Joy Luck Club: Essay

         In the book The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan is mainly about mothers and their daughters' misunderstandings and miscommunications. Some mothers and daughters may get a long, but some may not. There are sayings that, "When you're five, she's goddess. You smear your face with her lipstick and model her earrings and high heels, wanting to be just like mommy. That's the way it is until you' re about thirteen, when she suddenly becomes the most ignorant...out-of-touch creature on the planet, and you can't get far away from her. Your primary form of interaction for the next five years or so will be a single word, 'Mooooommm!' And then, somewhere between your twenties and your thirties, if you're lucky, she becomes your best friend again"(howstuffworks.com). Some may disagree due to others may have encountered different situations. For example, a mother and a daughter may just have a natural bond that is unbreakable. Another example, is mothers and daughters may not get a long as much due to either cultural or generational differences or the competition between girls. In The Joy Luck Club there are four Chinese mothers: Lindo Jong, Suyuan Woo, An-mei Hsu, and Ying-ying St. Clair and four Chinese daughters: Waverly Jong, Jing-mei(June) Woo, Rose Hsu Jordan, and Lena St. Clair each all have problems with each other.
Waverly Jong and Jing-mei(June) Woo both have Chinese mothers that pushed them to be something that they were not happy to be. For example, Waverly Jong's mother, Lindo Jong, pushed her to be in chess tournaments. Also, when Waverly was nine she won the national chess championship. Waverly's mother was so obsessed with her competing in chess to where her brothers had to do her chore for her so she can practice. Her mother also made her stop playing with the other children. Waverly did not mind playing chess for her mother, until her mother started to show her off to around town and so she decided to run away, but of coarse she came back to her mother. In Jing-mei(June) Woo's case it is similar to Waverly's problem, her mother, Suyuan Woo, too pushed her to be something that she was not pleased to be. Her mother wanted her to be a prodigy, a Chinese Shirley Temple, also just like Waverly, so her mother made her imitate videos of Shirley Temple and memorize impressive facts. Just like Waverly, Jing-mei grew tired of her mother due to of her mother bragging about her and how she was so talented. After Jing-mei's mother gave up on her being a Chinese Shirley Temple, she then pushed her to be a pianist. When it was Jing-mei's competition day at church she decided to not practice her piece, so that she would make her mother look bad in front of the Joy Luck members. When Jing-mei did this she felt bad because she knew she had let her mother down and the fact that her mother did not say anything to her. The reason why these two mothers and daughters disagree with each other was because of generational differences because their daughters where born in America they were surrounded by different cultures, people, places, etc from their mothers.
Rose Hsu Jordan had a mother that cared for her, but she did not notice it. Rose's mother, An-mei Hsu, feels that she is not handling her marriage because her marriage was going down hill. An-mei being a mother warned Rose that her husband, Ted Jordan, was cheating on her with someone else, but she did not believe her. Then Ted sends Rose a check for tem thousand dollars with the divorce papers, when she finally realized that her mother was right she was devastated and became depressed. Rose's mother told her that she was lacking "the element of wood" meaning she is not strong by herself and depends on other people's opinion. Her mother told her this to teach her the Chinese way and for Rose to have a Chinese attitude that is inherited along the maternal line. This shows that An-mei tried to help her daughter to be a strong woman, they had a small misunderstanding due to generational differences.
Lena St. Clair's mother, Ying-ying St. Clair, always had something bad to say about anything Lena did. For example, when her mother was trying to make her finish her rice at meals, Ying-ying would tell her that, "future husband have one pock mark for every rice you not finish"(Tan 151). Lena's mother also accepted her Americanness, she did not want to die without teaching her the Chinese way. Even though Ying-ying knows that Lena will not listen to her, but she will try her best because she loves her. This shows that even though Lena will resist her mother's suggestions, her mother will still try to teach her culture.
Although all four Chinese mothers and their daughters had their own different problems, but all of their problems resulted because of cultural or generational differences. In this book The Joy Luck Club shows how immigrants from China, that have immigrated here, have daughter problems due  to they were raised in a different environment than their mothers'. Other reasons why mothers and daughters do not get along that much because of mothers wanting their daughters to do better than what they could not have done. For this being the reason the daughter feels that she is being forced to do or to be that does not please herself. There are other ways in approaching situations like this for mothers.