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摘 要

由于各自迥异的文化传统，中美婚姻观出现多方面的差异。而《喜福会》作为第二代移民华裔作家的英文代表作，是研究探讨中美婚姻观差异的极佳范本。作品里人物之间的矛盾体现出的中美婚姻观念差异主要有择偶方式、结婚目的和家庭地位的不同。尽管多种理论可以解释这种差异，但霍夫斯泰德的文化维度理论在跨文化理论方面具有相当大的影响力，是解释中美婚姻观念差异强有力的理论基础，所以本文以文化维度理论为依据主要从个体主义与集体主义、长期导向与短期导向和权力距离三个维度分析产生中美婚姻观念差异的原因，旨在促进两国文化交流，加深了解，构建更加和谐的世界。

关键词：文化差异；喜福会；婚姻观；文化维度理论

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

3. Major Differences in Marriage Concepts in The Joy Luck Club 3

3.1 Choosing a Spouse 3

3.2 The Purpose of Marriage 4

3.3 Family Status 6

4. Major Reasons for the Differences 7

4.1 Individualism vs. Collectivism 8

4.2 Long-term vs. Short-term Orientation 9

4.3 High Power Distance vs. Low Power Distance 10

5. Conclusion 11

Works Cited 13

1. Introduction

The Joy Luck Club is one of the international best-selling novels. Amy Ruth Tan, the author of this novel, is born in 1952 Oakland, California; she is the second generation of a Chinese immigrant family. As a Native American, she cannot get rid of her Chinese complex. She has not only personal experience of American culture but also a deep understanding of Chinese traditional culture. Because of her special origin and experience, she always has a unique perspective and style, so The Joy Luck Club presents several vivid examples of the contrast between different cultures. The Joy Luck Club explores the relationships of Chinese mothers and their Chinese-American daughters in the United States. The four mothers suffer different hardship that forces them to leave China; and the four daughters face their own struggles in their everyday lives. The four mothers immigrate to America to pursue a better life and realize their American Dream. However, the mothers’ dreams about their life in America can never come true. Especially, after they have their own daughters, how to deal with mother-daughter relationships becomes one of the biggest challenges they meet in America. The mothers are born and grow up in China, while their daughters are born in America and educated by American cultures. The former represent Chinese culture, and the latter represent an opposite culture, which may naturally cause conflicts between them. What makes the readers pleased is that the mothers and their daughters have consensus at last because of love and understanding.

There are many conflicts between mothers and daughters, so the mothers and their daughters are always the focus of other people’s research. What’s more, many people used to study the conflicts of the whole aspects of Chinese and American culture, and this thesis will analyze the difference of marriage concepts, which is a small but important aspect of culture. Family is the basic component of society, and couples are the most important factors in families whose relationship is the most imitate and permanent. Everyone in the world will be faced with marriage. As an important part of culture, marriage concentrates and reflects the cultural characteristics, religious belief, economy and politics of a certain society. Therefore, different marriage concepts between China and America according to The Joy Luck Club will be discussed in this thesis, and furthermore the factors that contribute to the differences in marriage between China and America will be analyzed based on Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory. Whereas the differences can be explained by various theories, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory which has a considerable influence in the field of intercultural theories offers one of the most powerful explanations for this difference. This study aims to increase the mutual understanding of the two countries’ cultures and find an approach to communication so that we can learn from each other and lessen the distance between the two cultures.

2. Literature Review

In the past twenty years, there are numerous mixed research achievements about Amy Tan’s masterpiece The Joy Luck Club. After analyzing them we can find that western academia, especially American academia, most put their emphasis on the implied meanings of race, sex, identity, class and nationalism which are sublimated from the relationship between mothers and daughters. While domestic academia pay more attention to the conflicts and status based on the analysis of the text.

After the publication of The Joy Luck Club, American academia gave high praise to it. Many comments of the book were published on some important American media. After the 1990s, several American critics gave objective and favorable comments on it, such as Amy Ling’s “Between Two Worlds: Women Writers of Chinese Ancestry”, Ben Xu’s “Memory and the Ethnic Self: Reading Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club” and so on (Wan Yongkunamp;Liu Xiaohong, 2010:63). At the same time, some American Chinese men writers criticized that the book catered to western people’s need for racial curiosity; they said it was not a true description of Chinese culture. Chinese critics tended to give cultural political criticism to the book; they emphasized the conflicts and fusion of sino-American cultures.

Throughout these comments and researches about The Joy Luck Club, we can find different aspects of achievements. Many people have paid attention to the conflicts of mothers and daughters to reveal the differences of culture; some people studied the relations of the characters in this works. There are also some people who have analyzed marriage concepts or family values of China, but this thesis will analyze the marriage concepts from a new perspective. This thesis makes some further analysis in marriage concepts in detail based on these achievements and gives a comparison of them. In addition, this paper will analyze the factors that contribute to the differences in marriage between China and America from the perspective of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory.

3. Major Differences in Marriage Concepts in The Joy Luck Club

3.1 Choosing a Spouse

In The Joy Luck Club, Zhong Lindong must be married to a little boy, even if it is not her will, she can do nothing but listen to her mother. Yingying is born in a noble family but cannot extricate herself from the tragical fate. In the later years, the mothers want to control their daughters’ lives as well as marriages, but these native daughters don’t obey their mothers at all. At first, Waverly marries a Chinese man who she doesn’t love at all to please her mother, but this marriage fails before long. Then she meets the one she loves, he is Rich. Zhong Lindong doesn’t accept him and tries to prevent them, but Waverly doesn’t compromise this time and determines to go against her mother at last. However, it is opposite to Americans. When Rose meets Tide’s parents as his girlfriend for the first time, his mother is discontent with her and says that her racial identity will affect Tide’s development. At the moment, Tide feels very angry and says he is ashamed about his mother. Regardless of parents’ disagreement, Tide marries Rose soon.

China has a feudal history of more than 2000 years; the feudal ideas attached great importance to kinship. It’s a common phenomenon that children will not make decisions according to their parents until they are old enough. The traditional way of selecting a mate is to arrange a match by parents’ order and on the matchmaker’s word, which has been popular for thousands of years. Traditional way of choosing a spouse is in order to perform the obligation of marriage. When a man or a woman has grown old enough, he or she must get married, which is an eternally immutable principle. That is, marriage means accomplishing one’s mission to carry on the family line. Chinese marriage seekers pay more attention to the family reputation and economic condition, and the groom’s family and bride’s family must be well-matched in social and economic status. The groom’s families often expect that the bride will scrupulously follow the traditional woman’s ethics, and get on well with her relatives. In the traditional Chinese society, a marriage doesn’t only derive from a couple’s love; instead, it is mostly decided by parents, especially by male’s family. Most couples even don’t know the other one’s appearance, let alone his or her character. This kind of marriage is blind and is in lack of emotional foundation, but they must live together under the feudal ethical mode. In the later years, the concept of marriage in China has changed a lot, but children’s marriage is still affected by parents to a large degree.

Generally speaking, Americans are more concerned about the congeniality in life and spirit. They have their own standards to select mates, among which the most important one is compatibility, and other elements like family background and education level may probably not be taken into consideration. Americans pay much attention to the development of personal quality. Parents often afford their children until they are eighteen years old, then the children will live independently and further their study just on their own. Therefore, American people have more freedom to determine their own life, as well as marriage. They get a chance to choose their spouses according to their own minds. They believe that being free to choose a mate is also an important part to realize their self-value. When young people fall in love, they don’t pay too much attention to parents’ opinions. As long as the two persons can get along well with each other and love each other, they will get married regardless of parents’ objection.

With the development of society and the process of globalization, every country has been influenced by other countries in many aspects. Chinese traditional culture has also changed a lot, and today’s Chinese people have more freedom to select a spouse by themselves and marriage is no longer determined totally by parents.

3.2 The Purpose of Marriage

In The Joy Luck Club, Zhong Lingdong’s mother gives a promise to the Huang’s when she is just four years old, and she must marry the son of Mrs. Huang when she grows up to fifteen years old. She doesn’t know that her husband is a naughty boy who she has never met before but can control her destiny and decide whether she is happy or not. In the later several years, she tries her best to please her mother-in-law but always fails just because she doesn’t give birth to a baby. Tide marries Rose because of love regardless of whether she will promote his future and career or not. When he thinks Rose has changed, he asks for a divorce later. It is important to keep her own mind in Tide’s opinion. When she is not the one he wants any more, he would rather divorce her than put up with the life he dislikes.

In the traditional Chinese culture, people get married in order to build a family not just because of love. To put it in detail, one purpose of marriage is to strengthen the two families; the other main purpose is to have a son to carry on the family line, which is one’s responsibility and obligation. Marriage is not only a joining together of two individuals, but also a union of two families. In ancient China, parents choose a wife for their son; in fact, they do this for the whole family. In traditional Chinese society, marriage is a family event. When a girl officially becomes a family’s daughter-in-law, the first thing she has to do is to worship the ancestors and salute her husband’s family. This reveals that traditional Chinese marriage is subject to the interests of the family. To Chinese people, family is a shelter, the origin of safety and the root of a person. As a result, owning a big family is many Chinese people’s dream. People often use “Sons and grandsons pervaded the hall” to describe a successful and happy family in China. In a traditional Chinese family, there often live several generations in a big house (Zhou Yingamp;Ma Jin, 2012:285). In The Joy Luck Club, little Anmei lives in a mansion together with her mother’s brother, mother’s sister in law, her brother and grandmother. In the traditional Chinese culture where collectivism prevails, a person’s social status, position, success and failure are all related to his family. For example, when Anmei’s mother becomes other man’s wife, all her families break off all relations with her mother, because they think she is a shame to their family.

In many western countries, especially in Great Britain and America, people believe in Christianity and most of them are pious Christians. From the perspective of Christians, the harmony of males and females is the radical harmony, and their marriage should be on the basis of kindness, love and promotion to each other. Many American women take marriage as a way to realize themselves, that is, getting married is a way to get happiness, different from Chinese women’s concept that marriage is an obligation. Different from Chinese people, Americans consider love and marriage as a personal issue, and they have rights and freedom to decide who they will marry and whether give birth to a baby or not. Everyone of the family have the rights to pursue his happiness, so the other people can’t intervene them, including parents. In their opinions, love is the only factor that decides their marriage, and a marriage without love is immoral (Zhu Xiaoying, 2010:32). Many American people get married for love, if love doesn’t exist any more, they will not get married or divorce with each other. What’s more, once marriage becomes a stumbling block of their personal development, they will abandon it, just like abandoning an old car or an outdated computer. When there is crisis in their marriage, American women think more about their own benefits and needs for life. After divorce, they can still live a happy life and work for themselves. Divorce is just a second choice for them, having nothing to do with any ethics or morals. Chinese women may consider too much when they face this problem. For example, they cannot leave their children and they are worried about their future income. They take too much factors into consideration, so they would rather put up with an unhappy marriage than divorce.

3.3 Family Status

In The Joy Luck Club, when Zhong Lindong arrives at Mr.Huangs, she thinks she must do her best to please her husband and mother-in-law in order not to make her mother ashamed. She tries to learn cooking and other work, but this does not make her mother-in-law pleased. Because she wants a grandson, she just blames Zhong Lindong and even imprisons her. Yingying constrains herself when she gets married and tries her best to love her husband, wanting to be a good wife, but she is still discarded by her husband. However, when Anmei’s daughter Rose is invited to Tide’s parents’ party; Tide Rose is so confused that Rose doesn’t make any resistance when Tide’s mother expresses her disagreement to their relation. He cannot understand why Rose doesn’t fight for her right, so he is angry with his mother. When Rose sees this, she feels so happy that Tide loves her so deeply, so she decides to devote herself to him and the family. When they get married, she agrees with Tide about everything, and she even gives up the scholarship to further her study in order to accompany Tide and help him. However, Tide considers his wife as a woman without thoughts and independence; he feels that his wife has changed. He is disappointed with their marriage and wants to divorce her. After this, Rose realizes the fact that everyone should have his own dignity and independent personality in America, and she should not give up her rights because of anyone in any time. Thus, Rose begins to fight for her rights and equal status in the marriage, which makes Tide come back to the family again.

In ancient China, males are considered to be superior to females, a phenomenon that has existed for a long time in the later years. Women are subject to numerous constraints at that time. Over thousands of years, women are thought to stay at home and they are just an auxiliary role in a family. Their needs are totally deprived, and they just live for others (Wang Chaojie, 2011:77). In old China, a man can have more than one wife, while a woman must be loyal to her husband. People have taken this unfairness as granted. The sense of male dominance has constrained a generation and another generation. American culture advocates equality, people may think that everyone is equal and a wife is as important as a husband in a family. American women pursue happiness and freedom in marriage, so they want to have an equal status as men. The same, American men also hope their wife can have her own personality and their own ideas.

4. Major Reasons for the Differences

The differences in Chinese and American marriage concepts can be explained by Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory. Hofstede is an influential Dutch psychologist, who studies the interactions between national cultures and organizational cultures. The theory of cultural dimensions put forward by Hofstede is the most influential intercultural theory in the world. Here are Hofstede’s dimensions of culture values, including individualism versus collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, masculinity versus femininity, long-term orientation versus short-term orientation. The five dimensions can be generally explained as follows: First, individualism and collectivism, this refers to the degree to which individuals are integrated into groups. Second, uncertainty avoidance is the tendency to behave so as to arrange things in a way that minimizes unforeseen consequences. Third, power distance refers to the degree of inequality that exists and is accepted among people with and without power. Fourth, masculinity versus femininity, this refers to how much a society sticks with and values traditional male and female roles. Fifth, long-term orientation versus short-term orientation, this refers to how much society values long standing and oppose to short-term traditions and values. According to the numbers of the latest survey made by Intercultural Management Consulting Company, we can know that the numbers of masculinity versus femininity and uncertainty avoidance are similar. That is to say, there is little difference in the two cultural dimensions between Chinese and American culture (Wang Weirong, 2012:88). However, the numbers of individualism and collectivism, long-term orientation versus short-term orientation and power distance are quite different. Just as Hofstede has said, these numbers reflect the differences among the cultures of different countries, not the culture in an absolute sense (Hofstede, 2010: 51). This paper will discuss the reasons that contribute to the differences between Chinese and American culture from the three dimensions: individualism versus collectivism, long-term orientation versus short-term orientation and power distance.

4.1 Individualism vs. Collectivism

In individualistic cultures, people value individual achievement, freedom, and competition are stressed. People give priority to the task and look after their own self-interests. While in collectivistic cultures, people value group harmony, cohesiveness, and consensus are very important. And priority is given to the relationship with people and group interest. For example, America advocates individualism, when they speak, they emphasize more on “I”. They think it is honest to call a spade a spade and the resource belongs to individual, even their children cannot share with them. They communicate in a low-context way. If they make mistakes, they will feel guilty and lose self-esteem. While Chinese advocates collectivism, they emphasize more on “we”. They try to maintain perfect harmony and avoid direct collision. They are willing to share the resources with families and relatives. They communicate in a high-context way. They think their own mistake will make not only themselves but also all the community ashamed and lose the face of them (Hofstede, 2010: 96). Generally speaking, in individualistic cultures, low-context communication way is dominant; in collectivistic cultures, high-context communication way is dominant.

During the process of more than two thousand years’ history of feudal society, Confucianism had a dominant position, which had a deep and profound influence on China. Chinese consider modest as a virtue, they often deny other’s compliments, let alone showing themselves. Chinese people like to belittle themselves when contacting with others, which is called “the golden mean” that comes from Confucianism. Chinese are proud of modesty and opposed to over show themselves. Chinese culture reflects mass culture characteristics which don’t allow personal benefit to outmatch group interest. When Waverly brings Rich to meet her parents, Zhong Lindong cooks a table of delicious Chinese dishes. Before she brings her most spectacular cuisine, she says modestly that the dish is tasteless and hard to eat. In fact, she is waiting for people’s compliments after they taste the cuisine, but Rich tastes it at first and says you can add some sauce, after that, he dose so, which makes Zhong Lindong very angry and others embarrassed. Rich doesn’t know this at all.

In The Joy Luck Club, the mothers are brought up in collectivistic cultures, so their life values are not only reflected in personal achievements but also in the role of mother they play. The mothers hope their children will have a bright future, which is the honor of both the children themselves and the whole family, and it also influences the daughters. After Rose and Tide get married, Rose chooses to devote herself to the family silently just like many Chinese wives. She often brings some little gifts for her husband to represent her love, and she can think of everything for Tide without his asking. She even abandons the scholarship to further her study just in order to accompany him. What she tries to do and think about is in order to make her husband happy and satisfied, but she doesn’t matter. Her marriage is not in order to fulfill herself but to take care of the family and please them. This reflects the difference in marriage purpose and family status.

4.2 Long-term vs. Short-term Orientation

This dimension describes a society’s “time horizon”, or the importance attached to the future versus the past and present. Values associated with long-term orientation are thrift and perseverance. In long-term orientation countries, people value actions and attitudes that affect the future: perseverance, thrift, and shame. They consider marriage as a practical and aim-guided arrangement. In the study of the world’s values during 1990 and 1993, the question about the factors that contribute to the success of marriage reveals that it is common to live together with one’s spouse regardless of the difference in savor or interest. In another study, most students from long-term orientation countries agree with the statement that if love has disappeared from marriage totally, the couple had better divorce totally and start new life (Hofstede, 2010: 224). Values associated with short-term orientation are the respect for tradition, fulfilling social obligations, and protecting one’s “face”. In short-term orientation countries, people’s values are towards the past and present, and maintain personal stability or happiness and live for the present, they are concerned about short-term results. Even if love never exists any more, they will still sustain their marriage.

In The Joy Luck Club, Rose values her role as a wife and a mother so much that she is willing to sacrifice herself to perform the obligation. When Anmei’s mother becomes other man’s wife, all her families break off the relations with her mother, because they think she is a shame to their family. In fact, she is humiliated by the rich man but has to marry him as his third wife. Though she is extremely unwilling to do so, she has nothing to do, so she commits suicide at last in order to establish a loyal example for her daughter. While American people think it is common to divorce; it is a personal right to choose one’s own life. Zhong Lindong get married to perform her mother’s promise and tries her best to please her husband’s family in case of making her mother lose face. These all reveal the difference in the purpose of marriage and the method of choosing a spouse.

4.3 High Power Distance vs. Low Power Distance

Even in the most simple hunter-gather band, some people are bigger, stronger, or smarter than others. The next thing is that some people have more power than others: they are more able to determine the behavior of others than vice versa (Hofstede, 2005: 23). Power distance refers to the range of answers found in the various countries to the basic question of how to handle the fact that people are unequal (Hofstede, 2005: 24). Power distance can therefore be defined as the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally (Hofstede, 2005: 28). This represents inequality (more versus less), but defined from below, not from above. It suggests that a society’s level of inequality is endorsed by the followers as much as by the leaders. Power and inequality, of course, are extremely fundamental facts of any society and anybody with some international experience will be aware that all societies are unequal, but some are more unequal than others. In high power distance cultures, people allow inequalities to persist or increase; organizations tend to be hierarchical, and inequality is accepted. In low power distance cultures, people dislike the development of large inequalities in rights and opportunities.

Comparatively speaking, Chinese traditional culture is a high-power distance culture, while American culture is a low-power distance culture. In high-power distance society, inequality of people is within expectation and accepted, and parents teach their children to be obedient. Respecting parents and elder is an essential virtue, and it is an obligation to care for the elderly. In addition, Chinese traditional culture advocates filial piety, and offspring’s behavior or words cannot go against the will of parents and the elderly. China is based on agricultural economy, in which males play an important role. As time passes, men become the major of the labor, so establish a higher status in a family. Closed geography leads to a closed mind. At that time, Confucianism had overwhelming power under the feudal dominance so that people considered themselves as the best and did not communicate with other countries. The residual of the feudal small-scale peasant economy thoughts still influences one and another generation. As a result, males are still the dominant in modern Chinese society. In low-power distance society, inequality of people should be reduced as low as possible. Parents and children are equal and offspring don’t have the obligation to care for parents (Hofstede, 2010: 58).

In The Joy Luck Club, Zhong Lingdong sacrifices all her life only to perform her mother’s promise, so she get married when she is just a child and is mistreated at her husband’s home. Her husband can determine her life and whether she is happy or not. The purpose to get married is not for the sake of her; instead, it is totally determined by her mother and the matchmaker. The difference in power difference affects choosing a spouse, the purpose of marriage and family status.

5. Conclusion

With the description of four Chinese families who immigrate to America in The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan shows us the traditional Chinese marriage concepts from different perspectives, and compares it with American marriage concepts. This thesis reveals that there are great difference in their marriage concepts, including choosing a spouse, the purpose of marriage and family status, and it is a reflection of different ideologies. Chinese culture which has been transmitted for thousands of years makes people consider that family interests are more important than personal interest. While American people have a weak notion of family; they emphasize the independence of personality, freedom, equality and respect. The reasons for the differences have been analyzed from three cultural dimensions: individualism vs. collectivism, long-term vs. short-term orientation and power distance. Through the analysis of the factors based on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory, people can have a better understanding of intercultural communication between China and America.

Theoretically, culture has continuity and variability. It should not only inherit the fine traditions but also renew itself to learn from other’s strong points to offset its weakness (Zhou Yingamp;Ma Jin, 2012:288). The modernization of Chinese people’s marriage concept must rely on the critical inheritance of tradition and the rational reference to foreign culture. The new Chinese marriage concepts should maximize the essence of Chinese and American cultures, and eliminate the decadent and out-dated factors of Chinese and American cultures to the hilt.

Works Cited

[1] Hofstede, G.,Hofstede, G.J. 2005. Cultures and Organizations: Software of the mind. NY: Mc Graw Hill.

[2] Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. New York: Putnam, 1989.

[3] 霍夫斯泰德. 《文化与组织：心理软件的力量（第二版）》 李原 李健敏译，中国人民大学出版社, 2010.

[4] 赖红玲，王电建. 《从霍夫斯泰德的文化模型看中美文化差异》. 语文学刊外语教育教学,7 (2012）：87-88.

[5] 谭恩美. 《喜福会》上海：译文出版社，2006.

[6] 万永坤，刘晓红.《谭恩美代表作lt;喜福会gt;研究综述》. 作家杂志, 2010: 63.

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