论文总字数：30328字

摘 要

《接骨师之女》是美籍华裔谭恩美的著名作品。本篇论文旨在分析小说中华裔对待中国文化的态度。本文从文化冲突和融合入手，以文化身份、价值观和文化语境作为文化冲突的切入点，同时从文化适应和吸收方面分析中美文化的融合，从而探讨美籍华裔在美国社会中的处境以及他们对待中国文化的不同态度。文章的结尾指出，只有通过尊重与理解，并正确定位自己的文化身份才能正确的对待中国文化。

关键词： 《接骨师之女》；文化冲突；融合

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

3. The Collision between the First Generation and the Second Generation 2

3.1 Cultural identity 2

3.2 Values 4

3.3 Cultural context 7

4. The Fusion of Two Ideologies 8

4.1 Adaptation 8

4.2 Assimilation 9

5. Conclusion 11

Works Cited 12

1. Introduction

Of the many Chinese-American writers, Amy Tan is one of the most famous one. She was born in a Chinese family in February 19, 1952 in Oakland, California. Her parents were both Chinese immigrants. Her works often explore the relationships between mother and daughter, and the Chinese-American experiences. Tan has written several bestselling novels, including The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God"s Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bone setter"s Daughter, Saving Fish from Drowning and The Valley of Amazement. Her unique living experience has become the affluent resources of literature imagination and creation, shaping her characteristic angles and styles. She is believed to be the leading figure who brought Chinese-American literature to the main current of American literature.

According to Tan, in the process of growing up, Tan’s mother told her many Chinese stories, but she was uninterested in those stories. However, those stories produced much substantial influence on her unconsciously. Her experience is reflected in the novel The Bone settle’s Daughter.

The main purpose of this paper aims to analyze the attitudes most ethnic Chinese take with Chinese culture. This article is composed of five parts. The first part is the introduction. The second part is literature review. Then the third and fourth parts are the main body, to dissect the collision and fusion of two different ideologies in detail. The cultural conflict is depicted from the aspects of cultural identity, values and cultural context. The cultural blending is from cultural adaptation and assimilation. The last part is conclusion, which reveals that these ethnic Chinese shall be established on the Chinese excellent traditional culture, and that simultaneously learn the western culture.

2. Literature Review

Since the book The Bone settle’s Daughter was published, it has received large amounts of honors and praises. “Tan’s recently published novel The Bone settle’s Daughter is the best one of all her works. The insight of the painful and complicated feelings between mother and daughter, as well as the subtle and embarrassed relationship between man and woman almost surpasses the former book Joy Luck Club. ”(Edwards, 5) Alice Walker says, “Amy Tan shows us China, Chinese American women and their families, and the mystery of the mother-daughter bound in ways that we have not experienced before.” (Zhang 11)

There have been many precedents about the study on ethnic Chinese’s attitudes to Chinese culture and on the book The Bone setter’s Daughter. Lots of researchers lay emphasis on the vision of cross-culture or the building of self-image of the ethnic Chinese. For example, Zhuang Enping pointed out that in the novel, Ruth could get down to make a thorough inquiry to her mother’ s history, to insight Chinese traditional culture and to decode the information that her mother told her in a positive attitude. Her behavior revealed a right mental state that the multiculturalist ought to have.(Zhang 97)

Many other scholars studied this novel from the angles like feminism, post-colonialism, mysterious east or the building of exile’s identity. Zou Jianjun, for instance, depicted this novel in the title of Eastern Image. He pointed out that the mysterious eastern images like fortune-telling, spirit speak are the truly reflection of Chinese daily life(Zou 26). Hu Yafei interpreted from the spirit of ecological criticism. She deemed that the suffering of these mothers and daughters are owing to their plights of spiritual ecology(Hu 32).

However, these studies didn’t pay much attention to the work itself. In this paper, I would analyze most ethnic Chinese’s attitudes towards Chinese culture on the basis of this novel tightly, from the aspects of the cultural context, cultural identity, values, adaptation and assimilation.

3. The Collision between the First Generation and the Second Generation

3.1 Cultural identity

According to Stuart Hall, the definition of cultural identity is a mutual culture and a true ego of a collectivity. The Cultural Identity is dynamic, and is always in the producing but never completed process(Hall 12).

Nowadays, more and more Chinese make their choices to emigrant to America, to pursue a comparatively more high-quality life that they want. Nevertheless, after residing abroad, they found their plight more difficult, for the reason that their appearances like yellow skin, black hair and their gaunt body structure were not acceptable by most American. Therefore, the majority of them had the wish to be integrated into American social contact, to be a true American. So they tried their best to cater to local people, to learn the American main culture painstakingly. Instead, they chose to spurn Chinese traditional culture, because in their minds it was Chinese culture that impeded them from being accepted by American. However, the minority of these ethnic Chinese were coerced to flee away from their hometown on account of the crisis of the domestic warfare and heavy tallage. When they succeeded in living abroad, they found that life is not much easier than stay at home. The deep solicitude of the kinsfolk alive or dead from their hometown, the barriers of language, the peculiar gaze from the local environment all can make them intranquil about their lives. Therefore, they still regard themselves as Chinese in the ways of natural instincts and life habits in their sub-consciousness. For example, in the novel The Bone settle’ s daughter, Lu Ling is habituated to save the waste paper for other usages. This is the traditional Chinese thought of frugalness.

To people like Lu Ling who immigrated to America as an adult, the full-bodied atmosphere of traditional culture in Xianxin Village near the ruins of Peking Men had been engraved in her blood, making it the load of her life and the connotation of the essence. China is deep-rooted in Lu Ling’s mind in this way, with the memory of nation and history. When arrived in the America by ship, Lu Ling thought she could step on a place without ghost and curse. However, a great deal of frustrations and setbacks in reality broke her longing and beautiful imagination to the new world into pieces. Nevertheless, the past would never come back since Lu Ling sold the oracle bone which represented the bond with relatives and ancestors to a ferry ticket of the lowest grade to America. Her behavior was actually nothing else than abandoned her native land with her own hands, making wandering abroad became her only choice.

At the same time, compared with the first generation, the situation of the American-born Chinese is more embarrassing. They are born in the USA, while also inherit the lineage of Chinese. Educated and assimilated with American culture, these American-born Chinese often view their parents as aliens in a vision of American style. They can’t bear their parents’ actions and speeches. When they have conflicts with their parents, these children often impute to their parents as Chinese immigrants, who are always influenced by Chinese culture.

However, these American-born Chinese also confronted with the puzzlement of their cultural identity. They were always thinking about the questions like who they are? What religions should they believe in? Were they ought to believe in the theory of paradise and hell from Christianity? Or the teachings like kindness, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and trustworthiness from Confucius? Or the god’s -chosen-citizen from Judaism? Who should they show allegiance to? Was the Chinese Scion which is far beyond the ocean or the USA where they’d been born and raised? These questions kept cycling around their heads and made them bewildered.

3.2 Values

Values means the beliefs that people have about what is right and wrong and what is most important in life, which control their behavior. (Hornby 2230) The first generation of ethnic Chinese not only want their children to blend in American mainstream community, but also wish them to inherit Chinese tradition culture to avoid the phenomenon of so-called “root-cutting”. However both of these two values can lead to the conflicts between generations.

In the first occasion, if one or both sides of parents were isolated or made fun by groups over a long period time, they would put their dreams of being accepted and fusing in collectivity into their children. They wish that this phenomenon would be alleviated in the next generation. While inevitably, the inheritance of their appearances still makes their children different from others. What their parents experienced before is almost completely duplicated to them. On account of being secluded by their classmates for a long time, the character of these children would become more unsociable and eccentric. However, the heavy pressure parents exert on them makes them quite upset. Like what Ng. said in the book Everything I Never Told You, James asked his son Nath to play with white children in the swimming pool. Nath didn’t want to. James was annoyed at Nath’s shyness, so he compelled him to. But when he saw Nath was played and laughed by those white children, he was distressed and heartache but he can do nothing for him.

In the second situation, parents are aware that their family is special around the local. They were born in China and were educated under Chinese culture. Aparting from those who try to conceal their birthplace and feel ashamed of their Chinese knowledge, a majority of ethnic Chinese cherish the hope that their children can respect, understand and master Chinese culture. As we all know, traditional Chinese culture, such as Yijin, Qigong and martial arts, is extensive and profound, long-standing and well-established. Compared with what American culture sparkplugs like Independence, freedom and equality, they much more hope their children can absorb the essence of Chinese traditional culture such as the precious doctrine of the Mean harmony, the ceaseless self-improvement, the devoted attachment to learning, loyalty filial piety, the sense of propriety, justice, honesty and honor, love and peace. In addition, those one who go abroad love their country more than those who stay at home. They are proud of and can’t help to defend for their country especially when they have conflicts with foreigners. However, all these ideas only belong to the first generation, while their children never think so. They don’t know much about Chinese culture and they are deeply edified by American dominant culture. Therefore, these American-born Chinese are usually called “banana people”. For that they are like bananas, yellow-skinned but with white insides. They possess the western ideology but under the cloak of yellow race, so they are often averse to preaches from their parents. Many of them would be mad at their parents’ inappropriate Chinese lifestyle just like stealing children’s diary, haggling over every ounce, caring too much about their space time, and giving children birthday presents but then taking them back. These different values between mother and daughter all lead to conflicts.

In The Bone setter’s Daughter, mother Lu Ling had lived many years in the USA, but she still entrenched Chinese traditional culture tenaciously, while this culture was marginalized in American society. On the contrary, Ruth grew up in the USA, and was deeply influenced and nurtured by American main current. American strong culture, which is represented by the Anglo-Saxons, had become her dominant cultural value orientation. Therefore, the communication between mother and daughter had naturally become the cross-cultural conversation under two different cultural contexts. During their conversation, both of them may be predominated by each cultural value unintentionally. They might as well unconsciously explain and evaluate each other’s behavior in the criterion of their own culture. Obviously, different values lead to different norms and also lead to cultural conflicts. Chinese culture stresses more on connotation and restraint. They do not like to show their feelings on the surface. Chinese people tend to take their feelings like happiness, hatred and love as privacy. To Chinese, the best way to treat privacy is self-reserve. They hide their real feelings deeply inside to adapt to the group(Jia 130).

For example, hug is a quite normal etiquette among relatives and friends in America. However, this simple behavior never succeeded between this mother and daughter, because every time when Ruth tried to hug her mother, Lu Ling would be quite stiff like being shocked by electric. She knew her mother was sneaking looks at what she had written, because one day she asked Ruth, “Why are you like this songs ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’? Just because someone else likes?” Another time her mother sniffed and said, ” Why smell like cigarette”. Ruth had just written about going to Haight-Ashbury with friends and meeting some hippies in the park who offered them a smoke. After that interrogation, she hid the diary in the bottom of her closet, between her mattresses, behind her dresser. But her mother always managed to find it, at least which was that Ruth figured, on the basis of what she was next forbidden to do. If she accused her mother of reading her diary, Lu Ling would become evasive, never admitting that she had done so. Ruth now mused, didn’t Mom realize, how her demands for no secrets drove me to hide even more from her? Yet maybe her mother didn’t sense that. Maybe it made her hide certain truth from Ruth about herself(Tan 156). They could not trust each other. That was how dishonesty and betrayal started, not in big lies but in small secrets.

In America, people lay much emphasis on privacy, and they believe that individual privacy can never be infringed, like children’s privacy and their rooms. While in Chinese parents’ eyes, these should not be treated as privacy. American children can possess their personal space and goods when they are young, even their parents are forbidden to touch or trespass without permission. This is actually the way American parents try to cultivate their children’s awareness of independence, self-improvement and individuality. However, in China, parents see their children as private property. They don’t allow children to have secrets with parents. Having secrets means they can’t trust each other, which violates the collectivism thoughts. Besides, Chinese pay much attention to respect for seniority. The secrets children keep from parents mean the disrespect they show to the elder.

3.3 Cultural context

According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary, cultural context means the socio-cultural background related to verbal communication.

From 19^th century, the ceaseless warfare and heavy revenue imposed by the Qing regine made husbandmen hard to live interiorly. For the sake of survival, these people were forced to find another way to earn bread. At the same time, foreigners used the means of swindle or detainment to compel Chinese people to work as slaves to help them build the railroad in spite of the prohibition of slave trade around the world. They cheated these innocent farmers that they could find a fortune in that treasure land. They could even find gold as big as a new-born baby. Therefore, these people agreed to be stolen into the USA.

Nearly a hundred years later, another quantity of Chinese people was forced to go abroad for the escape of Japanese Invasion to China. At that time, most Chinese had been westernized. Like in the novel, Lu Ling was sent away from her home to a Christian church. However, the Marco Polo Bridge was embezzled by the Japanese, which means they started the overall war of invading China. The devil of it was that Lu Ling’s husband Kaijing Pan was murdered by the Japanese. Therefore, in order to be alive, the American in the church asked them to move to the USA. They said that it was a bright place with no kills and no wars. Then Lu Ling and her sister Gao Ling were send to the USA successively. However, having settled down in the place, Lu Ling still commit Chinese culture firmly to her mind. Even after several decades, she still can’t speak fluent and correct English. On the contrary, she can’t forget Chinese and Chinese calligraphy. Like she said to Ruth “writing Chinese characters is entirely different from writing English words. You think differently. You feel differently. When you write, you must gather the free-flowing of your heart. Each stroke has its own rhythm, its balance, and its proper place. Bao Bomu said everything in life should be the same way.”(Tan 58) Lu Ling shows the totally different attitude when she is writing. However, to Ruth, writing Chinese handwriting is a kind of punishment. She is reluctant to learn Chinese words and pays no patience to Lu Ling’s teaching. When her mother explained to her the line in Chinese word’s structure, she felt it looked like a sparerib picked clean of meat. To Ruth, Chinese characters are just some unfamiliar symbols from a foreign country.

Since mid eighteenth century, ethnic Chinese have made a great contribution to the development of America. However, they could not claim for the proper right of “all men are created equal” in Declaration of Independence for themselves. For example, a great majority of Americans talk about or jeer at or just disregard Chinese overtly or covertly. What’s more, in early American constitution, yellow and black people were not allowed to get married with the white. A couple had married—a white man, a black woman, who would share a most appropriate name: Loving. In four months they would be arrested in Virginia, the law reminding them that Almighty God had never intended white, black, yellow, and red to mix, that there should be no mongrel citizens, no obliteration of racial pride. It would be four years before they protested, and four years more before the court concurred, but many more years before the people around them would, too.

4. The Fusion of Two Ideologies

4.1 Adaptation

According to the book Globalization and cultural integration, the author points out that the cultural adaptation is firstly the product of practice, is the process when different formation of regional culture collides with the heterogeneous culture, and to realize the change on themselves(Li 93).

One important character of culture is that culture is learned. One starts to absorb the culture around him consciously or unconsciously since he was born, making the elements of the culture internalized into his body or be shaped as his own habit. Due to the education or invisible and formative influence from mother, Ruth was affected by Chinese traditional culture with no doubt. These symbols of Chinese culture that she could not shake off make her outpour some different sides from the local white people. For example, when she was in university, a professor of history asked students to grade themselves. Ruth marked herself the minus B, while all the other students marked themselves A. In China, parents tell children to make a rise in their lives, but they also enjoin them to be modest, to conceal their grade and ability, because in Chinese old maxim, the outstanding usually bear the brunt of attack and still waters run deep. In this kind of concept, Ruth naturally gives herself an average level minus B. However, Americans, who tend to have a strong awareness of individualism, are always quite confident with themselves. In their minds, everyone has his features and advantages, they all have their own merits so that they think they are the best, and no wonder they give themselves the best evaluation. Moreover, when Ruth gets along with her American boyfriend Art, her adaptation to Chinese culture unfolds more in their conflicts. She could feel sensitively the feeling of being rejected and marginalized by white Americans. She felt clearly that Art’s Parents treated her just on scruples, while their attitudes to Miriam, Art’s former wife, were quite passionate. They even handled down the hereditary treasure of their family to her. They excluded Ruth and her Chinese lineage from their nation, in spite that they themselves emigrated from Ukraine. But the Ethnocentrism always reveals its power inadvertently at every time or every place. Ruth’s boyfriend Art wanted to consolidate their relationship, so he decides to transfer a part of his possession of housing equity to Ruth, and let her decide how much percent she wanted to take. Ruth was very impressed but didn’t do the deed. In China, when affection links up with money, they will be considered to be indifferent, and to be the typical feature of the icy American post-industrial society. However, to Art, the behavior of transferring the house equity just indicated his love and loyalty to Ruth. He could hardly understand Ruth’s idea of so-called “love is merchantable by money”. The differences of their different ideology not only made Ruth nonchalant to Art’s kindness, but also misunderstood his love and loyalty. Therefore, to Ruth, the unwittingly switchover of her cultural identity depended on the environment she stayed in, with her mother Lu Ling who stood for Chinese ideology, she acted out American style, while with Art as well as his family who represented the white race, she showed the signs of Chinese thoughts and behaviors. Even that she rejected Chinese culture, she could not get rid of the shadow of Chinese traditional culture left on her sub-consciousness reflected on her manners and behaviors.

4.2 Assimilation

Faced with Art and his family, Ruth’s unconscious adaptation to China reveals that she is not that repel Chinese culture. But only when she realized that her mother’s illness was far beyond her imagination did she feel deeply guilty and bitterly remorseful. Besides, she began to become aware of her mother’s deep silent love that never disappeared. Even more important is that she started to understand and allow her mother’s ubiquitous mother love of Chinese style, and this means she knew how to respect and tolerant the diversity and uniqueness from different culture, to chase a better balance between Chinese culture and American culture. For example, Ruth used to think that Chinese syllables are limited, which may be easily misunderstood. However, when she was in the process of looking for her mother’s family name, she thought this kind of homonym and polysemy made language quite plentiful. What is more, when Ruth was responsible for the family party, she prepared this party with the form of Chinese Full Moon Festival, because to Ruth, this particular gathering was not “just a dinner.” It was their Chinese thanksgiving, the reunion that she was hosting for the first time.(Tan 93).In her sub-consciousness, she considered this festival as her country’s tradition, so they should follow the rule of Chinese culture. Therefore, all the dishes she ordered were on the basis of authentic Chinese dishes, despite that she knew Art and his parents would be unsatisfied with these unfamiliar foods. In addition, in this party, Ruth insisted on passing her mother the food that she loved most regardless of her mother’s deliberate refusal, and Lu Ling ate at once. In this scene, Ruth was well versed this Chinese kind of ceremonial humility and practiced in the right place and finally won her mother’s favor.

It is not difficult to discover that the principle line of the development and vicissitude between mother and daughter experienced the process from conflict to understand drivingly, then to forgive. The incipient conflicts were mainly aroused from cultural differences and misunderstanding. Both of them judged each other’ s behaviors and habits from the criterion of their own culture, all they read was only corrupt customs. These all ascribed to their lack of understanding to each culture’s concept and values. The more important reason is that they cannot treat adverse culture equally and openly. Therefore, when Ruth tried to seek the life experience of her mother, she found the secret of the “ghost” Precious Auntie who occurred in their lives even when she was young. She was awarded of the importance that Precious Auntie meant to her mother. The initiative learning of her mother’s history means learning to Lu Ling’s cultural background. This is the first and the most significant step to eliminate cultural misunderstanding.

5. Conclusion

As one can see from reading the information presented, the attitude that ethnic Chinese take to Chinese traditional culture is different between the first generation and the second generation. The problem with the first generation is that they need a long period to habituate with new life in a new place and to overcome the language barrier, as well as the way of thinking that they different from the American. However, Chinese traditional culture roots in their minds and in their ways of dealing with affairs. While the problem in the second generation is that their embarrassment exists in their homes and in their ways of getting along with the community, and the confusion when they deal with the relationship between Chinese culture and American culture.

The book The Bone setter’ s Daughter describes not only the process from collision to blending between the generations of ethnic Chinese’s family, but also the process of consideration and location to their cultural identity.

Thus it can be seen that culture is the outcome of values, context, and history, and is deeply influenced by the general background of society. It is the reason for the conflicts and contradictions triggered between the first and the second generation of Chinese ethnic. Therefore, only when the people who lie in the intersection of two different cultures understand and respect the differences between these two cultures, and orientate their own cultural identity correctly, as well as find a compatible location can they achieve the aim of pursuing self-identity.

Works Cited

A, Hornby. Oxford Advanced Learner"s English-Chinese Dictionary, OALECD. Beijing:The Commercial Press, 2014.

Jami, Edwards . Review of The Bone setter’s Daughter.[ EB/OL]. [2009 ].

Ng, Celeste. Everything I never told you. Jiangsu:Jangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing L.TD, 2014.

S, Hall. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” International Migration Review. (1990): 60-12.

Tan, Amy. The Bone settler’s Daughter. America:The Random House Publishing Group. 2001.

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