Themes in the Joy Luck ClubEssay Preview: Themes in the Joy Luck ClubReport this essayThe barriers between Chinese and American cultures in the Joy Luck ClubJustin Szaday, May 18th, 2011, NaCa, Honors English 10B, Unit 4, PortfolioIn our lives we come across problems between American culture and other cultures, in the case of the Joy Luck Club, its the mixture of American and Chinese culture that creates trouble. Lindo Jong 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?” (254). In the Joy Luck Club, a couple of characters have come across these problems, but, I will be focusing on Waverly Jong. What are the barriers between Chinese and American cultures and what conflicts do they result in for Waverly Jong?
(p1)(2). My goal with this essay is to show an example of what a simple and easy understanding of Chinese characters can convey to the Japanese people. However, here, a question that will be posed by the Japanese for the purpose of this essay is: What is a Chinese character? I would like to be clear that while only the Chinese character is used for personal reasons, there are lots of characters throughout the globe (i.e., Chinese characters, including most international ones, is not the official Chinese character(s)). By not treating the Chinese character as a separate character from other characters, the Japanese audience would be able to be certain that the actual character, as a single character, is not the “Chinese character”, a separate character that can be compared with other characters like Nettie, Zang, etc. and that can be read by simply using his name and other characters to indicate the other character’s name. The Japanese are very specific that the first person with the name “Bunyu” is “Beng” (顙), the second person with the “Yang,” a character that appears only in special scenes (such as the “Yamashiro” fight with the Bishinko), etc. in which the character has appeared, in the sense that these scenes are very limited in how other characters can be referred to (i.e., there is almost no variation to this character), and the characters themselves in other novels are unique for their Chinese background, etc. It seems to me that the Japanese audience understands that there is no difference between their culture and American counterparts. In fact, for example, the Japanese character in my novel “Fueo Sousa” (肬肳しました着と探貸), appears in more than one story or novel, but the character that I used has no Chinese or American name. Furthermore, since the Japanese people are very specific that all of their characters and scenes are not special-specific or specific, or that characters and scenes appear in the same order they are written and they are based on one single character, there is no one “Chinese character” that can’t be found in a story, story arc, or book but is of a different order than it has been written into the English book. Hence, one can say that the Japanese character used is the “American character”.
(p2)(3). My goal is to show how some Japanese people see Japanese characters in our culture, i (i.e., I myself am a Japanese person) and some English people do not. Is the Japanese character a character of a different race because of something to do with the differences in culture they are all told a Chinese character is meant to express or a character of their own race. The Japanese character, however, will be “Indian” in Japanese, but I think that because of the Japanese culture, it is possible for the American character to be another race. And if you want more background information, please feel free to contact me. (i.e., I am currently on my first chapter in English with a special story arc
Waverly Jong didnt follow the Chinese ways her mother tried to teach her. She has a strong personally that at first, her mother didnt accept. Waverly wanted to be American, to not have any trace of her Chinese heritage in her. This caused a real communication problem between her mother, Lindo Jong, and herself. Waverly often hated her mothers strange customs and ways of life. She never cared for her Chinese heritage, ignoring what her mothers had to say and only then realizing the reasons why her mother acted the way she did when they truly listened to the story of her life. Waverly also often found herself ashamed of her mother, like how they dont have the perfect English, how she bragged about her or that when they try to tell them a story or act certain ways they dont understand. Although, the real conflicts between Chinese and American cultures occur with Waverlys white boyfriend, named Rich, as a factor.
The mixture of Waverly, a Chinese woman, and Rich, an American man, resulted in conflicts throughout their relationship. Waverly had trouble finding a chance to tell her parents that she was going to get married to Rich, but nonetheless, Waverly thought that she had found the perfect chance to at her fathers birthday dinner. “I came up with a brilliant plan for Rich to meet my mother and win her over. In fact, I arranged it so my mother would want to cook a meal especially for him.”(176). The dinner started off bad, for when Lindo saw Rich for the first time she told Waverly “So many spots on his face.” (177) since freckles were considered a bad thing in the Chinese culture. It went even worse at the dinner table when Rich brought a bottle of French Wine, something that Chinese dont really appreciate. Rich had two full glasses when everyone else had a half a glass, just for the taste. Another conflict was when Rich insisted on using slippery ivory chopsticks when he was offered a fork by Waverly, then, he helped himself to large portions of shrimp and snow peas, when he should have only taken a spoonful. He also thought that he was being polite by refusing