Bookworm Deluxe : Joy Luck Club

This book was written by an American-Chinese, Amy Koh, who was born to parents who came over from China. The book itself is a very good observation of typical traditional Chinese families with westernised children, no matter which country they are in.

This book is special to me as it was the first time I read the book after watching the movie. The movie first came out about fifteen years ago, and my mum brought me to watch it so as to teach me a lesson and I remember relating to the characters after watching the show.

The book focuses on four Chinese families in San Francisco. The parents migrated from China, so still followed tradition and retained typical Chinese mentality. But the children that were born and bred in America behaved like the typical Westerners of freedom of speech, cohabitation, and often in conflict over their upbringing by Chinese parents and their upbringing by their culture and environment they grew up in. The book especially focuses on the relationships between the mothers and the daughters of the families mentioned.

The story started off with a mahjong game, where the three elderly ladies and the young lady were reminiscing about their parents, families and children. It all started with the young lady called June. She was thinking about her mother's story and how her mother tried to bring her up.

June's mother Suyuan escaped from China during the war with her twin girls. Unfortunately, along the way, she thought she was not able to make it any further, thus abandoned the two babies under a tree, with some jewellery and a note to get the girls back to their father in Nanjing. A twist of fate led her to be rescued after that, but it was too late to go back for her children. She managed to buy a boat journey to America and married one of the fellow passengers.

June was brought up very strictly. Her parents, like typical Chinese parents, wanted the best for her. So Suyuan scrimped and saved just to buy her a piano and drilled her to be a prodigy, and often comparing her with her friend Lindo's daughter, Waverly, who was Chinatown's Junior Chess Champion. Sounds so much like my parents who used to like (actually they still do) comparing me to my cousins and their friends' children.

June performed during a church bazaar once and messed up the song, causing utter embarrassment to her parents. She thought she would never get to play the piano anymore, but after that, her mother forced her to continue practicing the piano, and she argued that she had the right not to listen to her when being dictated upon.

Anyway June grew up, and she did not manage to complete college as she kept changing her mind on what she liked to major in. So she made a living by freelance work. She never married either.

One Chinese New Year, during a delicious crab dinner, when her friend Waverly, who was a top-notch attorney, criticised her on her work being not up to standard, Suyuan put her down in front of everyone, saying that June was not as talented as Waverly. My mum used to do that to me all the time, whenever after major examinations and I did not score well enough to enter this stream or this school or this course, and I really hated it, being humiliated like this in front of people.

June then confronted her mother in the kitchen and said she knew her mother found her a disappointment by not having a degree, not getting married, not completing her piano lessons, and not being as capable as others. Suyuan then told her that all these were actually not important, because she knew June had the "best-quality heart" since she took the worst-quality crab as she saved the best-quality crabs for the rest of the guests. A rather heart-warming moment for a daughter to realise that her mother really loved and cared for her.

The story then moved on to the next mother-daughter team. Waverly's mother was Lindo, who was a child-bride, but managed to cheat her in-laws so they sent her away and even sponsored her a ticket to Beijing. Her mother-in-law was unhappy with her for not bearing a child for her son, but the boy was only fourteen and still very childish, and he refused to sleep with her. This was a typical olden Chinese mentality of the son being the precious gem and the daughter-in-law being pushed around and trodden on.

She started life anew in San Francisco, and when her daughter won the first chess championship, she polished all her trophies and often showed her off to her friends and neighbours. Waverly herself did not like to be paraded around like a trophy so fell out with her mother as a result. When she apologised, her mother left her alone and just told her not to treat chess as a game by saying she would like to play one day and then refused to play another day. Strangely after that, Waverly never won another chess tournament and gave up chess altogether. She got very affected by what her mother said to her, just like me.

When she got married to a Chinese guy (because her parents asked her to), the marriage was short-lived and they had a daughter. But when she got divorced, her mother blamed it on her. Now she was staying with a Caucasian called Rich, and her mother kept commenting on him the first time they met. The embarrassment was Rich actually criticised her mother's cooking and even told her what to add to make the dish spicier.

That is a big no-no! Chinese mothers will always be humble and put down their own cooking, but the innuendo was to eat it and then comment on how nice the dish was, not to agree that it was not nice and comment on how to make it better. That would be considered a downright disrespect.

Waverly could not stand her mum for always being sarcastic and putting her down. It was like nothing she did could ever be good enough to her mother. I can totally relate to that! It seems like nothing I do can ever be good enough for my mum too! So when she and Rich was finally getting married, she asked her mother whether she liked Rich, otherwise why she was putting him down all the time. Her mother said of course she liked Rich, otherwise she would never even bother noticing him enough to comment on him, and if she did not like him, she would not have let him marry such a daughter. It was a pretty touching part of the book.

The story then went on to the third mother-daughter team, Ying Ying and Lena. Ying Ying was a very rich girl in China who married a cad. She started to hate him so much that she even killed their child. Her words were that, "his body became limp, with his spirit flown away. I moved to America and remarried, but I have lost my spirit, thus I had a daughter with no spirit as I had none to give her."

Her daughter Lena was a mousy cowardly girl who was trapped in an unhappy marriage mainly because her husband took her for granted and demanded half payment from her for everything. Ying Ying spent a night at Lena's place and saw signs of the cracks in her marriage. She heard the couple quarrelling and decided she had to be her own daughter's fighting spirit. As a result, she talked to Lena and urged her to speak up for herself on what she wanted out of the marriage and to decide what to do if he was not able to give her what she wanted.

The next part of the book was on the fourth mother-daughter team, Anmei and Rose. Anmei's mother was forced to be the fourth wife of a rich man after her father died. As a result, she was thrown out of the house and was not allowed to see her children. But when Anmei's grandmother was dying, her mother came back and Anmei saw her cutting a piece of her flesh and putting it into her grandmother's soup. Apparently, the greatest act of filial piety was for the child to cut off a bit of the flesh and put it into the soup of a dying parent.

This time, Anmei left with her mother to stay with the rich guy in his house. When Anmei realised that her mother was no more than just a low-ranking slave subject to the whims of her husband and his other wives, she began to feel really upset. When her mother killed herself three days before the new year, she realised that her mother died for her, as three days later (New Year's Day) the family must mourn and bless the house otherwise her spirit would come back to haunt them. Because of this, the rich guy tried atoning for his sins by treating Anmei as his most revered child.

Anmei's daughter Rose married a rich American guy. She became the submissive wife and did everything she could to please him. But eventually, the more she did the more her life revolved around him, until she no longer had a life of her own. She thought by focusing on his life and making him happy would be the best she could do for him, but he wanted her to be happy too. In the end, he asked for a divorce as he felt he could not comunicate with her anymore since she only agreed on whatever he said and never wanted to speak her mind.

When Anmei found out, she told Rose something very meaningful, "My mother was not able to speak up because of her status. But now, in this country, where I bring up my daughter to be the best she can be and teach her to fight for her own happiness, she still ends up like my mother - being so submissive to her husband and not wanting to speak up for herself on what she wants." Because of this, Rose finally told her ex-husband that she did not want him to take away her house or her daughter.

The last part of the story was on how June, to fulfil her late mother's wishes, went back to China to seek out her elder twin sisters and to trace her roots at the same time.

This story is not just very Chinese-based, but very American-based as well. Things like how big meals and gatherings of relatives and close friends are very important to Chinese families, especially on important occasions. And how Chinese mothers will always cook a lot for the family and expect all the dishes to be cleared. That is how Chinese parents show their love.

Unlike Westerners who are more expressive in showing their love, Chinese parents will not show their love by hugging or kissing their children (I cannot even remember if my parents have ever hugged or kissed me, I only remmeber the scolding and beating part); rather they show their love by feeding and clothing the children well, especially the feeding part. To refuse any dish is like a rejection of their love, thus showing disrespect and being unfilial.

In a way, the story relates to my own relationship with my mother. I actually began to understand my mother more after reading the book as I find her very similar to all the characters. The ever critical mother who never had a good thing to say, the constant comparison with others, the mother who wanted her daughter to have a fighting spirit, and the mother who told her daughter to pursue her own happiness.

I never really appreciated what she was trying to teach me, but now I have begun to appreciate much more. Chinese people like me can definitely relate to the book, as I believe some of you can identify with some of the characters inside, be it the children or the parents.