A Reading Report of The Joy Luck Club

Recently I have read a book named The Joy Luck Club. It is written by Amy Tan who is a Chinese American writer and her works explore mother-daughter relationships. She was born in California. After studying at San Jose State University, she obtained the bachelor’s and master’s degree in English language. She is good at describing Asian American life and their cultural conflict. She likes using the exquisite portrayal to describe Chinese culture and show the charm and magic of Orient to Western readers. In 1987, Amy Tan wrote the novel The Joy Luck Club according to her grandmother and her mother 's experience and in 1989 the book was published. In 1993, the novel was adapted into a feature film and received a great success. The novel was also adapted into a play, by Susan Kim, which premiered at Pan Asian Repertory Theatre in New York. It is known all over the world and has been translated into 35 languages.

The Joy Luck Club consists of sixteen interlocking stories about the lives of four Chinese immigrant women and their four American-born daughters. In 1949, the four immigrants met at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco and agreed to continue to meet to play mah jong. They called their mah jong group the Joy Luck Club. The stories told in this novel revolve around the Joy Luck Club women and their daughters. Structurally, the novel is divided into four major sections, with two sections focusing on the stories of the mothers and two sections on the stories of the daughters. These women moved to the United States for decades, but they still thought to raise their children by traditional education. Their children did not think so and tried every ways to fight against.

According to this novel, we can realize the different culture between the China and American. There are many unpleasant things in this novel, such as conflicts, hardship, disappointment, sorrow, hurt, torture and so on. Of course there are some moving parts, and fortunately it is a happy ending. In many cases, we and those we love are easy to hurt each other because of the misunderstanding of love, the conflicts

in generations and culture background, or unconsciousness. In this novel, there are many examples. Now take Lindo Jong and her daughter Waverly as an example.

Lindo was a strong-willed woman and when Lindo was only twelve, she was forced to move in with a neighbor's young son, Huang Tyan-yu, through the machinations of the village matchmaker. Her daughter Waverly is an independent-minded and intelligent woman, but was annoyed by her mother's constant criticism. She learned the mightly from her mother and always said “shut up” to her mother’s criticism. They quarreled with each other and never reconciled. It seemed a serious problem. From this story, we realize that the gap between the mother and daughter is serious and they did not have methods to deal with it properly in the beginning. But fortunately, in the end they realized that they all had the problems and began to give thoughts to others.

This is a good novel that tells us the sources of the individual character clearly. The most important thing is that we can see these young American girls who accept Chinese family education have a different views on their lives. But it also tells us the simple description of Chinese culture and Western culture conflicts. The culture between Chinese and American Individual is a great difference. Comparing the elementary education between American and China, people's universal view will be different. China's elementary education aims to build the foundation of education with more study and less thought, while US's education aims to build such an education to raise the creativity with less study and more thought. American parents open education is that paying attention to practical exercise and emphasizing the child in practice, not a lecture. Chinese parents are enclosed education. They preach to give priority to their children and ignore the importance of the contempt practice activities.

View from the whole novel, the title, The Joy Luck Club may just be the old generation’s hope of better life for the next generation. But actually you make a mistaken. It is worth our appreciation. We can learn not only the difference between the two countries, but also the relationship between the mother and daughter. I am feeling very pity for these characters in this novel because living that society women were not equal to men, this deems to happen many unfortunate things to women and

make women’s lives tragedy. Associated with the modern society, almost every woman wants to make their daughter succeed. They always make their daughter do as their advices and ignore their daughters’ feeling. Each daughter unwilling to obey. It ia the time that we should have a talk with our mother and tell them our own opinions.

On the other hand, I think that most of the weakness people are weakness in their inner heart. We should pay attention to this fact. So we must try out best to fullfill our characters and have a good understanding of ourselves.

 

第二篇：《喜福会》读后感

从隔阂到相知

——从《喜福会》中探索美籍华裔母女关系的转变

华裔文学作品已经逐渐赢得了西方文学评论家的认可，这些很大程度上归功于华裔女性作家的作品。最近，我重温了华裔著名作家谭恩美的一部极具代表性的作品《喜福会》，其中探索了四位ABC（American Born Chinese）女儿们与母亲们的文化冲突，以及母女关系的转变。 喜福会这个名字是四位第一代华人移民的四个母亲，在生活工作之余组成的麻将小组名字。小说分别描写了，这四位各自走出命运阴影的母亲们漂洋过海来到异乡的国土，为了适应新环境，不得不在传统的中国文化上形成自己的人格，但是在骨子里渗透着的还是几千年来传统的教育和思想；而同时，第二代ABC女儿们虽然有着同样的黄皮肤、黑头发的东方特征，他们从小的教育环境为他们注入的是西方的文化气质。这些反差使母女之间产生了不少隔阂，无论是在教育、生活、工作还是婚姻上都出现了诸多冲突。有趣的是，在种种因素的促成下，特别是传统文化的诱因下，母女关系得到了改善，真正走上了相知相容。 其中，最主要的原因是母亲和女儿们成长的环境背景的不同。母亲们生长在解放前的旧中国，深受中国传统文化的影响，各自背后都有一些不为人所知的痛苦经历。虽然来到异乡，但是内心的保有的仍然是中国传统女性的特性——相夫教子、贤惠守理。相反的，女儿们却生活在女权运动的美国社会，倡导的是男女平等、自由开放，在这样的欧美文化占主流的社会中，他们不可避免地认同这种文化，因而在看到家庭、工作等问题上与传统的母亲们截然想法。其次，生活在白人社会的美国，黄皮肤黑头发的女儿们虽然内心认同西方的文化，但是外貌特征的不同，让他们多少产生些许身份认同的困惑，他们心中视美国为自己的祖国，竭力想摆脱华人身份，成为地道的美国人。这些促使他们反抗母亲强加给他们的中华文化价值观，努力工作融入西方社会主流。特别表现在在择偶婚姻上，她们更倾向于嫁给金发碧眼的白人，而不是中国人。对于母亲们一直提到的中国，感到的只是陌生和不解。可以说，母女的关系冲突，更多的是中国传统文化价值观和西方主流价值观之间的碰撞。

可喜的是，在小说的最后，四位母亲和女儿们的关系回归到相知相亲。从小说中，不难读出谭恩美认识到文化差异、身份认同的困惑等问题，但是她坚信文化融合是最终趋势。尽管母女之间有着种种冲突，她们之间的亲情纽带终究带来了和谐。女儿们在经历了各自人生的挫折和困惑后，在经历婚变等问题后，在母亲的帮助下，在中国博大宽容的文化的影响下，逐渐找到了作为第二代华人在欧美社会中的身份认同，纷纷投入母亲的怀抱，倾听母亲的苦难故事，汲取生活的力量，真正成为自立、自主、自尊的女性。

母女关系无论在哪个文化中，都是存在着冲突和相知的；对于生活在大洋彼岸的华人们，这层关系更加体现了一种中美文化的差异。相信，随着岁月的流逝，中国深远的文化终究会渗透到远离家乡的华人们的心中，老一代的华人会带着这种优秀的文化底蕴在异乡扎根壮大，新一代华人更会继承这种优良的文化底蕴，认同主流文化的同时确定自己的身份，坚定地生活的成长。