Immigration will inject fresh blood and bring different minds; culture exchanges may generate conflicts and tension. And that makes for great storytelling.

The film The Joy Luck Club was based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Chinese American woman author Amy Tan. It demonstrated the clash and integration between American culture and Chinese culture; and the tender and tenacious bond between daughters and mothers.

There were four mothers who came from China and four daughters who were born in America.

The mothers loved their daughters beyond doubt, although something was wrong beneath this love. They wanted an obedient daughter while daughters wanted to be the way they were. Here came conflicts. The daughters felt heartbroken, they shouted, they fought, they resisted their mothers’ attempts. In return, mothers felt more disappointed.

Suyuan, June’s mother, firmly believed that June can be a prodigy. She designed a blueprint to help their daughter become somebody that made a family so pride of. June was pushed to practice piano. She failed to satisfy her mother.

Lindo loved to show off her daughter’s talent of chess. One day, Waverly could not bear the embarrassment and decided to quit chess game. The sneer from Lindo ruined waverly’s confidence and passion.

But love is a power. Many years went by, the daughters were in trouble. The mothers ceased their fire and helped girls go through and find their happiness.

In the film, what impressed me most was mothers’ never-spoken history. They all had miserable lives in China. When they were a little girl or a young lady, they started the struggle against unfair fate. They left the land of sadness; however, they never forgot what they have done, what they have lost and who was sacrificed for their happiness. They could never free their soul.

What the mothers expected most was there were no such pains like they went through on their daughters. But unfortunately, those miserable experiences hurt them so deeply that kind of twisted them. The painful scars of life made them stronger, but on the other hand, made them so sensitive, worried and kind of unreasonable. They placed high hope on her girls and completely disregarded how stressing out and uncomfortable the expectations were for their children.

Only after these girls have grown up and become more mature do they realized how valued the legacy—industry, courage, self-esteem, and penetrating love—left by their mothers. The mothers taught the girls that women should respect and love themselves first, and then they can love and loved by other people.

I cannot agree more. If I regard myself a coward, I am totally a coward. If I want to be a superwoman, I must recognize my importance and unique from the deepest of my heart. I won’t be obedient to anyone, just follow my heart. Only when I have an independent personality and strong will do I am a soul at large.

第二篇：《喜福会》英文论文

The Joy Luck Club:

Collision and Compatibility Between Chinese

and American Culture

Abstract:Basic on the study of The Joy Luck Club, this thesis discusses the mother-daughter collision and compatibility between Chinese and American culture,which is caused by the two generations of Chinese American in the novel.The paper is entirely sepertated by four major parts: Introduction, Conflict between Chinese &American culture, Compatibility between Chinese &American culture,and Conclusion.It argues basically on the differen living environment,different heritage and different value etc.

Key words: The Joy Luck Club ,mother-daughter collision and compatibility Outlines:

Chapter1 Introduction

1.1Brief introdution about The Joy Luck Club

1.2Introduction about about the thesis

Chapter2 Conflict between Chinese &American culture

2.1The culture of Chinese mahjong

2.2Different living environment,different value

Chapter3Compatibility between Chinese &American culture Chapter4Conclusion

Chapter 5References

Chapter 1 Chapter1 Introduction

1.11.1Brief introdution about The Joy Luck Club

The Joy Luck Club' is a well-known American-Chinese writer Amy Tan's representative works.

In the novel,she presented to the reader four Chinese immigrant mothers and their daughters .Although living in America,the immigrant mothers cling to Chinese traditional culture.They organize the Joy Luck Club regularly,a weekly meeting of best Chinese friends. Four mothers with their own view of the world, their world view is based on their experiences of life in China. However,the girls from their mothers can not understand the Chinese culture because the are America-born. So there are conflicts that have been vividly described in this book.As time goes by,aftter a series of misunderstandings and conflicts, they begin to understand each other .The two generations go into harmony with their effors of love..

1.2 Introduction about about the thesis

The thesis is the discussion about the mother-daughter collision and compatibility between Chinese and American culture,entirely sepertated by four major parts: Introduction, Conflict between Chinese &American culture, Compatibility between Chinese & American culture,and Conclusion.In addition,the paper argues the different living environment,different culture heritage as well as different value which are the main causes of mother-daughter conflict in the novel.More importantly, after a series of misunderstandings,the two generations are in harmony which means cultural compatibility between China and America.It brings hope that contradiction or oppositions in our lives between past and present,between generation and between culture can be possibly even well reconciled.

Chapter2 Conflict between Chinese &Amerian culture

2.1The culture of Chinese mahjong

In the novel,we can see that the four mother-immigrants hold The Joy Luck Club every week.All their best friends and related people will attend.They cook Chinese food,wear Chinese traditional clothes.Especially,they prefer to playing mahjong.It undoubtedly provides a place for the others to get in retrospect.However,the girls look down upon such gathering.Chinese cusine and clothes are not their taste.They even distain the mahjong.In their eyes ,that is boring and stupid.

In my oppinion,I think that playing mahjong reflects the character of a person and the cultuer of a nation.In the movie The Joy Luck Club,we can see four vivid characters on the mahjong table.Jingmei (the leading actor)plays mahjong with three eldly women,the expression and behaviour of Auntie Lindo,she is aggressive and mighty as we see after he movie telling the stories between she and her daughter.Analysing the character of Auntie Lindo,culture of the

mahjong can present.When playing mahjong ,every person prefers to suppress the others,making every endeavor to win.If something indicates he will lose,he will destroy all the games to make every lose.But people are enjoying strifing openly and secretly.Such game mirrors most of Chinese characters ：passive,defended,selfish .Instead,as we know,poker are more popular in America. So it is hard to be accepted by the America-born girls.

2.2Different living environment,different value

It is universally acknowledged that languages and cultures are inseparable.Languages,the carriers of cultures,plays an important role in understanding and communication.If people do not communicate in the same language,misunderstanding may appear.Because of the different living environment, the mothers in The Joy Luck Club speak Chinese for several years and they are reluctant to speak broken English when they have to.On the contrary,their daughters are born in America.They knows little about Chinese,but speak idiomatic and fluent English,which they are poud of.Because the language barrier,mothers and daughters cannot understand each other,even misinterpret each other.A mother ,Lindo ,speaking poudly of Taiyuan,her hometown,only find that her daughter mistakes it to Taiwan.Although sometims the girls can guess the exact meaning from mother’s broken a broken English,they only strengthen their piont of views that their mothers are unlearned and in the low social status.Different living environment,different languages cause misunderstandings, estrangements,even the collisions.

The Chinese-born mothers, in spite of living in America,cannot get rid of the traditional Chinese cultuer,especially the way they bring up their children.In Chineses culture ,children are supposed to be parts of parents,and they must obey everything they parents arrange. The immigrant mothers follows this.They interfere in their daughters’ affair,like the monarch,run things all by themselves without asking girls opinions,hoping their daughters can understand their heritage. Daughters ,on the other hand,do not understand the monarch relationship.They are sad ,angry and fighting that mothers fail to understand American culture which mothers have to know because they are raised in America.To their disappiontment that is useless.What they do just brings more embarrassment and contradition.They try to find the balance between independence and loyalty.However,it is the different living environment that leads to many unaviodable conflicts,difficult to concile.

Chapter3Compatibility between Chinese &American culture

In the book, conlicts between mothers and daughters,between Chinese and American culture are everywhere.At first,mothers and daughter do not know how to handle the problems.No efficient mesures are taken.Even one daughter say,“I wish I am not your daughter.”to express her dissatisfaction.However ,as time goes by,when the girls gouw up, they gradualy understand their mother.With mutual efforts,mothers and daughters overcoming the misunderstanding and achieve harmony.

Take Jingmei for an example. When Jingmei is a child, she is asked to play piano.But,ridiculously,the teacher is a little bit deaf ,and Jingmei is regarded as a genius,like Mozart.In the talent show ,she failes,which loses her mother’s face.After that ,her mother become more strict about Jingmei’s piano.But Jingmei dose not play piano any more,which dissapionts her mother.Aftering her mothers’death and kowning about her mothers hard expeirence in China ,she understands why her mother is so rifour about her,why they cannot communicate and express well before and she is sure that her mother do loves her.She decides to find the other two sisters in China.When Jingmei finally reaches China ,she tells the sisters that the mother they do not know,and forges two other mother-daughter bonds as well.Her journey represents the concilation between the mother and daughters,between two cultuers.In addition,the travel to China changes Jingmei’s prejudice about the Chinese traditional culture and finally accepts Chinese culture.Most importantly,the other three mothers reexame the way of communicantion with her daughters because of the death of Jingmei’s mother.All the collisions come into hamony,all the different culture come into compalibility.

Chapter 4 Conclusion

According to The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan shows two different but charming cultures which run into series conflicts，but they eliminates collisions and achieve campalibility.Some people will doubt that why America,a nation with a history of more than 200 years can have such an imppact on people.You may as well consider why it can rise abrutly and become a strong country in the world.Then you know the answer of its powerful culture.China ,one the contrary,with its special ,typical and deep-rooted traditional culture,absoluty will be ultimately respected

accordance.

by Amecicans.From collision to copalibility,we can sure that differernt languages,diffrernt living environment ,different values even more will ger be

Chapter5 References

[1] Wang Jin.Cultural conflicts and compalibility between the East and the West in The Joy Luck Club[J].Wuhan:The Science Education Article Collects.2007.

[2] 谭恩美, 程乃珊 (译) . 喜福会[M]. 上海:上海译文出版社, 2006.

[3] 葛树慧.不同文化背景下的中美家庭教育—《喜福会》引起的对中美家庭教育的思考[J]. 中国电力教

育, 2009,(8).

[4]张瑞华.解读谭恩美喜福会中的中国麻将[J].外国文学评论.2011.

[5]李雪峰.中西文化的冲突与融合—解读喜福会中的母女关系[D].平原大学学报.2007.