother telling her stories of the women.
5. “They speak their own language, half in broken English, half in their own Chinese dialect.” (Tan 24). This illustrates indirect characterization of the ladies in the Joy Luck Club. It shows their relationship with their faraway home and the influence that the U. S. has had on them. Tan uses this so that she can paint us a clear picture of the characters without taking away from the pace of the plot.
6. I’m learning some of the traditions, like mah jong, dumplings, and “funny Chinese dresses with stiff stand up and looming branched of embroidered silk sewn over their breasts” (16). The interest in gambling or playing games for profit is interesting, too.
1. Mother’s Mysteries
2. The Joy Luck Club
3. Reactions: first reaction: Amy Tan has bad Chinese and they don’t make that much sense some of the time. I have read this book before but my first reactions are still the same. Well, the first impression of Wu Jing Mei’s mother is that she is real dreamer. She dreams of beautiful futures that don’t seem possible. Her dream of going to Gui Lin comes true but the war made a mournful ending. I can feel how disappointed she must be when a dream becomes a disaster. When I read that she left her babies, I felt the same as the first time I read it, I wanted to yell at her. How could you possibly leave your children behind like that? They are two infants who will die out here! If you can carry your body’s weight, then you can carry their weight too! A parent should never be separated from their child or children. But of course, I wouldn’t be able to understand her misery at that point. It must have been despair to an inexplicable state.
I do respect the way that the Joy Luck Club in China celebrates with what they have once a week. They are simply making the best of things and laughing off the poverty. At least they were rich in a sort of happiness. The new Joy Luck Club also has the same idea. The members get together and just spend time. The aunties that Wu Jing Mei joined in place of her mother at first seemed typical proud Chinese women who brag about their children and are not too afraid to make someone else feel less. Then when they give money to Ling Mei to go see her sisters, I think they may not be as bad as they seem.
4. Characters: I think Wu Jing Mei is an obedient daughter but not someone who has a confident aura. She doesn’t seem to dream either. Where as, her mother is the opposite of her. Her mother dreams of a faraway land that she will go to. She seems confident and similar to her mother friends at the Joy Luck Club who compete with each other. This shows in the first page of the chapter where they are talking about how Auntie Lin cooked red bean soup and how Jing Mei’s mom will cool black sesame-seed soup. Jing Mei tells her mom to not show but her mom responds saying that it is not showing off they are different or the same, Jing Mei forgot. When Jing Mei says that, it shows she doesn’t feel any competition which her mom feels there is. Anyways, Jing Mei doesn’t seem to care.
5. Techniques: Amy Tan uses plenty of flashbacks. They make situations more clear for the reader and it’s an interesting blend with the current situation. She writes backwards in time from current to the beginning of an American life to the time when her mother grew up in China.
6c. I learned that during the war Gui Lin was considered a safe place where people could stay sheltered in the caves of the mystic mountains. Apparently the countryside of Gui Lin has not been harmed because the mountains are still the same, they stick up at an almost 90 degree slope. The caves are still a sight where stalagmites and stalactites decorated the interior.
(Beryl Bai)
1)“You Are Not Those Babies”
2) The Joy Luck Club
3) The most striking thing about this chapter has to be the fact that the story that June always thought was a fairy tale, was really real. Suyuan really did leave her two babies by the side of the road. Who could do that? What could be so bad that it would make you leave two babies? I’ve never had to live in wartime so maybe I can never imagine what could be THAT bad. Also, June learned about the story at the same time her aunts were all around her pushing her to visit China and see her sisters. She must have been totally overwhelmed. The aunts also seemed really desperate.
4) Auntie Lindo and June have an interesting relationship. Lindo seems to be stepping in now that June’s mother is dead. She is telling June what to do, but she isn’t June’s mother. The relationship seems strained and desperate.
5) Amy Tan uses flashback to tell the story of Suyuan starting the Joy Luck Club. It must be really important for the reader to understand why the club was started because it seems to be the key to understanding Suyuan. Since Suyuan is dead at the opening of the book, Flashback is the only way for us to “see” her.
6b) June has an internal conflict in that she has worked hard at NOT knowing her mother and now she is being asked to take her mother’s place in the mah jong table. It is “on the East, where things begin,” which sounds very intriguing. It is appropriate for the beginning of a book. The conflict also seems to be between the other mothers and their own daughters. The mothers are all afraid that their daughters don’t know them because June claims to not know her mother.
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