The Joy Luck Club

“In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have brought to America. […] They see daughters who will bear grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from generation to generation.”

The Aunties are appalled when Jing-Mei says that she didn’t really know her mother. They believe that the maternal bond is innate, in the blood and bones. Yet they have all feared that their daughters don’t understand them and the sacrifices they have made out of love and hope for their children’s future, so Jing-Mei’s statement highlights their fears.

“The wound begins to close in on itself, to protect what is hurting so much. And once it is closed, you no longer see what is underneath, what started the pain.”

An-Mei’s scar symbolized how she buried the pain of being separated from her mother. In doing so, she forgot about her love and the devotion her mother showed her. Later this wound symbolically opened and An-Mei again felt their bond. There are many instances in the novel using the metaphor of rending the flesh to expose the mother/daughter connection.

“I once sacrificed my life to keep my parents’ promise. This means nothing to you, because to you promises mean nothing.”

Lindo’s acrimonious assertion that Waverly thinks nothing of breaking promises shows her pain that Waverly doesn’t treat her with the same reverence Lindo showed her own parents. Lindo sacrificed her happiness to save her family’s honor, while Waverly can’t be bothered to keep her promise of coming to spend time with her mother. This is a part of Waverly’s “American-ness” that Lindo finds vexing.

“I had on a beautiful red dress, but what I saw was even more valuable. I was strong. I was pure. I had genuine thoughts inside that no one could see, that no one could ever take away from me.”

This passage demonstrates Lindo’s remarkable nature. Rather than surrendering herself completely to a subservient position, she resolved to remain true to her inner self. She refused to be “just a girl” with no worth of her own.

“I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain, the same way carvings on stone are worn down by water.”

Ying-ying uses the word “face” to represent her identity, saying that over time she changed what people saw of her, as she hid her true nature. She did this so well that her husband and daughter, the people supposedly closest to her, had no idea who she truly was. “Face” also means honor, as Ying-ying thinks that she lost her honor when she aborted her baby out of revenge.

”’For woman is yin,’ she cried sadly, ‘the darkness within, where untempered passions lie. And man is yang, bright truth lighting our minds.’”

This passage comes from the “Moon Lady” play that Ying-ying came upon while she was lost as a child. This idea of yin/yang encapsulates ancient Chinese philosophies of the difference between men and women, that women represented dark passion that needed to be controlled, while men represented logic and truth, leading to the idea that women had to be subjugated.

”’You can’t tell me because you don’t know! You don’t know anything!’ And the girl ran outside, jumped on her bicycle, and in her hurry to get away, she fell before she even reached the corner.”

This story that begins the second section of the novel highlights the conflict between the mothers and daughters. The mothers gave warnings of dangers that would befall their daughters, but these were part of the heritage that the daughters rejected as foreign. The mothers were often proven right, but the daughters refused to see the value of their advice, thinking that their mothers had “made them fall.”

“This American rules […] Every time people come out from foreign country, must know rules. […] They say, Don’t know why, you find out yourself.”

Lindo proclaimed that the chess rules book featured “American rules.” She compared this to the standards of behavior that immigrants had to learn when they came to America. Lindo asserted that her children had to find out for themselves how to play by these rules in order to become successful in America.

“I knew my mother made up anything to warn me, to help me avoid some unknown danger.”

Lena grew up bewildered by her mother’s dire warnings about bad men, ghosts, and superstitious dangers. The problem was that Ying-ying never explained these strange predictions, never explained what had happened in her past to make her so afraid for Lena’s future. Lena always expected the worst case scenario as a result, as she lacked understanding of what true danger meant.

“Now I have perfect understanding. I have already experienced the worst. After this, there is no worst possible thing.”

Lena came to understand that once the “worst” thing happened, life could improve. Lena imagined herself cutting her mother with a sword, like in a Chinese drama, to show her that she could still survive. This shows Lena’s attempt to counteract her mother’s Chinese fatalism with American optimism. 

“It had given them the confidence to believe their luck would never run out, that God was on their side, that the house gods had only benevolent things to report and our ancestors were pleased, that lifetime warranties meant our lucky streak would never break, that all the elements were in balance, the right amount of wind and water.”

Rose explains her parents translated their beliefs in Chinese determinism into American belief in God’s blessings. An-Mei believed that their faith in God brought them their large family and material successes. This optimism was shattered by the loss of Bing and An-Mei reverted to Chinese rituals.

”’Who ask you be genius?’ she shouted. ‘Only ask you be your best. For you sake.’”

Jing-Mei believed that her mother wanted her to excel because she wanted a child prodigy like Waverly to brag about. Jing-Mei resented this perceived attempt to “change” her because she thought that her mother didn’t love her the way she was. Suyuan refuted this idea, saying that she only wanted Jing-Mei to try her best, so that she could have a better future. This highlights the lack of understanding between mother and daughter.

”’ She become so thin now you cannot see her,’ says my mother. ‘She like a ghost, disappear.’”

Ying-ying recognizes that Lena has become a ghost of a person, unable to speak up and say what she wants, so Harold cannot see that Lena is unhappy. Ying-ying hopes to prevent Lena from living with a husband who never tries to understand her. This is one example of how the mothers in the story wish to prevent their daughters from repeating their mistakes.

“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.”

Waverly describes the lack of understanding between herself and her mother as a “wall,” a metaphor also used by Lena in “The Voice from the Wall.” Both the mothers and daughters sense this barrier between them. In this case, it is Waverly who reaches over the wall to bring her mother closer, when she invites Lindo to come on her honeymoon to China.

“Well, I don’t know if it’s explicitly stated in the law, but you can’t ever tell a Chinese mother to shut up. You could be charged as an accessory to your own murder.”

Waverly says this jokingly to a friend who asks, when Waverly complains about her mother’s constant negative comments, why she doesn’t just tell her mother to shut up. None of the daughters in this story would dream of speaking to their mothers like that. While Waverly jokes that it would lead to violence, the truth is that the daughters have learned, at least as adults, to speak with Chinese respect.

“‘A mother is best. A mother knows what is inside you,’ she said.”

Rose sees a psychiatrist, which baffles An-Mei. In her mind, no one understands Rose better than she, because of their mother/daughter bond. Rose, with her American mindset, doesn’t consider that her mother might understand her better than a professional. An-Mei later proves to Rose that she truly does understand her problems and needs.

“And seeing the garden in this forgotten condition reminded me of something I once read in a fortune cookie: When a husband stops paying attention to the garden, he’s thinking of pulling up roots.”

This is an interesting passage, because An-Mei worked in a fortune cookie factory when she first moved to America. Now her daughter quotes a fortune cookie, as a revelation. An-Mei and Lindo had laughed at the fortunes placed in the cookies as “fake Chinese” philosophy. Rose, with her American mentality, finds wisdom and relevance to her life in what she thinks of as “Chinese” insight.

“See, I wore this on my skin, so when you put it on your skin, then you know my meaning.”

This is another reference to skin, to how the bond between mother and daughter connects them bodily. Jing-Mei and Suyuan had so many misunderstandings between them. Suyuan hopes that if Jing-Mei wears the jade pendant, she will feel her mother’s love and pride, understanding that transcends words.

“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.”

An-Mei means she understands Rose’s reluctance to tell Harold what she wants in life. An-Mei believes that she tried to teach Rose to be strong, but Rose behaves as An-Mei did, “swallowing” her unhappiness. This shows that An-Mei did pass on Chinese fatalism to Rose.

“A girl in China did not marry for love. She married for position, and my mother’s position, I later learned, was the worst.”

An-Mei learned many lessons from her mother’s disastrous life. Her mother showed An-Mei how to find strength even in the most powerless life. Part of An-Mei’s American dream for her daughters was that they could marry who they wished. This is why An-Mei is so devastated that Rose remains powerless in her marriage.

“I will use this sharp pain to penetrate my daughter’s tough skin and cut her tiger spirit loose. She will fight me, because this is the nature of two tigers. But I will win and give her my spirit, because this is the way a mother loves her daughter.”

Up to this point in the novel, Ying-ying has seemed passive and “lost,” trapped by the ghosts in her own mind. In this passage, she shows her true self, a fierce tiger who will fight for her daughter by showing her how to stand up for herself. Again there is the metaphor of cutting skin to release the connection between mother and daughter.

“I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these two things do not mix?”

Lindo thinks, at the beginning of this story, that it’s impossible to benefit from American individuality while still exhibiting Chinese behavior. This was her hope for her children, but now she’s bitter that her daughter is “too American.” This is true for all the mothers at different points in the novel, that they’d hoped their children could mix American success with Chinese filial piety.

“My mother’s long-cherished wish. Me, the younger sister who was supposed to be the essence of the others.”

Jing-Mei had grown up thinking her mother found her inadequate. Now that Jing-Mei discovers that her mother had named her hoping that she could fill the void left by her lost babies, Jing-Mei imagines that her mother must have been bitterly disappointed by her and feels even more guilty that she hadn't been a more understanding daughter.