I agree with Xu's view on memory and the importance it plays on all of the characters in the book. It is a complex concept that links the mothers to their daughters despite the wide cultural gap between them. The gap can be seen in the both the book and the movie, in that the daughters do not seem to understand the motives of their mothers because one was born into the "Chineses" way of thinking and one was born into the "American" way of thinking. Xu describes the various ways memory can be affected by present experiences and states of mind. It motivates present behaviors and gives both the mothers and daughters in the book a sense of Chinese self-identity despite having been in America for numerous years. Memory seems to serve as a deux ex machina in the movie however. The mothers, having gone through a tragic event in their lives while in China, can almost magically use the event to understand exactly what their daughters are going through and fix their problems. As one "auntie" says, "We are like stairs, one step after the other but always heading towards the same direction." It implies that the daughters of the mother are doomed to follow the same tragedy that the mothers experienced due to their nature as Chinese women. Despite being born and raised in America, the daughters in the movie are portrayed as being genetically inclined to act in the subservient "Chinese" way of a wife. This leads to their husbands either taking advantage of them or taking them for granted, the same thing that happened to their mothers in the past. However, after a story about a past experience from their mothers, or in June's case her father, they are able to change their entire attitude and "fix" their lives. The movie of the Joy Luck Club simplifies the concept of memory that Xu describes in his essay, but emphasizes its importance and power.
The discussion on self identity was interesting and made me see the book in a different way. From many of the stories, I saw a disconnect between the mothers and daughters due to generational and cultural differences, but I did not think about dual identities.
Xu specifically writes about the last scenes in the book where Jing-mei Woo visits China. She says "My mother was right. I am becoming Chinese" as she first crosses the border from Hong Kong to China. Xu argues that the book shows that there are two self's: the true but unrecognized self and the false outer being. This latter identity results when one has to change himself to fit in a society. This suggests that ethnic identity is the true self, but has to be discovered through a realization, after comparing it to another identity. Then, Xu argues, "Ethnic awareness is not a mysteriously inherited quality; it is a measurable facet of our existence, whose conditions and correlates are the only context in which we can understand how we reconstitute feelings and inner knowledge of our own ethnic being"(16).
Ethnic identity is tied with memory because it's about how people construct their experiences to understand themselves. This is interesting the way each character views herself determines her identity. For example, Ying-ying St Clair remembers the day she got separated from her family during the Moon Festival. According to Xu, this memory becomes an emblem of her unfortunate life and marks her as a survivor of bad times.
The essay by Ben Xu mostly focuses on the internal conflicts of self-identity between the mothers from the mainland China and the daughters who were born in American. In his Essay, Xu believes that self-identity is driven by memories and experiences. He said, “the daughter may look like the mother, or even identify with her; and yet, the two are still worlds apart from each other.” Xu supports his point with, a philosopher, John Perry’s study of the relationship between memory and personal identity. Within Perry’s study, he once said that the identification and identity are two very different terms, and he pointed out that identity is not a necessary condition of identification. In short, the identity of something does not necessarily be a part of identification. One may have an identity that is not driven or being part of the identification.
Towards the end of Ben Xu’s essay, he concludes that the daughters, unlike their mothers, are American not by choice, but by birth. Neither the Chinese nor the American culture is equipped to define them except in rather superficial terms. They can identify themselves for sure neither as Chinese nor American. They are Chinese-Americans whose Chineseness is more meaningful in their relationship to white Americans than in their relationship to the Chinese culture they know little about.
I was thinking about some of the critiques of Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club, as Professor Yang was talking about. In defense of Tan, I will say that this "exotic" or "mystic" culture that she constructs may be due to her genre of literature. She is writing for an audience that is expecting "drama," and I think that these almost-Oriental themes play into that a bit. Though, I am personally a critic of her writing style for these reasons; I'm trying to see it from another perspective. As said in class, its hard to call people out for stereotypes and creating symbolism that perpetuates(habitus) negative connotations, because there is such a multiplicity of perceptions and interpretations. Also, (again, just playing Devil's advocate) it seems a bit "unreal" to hold Tan accountable for all of the critiques that were mentioned in class by the Asian American academic community. What kind of literature can we expect, if we are holding all writers to this kind of standard/norm!? In fact, I think that these critiques may be critiqued themselves as having too strong of a political agenda. It makes me wonder if "culture" in the medium or discourse of film/novel can't be politically powerful while having a purely entertaining application(such as Joy Luck Club). And even if Tan is a "capitalist," for writing a book that sells.. I think that this notion of "capitalism" is unescapable in the modern world, and to claim that one isn't(unless they're an academic), would be to make themselves a "cultural martyr."
In comparison, I've read a book for HIST/AAS 283 called, "When the Rainbow Goddess Wept." Which was, WAY more exotic/mystic than Joy Luck Club. Yet, I feel like Tan receives more criticism because of the popularity and success of her novel. I'm not saying that I'm dropping my personal critiques of the novel, but I just thought that some of the other academic critiques seemed a bit unfair/possibly unrealistic.
4 comments:
I agree with Xu's view on memory and the importance it plays on all of the characters in the book. It is a complex concept that links the mothers to their daughters despite the wide cultural gap between them. The gap can be seen in the both the book and the movie, in that the daughters do not seem to understand the motives of their mothers because one was born into the "Chineses" way of thinking and one was born into the "American" way of thinking. Xu describes the various ways memory can be affected by present experiences and states of mind. It motivates present behaviors and gives both the mothers and daughters in the book a sense of Chinese self-identity despite having been in America for numerous years. Memory seems to serve as a deux ex machina in the movie however. The mothers, having gone through a tragic event in their lives while in China, can almost magically use the event to understand exactly what their daughters are going through and fix their problems. As one "auntie" says, "We are like stairs, one step after the other but always heading towards the same direction." It implies that the daughters of the mother are doomed to follow the same tragedy that the mothers experienced due to their nature as Chinese women. Despite being born and raised in America, the daughters in the movie are portrayed as being genetically inclined to act in the subservient "Chinese" way of a wife. This leads to their husbands either taking advantage of them or taking them for granted, the same thing that happened to their mothers in the past. However, after a story about a past experience from their mothers, or in June's case her father, they are able to change their entire attitude and "fix" their lives. The movie of the Joy Luck Club simplifies the concept of memory that Xu describes in his essay, but emphasizes its importance and power.
The discussion on self identity was interesting and made me see the book in a different way. From many of the stories, I saw a disconnect between the mothers and daughters due to generational and cultural differences, but I did not think about dual identities.
Xu specifically writes about the last scenes in the book where Jing-mei Woo visits China. She says "My mother was right. I am becoming Chinese" as she first crosses the border from Hong Kong to China. Xu argues that the book shows that there are two self's: the true but unrecognized self and the false outer being. This latter identity results when one has to change himself to fit in a society. This suggests that ethnic identity is the true self, but has to be discovered through a realization, after comparing it to another identity. Then, Xu argues, "Ethnic awareness is not a mysteriously inherited quality; it is a measurable facet of our existence, whose conditions and correlates are the only context in which we can understand how we reconstitute feelings and inner knowledge of our own ethnic being"(16).
Ethnic identity is tied with memory because it's about how people construct their experiences to understand themselves. This is interesting the way each character views herself determines her identity. For example, Ying-ying St Clair remembers the day she got separated from her family during the Moon Festival. According to Xu, this memory becomes an emblem of her unfortunate life and marks her as a survivor of bad times.
The essay by Ben Xu mostly focuses on the internal conflicts of self-identity between the mothers from the mainland China and the daughters who were born in American. In his Essay, Xu believes that self-identity is driven by memories and experiences. He said, “the daughter may look like the mother, or even identify with her; and yet, the two are still worlds apart from each other.” Xu supports his point with, a philosopher, John Perry’s study of the relationship between memory and personal identity. Within Perry’s study, he once said that the identification and identity are two very different terms, and he pointed out that identity is not a necessary condition of identification. In short, the identity of something does not necessarily be a part of identification. One may have an identity that is not driven or being part of the identification.
Towards the end of Ben Xu’s essay, he concludes that the daughters, unlike their mothers, are American not by choice, but by birth. Neither the Chinese nor the American culture is equipped to define them except in rather superficial terms. They can identify themselves for sure neither as Chinese nor American. They are Chinese-Americans whose Chineseness is more meaningful in their relationship to white Americans than in their relationship to the Chinese culture they know little about.
I was thinking about some of the critiques of Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club, as Professor Yang was talking about. In defense of Tan, I will say that this "exotic" or "mystic" culture that she constructs may be due to her genre of literature. She is writing for an audience that is expecting "drama," and I think that these almost-Oriental themes play into that a bit. Though, I am personally a critic of her writing style for these reasons; I'm trying to see it from another perspective. As said in class, its hard to call people out for stereotypes and creating symbolism that perpetuates(habitus) negative connotations, because there is such a multiplicity of perceptions and interpretations. Also, (again, just playing Devil's advocate) it seems a bit "unreal" to hold Tan accountable for all of the critiques that were mentioned in class by the Asian American academic community. What kind of literature can we expect, if we are holding all writers to this kind of standard/norm!? In fact, I think that these critiques may be critiqued themselves as having too strong of a political agenda. It makes me wonder if "culture" in the medium or discourse of film/novel can't be politically powerful while having a purely entertaining application(such as Joy Luck Club). And even if Tan is a "capitalist," for writing a book that sells.. I think that this notion of "capitalism" is unescapable in the modern world, and to claim that one isn't(unless they're an academic), would be to make themselves a "cultural martyr."
In comparison, I've read a book for HIST/AAS 283 called, "When the Rainbow Goddess Wept." Which was, WAY more exotic/mystic than Joy Luck Club. Yet, I feel like Tan receives more criticism because of the popularity and success of her novel. I'm not saying that I'm dropping my personal critiques of the novel, but I just thought that some of the other academic critiques seemed a bit unfair/possibly unrealistic.
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