The Joy Luck Club

The Joy Luck Club is a novel written by asian-american author Amy Tan, and this book has also been made into a movie. Amy Tan's works are mostly on exploring the relationship between mother-and-daughter, which is also what this book is talking about.

This book focuses on four mother and daughter pair. The mothers had immigrated from China and set up families in America. They started a club called Joy Luck Club, where they played mahjong and ate together. The book has a total of 16 stories, divided into 4 sections with 4 stories in each sections, which might be structured like a mahjong game, which also has 4 players.

The main characters are Suyuan(who passed away before the start) and Jing-Mei Woo, An-mei and Rose Hsu, Ying-ying and Lena St. Clair, Waverly and Lindo Jong. There is a total of 8 main characters but only 7 are still present in the novel. The stories are told individually by each character, with each section having all the mothers(accept Suyuan being replaced by Jing-mei) sharing their experience or all the daughters sharing their experience.

The novel is mostly talking about the relationship the mother and daughters have. And one significant similarity to their relationships, as seen from the stories, was that all are rather strained. This was partly due to their cultural differences whereby the mothers were born and raised in a Chinese influenced family, whereas the daughters are brought up in a rather westernized environment. This stories and experience shared from both mother's and daughter's point of view would further show how their views on matters and their ways of thinking differ greatly. Like for one, the daughters would dare to talk back to their mothers, who were their elders. This was a sign of disrespect in their mother's times, doing such things were not even thought of. The mothers were taught to follow instructions and not complain. This was due to them having a more traditional way of thinking, or some would say the Chinese way of thinking. This is just one of the many cultural gaps that could be seen in the novel.

Overall, this book is rather enjoyable as it keeps changing the point of view of characters and would not be so plain and boring. I really recommend this book if one likes to know more about the cultural differences between Westerners and Chinese.