This feather may look worthless, ...

by compound complex 13 Replies latest forum tech-support

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  compound complex

  THE JOY LUCK CLUB:

  "This feather may look worthless, but it comes from afar and carries with it all my good intentions."

  Did you read Amy Tan's book or see the movie of the same title?

  Your thoughts, please.

  CoCo

  Chinese American Women, Language and Moving Subjectivity

  Journal article by Victoria Chen; Women and Language, Vol. 18, 1995

  Journal Article Excerpt

  Chinese American women, language, and moving subjectivity. by Victoria Chen To imagine a language means to imagine a form of life. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations Philosophical Investigations It was not until the 1970s that Asian American literature became recognized as a separate canon and a "new tradition" of writing. While this "new" form of expression created a new political consciousness and identity, the images and stories that abound in pioneer literature such as Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior and China Men are paradoxically located in "recovered" ethnic history (Lim, 1993, p. 573). More recently, Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club also takes the reader through a journey back to a specific set of ethnic memories as the mothers in the stories interweave their experiences struggling for survival and dignity in China and for coherence and hope in America. Part of the reason for the celebration of Asian American women's literature is that it provides an alternative way to think about issues such as language, subjectivity, cultural voice, and ethnic/gender identity. For Chinese American women such as Kingston, Tan, and the female characters in The Joy Luck Club, speaking in a double voice and living in a bicultural world characterize their dual cultural enmeshment.(1) While striving to maintain a relationship with their Chinese immigrant parents, the Chinese American daughters also live in a society where one is expected to speak in a "standard" form of English and to "succeed" in the middle class Euro-American way.
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  compound complex

  Your thoughts?
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  compound complex

  Has anyone read this book or seen the movie?

  I was very moved and am interested in your perspective regarding the above.

  Thank you,

  CoCo
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  Hortensia

  I read that one and her next one - don't remember the name but it was sort of a ghost story. I've read pretty much all the other books like that too - at least all I could find. Mostly they are really interesting because the Chinese culture is so very different from our. I was taking trips to China at the time and really interested in the "before and after" of China - before and after 1949 when Mao took over. So interesting to read those books and get the idea of life before Mao - very repressive - and life with Mao - very repressive also, but with a different philosophy. I wasn't as much interested in the immigrant experience in the US.
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  compound complex

  Thank you, Hortensia, for your comments.

  My mother was an avid reader of Pearl S. Buck, whom, I believe, was born in China, and, of course, wrote THE GOOD EARTH and other novels depicting life in China. Yes, their life and culture is so different from ours. I've only read a bit of Amy Tan but love her quirky forays into material that would otherwise be an ordinary story, IMHO.

  I knew somebody on board had to have read Ms. Tan!

  Gratefully,

  CoCo
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  mustang

  I saw it: with my CHINESE significant other. I've been to her country 10 times and we went to China once, together. From experience: Chinese women are too intense.

  Mustang
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  mustang

  I forget whether I read Joy Luck Club, but I was reading The Kitchen God's Wife. I left it in Asia and never did finish it.

  Mustang
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  Hortensia

  I thought Chinese women were too intense, too. I noticed in China that the women didn't hesitate to ask nosy questions and lecture people, and they talk in a minor scream. The men were more laid-back. This was in the hospital where we were taking our training. I liked "The Kitchen God's Wife" too.
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  mustang

  In Joy Luck Club, I remember the one daughter, the tall one. She punished herself so much; then her mother was too much of a taskmaster.

  I don't remember if this was the daughter that went to China to visit the two twins; she said her Chinese was no good. (Wo-de putonghua shr bu hao; neither is mine.)

  There is so much grief in the Chinese past; the mother left the twins on the path for someone to take and raise, knowing she was dying. But then she lived!!!

  I have seen similar stories in my "adapted family".

  At one time or other, on the whole, I doubt there was a dry eye in the theater for Joy Luck Club. Almost all in attendance were Orientals; those who were not were in the company of one. Many were Vietnamese; but I have found that a great number of the Vietnamese community are "ethnic Chinese". Many speak one or more of the varieties of Chinese; Dragon Lady can converse with most of them.

  Mustang
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  mustang

  BTW, I'm about to rejoin another forum: Chinese Chat (in PinYin).

  Mustang