The Joy Luck Club ~ Amy Tan ~ Book Club Online for July ~ August. Opens July 16

[bellamarie]

 The Book Club Online is the oldest  book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone.  We offer cordial discussions of one book a month,  24/7 and  enjoy the company of readers from all over the world.  Everyone is welcome.

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

 "Powerful as myth." —The Washington Post Book World

"Beautifully written...a jewel of a book." —The New York Times Book Review

The Joy Luck Club won the National Book Award and the L.A. Times Book Award, and was made into a movie in 1993.



"Powerful...full of magic...you won't be doing anything of importance until you have finished this book." —Los Angeles Times

 Comment on Goodreads:  "I know this is really late, but I think this book would be perfect for a book club. I really wish I was buddy reading this with someone so I could..."


"Wonderful...a significant lesson in what storytelling has to do with memory and inheritance." —San Francisco Chronicle

Tentative Discussion Schedule:

  Week IV: August 6-12  Chapter 4: Queen Mother of the Western Skies



Get a leg up this July and August  on the  PBS Great American  Reads voting in October by discussing  one of the candidates: The Joy Luck Club.

Be swept away into a different culture and world,  while at the same time examining how our lives and families are shaped by stories handed down which may or may not be true. 

How well can we  really ever know somebody else, no matter how long we've known them?

Join us for a wonderful trip to a strange culture...or is it?

 



It was the way her mother Lindo, was trying to take credit for her that initially caused Waverly to stop playing, and when she wanted to go back, the mother was cruel in keeping her support from her.  That was sad, because from then on Waverly began losing.  It was only because Waverly became very ill with chicken pox, did Lindo change. 

pg. 172  She sat in a chair in my room, knitting me a pink sweater while telling me about a sweater that Auntie Suyuan had knit for her daughter June, and how it was most unattractive and of worst yarn.  I was so happy that she had become her usual self.  But after I got well, I discovered that, really, my mother had changed. She no longer hovered over me as I practiced different chess games.  She did not polish my trophies every day.  She did not cut out the small newspaper item that mentioned my name.  It was as if she had erected an invisible wall and I was secretly groping each day to see how high and how wide it was.   At the next tournament, while I had done well overall, in the end the points were not enough.  I lost. And what was worse, my mother said nothing.  She seemed to walk around with this satisfied look, as if it had happened because she had devised this strategy.  pg. 173  I continued to play, but never with the same feeling of supreme confidence.  I fought hard, with fear and desperation.  When I won, I was grateful, relieved.  And when I lost, I was filled with growing dread, and then terror that I was no longer a prodigy, that I had lost the gift and had turned into someone quite ordinary.  When I lost twice to the boy whom I had defeated so easily a few years before, I stopped playing chess altogether.  And nobody protested.  I was fourteen.

My best guess is when Waverly got sick, it scared her mother, and she probably felt very bad for with holding her support to her up until she got sick.  She may very well have changed, after realizing her daughter was sick and they were at odds with each other. The two of them are so much alike, whether they are willing to admit it or not, that I can't imagine this truce lasting for very long.

Ginny, you may be right, maybe Barb did not read ahead.  Clearly in these next sections we deal with cruel sexual assault. 

[bellamarie]

Well, here we are our last week for discussion, our last sections of this book,
QUEEN MOTHER OF THE WESTERN SKIES. 

These last sections seem to deal with reflection, in the Preface, the woman is teasing her baby granddaughter.  She is wondering, if the way she raised her daughter, may have been wrong.  Should she have done differently?

"Even if I could live forever," she said to the baby, "I still don't know which way I would teach you.  I was once so free and innocent.  I too laughed for no reason.  "But later I threw away my foolish innocence to protect myself.  And then I taught my daughter, your mother, to shed her innocence so she would not be hurt as well.  "Hwai dungsyi, was this kind of thinking wrong?  If I now recognize evil in other people, is it not because I have become evil too?  If I see someone has a suspicious nose, have I not smelled the same bad things?" 

All four of these mothers are now realizing that no matter how much they attempted to teach their daughters the Chinese language, culture, superstitions, the Twenty-six malignant gates, etc., these daughter were American.  The communication gap was not ONLY because they did not speak each other's language, it was because they grew up in complete different cultures.  Never did the mothers take their daughters to China while raising them, to actually give them the feel of their native land.  Not that it would probably have changed much, because as we see, even when they finally do go to China, the mother notices even she herself has changed.  She like her American daughter is seen as a tourist.  Is the saying by Thomas Wolfe true, "You can't go home again."   I know I return just to my small hometown of Monroe, Michigan, after living in Toledo, Ohio for forty-seven years, and I feel the familiarity, but I certainly do feel like a tourist also. 

As much as these four mothers were holding on to their Chinese traditions, while living in America, they somehow became, American, in spite of trying desperately not to, and to give their own daughters their Chinese heritage. 

The Joy Luck Club for me, showed how these Chinese mothers were hoping to keep their heritage alive in the next generations, but I suspect their granddaughters will never know what their Chinese heritage is.  None of the daughters married Chinese men, so no matter how much the grandmothers will attempt to teach them, it will like the daughters, be lost in translation.  You are what you live.  I am Italian, Irish and Indian..... I know very little of any of these nationalities, because I was not raised in any of these cultures, or family who was alive to teach me what it was like for them to live in either of these places.  My immigrated Italian grandmother died when I was young, I do remember visiting her, she had such broken English, I could barely understand her when she spoke.  What I remember most about her, was the love she had for her family.  I have carried that on, and see it in my own adult children.  To this day, when I smell homemade yeast bread I immediately think of my Italian Grandmother, because on Sunday mornings I remember going to her house, she would just be finished baking her bread, and would give all us grandchildren no matter what your age a nice thick piece of hot buttered bread and a cup of coffee with cream and sugar to dunk your bread in.  Today, I can't drink coffee without a carb to dunk in it!  My Irish/Indian grandmother, it was all about her southern green beans, potatoes, onions, and salt pork soup, with cornbread.  I just went to the Farmer's Market last week end, bought all the fresh vegetables, had my two grandchildren snap the beans, help make the cornbread and we talked about my grandmother all the while we worked and ate.  They were never blessed to know either of their grandmothers or great grandmothers, but through my stories, they will get a glimpse of them, and know how much they were loved.

"O! O! You say you  are laughing because you have already lived forever, over and over again?  You say you are Syi Wang Mu, Queen Mother of the Western Skies, now come back to give me the answer!  Good, good, I am listening. . . . .

[ginny]

My goodness, Bellamarie! What a post. I will  have to say that what this discussion lacked in members attending it more than made up for it in thoughtful profound  posts.

I am one of those people who are affected by what they read.   That's, in today's world, perhaps not a good thing. Perhaps it's the reason that I only read the news now on I devices, reading 5 newspapers every morning, but only what I want to read. Because at my age something truly troubling usually involving children, keeps me up at night.  I think aging changes your perspectives on what you can and want to read. We can see that in doing a book club here  since 1998.

Because a lot of  us have come to a place of peace and happiness we really can't bear, it's not that we're uninformed or uncaring, we really can't bear to read about awful things in the news, particularly things over which we can have no control. We cannot help. It does affect one's sleep, it does affect one's  reading.  At the same time one longs for something other than...fluff, too. I truly think this is the reason that some people  read "cozy" mysteries. You have the conflict, the antagonist and the crime,  but you also have a solution and it's satisfying to all. Unlike the news.

I think Bellamarie said it for me in her post, we've come to the end and I feel reflective, have been boring people all weekend with MY childhood memories (Philly, Hats!) and even Mummers. After reading Bellamarie's post, I see it's because of the book. Of course it  is, it always has been.

I absolutely LOVED how you talked about the mother  seen to be an American tourist.  That's so powerful, so clever of you to have noticed, and  what she wrote that I missed.  I missed that entirely. I saw it and brushed over it, but it's really important.

 And THAT is a fitting end and metaphor  for the book alone.   Can you go home again?  Can you effectively communicate what home and history were?  Especially if that home now exists only in memory, everything else is gone or changed?  What a shock to realize that how one sees oneself is revealed to be a tourist...in life...in China... only a tourist.

And then there's the issue of passing on a culture, CAN you ever hope to do that? My children know nothing of how I grew up, nothing. I have taken them back, to every place  I lived, I have shown them, and told them, in entertaining stories, but in essence what they know is not the 40's. Strangely enough, my mother would never talk about her childhood to my children. After reading this book I now wonder why.

Let's start summing  up our experience with this book, and it has been one.   

Let me ask you what  is  the one  greatest thing you personally have taken away from this book? 

For me, it's respect for the mothers, despite, yes despite how they act. They are a product of what they have been through, and it's been awful. ALL  of us have been through things in our long lives, so we know the wisdom that age brings, not all of it good.  And these mothers, as best they personally could, in connection with what was done to them, in their limited ability,  have tried, using mythology and charms and luck, and other non PC things, things we would never do (or did and won't admit it)  to save their daughters from making mistakes. Because they can see what happens when you do, they have lived it, actually.

I have come away with respect for age and what we've all been through and in the case of the mothers are still going through (indulging the shock and disappointments at being considered a tourist when going "home" to China)... and that leads me to a new search: I'm wanting to look back now at each mother in the last chapter to see what other disappointments they are now experiencing, and how many have emerged triumphant... or at peace.

I still get the mothers and daughters mixed up, I still have to write the mother's name and history over each daughter's little story or I could never keep them straight.

I loved this last chapter, despite further revelations of the awfulness of the mother's pasts, because of the way it ends..it's unforgettable and stunning. In the link I posted Amy Tan says  she wrote her second book The Kitchen God's Wife, when her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and her friend was diagnosed with cancer. She said it was her way of keeping them both alive.   She did not meet her sisters for 30 years.

Things I loved in this chapter: Ying Ying St. Clair's statement that "Now she and her husband give me money to add to my 'so so security."

What a HOOT! I am going to remember that one a long time, it kind of epitomizes for me the fun and truths and  difficulties in translation running all through the book. So So  Security indeed. hahaha

I loved the going back to find her sisters. One might say, oh, too pat, too tidying up, but it's REAL and it happened. Truth is always stranger than fiction, isn't it?

And then there's these little pre chapter stories and each time these myths relate to the people in the modern world in the book.

So who is the Queen of the Western Skies in our modern story?

What is your biggest take away from the book?

[Jonathan]

Bewilderment. But I do feel wiser for all your instructive posts. East and West have met in them.

[bellamarie]

I'm still feeling a bit queasy with these last sections.  There were so many sad, cruel and ugly parts in these last pages.  At one point I seriously felt sick reading them.  It sickened me to learn some things said and done, a few things I want to point out because I think they need to be acknowledged, if not only for me to be able to shake them off, and out of my mind. 

Magpies (An-Mei and Rose)

pg.215  "She doesn't know.  If she doesn't speak, she is making a choice!"  She doesn't try, she can lose her chance forever.  I know this, because I was raised the Chinese way:  I was taught to desire nothing, to swallow other people's misery, to eat my own bitterness.

pg. 217  I could not cry if I was disappointed.  I had to be silent and listen to my elders.  And if I did not do this, Popo said she would cut off my hair and send me to a place where Buddhist nuns lived.

pg. 220  I could only feel shame seeing my mother wear her shame so boldly.

pg.  227  The driver opened the back door and out stepped a young girl.  She had short hair with rows of waves.  She looked to be only a few years older than I, but she had on a woman's dress, stockings, and high heels. 

pg.  228 I heard one servant remark to another, "Fifth Wife is so young she did not bring any of her own servants, only a wet nurse.   A girl in China did not marry for love.  She married for position..

pg.  236  He grabbed her by her hair and threw her on the floor, then put his foot on her throat and told her to undress.

pg. 238  And I saw my mother's terrible pain as Second Wife bounced Syaudi on her lap, kissing my mother's son and telling this baby, "As long as I am your mother, you will never be poor.  You will never be unhappy.  You will grow up to own this household, and care for me in my old age."

pg 239  "She has taken too much opium,"  cried Yan Chang.  "The doctor says he can do nothing.  She has poisoned herself."

Ughhh..... I mean how much worse can it get, and yet the next story has still more horror.

Waiting Between the Trees  (Ying-ying and Lena)

pg.  I did not understand until six months later when I was married to this man and he hissed drunkenly to me that he was ready to kai gwa.  ( kai gwa is a euphemism for taking her virginity.)

pg. 247  I became a stranger to myself.  I was pretty for him.  It was because I had so much joy then that I came to have so much hate.  I found out from my youngest aunt that he had left me to live with an opera singer.

pg.  248  I became abandoned goods.  I will tell her that at eighteen the prettiness drained from my cheeks.  That I thought of throwing myself in the lake like the other ladies of shame.  And I will tell her of the baby I killed because I came to hate this man so much.  I took this baby from my womb before it could be born. 

pg. 251  My husband was dead.  I decided to let Saint marry me.  I became an unseen spirit.  How could I not love this man?  But it was the love of a ghost.

Double Face  (Lindo and Waverly)

pg.  253  "When you go to China,"  I told her, "you don't even need to open your mouth.  They know you are an outsider."

pg. 254  Inside__ she is all American made.  It's my fault she is this way.  I wanted my children to have the best combination:  American circumstances and Chinese character.  How could I know these two thing do not mix?   She is ashamed of my looks.

pg. 256  Then my daughter criticizes me as if I were not there.
Americans don't really look at one another when talking.
But inside I am becoming ashamed.  I am ashamed she is ashamed.  Because she is my daughter and I am proud of her, and I am her mother but she is not proud of me.

pg.258  It's hard to keep you Chinese face in America. 
"First," she said, "you must find a husband.  An American citizen is best."
But if he is not a citizen, you should immediately do number two.  See here, you should have a baby.  Boy or girl, it doesn't matter in the United States.  Neither will take care of you in your old age, isn't that true?" 

pg. 59 And once it is has arrived, it is an American citizen and can do anything it wants.  It can ask its mother to stay.

A Pair of Tickets  (Jing-Mei and Suyuan)

pg.  267 Once you are born Chinese, you cannot help but feel and think Chinese.  "Someday you will see," said my mother.  "It's in your blood, waiting to be let go."

268  But today I realize I've never really known what it means to be Chinese.  I am thirty-six years old.  My mother is dead and I am on a train, carrying with me her dreams of coming home.  I am going to China.

I think they are saying China has changed in other ways as well.  Chungking is Chhongqing.  And Kweilin is Guilin.  I have looked these names up, because after we see my father's aunt in Guangzhou, we will catch a plane to Shanghai, where I will meet my two half-sisters for the first time.
And it was only this year that someone found them and wrote with this joyful news. 

pg. 280  "What were they named?"  she asks.  I listen carefully.  I had been planning on using just the familiar "Sister" to address them both.  But now I want to know how to pronounce their names.  "They have their father's surname, Wang," says my father.  "And their given names are Chwun Yu and Chwun Hwa."  "What do the name mean?"  I ask.  "One means 'Spring Rain,' the other 'Spring Flower,' he explains in English, "because the born in the spring, and of course rain come before flower, same oder these girls are born.  Your mother like a poet, don't you think?"  "And what does Ma's name mean?"   I whisper.  " 'Suyuan,'" he says, writing more invisible characters on the glass.  "The way she write it in Chinese, it mean "Long Cherished Wish.'  Quite a fancy name, not so ordinary like flower name.  "Your name also special" he says.  " 'Jing' like excellent jing.  Not just good, it's something pure, essential, the best quality.  Jing is good leftover stuff when you take the impurities out of something like gold, or rice, or salt.  So what is left__just pure essence.  And 'Mei,' this is common mei, as in meimei, 'younger sister.' "

pg. 181 "No, tell me in Chinese,"  I interrupt.  "Really, I can understand."

pg, 182  She didn't have the strength to carry those babies any further.  She slumped to the ground.  She knew she would die of her sickness, or perhaps from thirst, from starvation, or from the Japanese, who she was sure were marching right behind her.

When the road grew quiet, she tore open the lining of her dress, and stuffed jewelry under the shirt of one baby and money under the other.  She reached into her pocket and drew out the photos of her family, the picture of her father and mother, the picture of herself and her husband on their wedding day.  And she wrote on the back of each the names of the babies and this same message:  "Please care for these babies with the money and valuables provided.  When it is safe to come, if you bring them to Shanghai, 9 Weichang Lu, the Li family will be glad to give you a generous reward.  Li Suyuan and Wang Fucchi."

pg 287  Somebody shouts, "She's arrived!"

pg. 288 My sisters and I stand, arms around each other, laughing and wiping the tears from each other's eyes.  I know we all see it:  Together we look like our mother.  Her same eyes, her same mouth, open in surprise to see, at last, her long-cherished wish.

Suyuan began as my favorite mother and Jing-Mei my favorite daughter from the very beginning.  In spite of all that Suyuan lived through, she remained true to herself, she kept her dignity, and I felt was the most kindest, soft, loving of all the mothers.  I think this is why Amy Tan decided to always have her and Jing-Mei's stories told last in the sections.  They are the ones who left me with hope, feeling no doubt had Suyuan lived longer, their relationship would have blossomed, especially once the letter from the two sisters arrived, and they would become united.

Ginny, 

For me, it's respect for the mothers, despite, yes despite how they act. They are a product of what they have been through, and it's been awful. ALL  of us have been through things in our long lives, so we know the wisdom that age brings, not all of it good.

You are a better person than me.  I could not bring myself to respect a couple of these women. Some things were of their own making, some were out of their control. 

I like finishing on a happy note with the three sisters together, seeing their mother Suyuan, in each of them. 

Jonathan,  "Bewilderment, " is an adequate word, to end this on.  I am shaken, bewildered, shocked, and thinking this book is something I want to forget as soon as possible.  Although it ended on a happy note, I am still trying to get some images from my mind.   

[ginny]

What's bewildering, Jonathan?

The book, the posts about the book or both?  .  Are there any comments you'd  like to add ?

All thoughts are welcome.

Bellamarie,  i'll try to articulate tomorrow why I have respect for  each of these mothers. It kind of reminds me of two things though , two  images come to mind at the moment :  (1) while everybody  has skeletons in their closet, not everybody has their closets  stripped bare,,you might  say, revealed in the last chapter of a book. I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand if we had encountered each story intact from the beginning I wonder if the impact would be the same.  I'm wondering why she chose this last to do this.   I spent  a lot of time wondering, in this book why she presentd it as she did.     I mean you can't miss the way she's done this, the complexity.

The second thing that comes to my mind about the mothers here without really putting a lot of thought into it are the instructions they give you when you are doing  a singing performance...a vocal performance, that (2), it's not how you begin, it's not the mistakes that happen to you in the middle, it's how you end it.    So that's what I want to really look at tomorrow for my own part,  to talk about them as elders today.   

 I wonder, too, why these details from so long ago are suddenly thrust into the last chapter.   

[bellamarie]

Ginny, I also wonder why this structure for the book?  Parts were redundant, and the last sections seemed out of place, since she already went back and told their lives before America.  It's like she presented their lives in the first sections to the reader, and then was presenting them to the daughters in the end.  I could maybe have dealt with these sections in the beginning, and felt a little better about an ending, without these stories hitting me in my face, leaving the ugly splatter all over my mind at the end.  I am certain she ended it with Suyuan, Jing-Mei, Chwun Yu and Chwun Hwa, to leave the readers on a lighter, happier note.  I mean how can you not be happy with 'Rain,'  'Flower,'  'Excellence,' and 'Long Cherished Wish.'

Yes, Jonathan, please elaborate a bit more, as to your bewilderment. 

[hats]

I am going through a rough patch this week and will continue to go through it for a little while. In my thoughts, I carry the mothers and daughters with me. Their names are scattered and some times their stories. At the moment, The Joy Luck Club is about the strains and struggles of life. Our ghosts are the voices from the past that we long to hear once again. For example, there is Suyuan Woo whose voice dies early in the story. Then, comes alive again within her daughter, Jing-mei Woo's, life and thoughts. No matter what she goes through "June" recalls her mother's love and longing for her daughters and her sisters. There is hope within this story. If we continue to reach for a dream, it might or might not come true. In this instance, it does come true. Jing-mei sees her sisters once again and China too. We can go home again(Ginny/Philly). I think Thomas Wolfe has a novel about the possibility of going home again. Secondly, our true identity remains with us always. This too is recaptured again and again in the ghostly voices surrounding us saying stick with this goal. Do not give up. Keep climbing or treading water. You won't fall. You won't drown. Losing ourselves, our true selves will not happen. You are your ancestors come alive again. 

My mother is dead and I am on a train, carrying with me her dreams of coming home. I am going to China.

[hats]

I wish there had been time to make a list of the places named in the book. I'm trying to find again Barb's post about Ningbo. Locations, where we live from the beginning of life to the very end give us identity. When I look inside myself for examination, I see myself never apart from a location. When I think of relatives and friends, I remember them with their region. I remember seeing the name Shanghai, Tientsin and that's all.

I remember receiving and sending postcards. Those small cards seemed to put you wherever the person you loved found themselves at that time. What was a vacation without sending a postcard? I should have collected stamps.

[ginny]

 That's another thing we've lost, isn't  it? Postcards. Who sends postcards today? Selfies sent electronically, everything is instant and electronic. No more waiting 2 weeks, the person  long returned, for that postcard from Europe to arrive.

Sorry for the rough patch, Hats, but hang in there, we are appreciating you no end, it's been so  wonderful hearing your thoughts in this discussion, they've added SO much. And we've gotten to know you better, too. It's been a wonderful experience.

Here you've captured the last or was it  the  first of the 4 mothers, for me:   The Joy Luck Club is about the strains and struggles of life. Our ghosts are the voices from the past that we long to hear once again. For example, there is Suyuan Woo whose voice dies early in the story. Then, comes alive again within her daughter, Jing-mei Woo's, life and thoughts. No matter what she goes through "June" recalls her mother's love and longing for her daughters and her sisters. There is hope within this story. If we continue to reach for a dream, it might or might not come true. In this instance, it does come true. Jing-mei sees her sisters once again and China too. We can go home again (Ginny/Philly).

I can't improve on that one and I am especially glad to see it this morning because I totally forgot I have an appointment out of town today and am late now, so it will be tomorrow (how on earth one forgets this type of thing I  have no clue, but I did)...and here I was working on Lindo to start with, having dismissed  Suyuan entirely as deceased, so you've done a great job there and I am glad to see it.

So tomorrow's the charm for the other three, for me. (That "going home," Hats? I am beginning to think that you can but it's more  like the song I'll be Home for Christmas, maybe "if only in my dreams." I'm in accord with your first statement on it, perhaps better revisited in dreams, but I do wish I could stop dreaming about it at night.)

See you all tomorrow!

[bellamarie]

Hats,  I am so sorry you are going through a rough patch.  I do hope it will end soon.  My thoughts and prayers are with you.  I second what Ginny said,  we have loved having you along with us on our journey, and at our Maj-Hong table.  Your insights always show me another perspective to see.  I especially like: 

No matter what she goes through "June" recalls her mother's love and longing for her daughters and her sisters. There is hope within this story.

I agree, June has kept her mother alive throughout this story.  THAT is what these mothers are all hoping for, is that once they are dead and gone, their daughters will keep them alive with the next generations.  Isn't that what we all hope for?  I don't think it is egotistical or narcissistic to want to remain alive in your family's memories.  I don't want to think that generations from now I will not even be mentioned.  I think about how I constantly mention my Mom or mother in law, grandmothers and my Dad to my grandchildren.  I have no knowledge, memory or pictures of my great grandparents on either side, so I can only keep those alive, who I was given knowledge of.  We need to talk with our children and grandchildren and even great grandchildren when they come along.  Pass along pictures, stories, places and traditions...... 
Keep our ancestry alive! 

In today's world the internet does keep us all connected, no matter where we live.  I love the fact when my granddaughter travels she is posting on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, etc.  I feel like I am with her, and know that she is safe.  But a post card...... gosh I didn't even know they still have them.  My friends and family travel all throughout Europe, Asia, everywhere I can think of.  They have shared their pics instantly on their Facebook pages. I have never traveled abroad, but when I see their pics of the Eiffel Tower, the Basilica, rolling hills of Ireland, Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Vatican, the cells of Auschwitz, the roads of Jerusalem, etc., I am seeing them, there alongside these famous places and things, and no post card could ever give me that euphoria.  The only drawback of this is, NO photo albums to browse through, everything is digital and it seems no one takes the time to create hard copies and place them in a book anymore, myself included. I probably have over a million digital pics on cds and usb drives, that will probably never be bothered with, although, they contain captured precious moments over the past sixteen years or longer.  Luckily, I do share them in albums on Facebook so my family can browse through them at any time and click save as and have that picture for their own.

Yes, this Joy Luck Club ends with hope.  Hope, that these daughters will one day realize why their mothers were the way they were, and ultimately, the only thing they truly wanted and wished for, is for them to have love and happiness. 

Ginny,  I hope you made  it to your appointment in time.  I wake up every morning trying to figure out what day it is, and what plans I have for the day.  Since my hubby and I have retired we are so busy, I always hope for a day to do nothing.  That does not happen very often.  I am off to birthday shop for my daughter in law, and then meet up with the family for dinner to celebrate her special day. 

 

[ginny]

I figure we've got 4 days left and so I can take my time and do one mother a day,  but I may have to do some squeezing for the 4th, the one I least relate to.

But today is Lindo's day.  I read her story again last night. I like Lindo, very much.

You may say HOW? Remember all her faults, etc., were articulated by a teen age girl, I thought when I read them they were typical teen drama queen, with that poor me perspective,  and I think I am right, here's why:

In chapter 4 we get the mother's perspective. It seems that the girl may not be quite  as reliable a narrator as we thought.  Lindo does not understand why her daughter treats her as she does. Why she says does her daughter say  Lindo came over on a slow boat from China. She didn't. Why does her daughter  raise her voice to her mother in Mr. Rory's shop as if her mother does not understand English. She does.  Why she does not want to look like her mother (when all Lindo wanted to do was BE like her own mother).

 Why, now that being Chinese is fashionable, Waverely, who was named for an American street,  in Lindo's eyes, is ashamed of how her mother looks.  And on and on.

Lindo says "It's my fault she is this way. I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these two things do not mix?"

"I couldn't teach her about Chinese character....How to  know your own worth and polish it, never flashing it around like a cheap ring. Why Chinese thinking is best."

The never flashing part is why I thought Lindo was not trying to take credit for the chess wins, and that appears accurate, too. She was after something else.

Lindo has paid her dues and more. She was the one married off to a child boy. She came to America and worked in menial jobs, I think her Lucy and Ethel fortune cookie segment is worth the price of the book. She did try.

This subchapter is called Two Faces. There's a lot in it of "I used my  American face...But inside I am ashamed. I am ashamed because she is ashamed. Because she is my daughter and I am proud of her, and I am her mother, but she is not proud of me."

But Mr. Rory notices how alike they are in appearance. Being Chinese is now "in," and Waverely which I think is a good name for her symbolically, seems to waver upon seeing at last apparently a deeper connection than she had seen.

Lindo says "Why do you tell people I met your father in the Cathay House...the result of a fortune cookie's forecast? All nonsense. You must understand my real circumstance, how I arrived, how I married, how I lost my Chinese face, why you are the way you are...."

It seems there's a lot of substance to Lindo that Waverly, being young, does not know, or appreciate, even now. So Lindo proceeds to tell all of us in a summing up chapter, what her life was like, and as Hats says, it's a chapter of hope.

That last link I put in here had a world of information in it, including this statement:

"One of the things my mother said to me after she read The Joy Luck Club was, 'The past can be changed; if you tell the world, the pattern can be changed.' It's not as though I'm going to change the way women are treated, but I can change how my grandmother will be remembered - not simply as a tragic victim and a forgotten woman, but as a woman who left a legacy of strength."

That needs to be in red, as I think it's the theme of the book.

Lindo ends her ruminations with this:

"I wanted everything for you to be better. I wanted you to have the best circumstances, the best character. I didn't want you to regret anything. And that's why I named you  Waverly...I wanted you to think 'this is where I belong.'  But I also know if I named you after this street, soon you would grow up, leave this place, and take a piece of me with you."

Now we finally get the mother's perspectives in Chapter 4. She ends with this thought, "I think about our two faces,. I think about my intentions. Which one is American? Which one is Chinese? Which one is belter?..." Then they go to China and Lindo is taken for American. She says, "So now I think, 'What did I lose? What did I get back in return? I will ask my daughter what she thinks."

A beautiful ending in strength, not defeat,  a promise for the future, she's now asking her daughter's opinion, a new bond.  I loved it.

[bellamarie]

Yes, like Hats, and you Ginny, I too saw the ending as "hope," for these daughters and mothers.

I love how we can read text and come away with a different perspective on it.  I do believe Amy Tan wrote the conflict between Lindo and Waverly's narrative to show us, the reader, how a mother can pass along a story and a child, because they did not live it, can comprehend it differently.  It happens ALL the time with me and my children and grandchildren.  I can say something, and they can interpret it so differently, and I am always a bit shocked and bewildered how they come to their understanding, being entirely different than what I intended.  Tan's theme throughout this entire book has been about, "Lost in translation."

Depending on the reader and where we are in our own personal lives and relationships, whether we have a daughter of our own to help us even relate to these mother/daughter relationships, will surely make a difference in how when we read these stories because of how we perceive them.  That's the interesting thing about our discussions, we ALL can perceive things differently.  Lindo is not my least favorite mother of the four, but I do think Waverly is very unkind and disingenuous with her mother in how she did NOT want to look like her until she felt Chinese is fashionable.  That was so hurtful the entire scene at the hairdressers.  It brought back a memory of when one day I went to my sister's beauty shop with my mother so she could do my mother's hair.  My sister was a bit like Waverly, she had my mother in her chair and telling my mother to lower her voice, she talks too loud and she did not want her co workers to hear her.  Then she decided to cut and style my mother's hair completely different from what my mother wanted.  I stood there watching their interactions, and to this day it brings tears to my face just remembering how hurt my mother was, in how she was being treated, and feeling like my sister was ashamed of her in her fancy beauty salon.  I also remember a few times my sister questioned my mother about her rightful birth after going to a psychiatrist and feeling hidden family things were causing her to be the person she was.  She discussed the fact she thought after talking to her psychiatrist, that she, the only one out of all seven of us siblings, was NOT our father's child.  My mother was horrified when she questioned her on that.  I remember my Mom telling her she needs to stop going to that shrink because he is placing insane thoughts in her mind.  She said she would do a DNA if it was necessary to prove to her that she was indeed her father's daughter, and to prove to the psychiatrist he was so off base.  Ironically, just a few months later, my sister was dating said, psychiatrist.  Like a couple of the mothers in these stories, it shows how we can not always go to outsiders to give us the answers to our family problems.  We need to trust in our own mothers to help us find our answers.

I am having horrible internet connections today, so I will end here, and hope it posts. 

[hats]

My attention has totally fallen on An-mei Hsu, the mother of Rose Hsu Jordan. Ginny asked us at one point who had changed. I chose another mother at the time. I might have gotten the names wrong. I apologize for the error or errors. Perhaps, all of the mothers changed in some way. I focus on An-mei Hsu, because she lost her faith and then, regained it during a time of trouble. When we meet this woman in California, she has placed her Bible under a too short table leg. It stayed there quite a while until one day at the beach the family of seven children and two parents lose their son, Bing, in the ocean. A day at the beach had turned terribly wrong. Amy Tan writes how each family blamed themselves or one another for the loss. After the search boats leaves, the mother, An-mei Hsu returns to the beach with her Bible. She realizes God must become a working part of this disaster. She stands in the water and calls upon Him in prayer. We went to your house. We brought you money. We sang your songs. You gave us more blessings. And now we have misplaced one of them. We were careless. This is true. We had so many good things, we couldn't keep them in our mind all the time.
 After her prayer at the beach, she returns home and to her Chinese memories which are still with her. This particular memory reminds her of a mother calling on the Chinese Higher Power named Chu Jung, the three-eyed god of fire. It is amazing how immigrants are able to mix their new beliefs with old beliefs in order to hold on to their new and different life. Not only is Chu Jung recalled, but so is the "Coiling Dragon who lives in the sea."  So this woman's witness leads An-mei Hsu to call on the power of the Chinese dragon to save her son, Bing. "We must make him loosen his coils from Bing by giving him another treasure he can hide."
Bing, four years old, did not return to them. He was lost to the sea. However, the mother had learned a lesson for forever it seems. Because daughter, Rose Hsu Jordan, finds lightly written in the Bible under deaths Bing's name.

On the page before the New Testament begins, there is a section called "Deaths," and that's where she wrote "Bing Hsu" lightly, in erasable pencil.

I also like this story because it gives further insight into The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates. There are pictures of children falling into trouble: "climbing a broken tree limb, standing by a falling gate..." Rose Hsu couldn't read the words, as we have written about, but she could understand the pictures. An-mei Hsu's life story means so much to me. Just this week I almost lost my faith more than once. Like An-mei Hsu, I wanted life to go my way. No sick children, always safe children no matter their age. I also regretted times that have passed and won't come again. Then, hope began to shine clearly like Ginny and Bellamarie have spoken about. I recall the Sunday School song. The words went like have faith, hope and charity that's the way to live successfully. Although my son is still sick, I know he will get better. He looked much better last night.
I think fate is brought into the equation beside hope by An-mei Hsu? I'm not good at understanding all the terms. For some reason, I thought of the many times Ginny spoke of honor. Don't know why. I also love the beautiful ceremony here. It reminded me of how some people have a special place to throw the ashes of their loved ones.
 

My mother poured out tea sweetened with sugar into the teacup, and threw this into the sea. And then she opened her fist. In her palm was a ring of watery blue sapphire, a gift from her mother, who had died many years before.

Thank you for all the thoughts and prayers.

[ginny]

Hats, I am so sorry to hear your son is sick---sending lots of prayers and {{{{HUGS}}}} this morning for  his recovery.   

 There are only two of the mothers left and they're both quite difficult, I think at least they were for me to deal with, and you've picked probably the most difficult one and I'm glad to see you do it because it helps. I'm not ready with her this morning and not to worry about getting them confused ---they are very confusing.  In my idle moments  I wonder if I'm the one that's getting confused instead of them ----that's not a good effect for a book to have on one.   


But I'm not ready with An mei this morning that's why i am glad to see you tackle her head on.    I don't know what to do with her. So now armed with your introduction and thoughts on her I can probably try to do something tomorrow although I don't think I can improve on that because that was quite a  tragic story.

But as you point out one of hope, one of faith,  and really one of constancy--- that was impressive.  The Bible under the table leg is really something I have to stop and think about.  And of course the change that you point out which I really hadn't seen so I'm going to have to go back and reread that now.

 But I came in with another ephemeral mother and it's odd to me that I actually was thinking  of her as a ghost ---a ghost character.   I was actually calling her a ghost in my mind and then I saw she referred to  herself as a ghost and that would be the Moon Lady--Ying Ying St. Clair.   The one that I was so interested in the beginning, the one that I wanted to see how she turned out ---and then she didn't ...she became a ghost.

I didn't realize this morning how really well this book is written until I realized that the ghost character who sees herself as a ghost became one by the way her story was written.

I think you are right that all of the mothers have changed.   And that alone was the biggest surprise to me in her story.

I'll be back shortly, I wanted to say some things about Bellamarie's post, too,  but I did see you remark about your son and how upset you were,  and of course you are, and wanted to say  just think of all of us as sitting there with you with our arm around you, all  hoping for the best.

[ginny]

That was an interesting post about which mother  was your favorite, Bellamarie, and I liked the reason you think Amy Tan concluded the chapters with her story. That makes sense. It made me watch the others for some hope, too, out of curiosity, more than anything else.

But now what do you all think of  the Ghost Lady as I call her,  Ying Ying St. Clair?  As I said in the post to Hats, this is, to me, absolutely brilliant writing, she HAS been a ghost, to me, the last to be remembered, the most...ephemeral.

What a confusing amorphous thing she is, or rather she presents to the reader. It's hard to make out what she is, really.

She tells her own story in her subchapter Waiting Between the Trees, one of the two faces of the Tiger, but her story doesn't make sense to me, she's as slippery as the fish she says Lena her daughter was, and she slips away from me, too. Deliberately.

There's much made here of her being a Tiger. Whatever the tiger means in Chinese lore, I'm going to have to go on what she says here that it means:

"I was born in the year of the Tiger..."  Her mother told her a tiger was gold and black for this reason: "It has two ways. The gold side leaps with its fierce heart. The  black side stands still with cunning, hiding its gold between the trees, seeing and not being seen, waiting patiently for things to come. I did not learn to use my bad side until after the bad man left me." (He was  unfaithful to the marriage).

So she covered the mirrors of her bedroom like the ladies of the lake so she would not have to see her grief and "floated like a dead leaf on the water," unable to even lift her hand until she drifted out of her mother in law's house, and returned to her family home, where she stayed for 10 years.

"If you ask me what I did  during these long years I can only say I waited between the trees. I  had one eye asleep, the other open and watching."

This Tiger stuff has been in the news since the book The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, the Yale professor who pushed her little girls into achievements. Out of curiosity I looked them up and they both seem to be doing well, though the youngest may not require of her own children 6 hours of violin a day as she had to do, they feel their mother was trying to show them what can be achieved by hard work, and certainly the oldest has attained stellar university placement. Time will tell. It's  a modern version of the truth versus the fiction we're reading.

(Or some of it is fiction, Amy Tan jokes in that Guardian link that her parents wanted her to be a surgeon and a concert pianist. And when she dropped out of pre med they did not speak for 6 months.)

That reminds me of our piano playing prodigy who, not strangely turned out to be Jing Mei. She was really writing what she knew there.

I have personally known people who do this "waiting," without claiming to be Tigers or who feel they have the ability to see inside things, or to "see a thing before it happens."

 And then there is another loss of a baby, this one purposefully.  She then says, " My daughter thinks I do not know what it means to not want a baby....When my daughter looks at me she sees a small old lady. That is because she sees only with our outside eyes. She has no chuming, no inside knowing of things. If she had chuming, she would see a tiger lady, and she would have careful fear."

To me, (but what do YOU all think?) the Moon Lady is one of the walking wounded in the world who, overcome by her horrific past story (remember the being lost and seeking the Moon Lady only  to have the performer transform before her from a beautiful woman into a man) and then the other events of her life, is just shell shocked now into "waiting."  The Tiger bit, to me, is her only power. She's waiting, first at  home 10 years and then through  her marriage to St. Clair, she's waiting.

 There is power in this so called  "waiting,"  the person, whatever the circumstances she has withdrawn emotionally from, feels in control with this device, it's not that she's trapped here in circumstances she does not enjoy, she's in control: she's "waiting."

And there  is power in being this supposed "Tiger," and there is power in feeling she can see through everybody and every thing,  and in "seeing a thing before it happens," and the only problem here is, none of this is power, at all.

She says of her marriage to St. Clair, "I let the hunter come to me and turn me into a tiger ghost. I willingly gave up my chi, the spirit that caused me so much pain."

But she didn't do that, either, I don't think. She gave UP her spirit, period, not just the pain, everything. She detached emotionally. She saved the "trinkets" her husband gave her in love because she "knew" she would marry him, and he would ask about them and he cried to see how much they and he had meant to her, which was nothing.

She says, "How could I not love this man?  But it was the love of a ghost. Arms that encircled but did not touch. A bowl full of rice but without any appetite to eat it. No hunger. No fullness."

She detached herself,  and never communicated with him (there's that lack of communication again, Bellamarie, definitely a theme here) her real life or situation and now she says, "Now Saint is a ghost. He and I can now love equally. He knows the things I have been hiding all these years."

It seems that St. Claire's death has finally broken the bonds of this poor woman's disassociation with life, because in her next sentence she says, "Now I must tell my daughter everything."

Big change here and long overdue. Why is she doing it? She symbolically sends the delicate table in the room crashing to the floor, and since she can "see a thing before it happens," she knows her daughter will come to see it and see nothing "in the darkness where I am waiting between the trees."  Pitiful.

I think Ying Ying has realized but can't quite fully admit even now  that her entire life has been a sham. If she could "see a thing before it happens"  she would not have been surprised by the Moon Lady turning into a man, nor by being lost, nor by her first husband's infidelity. She has just used common sense to know that St. Clair would marry her after 4 years  of courtship, and that her daughter will come upstairs to see what happened to the table. The waiting has been essentially wasted time and worse. She did it to protect herself, but she's taught her daughter how to disassociate from the world, too.

 (Remember this is Lena's mother, the Voice From the Wall) the one who had to translate to her poor father the PC version of what her mother was saying.  She's behind a self imposed wall, too, there, and again there refers to herself as a ghost. All those lost years, trying to find power in her imagination.

Ying Ying sees what she's done to herself and her daughter by being a ghost,  and in one last burst of power for her daughter's sake, and only for her daughter's sake: she is finally going to enter the world again, but as we can see, still clinging to her old props: the Tiger stuff, the "seeing a thing before it happens," and the "chuming."

How do you think it will turn out for her? For them? 

Is it too little, too late?







 

[bellamarie]

I am so very sorry to hear your son is sick.  Please know my thoughts and prayers are with you and your son, praying he will be better soon.

Oh Hats, this is why we NEED YOU, to be in our discussions!  Your post was so eloquent, it brought chills to me.  Yes, An Mei losing Bing was such a tragedy, yet so very touching.  It was a horrible disaster, and my heart ached for her and Rose.  You reminded me of the parts of the beauty in this complex book.  Thank you for sticking with us til the end.  Sometimes, I get fixated on certain things that really affected me while reading, that it stays with me, and does not allow me to remember the good, the bad and the ugly, but most importantly..... the beauty as well.   

[bellamarie]

Ginny, WOW!  I am so glad you tackled Ying-ying.  She is my least favorite of the mothers.  I found her to be narcissistic.  She used every tactic, symbol, and excuse for all her bad choices and bad behavior.  I like your insight:

I think Ying Ying has realized but can't quite fully admit even now  that her entire life has been a sham. If she could "see a thing before it happens"  she would not have been surprised by the Moon Lady turning into a man, nor by being lost, nor by her first husband's infidelity. She has just used common sense to know that St. Clair would marry her after 4 years  of courtship, and that her daughter will come upstairs to see what happened to the table. The waiting has been essentially wasted time and worse. She did it to protect herself, but she's taught her daughter how to disassociate from the world, too.

As I mentioned in my last post, I tend to fixate on a certain thing that affects me, and can't seem to let it go.  And this, I could NOT let go....

When Ying-ying murdered her unborn baby, out of revenge for her husband leaving her, that is where I was not willing to excuse her, or understand her any longer.  Is this fair?  Probably not, but, I am at a point in my life where I refuse to accept the drama, brought on by oneself. 

Amy Tan has written a very self indulged woman in Ying-ying.  She doesn't really care for others feelings, she professes to have this ability to "see things before they happen," yet over and over again she reacts after things happen, rather than to try to prevent them from happening.  Which for me leaves it unbelievable she really does have this supreme sense. I'm thinking our author liked using this Chinese scenario for the sake of adding in this symbolic sense. For me, Ying-ying was self indulged, self- absorbed, and cruel.  This is the story in the book that gave me a queasy feeling.  I wanted to throw up, reading her decision to end that child's life for revenge. 

How does Rose accept, her mother was capable of murdering an innocent unborn baby, simply out of revenge? 

As beautiful a post Hats was able to share with us, Ginny, yours was as equally insightful even though you dealt with one of the most ugliest of mothers, in my opinion.   

[hats]

Ginny, Ying Ying St. Clair is everything you have said and more. For me, she is the most complicated mother of all. I printed out your comment to read and reread along with reading or scanning the chapter again. I think it is best to leave her in your capable hands and Bellamarie's capable hands. Yes, Amy Tan's writing is superb. I would love to memorize many of the descriptions of this Ghost lady  who was born in the Tiger year. We would have lost so much in the book world if Amy Tan had not become an author. You shared her story and what her parents wanted for her as far as a career by giving the Guardian link. Does "fate" come into play? For some reason, that word scares me.
With each woman, I've tried to see myself in their person. Perhaps, this is the only part I understand of Ying Ying. For one of my babies, I felt he slipped away from me like a fish. So slippery I will never forget the moment it happened. I've continued to fish the waters trying to recapture him and will until the day I die. "But when she was born, she sprang from me like a slippery fish, and has been swimming away ever since. All her life, I have watched her as though from another shore. Like Ying Ying, I might not have shared enough of my story. I suppose all babies are like fish in some way.
I like many of the quotes given by you in your post. This one describes me as the mother of this particular son. "If you ask me what I did during these long years I can only say I waited between the trees. I had one eye asleep, the other open and watching." I am still behind the trees, not hiding, just waiting. Until reading what you wrote, I did not realize waiting is a form of control. I really, really have to think of that and if control is ever a good thing. Going away from the computer to do more reading. If I don't get back, thanks to all of you for having me. It has been a great August. But I know I can not help but return. I truly enjoy the comments. Many times I'm sorry to miss one or find myself unable to comment on all the thoughts.

[ginny]

We were posting together, Hats, what a beautiful post, Hats and Bellamarie, too,  you both raise issues I need to think about, too.

I agree on this as well: We would have lost so much in the book world if Amy Tan had not become an author. See below to see if you think The Joy Luck Club belongs among the lists of the Great American Reads.

And  today we turn to the last of the 4 pairs, or I do, I'm late to the An-mei and Rose party, as you've both done it so well already which takes the burden off, and leaves me to just say what I think.

 It seems to be about Choice, to me. And it's  confusing because the climax to An-mei's own  mother's story happened in the 3rd chapter and she leaves the 4th for her resultant influence on Rose to find hers in the divorce.  (Did An-Mei's mother  have a name, by the way? Was she called anything but "my mother," and "Fourth Wife?,") But her example, the grandmother's, the Fourth Wife's example in doing the only choice she had, committing suicide, has caused the result on An-Mi on the third day after her mother's death when the dead return to settle old scores, when An Mi confronts Second Wife:  "And on that day I learned to shout."

So  in Chapter 4, where the change  is all Rose's, the mother passes down the knowledge she has won by telling us  her mother's story, three women, making a chain through the generations, and An Mei is determined that this lack of "choice" in life will end with Rose.

 Rose is having  a problem in that her husband is having an affair and is attempting to divorce her. She spends her time on a psychiatrist's couch, crying. Her mother tells her that crying is a waste of time, it only feeds the psychiatrist's joy, in a continuing patient. She recalls  a parable of the turtle and the tears and the magpies, which I thought was odd.  I never thought of a magpie as a joyous bird, but this parable has an unexpected parallel  result at the end of Rose's story in a news article that  ended with the Chinese peasants  rising up and scaring away birds, it doesn't say magpies, it says birds, who were profiting off their own tears cried in the fields to make seeds grow. And An-mei recalls she "shouted for joy" when she read this had happened.

An-mei  told her daughter  Rose in Chapter 3  that  she has no wood,  that she does have a choice, to not MAKE a choice but simply to go along is wrong, and she knows how wrong it is because in the last chapter she has seen what happens in a  China where there truly WAS no choice except suicide. And she  uses    Fourth  Wife's example as to why not to choose, and that  to try to run away mentally, to cry to a psychiatrist, IS to choose, that's something we can all ponder.

How much of life's circumstances ARE under our control? Or is this another way of saying you can't help what happens to you but you can help what you do about  it?

At any rate, Rose listens to her mother and hers is the final chapter, in that she does stand up to Ted for what she wants, and that causes HER laughter so the book, our intricate Chinese puzzle box, ends with all 4 mothers having changed somewhere in the book,  and are influencing their daughters in Chapter 4 with the weight of their Chinese ancestors after all, who now have a voice too.

At least that's what I got out of it.

I really enjoyed this book and this discussion, and I appreciate the great time you both put into this: you, Bellamarie,  with your painstaking (I know that took a lot of work) and impressive  analyses of the plot and the bewildering twists and turns, and you, Hats, with  your stunning posts and your taking the time to even post at all. Hope your son is doing better, this morning.

So now the question IS: this book is listed on PBSs Great American Reads, and I wonder if you think it should be included there, and why?

In other words, what are your final thoughts about the book itself?

 

[bellamarie]

My final thoughts about The Joy Luck Club is this,  I think Amy Tan is an excellent writer.  Even though I felt there were parts that repeated itself unnecessarily, and that it was a very complex book to read, it mimicked real life, repetitive and complex.  It was so difficult to keep straight which mother, was with which daughter, all the way up to the very end.

This book dealt with so many more issues than mother/daughter relationships, miscommunication, and differences in cultures. This book not only dealt with the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth, but it also touched on suicide, abortion, rape, child trafficking, abandonment, rejection, self-hate, child sexual abuse, control, manipulation, superstition, faith, anorexia, bulimia, war, the list goes on and on..... 

With this being said, there were also some more pleasant things the book dealt with, which were the relationships between the mothers and daughters, be it what they were, they did not give up on each other.  They remained in each other's lives, there was faith, hope and love.  Love being the greatest of all. 

This could not have been an easy book for Amy Tan to write.  She says part of it is autobiographical, to learn about the pain your parent goes through in her life before you were ever born, and to know it has caused her to become the person she is, can be difficult for any child to comprehend, especially at a young age.  As you get older and have experienced things in your own life that has caused you pain, then is when you can find compassion for others. 

I think ultimately, in the end there was forgiveness, healing, acceptance and understanding for some of these women, and I can see the Mah Hong table filled with the friendship of these mothers/daughters for possibly generations to come. Or at least until Yin-ying, An-Mei and Lindo are alive. 

Thank you, Ginny, for leading our discussion.  You were not only thought provoking, but your insight into areas of the book really made me stop and reconsider a different look at these complex relationships. 

Hats, what can I say, you are struggling with your son's ill health, and yet you come in to give us your incredible posts.  Please know I have huge admiration for you.  You are not wordy, because you can get right to the heart of something in so few words.  Your posts bring tears to my eyes, and make me want to be more insightful like you.  I pray all goes well with your son.

I have two birthday parties to go to today, so I must rush off.  One is my sister's who recently lost her husband.  It will be a gathering of us five sisters, and our only brother.  Something that has not taken place in ages.  I know her house will be filled with laughter, and maybe a few tears remembering her hubby, our American hero.  The other is a scavenger hunt my granddaughter has planned to surprise her mother for her 40th birthday!  Oh what fun it will be to watch her scamper around their house with a clue list in hand hunting for the hidden birthday gifts.  I'm sure at the end of the day, I will be exhausted, but I will be filled with memories to last a lifetime.


   

[ginny]

That was a great summary! Have a wonderful  time today.

Just wondering, where is the child sexual abuse?

I think for my part when I look at all the other nominees for the Great American Read on PBS this fall, which I just did,  (all wonderful books anybody and everybody  should read), that this book, I think, belongs right up there with the rest because it was,  as you say, an ambitious book, a very complicated book, and one  which really had issues which touch all of us.

For the "American Read" part it's particularly good to include it,  because it involves  the American experience as seen from the point of view of an immigrant, which America is made up of, and which stories I've always loved to read. It's as current today as it was 30 years ago.

In addition it's  not only one,  but a series of great tales, spanning 3 generations,  folklore, symbolism, any of which would have made a great book, all put together in a grand  experience. I am sure  I missed something vital, but what I did manage to see I really did enjoy. Even if I couldn't  keep the  mothers, and daughters separated in my mind. hahhaa  (She's very clever with that, how she separates them and how she names the chapters, very clever indeed). It makes you stop and pay attention.

I really can't say enough about her skill in writing. I guess that's why I've read all but the latest of her books.  But 30 years is a long time and I had forgotten a LOT  of this one so it was particularly good to see it on that list, for us to take part in a small way in the Great American Read,  and to have such great commentators to read with.

Thank you both for a great ride.

[Jonathan]

Y'all have been just awesome in the discussion of this unusual book. I've come in every day wondering what new thing you've discovered about our human nature as seen through Chinese eyes. The wonders that can be found in translation!! I've learned a lot, and I'm left with much to think about.

'Not an easy book to write.' A good observation, Bellamarie. But you must remember that it wasn't written as a book. Amy Tan acknowledges that in my book. '...some of the stories, in slightly different form, have already  appeared...' in popular publications.

I sensed a unique culture in this book. It gave new meaning to the fortune in my cookie after yesterday's Chinese dinner.

'Focus on your long-term goal.'

At my age!!! Why not? I think I'll learn Chinese. For new joys. And Chinese Luck!!

[ginny]

Jonathan, how nice to see  you here. We missed you in this discussion but I am glad to see  you enjoyed  reading it, anyway. And you're not the only one, the "hits" on it (numbers of people looking in) are very high.

The fortune cookie scene in this book is fascinating, and reminiscent of the old I Love Lucy series, you really want to get the book from the library and read the chapter called Double Face, which is  a sub chapter of Chapter 4 to see a different side of the fortune cookie.

One of our Latin students has a nifty "signature" to his posts, which I like and which I think fits the bill here:

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”

Go for it!

[bellamarie]

Ginny,

Just wondering, where is the child sexual abuse?

MAGPIES

Pg.  216  My mother was a stranger to  me when she first arrived at my uncle's house in Ningpo.  I was nine years old and had not seen her for many years.

Pg.  227  My mother had the same fearful look she wore  in the harbor station.  She walked quickly into the house.  I walked around the side of the house toward the front.  Two shine black rickshaws had arrived and behind them a large black motorcar.  A manservant was taking luggage out of the one rickshaw.  From another rickshaw, a young maid jumped out.

All the servants crowded around the motorcar, looking at their faces in the polished metal, admiring the curtained windows, the velvet seats.  Then the driver opened the back door and out stepped a young girl.  She had short hair with rows of waves.  She looked to be only a few years older than I, but she had on a woman's dress, stockings, and high heels.  I looked down at my own white dress covered with grass stains and I felt ashamed.

And then I saw the servants reaching into the backseat of the motorcar and a man was slowly being lifted by both arms.  This was Wu Tsing.  He was a big man, not tall, but puffed out like a bird.  He was much older than my mother, with a high shiny forehead and a large black mole on one nostril. 

He walked into the house like that, with this young girl following him.  She was looking behind at everyone with a simpering smile, as if they were there to honor her.  And when she was hardly in the door, I heard one servant remark to another, "Fifth Wife is so young she did not bring any of her own servants, only a wet nurse." 

Ana-Mei is only nine years old, so that means the Fifth Wife is a few years older, maybe twelve years old.

_____________________________

WAITING BETWEEN THE TREES

Pg. 244  I was sixteen.  It was the night my youngest aunt got married.

A man from another town was seated with us, a friend of my aunt's new husband.  He was older than my oldest brother, so I called him Uncle.  His face was reddened from drinking whiskey. "Ying-ying," he called hoarsely to me as he rose from his chair.  "Maybe you are still hungry, isn't it so?"  I looked around the table, smiling at everyone because of this special attention given to me.  I thought he would pull a special treat from a large sack he was reaching into.  I hoped for some sweetened cookies.  But he pulled out a watermelon and put it on the table with a loud pung.  "Kai gwa?" __Open the watermelon__he said, poising a large knife over the perfect fruit. Then he sank the knife in with a mighty push and his huge mouth roared a laugh so big I could see all the way back to his gold teeth.  Everyone at the table laughed loudly.  My face burned from embarrassment, because at that time I did not understand.  Yes, it is true I was a wild girl, but I was innocent.  I did not know what an evil thing he did when he cut open the watermelon.  I did not understand until six months later when I was married to this man and he hissed drunkenly to me that he was ready to kai gwa.

kai gwa is a euphemism for taking her virginity.

These parts were very difficult for me as a mother of a daughter and granddaughters to read. It made me think of the last line in the epigraph of the last section:

"Thank you, Little Queen.  Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson.  How to loose your innocence but not your hope.  How to laugh forever."

Reading the scars left on these mothers and their mothers, and knowing family and friends who have also experienced child molestation/rape/abuse..... I find it a bit of an oxymoron to say,
"How to laugh forever."

[bellamarie]

Jonathan, 

'Not an easy book to write.' A good observation, Bellamarie. But you must remember that it wasn't written as a book. Amy Tan acknowledges that in my book. '...some of the stories, in slightly different form, have already  appeared...' in popular publications.

Hmmmm..... well now, maybe this can help explain why the structure of the book is the way it is.  For me, this book did not have the flow of most stories being told.  It felt chopped up.  No real Chapters that are numbered, things out of sequence, redundancy, and not having the names of the mother and daughters to remind us of who belongs with whom for each section, making it very frustrating for the reader.  I guess all of this makes sense, if Amy Tan was writing sections for other publications, and then decided to put them all together and have this book published. 

Ginny, 

Jonathan, how nice to see  you here. We missed you in this discussion but I am glad to see  you enjoyed  reading it, anyway. And you're not the only one, the "hits" on it (numbers of people looking in) are very high.

It amazes me how many hits, and so little posts. To continue having this book club we need participation, and while I understand many don't have the same amount of time as others do to post and discuss our books, on the same note, without them, where is the future of this book club is headed?     

[ginny]

Thank  you Bellamarie.

"Looking like" somebody is only a few years older, particularly when the narrator is a child.  and being a few years older are, to me, different things.  No age is given, just the child's impression. Amy Tan has not been shy about talking about all manner of things, I think if she wanted to, she could have made a point of this.  I 'm not in agreement here with your conclusion. Many people in the US refer to the latest  trophy wife as the husband's having "robbed the cradle."


As far as the marriage early in life, different cultures do things differently. And always have for 2000 years. I'm not saying that such did not happen, I'm saying I'm not seeing it here in this book.

And up to now you have been on record as saying you did not see any child sexual abuse in the book, so the last chapter I guess changed your mind, but I don't agree and I think it's a disservice to say the book is about that based on those two examples.

But of course you are entitled to your opinion, as are we all.

[bellamarie]

You are entitled to your own opinion, as am I. 

Ginny, 

And up to now you have been on record as saying you did not see any child sexual abuse in the book, so the last chapter I guess changed your mind,

At the time Barb chose to leave our discussion, when this topic first came up,I did go on record saying, I did not see any child sexual abuse, up to that point in the book. These last chapters have in my opinion, described there was indeed, sexual abuse on these two children, which gives me the prerogative to acknowledge it, now that I do see it. 

Ginny, 

I think it's a disservice to say the book is about that based on those two examples.

If you go back and read my post, I did NOT say this book was "based" on anything. I listed many issues, I saw the author tackling, and yes, child sexual abuse is one of them.  It is not a disservice, for me to speak my opinion based on these two incidents, where the author has described these acts committed on these children. 

Ginny, 

"Looking like" somebody is only a few years older, particularly when the narrator is a child.  and being a few years older are, to me, different things.  No age is given, just the child's impression.

If you look up what "a few" is to mean, it says:  While many people would agree that "a few" means three or more, the actual dictionary definition of "a few" is, "not many but more than one." So, "a few" cannot be one, but it can be as low as two. (Wikipedia)

Amy Tan has written these words, in my opinion, to show the reader the ages, and or the approximate age, of these young girls. She not only has Ying-ying tell her own age which is nine years old, but she also has her describe this young girl by saying, "looks a few years older than me."  Amy Tan then has her go on to describe how she is inappropriately dressed for her age, while Ying-ying is dressed age appropriate. 

She is dressed in women's clothing and stockings. 
Now THAT is creepy!!!

The reader can not overlook the fact Amy Tan has the servant mentioning, she is so young she does not come with a servant, instead a "wet nurse."

A wet nurse is a woman who breast feeds and cares for another's child. (Wikipedia)

Ginny,   

As far as the marriage early in life, different cultures do things differently. And always have for 2000 years.

I completely agree different cultures would not have an issue with a sixteen year old being married.  BUT.....Again, Amy Tan used the entire scene of the older man being rude, sexual and joking about taking  her virginity. 

I did not know what an evil thing he did when he cut open the watermelon.  I did not understand until six months later when I was married to this man and he hissed drunkenly to me that he was ready to kai gwa.

kai gwa is a euphemism for taking her virginity. 

Ginny,

Amy Tan has not been shy about talking about all manner of things, I think if she wanted to, she could have made a point of this.

In my opinion, Amy Tan did indeed make the point, not once, but twice.   

As I said, you are entitled to your own opinion based on what you perceive, and likewise, I am entitled to the same.  It's not a comfortable issue, but Amy Tan chose to deal with it, in my opinion, and based on her own words, this is my perception.  I am not trying to change your mind, or convince you I am right and you are wrong.  I am only trying to help you see where I came to the conclusion, Amy Tan did in fact tackle the issue of child sexual assault, along with many other uncomfortable issues in this book. 

These issues I speak of, are a compilation of what the author is tackling, they are "parts" of the book, NOT what the book is "based" on, there is a difference.  And yes, in this book there is the good, the bad and the ugly.  And yes, we can agree to disagree. 

 

[ginny]

Fine.   Thank you for your  opinions, and for being such a great participant.   Special thanks to Hats and to Barbara, Karen, and Jonathan, and to all who looked in or commented..

This discussion is now concluded, and it's been a good one,  and I've enjoyed every minute of it.

We'll be archiving it in the next couple of days.

[bellamarie]

Ginny, Thank you!!!  We could not have done The Joy Luck Club, without you. 
Good Luck in your upcoming Latin classes!

Jonathan, Good luck with learning Chinese! It was nice having your pop in, from time to time.

Hats, Again, thank you for your eloquently, insightful posts.  I do pray your son is getting better and will return to good health soon.

Barb, Frybabe and Joan, I am sorry you were not able to stick with us.  Hope we will be discussing a new book together soon.

When ever I see a Mah-hung table, I will think of this book, and all of you.

Myself, I will be preparing for my return to my 3rd grade CCD (religion) class for the 2018 - 2019 school year. 

再见