论文总字数：26261字

摘 要

美国华裔作家谭恩美的代表作《喜福会》主要讲述了母亲用传统的中国家庭教育方法来教育在美国出生美国长大的女儿，结果导致了一连串的冲突。本文在探讨中美文化差异的基础上分析中美两国国家庭教育的方式的差别。

关键词：家庭教育；《喜福会》； 母女；中美文化壁垒和联系

Contents

1.Introduction １

2. Literature Review １

3. The Relationship between the Mothers and the Daughters ２

3.1 The conflicts between the mothers and the daughters ２

3.2 Mothers’ great expectations for daughters ４

3.3 Daughters’ understanding of mothers’ love ５

4. The Cultural Factors of Family Education ６

4.1 Culture difference between the East and the West ６

4.2 Cultural understanding and blending ９

5. Conclusion １０

Works Cited １１

1.Introduction

The Joy Luck Club is a well-known novel written by Amy Tan. Amy Tan is a high-profile Chinese-American novelist in recent years. Her work The Joy Luck Club includes 16 interwoven stories. It embodies the process from conflict to understanding each other between the Chinese immigrant mothers and the daughters grew up in the United States. The four mothers come from China and every one of them has different identity, experience and life orientation. One of the mothers feels brooding for dropping a pair of twin daughters, the other one has a lifetime of pain because she strangled her son promising to revenge her fickle lover, and the third one lives a restless life for her mother’s miserable destiny. However, the daughters never understand their mothers’ joy and sorrow. Then a lot of problems occur between them.

Family education, as one of the important factors in education, has been concerned by people for a long time. When a child is born from the mother"s womb, it is like a piece of white paper. Each child has not many differences at the beginning. However, they often show great differences in the later growth process. For example, some of the children have active thinking, while some of them are very dull; some of the children are polite, while some of them are unreasonable; some of the children will manage themselves while some of them are dependent on adults. These are slowly formed under the influence of various aspects of the education in the children growth process. These educations include family education, school education, social education and others. Among all the educations, family education is the most important. This paper explores the differences between Chinese and American family education on the basis of the analysis of the cultural differences between China and the United States.

2. Literature Review

The great success of The Joy Luck Club has not only established Amy Tan’s position in the history of American literature, but also has caused more and more foreign and domestic scholars to study the famous novels. Harold Bloom said:“In such a cultural ‘melting pot’ of the United States, there are a variety of other cultures dominated by white culture.” With the rise of the civil rights movement in the United States, some western scholars have put forward the idea of multiculturalism. Cultural pluralism, advocating a variety of cultural coexistence and the cultural discrimination. The Joy Luck Club reflects the process from conflict to integration of Chinese culture and American culture. “Harold Bloom believes that the formation of the American multicultural is mainly to overthrow the old cultural thinking, through the establishment of multicultural framework to eliminate cultural discrimination.” ( Harold 125) In The Joy Luck Club, the daughters discriminate Chinese culture in the beginning. Finally, people from different cultural backgrounds get the integration, which realizes the multicultural atmosphere.

Most of the research and analysis of the conflicts between mother and daughter and on how to solve the conflicts eventually analyze the integration of Chinese and Western culture. They explore the misunderstanding and the generation gap, as well as different status and values in the relationship between the mother and daughter. Chen Aiming said:“The conflict between mother and daughter is not only a representation of literature and novel structure framework, it represents in fact is the conflict between Chinese culture and American culture, a kind of Eastern and Western binary cultural opposition.”(Cheng 231) Zhang Ziqing said:“The mothers in The Joy Luck Club shape their daughters with their own aesthetic standards of image, plan their daughters’ future with their idea. Their ideals are built on the suffering of the people in the old China and the lessons learned from the lessons learned, and are lack of social reality of the United States, which causes a misunderstanding of language and culture.”(Zhang 194) Conflicts happen when mothers and daughters have so many misunderstandings. In this paper, I study the conflicts between the mothers and the daughters, and study the factors that have caused the conflicts.

3. The Relationship between the Mothers and the Daughters

3.1 The conflicts between the mothers and the daughters

The conflict exists frequently in The Joy Luck Club, because the mothers and daughters, the two generations, are born and grow in different countries. The mothers can’t forget the oriental traditional education they have accepted from childhood. They think that it is as unalterable principles that children should listen to their parents’ discipline and mothers should love her children. What is agreed by most Chinese is that the family represents the rights and obligations of parents to their children and the relationship between them. However, Americans think that personal values, self realization and independence are the most important. Children who grow up in America would rather search for success alone, no matter happiness or pain, than accept the mother’s warning and advice completely. So the daughters are not able to understand their mothers’ behavior. In the beginning, the daughters believe that American culture is far superior to Chinese culture. They are ashamed of their mother’s work in the department store, and they are angry at their mothers’ making a display of them. They are clearly integrated into the mainstream culture of the United States. Gong Linda and Wei’s conflict is the most prominent. The mother hopes to reflect the value of their own existence by the daughter, and hopes the success of her daughter can bring honor to the family, but the daughter is convinced that“I am myself”, and refuses the intervention of her mother. Li Na Sinclair and Ruth are married to Americans, and their mothers are called as “foreigner”. They worship the Americans and their culture, so they are willing to sacrifice everything for their husbands. Wei Frye holds that mothers’ requirements at their wedding make her lose face. What can we see from it is that daughters are impatient on mothers’ Chinese conversation. When mothers explain some kinds of intention to them with broken English, the girls laugh at their mothers’ broken English and think that their brains are not flexible. Happiness what mothers believe is not necessarily in the eyes of their daughters.

Mothers do not understand some of the behavior of the daughters who are born in the United States at the same time. They are puzzled because the behavior of the daughters was completely different from the Chinese culture. Ying Yin does not understand the AA between Li Na and her husband. For example, when they buy that they need in their life, they should use their money separately. This is a common thing in western countries but is very difficult to be accepted by Chinese. In China, wives and husbands must bear all the responsibilities of the family together. Besides, when Jin Mei quarreled with her mother, Su Yuan said in Chinese:“There are only two daughters, the obedient and the disobedient. In my house, only the obedient daughter is allowed to live.”In Chinese culture, children have to listen to their parents for no reason at all.

3.2 Mothers’ great expectations for daughters

In The Joy Luck Club, though mothers are very strict to daughters, they still love them. Their love for their children is a typical Chinese style of love. Chinese mothers generally do not embrace or kiss their daughters nor say very straightforward words like “I love you” to express their love to their children. Mothers in The Joy Luck Club are actually like this. However, mothers have great expectations for their daughters in The Joy Luck Club and hope their daughters will be successful in the future. They plan for their daughters’ future, whether they agree or not. They never forget the traditional education that they have received since childhood and they retain the Chinese ideology which has penetrated the blood of women for thousands of years. Their common ideal is to be strict with their children to help them escape the fate of women of that generation. In China, parents plan everything for their children and children should follow their parents’ advice unconditionally. If children resist, they will be attacked and criticized by the family, neighbors and even the society. Although mothers in The Joy Luck Club have moved to the United States, they can’t forget Chinese traditional culture.

Both Su Yuan and Gong Linda have great hopes. Su Yuan wants her daughter to become Shirley Temple in China one day. In order to let the children have chances to go to the piano lesson, she does a lot of cleaning work every week. She even does cleaning work for a retired piano teacher for free. She can do everything she can as long as her daughter can be successful. Linda wants her daughter Wei Frye to win more games. When Wei Frye practices chess, she always stands aside quietly as protection alliance, although she doesn’t know much about chess knowledge. What’s more, mothers in The Joy Luck Club, not like American mothers, rarely praise the child but constrain and criticize children constantly. In their view, they have to be strict with their children to make them master more skills to be able to survive in such a competitive society. Therefore, they are often in strict demand on the children instead of praise and encouragement. When Ying Yin’s daughter Li Na can go to school and does not need to pick up, Ying Yin tells her daughter that she can only go to school or go home and can’t wander other places. However, too many constraints make her daughter very unhappy and angry, because she is educated in American style and can’t accept this kind of Chinese love. She thinks she has an independent identity and parents have no absolute authority over their children.

3.3 Daughters’ understanding of mothers’ love

Mothers in The Joy Luck Club interfere too much in daughters’ life. They still keep a close watch on the daughters’ marriage life even if the daughters are married. This kind of mother’s love in The Joy Luck Club can be reflected when the mothers offer help to solve the daughters’ marital problems.

When the daughter has a problem in her marriage, the mother will not hesitate to help her daughter get out of trouble as soon as possible. Ruth and Li Na are both married to the American people, and they have a disadvantage in front of her husband. Ruth never makes any decisions. She thinks that her husband’s decision is better so she always let her husband make a decision. Gradually, in her husband’s eyes, Ruth is not so cute, because her husband feels that she is passing the buck and even puts forward a divorce. There is also a crisis in Li Na’s marriage. The daughters all fight to solve the problem but they can’t solve. At such times, their mother do not stand by or evade the solution of a problem by walking away from it but give advice and suggestions to them. An Mei encourages Ruth to talk to her husband. And when Ruth tries to talk to her husband and her husband is very shocked. At last, she wins her own house. With the mothers’ help, the daughters eventually feel the power of the Chinese mother and their deep love for their children. Ruth finally finds that her mother is better than the American psychological doctor and is more helpful to solve their own marriage problems. For Li Na, she finds that her mother loves her more than her American husband because her mother still clearly remembers that she never eat ice cream while her husband doesn’t not know after have been married for many years. what the mothers in The Joy Luck Club give their daughters is selfless help and comfort. Four daughters gradually begin to realize that they are in the filling of maternal love and their mothers love them all the time.

4. The Cultural Factors of Family Education

4.1 Culture difference between the East and the West

4.1.1 Chinese high-context culture and low-context culture of the United States

Edward Hall, American anthropologists and the founder of the space relationship, found that the cultures of the world are different but not chaotic and most cultures have obvious tendency. There are two kinds of culture: high-context culture and low-context culture, according to the degree that the meaning is conveyed depends on the dialogue context or dialogue language. People from different areas have totally different thinking and values, which has brought communication gaps and conflicts to people to an extent because of living in different cultural backgrounds for a long time.

In Hall’s opinion, people have similar experience and information channels in the high-context culture. Long term stable communication makes people form a more consistent response to the surrounding environment. As a result, when dealing with a large number of daily transactions, there is no need to have too much background knowledge. High-context culture usually has a deep historical origin. It changes slowly, and it has strong stability and cohesion. China, Japan, Korea and other countries in East Asia and Latin American countries tend to have a high-context culture. In low-context culture, people’s personal experience and the knowledge they learned are not the same, so the communication with each other requires detailed background information. All Information is transmitted mainly through words, but rarely in context or in the tacit understanding of dialogue participants. The United States, Germany, and Northern Europe tend to have a low-context culture. “The conflict between mother and daughter is not only a representation of literature and novel structure framework, it represents in fact is the conflict between Chinese culture and American culture. It is a kind of binary cultural opposition.”(Cheng 196)

Mothers in The Joy Luck Club grow up in the old China and are deeply influenced by the traditional cultural. Although the daughters receive the Chinese style of family education, they have been in American since they are very young. It is inevitable that they agree more with the low-context culture. When one of the participants in the dialogue is from the high-context culture and the other is from the low-context culture, then there will be misunderstanding and conflicts. The conflicts in the novel, vividly reflect the standard of living of the two generations of mother and daughter influenced by different cultural atmosphere. “Four mothers who stick to Chinese standard of living have shaped the character of their daughters according to Chinese traditional values. They educate their daughters according to their expectations and attempt to control the fate of their daughters. Because of poor English and the lack of understanding of American society, they can’t accept their daughters’ alienation from them.”（Zhang 98）However, the daughters who are born and grow in the United States that can speak fluent American English and have received the American way of life and values. The two generations are not able to communicate well, so the conflict happens. For the four daughters, Chinese traditional values, which they receive in the unconscious, are often in conflict with orthodox Americans. The daughters can hardly understand the experiences of their mothers and often get crazy about Chinese customs and rules.

4.1.2 Equality and independence in American families and dependence in Chinese families

Ancient Chinese live their own lives and do no communicate with other countries. As a result, the country gradually lived their life around the family, and developed the “aggregation” behavior pattern which had a very strong of family. Mothers in The Joy Luck Club loved living together and had strong family values. They just lived with Chinese people and feared of the outside world and instinctively reject the mainstream American culture. The Chinese believe that their life is given by their parents, and every stage of their growth is saturated with the upbringing of their parents. So children should satisfy their parents and do everything their parents want them to do without doubt.

Kramer Barbara pointed out:“Historical facts show that in the history of the United States, there has never been such a three generations under one roof period. Family patterns,the most typical is the so-called core family, namely,there are only parents and children, not including other relatives of the family. Three generations rarely live together.”（Barbara 207） “Maritime civilization” and “nomadic civilization” determine that going to the outside world is the only way for the survival and development of the western world. They gradually formed a “discrete” behavior model. When children have ability to take care of themselves, they should leave their parents to take their own responsibilities and obligations. What’s more, they prefer to be alone. So Americans are not willing to rely on their families. They advocate one to be independent, and struggle to be successful on their own.

American ethics emphasizes the equality between people. The relationship between children and their parents is an equal relationship. In their opinion, everyone has inviolable personal rights, and others have no rights to interfere. In the novel, Su Yuan develop a variety of training plans for her daughter. To offer opportunity of learning to play the piano for her daughter, she even does cleaning work for a piano teacher for free as an exchange. Su Yuan hopes that her daughter can become an excellent pianist. However, Jing Mei thinks that she was an American, and she looks forward to the Western way of free life. She just wants to be a normal person. In the novel, when Jing Mei is not in accordance with her mother’s requirement of playing the piano, her mother says:“there are only two kinds of daughters, listen to the words of adults and do not listen to the words of adults. Only the daughter who listens to the words of adults can live in this house.” Jing Mei retorts: “I do not want to be your daughter, and you are not my mother.” She thinks: “I am not your slave, because this is not in China.” It expresses her strong sense of independence.

4.1.3 Chinese sharing and American personal struggle

In China, a person’s value represents not only his personal value, but also the value of the family. Therefore, a person’s bad behavior tends to affect family honors while good behavior will glorify the family. Chinese are happy to share happiness and bear misfortune together, so parents and their children are dependent on each other. However, American culture emphasizes independent consciousness and would rather fight alone. This can be explained by the conflicts between Gong Linda and Waverley. The mothers hope to reflect the value of their own existence by the daughters’ success, but the daughters just believe that I am myself, and refuse the intervention of the mothers. While Waverly win a chess match, her mother shows her off everywhere. Waverley doesn’t like that, she protests: “why do you always show me off?” Mothers want their daughters to be successful. However, this hope puts a greater pressure on the children invisibly. They will be happy if their daughters have a success. In the novel, the daughters receive American culture which advocates the struggle of one’s own. They think that their success is purely the result of their own efforts, and has nothing to do with their parents. Waverley feels very dissatisfied with his mother’s behavior to show off the capital of her daughter, and finally gives up playing chess.

4.2 Cultural understanding and blending

All the generation gap and the conflicts and confrontations between mothers and daughters, will eventually melt in the maternal love. The blood flowing in their bodies determine the daughters to be modest, docile, filial and to bear everything silently. The Chinese gene that is latent in the blood will suddenly be released only when they return to the embrace of Chinese culture. So the difference between the mothers and the daughters can’t make them be apart. Instead, they encourage each other to seek understanding and tolerance, and finally reach a compromise and reconciliation.

As the time goes by, the daughters have grown up. They have been mature gradually after experiencing setbacks in their lives. They have had a further understanding of their position, and they have also gradually realized the influence of Chinese culture on them at the same time. Mother’s strict demands are only a kind of self protection. At last, the daughters can have a deeper understanding of the mothers.

Mothers take off their robes brought from China and put on American-style shirts and trousers. They speak in broken English which are laughed by her daughter and take part in American religious activities every week. When An Mei’s son sank into the sea, the first thing she thought about was not the Chinese Buddha, but the God of the West. At the beginning, Linda hit her daughter and her American son-in-law for their elopement but later she accepted her American son-in-law Ricky and lovingly teaches Ricky how to eat crabs. All of these show that Linda respects the cultural differences between China and the United States.

5. Conclusion

Although Chinese mothers and American daughters have different cultural backgrounds, the mothers love their daughters very much. They use their own unique way to express their love. Although the American daughters initially could not understand the exclusion of the mother’s education, they could understand their mothers in the end. Because of their mothers, they become more brave and independent.

There is an inevitable clash between different cultures. However, as long as there is love, they can still coexist. What each person should believe is that people can tolerate each other because of love. The novel shows the process of integration of Chinese and American culture through the description of the misunderstanding and the understanding between mother and daughter.

The Joy Luck Club presents the different family education ideas and cultural differences between China and the US to the reader by describing inter generational conflicts between four pairs of mothers and daughters, and has a clear inspiration on the modern Chinese family education. In order to truly achieve the perfect combination of Chinese traditional family education virtues and Western family education, parents should guide children to do their best to do everything, and encourage equal and friendly communication, and advocate competition and mutual assistance.

Works Cited

Amy Tan. The Joy Luck Club. New York: Penguin Books, 6 (1989): 56-62.

Harold Bloom. Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. Chelsea House, 7 (2009): 32-38.

Kramer Barbara. Amy Tan, Author of The Joy Luck Club. Endow Publishers, 1996.

程爱民. 中美文化的冲突与融合:对《喜福会》的文化解读. 译林出版社，2001.

[Cheng Aiming. The Conflict and Fusion between Chinese and American Culture: A

Cultural Interpretation of The Joy Luck Club . Yilin Translation Publishing

House, 2001.]

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