The Joy Luck Club is a story about two generations of Chinese American women.Thefirst generation consists of the mothers living in pre-1949 China.These women are Suyuan Woo, An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying St. Clair.The second generation of daughters born in America are Jing-mei “June” Woo, Rose Hsu Jordan, Waverly Jong, and Lena St. Clair.
Each chapter is either a mother or a daughter talking about their experiences of growing up in either China or America.It is quite obvious that the women who grew up in China have much different viewpoints on their lifestyle than their daughters who grew up in America.The women who grew up in China had suffered great hardships yet they all took it to heart and kept it within themselves to suffer quietly.They grew up in a Communist country where women were far less equal to men.Little girls were basically worthless while little boys were prided upon.
Many times the women did not get to choose their husband.Instead, their parents often planned arranged marriages, even when the girl or boy might only be 6 or 7 years old. They often consulted a local “matchmaker” on who was the marry who.The Chinese were very superstitious about things like marriage, the after-life, and ghosts and took these things very seriously.
Now the daughters did not understand much of what their mothers talked about.They didn’t even know some of the hardships their mothers had endured just to come to America.They didn’t realize how much their mothers had given up for them. And they didn’t realize how much their mothers just wanted to give them some of their Chinese culture, even though all the daughters wanted was the American culture.The mothers felt as though it almost wasn’t worth it to come to America because their entire heritage had been lost.They felt like their daughters didn’t really care about who they really were or even who themselves were.And this book tells each of t…