Joy Luck Club #1

“Beginnings”Focusing on: “The Joy Luck Club”When I first read, “'What will I say? What can I tell them about my mother? I don’t know anything. She was my mother,'” I was as astonished as the three mothers who were staring at Jing-Mei as she blurted these words out. I was bewildered at what she said because I believe that no matter how much a person may believe that they do not fully know another person, they are still revealed to some real aspects of that person. I was later convinced, however, by the reasons why she might have said this and was finally able to understand her and agree with her. I believe that, just like Jing-Mei, everyone gets confused and starts to question themselves about why they are in a certain relationship or who the person they are in a relationship with really is. Even though she may have lived with her mother for many years, Jing-Mei still did not feel that she had been exposed to the true nature of her own mother-or in other words had never truly understood or connected to her Chinese mother who had lost everything and started anew in America. This chapter really made me wonder, how well do I know the people in my life? A scene that made me feel outraged was the dinner scene, in which all the men left right after eating and the women “as if on cue” stopped eating in response and started cleaning and washing. I felt a great injustice when I read that women had to do all the work, while the men sat back like kings. Even though this scenario is something that I see every two weeks at my church house meetings, I found reading about it, in a sense, a check to reality. Connecting this scene to the happenings at my church house meetings, made me realize how much my culture influenced both the Korean people in my life and my own life. One question I have about this chapter is the interpretation or true meaning behind the following quote, “We translated each other’s meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more.” Is Amy Tan trying to say that June did not understand what her mom said and that her mother understood what she said or is Tan trying to say that June never listened to what her mom said and that her mom always listened to what she said? I just wanted to know which interpretation was correct. The relationship between Jing-Mei and her mother can be described as a “miscommunication.” One scene in which this is portrayed is when Jing-Mei starts to reflect upon their relationship and thinks to herself, "I had always assumed we had an unspoken understanding about these things," and then admits to herself and realizes that, "my mother and I never really understood one another. We translated each other’s meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more." June realizes that she and her mother had never understood each other in the same way, and that the reason for it was because of a miscommunication between them.I noticed that Amy Tan used a lot of imagery throughout her vignette. For example, instead of just writing that all of Auntie An-Mei’s relatives asked for things while she was broke, Tan expressed this by saying, “everyone had a palm out and she was the only one who left with an empty hand,” making readers imagine a circle of people with their hands out surrounding a woman with her hands shaking vulnerably. Her use of imagery improves her writing because it helps readers create their own picture of a particular scene, which ultimately helps them remember that scene through their own image of it. The main conflict of this chapter is Jing Mei’s struggle to replace her mother at the mah- jong table. This conflict is an inner conflict, or in other words, a human vs. self conflict. June struggles with her own ignorance of her mother’s intentions and wishes and tries her best to recoup and fulfill them by doing the only thing she can do now that her mother has passed away, and this is by taking her mother’s spot at the mah-jong and becoming the new east.