For the record, I don’t write to dig a hole and fill it with
symbols. I don’t write stories as ethnic themes. I don’t write to
represent life in general. And I certainly don’t write because I have
answers. If I knew everything there is to know about mothers and
daughters, Chinese and Americans, I wouldn’t have any stories left to
imagine. If I had to write about only positive role models, I wouldn’t
have enough imagination left to finish the first story.
--Amy
Tan, from "In the Canon, For All the Wrong Reasons"
About
a year ago I took a survey class in multicultural literature. The class
covered various ethnic-American authors such as Bernard Malamud
(Jewish-American), Toni Morrison (African-American), and Amy Tan
(Chinese-American). I noticed in many of these works an importance
placed on food that isn’t present very often in non-ethnic American
literature. This notion was reinforced by a sociology class I was
taking. As part of this class we took a trip to various ethnic
communities in Chicago. It was stressed that we should sample some of
the food in the various neighborhoods to get a better sense for the
culture. The question I had is why isn’t "American" food in a place of
prominence in "American" literature.
It is difficult to
categorize how the food items actually function in these stories (other
than creating an "ethnic" atmosphere). So, the fact that Amy Tan has
many clear instances that demonstrate the importance of food in her
stories made The Joy Luck Club a logical novel for the study of this
topic. There were many was of approaching this topic but I found that
cultural feminism provides some clear explanations of and contradictions
to Tan’s world. Josephine Donovan explains that "instead of focusing on
political change, feminists holding these ideas look for a broader
cultural transformation ... they also stress the role of the
non-rational, the intuitive and often the collective side of life" (31).
For this paper these ideas will define "cultural feminism" the true
range of cultural feminism is not necessarily represented in this
definition but it provides a functional definition to use while
examining the way Chinese and American culture interact in The Joy Luck
Club. Donovan’s writing on culture also serves as a good resource on
cultural feminism because it summarizes many of the main contributors to
that field.
Another major reason I selected Tan’s The
Joy Luck Club to focus on is that it represents eastern philosophy. I’m
very interested in this type of life-philosophy. The research I’ve done
for this paper has helped me to understand the traditions of
Confucianism and Taoism a little better. There is also an part of the
Chinese culture that is strongly influenced by the need to survive (Xu
5). These eastern philosophies also helps to answer some of questions
created when various aspects of cultural feminism are applied to Tan’s
writing. This topic is, ultimately, a very large. So limiting the
discussion to food and food imagery puts a limit on it. Food items and
food imagery function in important ways in The Joy Luck Club. First, the
repeated inclusion of food and language related to food act as an
indication of the heightened importance of food in the story due to the
importance of survival in Chinese culture. Secondly, the preparation of
food, done mainly by the women, is accepted as part of the woman’s role
in Chinese culture; it is even demanded by Confucian tradition. And once
these women get to America they are still responsible for the
preparation of the food; the cultural context remains constant for the
mothers but their daughters, presented with situations that would be
approved of by cultural feminists are unable to draw power from their
role in the kitchen because their role fails to fulfill their role as
prescribed by traditional Chinese beliefs.
It might aid
understanding to begin with an overview of the book. The book is set up
as a series of short stories narrated by the mothers and daughters of
four Chinese-American families: the Woo’s, the Hsu’s, the Jong’s and the
St. Clair’s. The mothers are Suyuan Woo, An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and
Ying-ying St. Clair. And their respective daughters are Jing-mei "June"
Woo, Rose Hsu Jordan, Waverly Jong and Lena St. Clair. The book is also
divided into four sections and there are four stories in each section.
Each section is also introduced by a page length story. Two stories by
each mother, and two stories by each daughter except for Jing-mei; she
narrates four stories all together because her mother has recently died.
Much of the criticism about The Joy Luck Club focuses on the
relationship between the mothers and daughters who are story tellers.
But there are also the grandmothers in the book. They are probably over
looked because they do not have a voice of their own. Their stories are
taken as less significant because their daughters are narrating them.
But even if the daughters are distorting these stories they are still
valuable as representations of cultural beliefs as a form of folklore.
And many times they demonstrate the important role that food played in
the lives of Chinese women during WWII.
Suyuan Woo started the
original Joy Luck Club in China during the war. Suyuan included three
other women and their families in her club. They took turns hosting the
meetings each week. And the hostess would provide a banquet. But since
the city was in such a poor state the people in this club were looked
down upon:
People thought we were wrong to serve
banquets every week while many people in the city were starving, eating
rats and, later, the garbage the poorest rats used to feed on. Others
thought we were possessed by demons -- to celebrate when even within our
own families we had lost generations (Tan 11)
But her
mother explained away these criticisms by saying that they did see the
pain and they could sit and be sad or they could "choose our own
happiness" (Tan 12). And an important part of their "happiness" was a
full stomach. They feasted on, not the best quality food, but the best
food in the city (10). Having food meant survival. In time dominated by
the fears of war and the famine of war not wanting for food was one less
worry. "The disposition for many first generation Chinese immigrants in
America to see life as a constant test of survival, to the extent that
it almost becomes ethnic symbolism, is a complex mentality. It is deeply
rooted in China’s past of hardship and numerous famines and wars" (Xu
5). And when Suyuan forms a new Joy Luck Club in America the feast as a
sign of good fortune/survival is just as important as it was in China.
By
looking at the preparation for the meal that is part of the first story
it is possible to see just how much feasting goes on at the meetings of
the Joy Luck Club. An-mei is making wontons, a dumpling stuffed with
various ingredients; she already has enough for each person to eat ten
but she makes more so that each person could eat 20 (Tan 18). That is a
large amount of food and it is only one dish served at the meal. And
Jing-mei’s (who is at the meeting to fill her mother’s spot) description
of the meal supports this idea. "Eating is not a gracious event here.
It’s as though everybody had been starving" (Tan 20). Even though they
have little fear over not being able to obtain food for survival they
act as though they do.
An-mei informs Jing-mei that the
women no longer play mah jong for money; they now invest in the stock
market and the winner at mah jong gets a few dollars while the loser
gets to take home the left over food (Tan 18) "The change in the mah
jong game may appear insignificant. But it reflects the Club Aunties’s
view of the loser as a victim who fails to survive" (Xu 7). So, it is
clear that the tradition of the Joy Luck Club is intertwined with the
survival mentality. Another example of this survival mentality comes in
the "Best Quality" story narrated by Jing-mei. In this story Jing-mei
describes a Chinese New Year meal that her mother prepares. As they are
buying the crabs one of them loses a leg and her mother tries to put it
back but the store keeper makes her take it (225). This crab is seen as
worst quality, least likely to survive. When the platter of crabs is
passed around the table every one in turn picks the best quality crab on
the platter until it gets to Jing-mei (227). She tries to give her
mother the better crab; her mother later says: "Only you pick that crab.
Nobody else take it. I already know this. Everybody else want best
quality. You thinking different" (234). Jing-mei think that this is
another one of her mother’s sayings "that sounded both good and bad at
the same time" (234). It was good of Jing-mei to try to take the bad
crab because she doesn’t really like crab and she also would have been
making a sacrifice for her mother. Everyone else took the best quality
crab available so that they could, in some small way, help to ensure
their survival. So, the tradition of survival is a solid part of the
text. But where does the tradition that follows the mah jong feast come
from?
When the people at the meeting are done eating
the men quickly get up and leave the room. "The women peck at last
morsels and then carry plates and bowls to the kitchen and dump them in
the sink. The women take turns washing their hands, scrubbing
vigorously" (Tan 21). Jing-mei even goes on to ask: "Who started this
ritual?" Throughout the novel we see the mothers being ultimately
responsible for the domestic life of their respective house hold. In the
Western tradition a woman’s life is defined by long standing Biblical
beliefs. Donovan, in her chapter on cultural feminism, uses Elizabeth
Cady Stanton’s The Woman’s Bible as a source for this argument. The
truly restricting idea that man was made before woman and that woman was
made to serve man comes from The Bible (Donovan 37). Therefore, the
Bible prescribes the home as women’s sphere. But the homes of the
mothers are not dominated by Biblical theory or Christianity. These
women are relegated to the kitchen by the philosophies of Chinese
Culture.
The two dominant philosophies in China are
Confucianism and Taoism. "Confucianism is intrinsically patriarchal and
hierarchical" (Tavernise). And the teachings of Confucius are not
without similarities to Western culture. In this tradition one receives
virtue (Te) from heaven and then that Te is displayed in ritual or Li
(Tavernise). This is very similar to the notion in Christianity that
righteous people will act righteously. But ritual is not seen the way we
see it. Ritual can be as something as simple as the way one prepares a
soup or the spices included in a dish. Taoism presents a different idea
that is also related to Western tradition. Tao, the One produced the Two
(Yin and Yang), which produced the Three (heaven, earth and humans),
which produced the Five (elements, directions). "The Yin and Yang are
the symbol of the interaction and conjoining of polar opposites, the
positive and negative, the male and female" (Tavernise). As in the
Western view of the world, a sense of a duality to the world is very
important in the form of Yin and Yang. This basic similarity to Western
ideas aids us in understanding the Chinese culture. But we are not
completely comprehend. However, the language of the Taoist part of
Chinese philosophy is clearly more feminine; the Two, Three, and Five
are produced by their numeric predecessor, it is not a system of rules
that came from (a) man. And the underlying belief is more feminine as
well. People more in line with Taoism believe that they can only be
themselves; "Taoism stresses passivity, the water elements, strength of
the feminine or yielding qualities" (Tavernise). It isn’t a perfect
analogy but Confucianism could be viewed as similar to the Old Testament
religions, while Taoism is similar to the New Testament religions. Even
though both emerged about 500 BCE (Tavernise).
It
would be easy to attack this system as sexist, anti-feminine, and
anti-woman. And indeed it probably is. But there are many instances in
this novel where this very system gives the women power. "The mothers
inherited from their families a centuries-old spiritual framework,
which, combined with rigid social constraints regarding class and
gender, made the world into an ordered place for them" (Hamilton 125).
And this power and order comes out of the kitchen; doing something
pleasing in the domestic realm helps these women mentally survive. In
Lindo Jong’s narrative in the first section of the book we find out
about how she was married away from her family in China. In her "new"
family she takes on the role of maid and cook.
After a
while I didn’t think it was a terrible life, no, not really. After a
while, I hurt so much I didn’t feel any difference. What was happier
than seeing everybody gobble down the shiny mushrooms and bamboo shoots I
had helped to prepare that day ... It’s like those ladies you see on
American TV these days, the ones who are so happy they have washed out a
stain so the clothes look better than new. (Tan 51)
Lindo
goes on to liberate herself from the marriage by using her knowledge of
the Confucian system to prove that the marriage was invalid. And the
reference to "American TV" will become important when we look at the
lives of the daughters. But there is another example of woman’s power
flowing from the kitchen in An-mei’s story.
An-mei’s
mother has lost face so she is raised by her grandmother, Popo. This
"loss of face" is very significant in Confucianism. "Loss of face, in
Confucian terms, means a loss of social standing. Since one’s social
standing defines the self in the Confucian context, the mother is, for
all intents and purposes, ‘dead’ to her family" (Tavernise). An-mei’s
mother failed to correctly follow the traditions of honor when her
husband died, she became a rich man’s concubine; this is why she has
lost social standing. But she comes back when Popo is on her death bed.
And she has come back to make a special soup, that only a mother can
make for a daughter:
And then my mother cut a piece of
meat from her arm. Tears poured from her face and blood spilled to the
floor.
My mother took her flesh and put it in the soup. She cooked
magic in the ancient tradition to try to cure her mother this one last
time. (Tan 41).
This soup is part of the Taoist
tradition and it represents a high level of filial respect (Tavernise).
And it also directly relates to an earlier part of this narrative in
which the commotion over An-mei’s mother’s presence causes a pot of soup
to be knocked over and it causes sever burns to An-mei. Mother and
daughter are connected by scars caused by soup. And An-mei’s mother
finds a way to give her daughter what she couldn’t have; social
standing.
And again it is the woman’s knowledge of the system and
her ability to manipulate it that brings about these good things.
Three
days before the lunar new year, she had eaten ywansyau, the sticky
sweet dumpling that everybody eats to celebrate. She ate one after the
other. And I remember her strange remark. ‘You see how this life is. You
cannot eat enough of this bitterness.’ And what she had done was eat
ywansyau filled with a kind of bitter poison, not candied seeds or the
dull happiness of opium (Tan 271)
She died; she
committed suicide. But she did so to give her daughter a better life.
Her mother couldn’t make her life any better but she could make sure her
daughter survived. It is a Chinese belief that the soul of the dead
person comes back three days after death. In An-mei’s mother’s case this
would be the lunar new year, a day on which "all debts must be paid, or
disaster and misfortune will follow" (Tan 271). The man that had taken
her as a concubine swore to raise An-mei and her brother as his "honored
children" and to "revere her as if she had been First Wife, his only
wife" because he was afraid of her spirit (Tan 271). So, the mothers and
grandmothers were able to find the strength to survive and/or to help
their children survive by using the Taoist/Confucian system. But the
American born daughters live outside this system.
The
most significant aspect of this cultural difference is the conflicts
that occur between the mothers and daughters. "Incomplete cultural
knowledge impedes understanding on both sides, but it particularly
inhibits the daughters from appreciating the delicate negotiations their
mothers have performed to sustain their identities across two cultures"
(Hamilton 125). But there is really an air of uncertainty around the
rest of the daughters’ lives. And once again this important element
shows up in the kitchen.
Lena St. Clair is in a
marriage that for all outward appearances is perfectly balanced. They
divide the costs of living and they even keep a weekly accounting of the
things they purchase as individuals that they "share." There is also a
scene in which they "work as a team" to prepare a meal.
he
starts the charcoal. I unload the groceries, marinate the steaks, cook
the rice and set the table ... [they eat and converse] And then he
clears the table and starts taking the plates in the dishwasher. (Tan
177)
This scene plays out very nicely. It seems that
they work in perfect harmony in their kitchen as well as in their lives.
But looking at the scene again it is scene that all Lena has really
done is cook the rice and set the table. And we learned earlier that
they wouldn’t have even had the rice if Lena’s mother wasn’t there
(Tan174). Lena is effectively kicked out of the kitchen. She has no role
in the preparation of the meal except the preparation of the cultural
token, rice. This creates tension in her. She later confronts her
husband over her unhappiness but she cannot come out and say what she is
feeling because she doesn’t know (Tan 179). And when she thinks about
it she puts her thumb on the problem. "Maybe Harold is a bad man. Maybe
I’ve made him this way" (Tan 180). "Bad" is not evil. It is merely not
living up to one’s role. By letting him take over what should be her
role in the kitchen according to Confucianism (or even Christianity)
Lena has let things get out of balance and it is doubtful that her
marriage will survive.
This is in immediate opposition
to what some cultural feminists support. One example is Charlotte
Perkins Gilman’s view of marriage. She equates marriage with
prostitution. Because "in both cases the female gets her food from the
male by virtue of their sex relationship to him" (Donovan 45). In this
relationship Lena and her husband, Harold, share the costs and
responsibilities of the home equally. So they do not have a traditional
marriage, which is what Gilman’s comments are about. Gilman goes on to
say that "in the home is neither freedom nor equality. There is
ownership throughout; the dominant father, the ... subservient mother,
the utterly dependent child" (Donovan 49). In fact, Lena and Harold’s
marriage would seem an ideal arrangement in Gilman’s view. The woman is
not owned by the man because she has her own job and supports herself;
she pays her own way. But the relationship still doesn’t work. That is
because in this relationship (as with most of them in this book) the
deciding factor for survival is adherence to traditional Chinese
beliefs.
And their is one person in this text who seems
to grow throughout. And she grows as she learns to accept the truth in
what her mother said and did that she had formerly brushed away as mumbo
jumbo. Of course this is Jing-mei. Her story ends with her traveling to
China to meet her sisters. But she begins to connect with her mother
before that, while cooking in her kitchen.
My father hasn’t eaten
well since my mother died. So I am here, in the kitchen, to cook him
dinner. I’m slicing tofu. I’ve decided to make him a spicy bean-curd
dish. My mother used to tell me how hot things restore the spirit and
health. (Tan 235)
By preparing food for her father that
uses her mother’s magic (the belief that spicy dishes restore the
spirit) she is accepting the things that her mother tried to teach her.
"Once she finds herself performing the same kitchen-rituals that her
mother did, Jing-mei begins to understand and honor her" (Tavernise).
But she is also living up to her obligation as a daughter. According to
Tavernise, the woman’s duty according to the Confucian system was to
raise sons, care for the aged, and maintain the family burial ground.
Here she is caring for her aged father. And she is also learning to
survive by using what her mother taught her.
There are
many more examples of how Chinese culture and cultural feminism interact
in The Joy Luck Club simply within the context of food. But the
examination of the instances presented clearly show how important
Confucian and Taoist beliefs are to the lives of the women in this
novel. The mothers came to America because that was the only way to
survive. And with them they brought their beliefs and practices. But the
American culture lures their daughters away from these beliefs. And it
isn’t until they reconcile their role in the Confucian system, and in
the kitchen, that they will find peace and power.
Bibliography
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Hamilton,
Patricia L. "Feng Shui, Astrology, and the Five Elements: Traditional
Chinese Belief in
Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck
Club." MELUS. 24.2: 125-145.
Shear,
Walter. "Generational Differences and the Diaspora in The Joy Luck
Club." Critique. 34.3: 193-199.
Tan, Amy.
The Joy Luck Club. New York: Ivy Books, 1989.
_____
"In the Canon, For All the Wrong Reasons." Harper’s Magazine. 293.1759:
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