The Joy Luck Club

Women’s Silence and Voice in

Asian and American cultural ideas and beliefs Amy Tan in her The Joy Luck Club takes Chinese and Chinese-American women’s social and cultural issues into consideration to study their silence in light of Asian and American cultural cultural ideas and beliefs. beliefs. Tan focuses on four mothers mothers and their daughters’ daughters’ life story through through their own language and on their own “nengken”; “It was this belief in their nengken that had  brought  brought my parents to America” America” (Tan, 121). She gives an interesti interesting ng point of view by using Chines Chinesee words words and includ including ing their their meanin meanings. gs. It seems seems she lets lets her readers readers to get closer closer in Chinese culture and then find out whatever she demonstrates. Tan shows how do Chinese and Chinese –American women challenge and struggle to break the cultural barriers of silence through meaningful quotes in their own life story. A good quote has been mentioned by Jing-Mei “June” Woo, one of those Chinese daughters in “Two Kinds” story, it reveals her secrets and says: “This girl and I were the same. I had new thoughts, willful thoughts, or rather thoughts filled with lots lots of won’t. I won’t let her change me, I promised myself I won’t be what I’m not” (Tan, 134). I think that the Chinese girls were supposed to act obedient and respectful to their elders and it seems that there is a struggle  between Asian women and their American Chinese daughters and what it meant to be feminine and how a woman should act. Tan shows that mothers are disappointed when their daughters grow up and they do not act like a Chinese one and do not show the the enough respect of their mothers. mothers. In Chinese culture girls girls

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were expected to be quiet and considerate to their parents and elders. Because of the cultural  barriers I see Chinese mothers fear of directly speaking to their daughters and it is the reason an enough reason reason for their daughte daughters rs to do not underst understand and them well; well; “ I felt felt as if I had lost lost a  battle,  battle, but one that I didn’t didn’t know I had had been fighting. fighting. I was weary” weary” (Tan, 182). 182). I think their  their   problem is not for having different cultures of American and Chinese but rather is on the way of  their communicatio communication, n, because the Chinese Chinese culture culture is not totally totally about obedience and American American culture is not completely about liberty. Moreover, their noiselessness had kept them apart and had made them unknown to each other, though if they were not silent they would have the needed force not only to convey their  inherent good beliefs to each other in the best way but also to act freely as themselves. For  example Linda Jong and her daughter Waverly represent a different kind of strength, the ability to keep silent till the right time time to come. “She cried “No choice! No choice!” she doesn’t know. If she doesn’t speak, she is making a choice. If she doesn’t try, she can lose her chance forever. I know this, because I was raised the Chinese way: I was taught to desire nothing, to swallow other people’s people’s misery, misery, to eat my own bitterness” bitterness” (Tan, 215). And having the ability ability to keep silent till the right moment brings Waverly to the point of shouting to break her silence after her  mother’s death. She says: “And on that day, I learned to shout” shout” (Tan, 240). Obviously in the “A Pair of Tickets” Tan portrays two Chinese and American-Chinese generation arms around each other through taking the last photo of Jing-Mei Woo along with her  lost twin sisters and gives her last message: “My sisters and I watch quietly together, eager to see what develops. The gray-green surface change d to bright colors of our three images, sharpening

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and deepening all at once. And although we ‘don’t speak’, I know we all see it: Together we look  like our mother” (Tan, 288). Consequently, Tan was able to monit and exhibit the Chinese women silence culture in two youth and adult generation with four Chinese mothers and their daughters maybe from 1920, 30, 40,50,60,70 and 1980 in China before their arrival to America and later on. I believe that the central theme of silence connecting them all in the inability of the mothers and their daughters to communicate with each other effectively. However it seems that all mothers of the Joy Luck Club story want their daughters to never have to go through the struggles they themselves had to go through. That’s why they did not share what they had as silence culture but rather they discovered new ones and gained their  voice. They took advantages of some incidents like what Linda took of a few coincident to convince convince Tai Tai that her marriage to her son is ill-fated. ill-fated. So it might have been the reason why she mentions the daughters as their translations and also says: “I wanted my children to have the  best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these two things do not mix?” (Tan, 254) In conclusion by focusing on Chinese women’s silence culture in The Joy Luck Club, I feel Amy Tan is trying to show Asian and American cultural ideas and beliefs differ in many ways; like as being free in asking many whys and hows in American culture for women as family members and having to cope with family rules in Chinese culture as a member of Chinese family. This book is a good evidence of Chinese women’s challenge to break their silence despite of their cultural barriers because by publishing this book they not only broke that silence Jamli 4

 but also heighten their voice all around the world through telling their own stories, talking about their cultural differentiations and leaving it for next generations.

Works Cited:

Tan,Amy.The Joy Luck Club . United States of America: Putnam sons, Penguin, 1989.