Cyclical Elemants in the Joy Luck Club

     Cyclical elements constantly occur around us. From the revolutions of day and night to the changes of the seasons, many events often repeat themselves. In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, cyclical elements also appear. Both the beginning and ending of the novel focuses on the same story - on "Kweilin" - and, within the story, particularly on a picture.
     The beginning of the novel starts with a story narrated by Jing-Mei Woo, daughter of Suyuan Woo, and within that narration is a flashback to when Suyuan tells Jing-Mei about how she gave up on things that mattered to her as she was escaping Kweilin to Chungking:

     "[...] By the time I arrived in Chungking I had lost everything except for three fancy silk dresses which I wore one on top of the other."
     "What do you mean by 'everything'?" I gasped at the end. I was stunned to realize the story had been true all alone. "What happened to the babies?"
     She didn't even pause to think. She simply said in a way that made it clear there was no more story: "Your father in not my first husband. You are not those babies." (Tan 26).

Even when Jing-Mei asks, Suyuan does not give her daughter the details and information she wants to know about the story. However, the novel later reveals that Suyuan had abandoned her twin daughters during her escape because she was no longer able to survive if she remain with them. She leaves them with money, jewelry, and a picture of her wedding.
     Then, the novel ends with another picture taken during the reunion of Jing-Mei and her sisters:

The flash of the Polaroid goes off and my father hands me the snapshot...Togerther we look like our mother. Her same eyes, her same mouth, open in surprise to see, at last, her long-cherished wish. (Tan 288).

Even though Suyuan abandoned her daughters for her own survival, she, in the end, still wished to see the twins. Together, the three of them can find details that reveal similaries they share with their mother and the picture captures that fact.
     The purpose of the cycle in the "Kweilin story" and the picture is that the story allows the reader to end with an extention of the story they first started out reading and the picture implies that even though people can give up and lose or abandon everything they have, they eventually re-obtain what they previously had.

Family History

     Even though my mother would sometimes talk about her childhood, she never really talked about it in details. She would frequently repeat the same over-arching story over and over again - that she came from a village so she always had to race to catch the bus to go to school (especially if she wanted a seat because it was always crowded and the drive was over an hour long), that she would often cause trouble around the village with her two older sisters (she is the third of five kids), that she loved track (she jumped hurtles), that she would have a lot of chores to do (since she was “old enough to help out around the house”), and that she, as well as she sisters, would often steal fruits off of a neighbor's trees (she never gave a justification for this one).

     Luckily, one of my aunts (I can never tell between which is the oldest and the second) visited from China a few months ago and told more detailed stories about the mischievous troubles she, my mom and the other older aunt (by this, I mean the three oldest kids of their family: my mom and her two older sisters) would get into. Because this story was told over a small family gathering of my mother’s side of the family, more than one person spoke when this story was told. In addition, the topic would often shift a bit to an off-topic topic and back. As my aunt promised, the main story was funny – a memory that will make you “laugh to death”. However, this amusement might be lost due to the maybe inaccurate Chinese translation as well as the fact that this story may be hard to comprehend if it is not heard in person. Either way, I will tell this story as I heard it so the “I” in the story would refer to whoever is talking at that moment (which would mostly be my aunt; I do not think anyone talked during the story, only afterwards); however, I will use parentheses to insert explanations so the comments in parentheses are not said by the person telling the story in the family gathering. The story is led by my aunt:
     “Back in our childhood, aunt and I would often do a lot of mischievous things around the village. The two of us would cause a lot of trouble – your aunt and I were well-known in the village for being the best arguers; we could even silence the village’s bakpo (I do not know how to accurately translate this word but the closest I can think of with a similar meaning is the English word “b*tch”) with our arguments. In addition, these arguments often led up to fights so your aunt and I often fought with other kids in the village.

     “On the other hand, your third aunt and uncle were more obedient. Your third aunt rarely got into trouble and your uncle was just mostly selfish. He loved watermelons so much that when we cut one, he would take a bite out of every piece and hogs all of it; however, your uncle also did many some stupid things as a kid (she means that he did stupid things that caused trouble, but was not trouble itself). For one, your uncle messed with a beehive once and got stung so much and badly that your aunt had to piggy-back him all the way to the hospital. Even since that incident, he now hates bees, and he learned the hard way why he should not mess with beehives.

     “Another incident almost led to his death. Back in those days, there was nothing set up around the near-by lake to prevent people from falling in. One day, he and his friend went to the lake to play and they accidentally fell in. Neither of them knew how to swim and there were currents. Luckily, your uncle was able to grab onto the root of a nearby tree and his friend grabbed onto your uncle’s legs, preventing neither of them from being swept away and drowning unless they let go (I did not ask how the tree root supported both of their weights). In the end, they were saved because someone heard their cries of help and went to check out what is wrong. When your grandmother got home, she freaked out and scolded your uncle a lot afterwards.”

     Here, my grandmother interrupts the story:

     “Everyone in the village blamed me when all of you cause trouble. They often came to me and said ‘Run jie (“jie” means “sister” so it is “Sister Run”), can’t you teach your children some manners? They are so misbehaving.’ But how can I control you when I am always working in the fields? From dawn to dusk, I had to work so there is not time for me. I also had to pay for the fruits all of you picked from other people’s trees so, in the end, I was never able to make much money.”

     After my grandmother’s interruption, my aunt continued her story:

     “Your mother is like your third aunt; she often did her own thing – picking fruits off of other people’s trees and such; however, I am going to tell you about how she made a fool out of your aunt and me. I do not know if your mother remembers anymore, but this is something your aunt and I would never forget. Your mom, aunt and I were looking for chai (a word that basically generalizes things that an individual may find and use in a cooking fire such as branches, twigs, leaves, etc) that day. Then we went our separate ways home. Your mother likes to run and jump hurtles a lot so she went ahead of your aunt and me. However, we soon caught up to her – finding her crying next to a knocked over si ton (this is not something I want to know too much, nor get into too much detail about but it is basically a container in which they used in the past when they did not have modern bathrooms yet). Well, because we saw that your mother was barefooted and crying next to the si ton, your aunt and I stuck our hands into the waste in search for her shoes because we had concluded that she had tried to jump over the si ton but accidentally knocked it over instead, lost her shoes in the waste, and was unwilling to stick her hands in to search for her shoes. It took your aunt and I a while both we realized that your mother had stopped crying and was now laughing. We were foolishly searching for her shoes when the truth was that your mother did not wear shoes that day. Only later, when we got home, did we find out that she was crying because a person had lectured her for knocking over the si ton when she had only been passing by. Your aunt and I had seriously thought that your mother was in some kind of trouble when we found her crying but, in the end, she made a fool out of us. Even now, almost thirty years later, this is something I still remember. It reminds me of how stupid your aunt and I were to have foolishly come to that conclusion we had and it also teach us that your mother is a very cunning person. For a long time afterwards, your mother had constantly reminded us of that incident because she found it really funny – that we had stuck our hands in waste in search for something that was not there. From this, your aunt and I learned a lesson – that when it came to your mother, it is best to know all the information before coming to a conclusion because an assumption may end up with us making a fool of ourselves again.”

     Although my aunt told this story during the dinner mostly for a good laugh and to remind my mother of an incident where she made a fool out of her older sisters, I find that this story includes a lesson simply stating that rather than concluding and assuming something based upon what a person sees, the individual should decide on the action to take after finding out all of the facts. If my aunts had chosen to ask my mother the reason to why she was crying first rather than sticking their hands into the waste in search for something that was not there, they would have understood that their assumptions were nowhere near the truth and might not have made a fool out of themselves.

     In a sense, this advice is important to me because jumping to conclusions is not really something desirable if the assumption turned out to be wrong. Even though my aunts may have learned this lesson in the old village life, it does not mean that it is not applicable to today. For me, this can be a lesson learned without having to do something foolish.

The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates

     Between the mother-daughter relationships we see in "The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates" and between Amy Chua's relationship with her kids, I noticed some similarities and differences. One of the similarities between the two is that the mother never seems to explain anything to the daughter - that the mother would make a claim directed towards the daughter but never gives the daughter the explanation of why. In the short introductory piece, the mother remained silent when the daughter asked about the twenty-six bad things that her mother had previously spoken about:

     "It is written in Chinese. You cannot understand it. That is why you must listen to me."
     "What are they, then?" the girl demanded. "Tell me the twenty-six bad things."
     But the mother sat kitting in silence.
     "What twenty-six!" shouted the girl.
     The mother still did not answer her.

Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:
• attend a sleepover
• have a playdate
• be in a school play
• complain about not being in a school play
• watch TV or play computer games
• choose their own extracurricular activities
• get any grade less than an A
• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• not play the piano or violin.

 Although in both, the mother would bring up advise or make a rule that limits the child to something but they never take time to explain to the kids why they have to do what is told to do by their parents. The mother in the introductory piece does not tell her daughter of the dangers and Amy Chua does not give her kids a reason for having them obey such requirements.
     In a sense, I do think that Amy Tan's novel endorses Chua's arguments about motherhood because of similar expectations. Amy Chua wants her kids to be prodigies just as Jing-mei Woo's mother wishes her daughter to be a prodigy at something. With the requirements from Chua, mentioned above, she mostly limits her children so that they mostly have to focus on studies and being in first place. For Jing-mei, her mother continuously believed that her daughter can become famous for something, which eventually leads to Jing-mei playing the piano - an irony since Chua also has her kids play that instrument.Similar to the lack to explanations between the mother and daughter in "The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates," the relationship between Amy Chua and her kids are also filled with the lack of explanations:

The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates

     Similar to the introductory segment of the first section, the second section of The Joy Luck Club also has an introductory piece. The preliminary segment, titled The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates, tells the story of a girl learning a lesson the hard way. Rather than appreciating her mother's advice, she gets angry and attempts to prove her mother wrong. In the end, her mother is proven correct because the girl fell off her bicycle even before she reached the corner.
     This introductory section foreshadows the complex relationship and misunderstandings between mothers and their daughters. In the first story of the second section, "Rules of the Game," complexity between the mother and daughter arise when the mother becomes too prideful over her daughter. Although it is understandable for a child's parents to be proud of their child when he or she achieves something deserving compliment, the child may soon come to dislike that attention his or her parents draw to him or her.

My mother had a habit of standing over me while I plotted out my games. I think she thought of herself as my protective ally. [...] One day, after we left a shop I said under my breathe, "I wish you wouldn't do that, telling everybody I'm your daughter." [...]  My mother's eyes turned into dark slits. She had no words for me, just sharp silence, (98-99).

After hearing her mother talk about her success over and over again, Waverly has finally gotten tired of it and wishes for her mother to stop. However, Waverly's mother is not happy about being denied her natural ability to show off her daughter to society, leading to rebellious feelings.

Opposite of me was my opponent, two angry black slits. She wore a triumphant smile. "Strongest wind cannot be seen," she said. Her black men advanced across the plane...My white pieces screamed as they scurried and fell off the board one by one. [...] I closed my eyes and pondered my next move, (100-101).

At the end of "Rules to the Game," Waverly imagines herself having a chess game against her mother and Waverly was losing her pieces one by one. In a sense, this game can represent the reality that even if Waverly tries to run away from things she dislikes, she will still have to eventually face the problem.

Joy Luck Club: Kweilin Story

In what ways does her Kweilin story change? Summarize the different versions Suyuan Woo tells her daughter. Also, why do you think she changes the story she tells her daughter? What purpose or message is she trying to get across to Jing-mei "June" Woo?
     Suyuan Woo's Kweilin story went from a story of dreamed happiness and hope to a story of desperation and resignation. In the beginning, when Suyuan first told the story of Kweilin to her daughter, it was full of happiness - she described Kweilin to be more beautiful that what she had ever dreamed of and that even though many people were starving in the streets, eating rats and garbage, she was happy with her Joy Luck Club: playing mah jong, telling stories, serving banquets every week, and laughing - and the story ended with different versions of how Suyuan used the thousand-yuan note. However, when Jing-mei sulked after her mother's refusal to buy her a transistor radio, Suyuan told the story with a different ending - where she left Kweilin because the Japanese where attacking, where she have to abandon everything except for the three silk dresses that she wore, one on top of another, and finally stating that Jing-mei's father was not Suyuan's first husband and that Jing-mei was not one of the twin babies.
     I think one of the reasons Suyuan changes the story she tells her daughter is so that she can teach Jing-mei a valuable lesson. The ending of the story changed after Jing-mei told her mother that she wanted a transistor radio and was refused. Suyuan asked "'Why do you think you are missing something you never had?'" (25). In a sense, Suyuan is asking how would an individual experience the feeling of needing something when the individual has never had that something previously. The story is told to emphasize the lesson. In it is presented many things - moments of time and objects - that represents importance to Suyuan; however, as the story progresses, it tells how Suyuan has to continuously abandon those valuables one by one. In a way, it represents that Suyuan lives with a feeling of loss because she gave up on those valuables, yet Jing-mei lives with a feeling of desire because she wants something that does not hold much significance. The message she is trying to get across to Jing-mei is that as long as an individual has never possessed something of great value or importance, they will never feel the emotion of loss when living without it.

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior

What do parents owe to their children? What do children owe to their parents?

     For example, if a child comes home with an A-minus on a test, a Western parent will most likely praise the child. The Chinese mother will gasp in horror and ask what went wrong. If the child comes home with a B on the test, some Western parents will still praise the child. Other Western parents will sit their child down and express disapproval, but they will be careful not to make their child feel inadequate or insecure, and they will not call their child "stupid," "worthless" or "a disgrace." Privately, the Western parents may worry that their child does not test well or have aptitude in the subject or that there is something wrong with the curriculum and possibly the whole school. If the child's grades do not improve, they may eventually schedule a meeting with the school principal to challenge the way the subject is being taught or to call into question the teacher's credentials. [...]

     Chinese parents demand perfect grades because they believe that their child can get them. If their child doesn't get them, the Chinese parent assumes it's because the child didn't work hard enough. That's why the solution to substandard performance is always to excoriate, punish and shame the child. The Chinese parent believes that their child will be strong enough to take the shaming and to improve from it. (And when Chinese kids do excel, there is plenty of ego-inflating parental praise lavished in the privacy of the home.)

     Chinese parents believe that their children owe them everything. Although Amy Chua does not clearly back up this claim in her article, I think I can understand where this belief comes from. For one, Chinese parents believe that in order to achieve the best future, an individuals has to constantly be on the top, so they push their children to maintain the top grades. When the child bring home a B or something, the parents express disapproval because it defies what they had been teaching their child and the only way to explain that resulting grade is that the child did not work hard enough - did not study enough - to achieve the standard A.
     In addition, parents believe that the child should be able to be strong enough to endure the punishment that comes from failure. Many Chinese parents believe that is a child cannot achieve a certain standard, then the child themselves is at fault. In a sense, it is the same concept as the Western "try your best"; however, the difference lies in the definition of best. Westerns believe that things will work out if the child passes; however Chinese parents do not wish to accept anything but the best.
     Therefore, Chinese parents believe that their children owe them everything because they had expected and pushed them to be the best since the very  beginning of thier lives.

Egypt and Animal Farm

     As I take a closer look at the results of our classes collective Egypt research, I find many connections between the revolution Orwell described in Animal Farm and the events in Egypt, Tunisia, Honduras, etc. For one, both of the rebellions seem to evolve in the same way. In Animal Farm and Egypt, both systems of government are controlled by one individual even though there seems to be one that one person in charge of the government's organization. In Animal Farm, Mr. Jones, the original owner of the farm, has four helpers who help him take care of the farmer. In Egypt, the president has advisers and his cabinet to help him keep track and take care of what is happening within their ruling system.
     The second thing Animal Farm and Egypt have in common is their type of government - in short, the leaders of both governments can be called tyrants. Both governments begin with a ruler who is cruel - the animals in Animal Farm were not fed daily and were often punished when they were under the rule of Mr. Jones while a citizen of Egypt willingly like himself of fire to protest against the injustice he faced while living in Egypt. In relation to what caused the protest in Egypt and the rebellion in Animal Farm, both governments seem to end up in a position worse than where they started off. In Animal Farm, Napoleon ended up treating the animals worse than how Mr. Jones had treated them before the rebellion and the vice-president of Egypt seems to be more corrupted than the original president.
     Third, interference takes place in both Animal Farm and Egypt after the protest and rebellion. In Animal Farm, the humans tried to retake the farm and would go as far as trying to destroy the windmill. In Egypt, American seems to be influencing Egypt to accept a certain proposal or bargain.
     Therefore, I think that George Orwell, the writer of Animal Farm, is able to have events in his book connect with many of the events that are currently happening in Egypt.