The Joy luck club Flashcards
Jing-mei doesn’t understand her mother, and therefore cannot remember her mother’s intended meanings of some conversations. Unable to properly recall during her reflections.
‘ I can never remember things I didn’t understand in the first place.’
The example Jing mei uses to explain her relationship with her mom. Especially in the language.
‘These kinds of explanations made me feel my mother and I spoke two different languages, which we did. I talked to her in English, she answered back in Chinese.’
The breakdown of Jing mei of her self esteem, especially after the funeral. One case where her friend complimented her, but then her mother was furious about it.
‘I’m shaking, trying to hold something inside. The last time I saw them, at the funeral, I had broken down and cried big gulping sobs. They must wonder how someone like me can take my mother’s place. A friend once told me that my mother and I were alike, that we had the same wispy hand gestures, the same girlish laugh and sideways look. When I shyly told my mother this, she seemed insulted and said, “You don’t even know little percent of me! How can you be me?” And she’s right. How can I be my mother at Joy Luck?’
Jing mei reflects how she compares to her mother (especially in the language)
‘But listening to Auntie Lin tonight reminds me once again: My mother and I never really understood one another. We translated each other’s meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more.’
The outrage because of Jing-mei saying she doesn’t know her mother when they revealed the location to her long loss sisters
“What will I say? What can I tell them about my mother? I don’t know anything. . . .”
“Not know your own mother? How can you say? Your mother is in your bones!”
‘And then it occurs to me. They are frightened. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant. . . . They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese . . . who will bear grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from generation to generation.’
The hope the mother of Jing Mei “June” Woo has been thriving for, especially to establish her daughter’s future to have things she never had.
“My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. You could open a restaurant. You could work for the government and get a good retirement. You could buy a house with almost no money down. You could become rich. You could become instantly famous. …America was where all my mother’s hopes lay”’
Jing Mei “June” Woo looks literally and figuratively reflects herself. She then transitioned into what she sees as free will and free thought (rebelling against her mother)
‘I saw what seemed to be the prodigy side of me – because I had never seen that face before. I looked at my reflection, blinking so I could see more clearly. The girl staring back at me was angry, powerful. This girl and I were the same. I had new thoughts, willful thoughts, or rather thoughts filled with lots of won’ts. I won’t let her change me, I promised to myself. I won’t be what I’m not.’
Jing Mei plans her move during her piano tutor, especially after the mirror of reflection scene.
‘Maybe I never really gave myself a fair chance. I did pick up the basics pretty quickly, and I might have become a good pianist at that young age. But I was so determined not to try, not to be anybody different that I learned to play only the most ear-splitting preludes, the most discordant hymns.’
Jing Mei so angered, she purposely insulted her own mother and disgraced her sacrifice openly.
‘“You want me to be someone that I’m not!” I sobbed. “I’ll never be the kind of daughter you want me to be… I wish I wasn’t your daughter. I wish you weren’t my mother,” I shouted. As I said these things I got scared. It felt… as if this awful side of me had surfaced at last… And that’s when I remembered the babies she had lost in China, the ones we never talked about. “I wish I’d never been born!” I shouted. “I wish I were dead! Like them.” It was as if I had said the magic words Alakazam!—and her face went blank.
Jing Mei gets a mental breakdown after receiving disappointment from her mother over and over.
“And after seeing my mother’s disappointed face once again, something inside of me began to die. I hated the tests, the raised hopes and failed expectations. Before going to bed that night, I looked in the mirror above the bathroom sink and when I saw only my face staring back–and that it would always be this ordinary face–I began to cry. Such a sad, ugly girl! I made high-pitched noises like a crazed animal, trying to scratch out the face in the mirror” (134).
Jing Mei think about her life’s importance, after her mother’s death. Still wondering about the pendant. Especially after Jing Mei divorced.
‘…but these days, I think about my life’s importance. I wonder what it means, because my mother died three months ago, six days before my thirty-sixth birthday. And she’s the only person I could have asked, to tell me about life’s importance, to help me understand my grief.’
‘I now wear that pendant every day. I think the carvings mean something, because shapes and details, which I never seem to notice until after they’re pointed out to me, always mean something to Chinese people.’
After seeing a bartender with a similar necklace
‘She gave it to me after I got divorced. I guess my mother’s telling me I’m still worth something.’
Jing Mei explains the culture difference between the Chinese mothers and American mothers. More a physical offering instead of affection.
‘That’s the way Chinese mothers show they love their children, not through hugs and kisses but with stern offerings of steamed dumplings. Duck’s gizzards and crab’
Jing mei a bit confused in the communication between her and her mother in picking crabs.
“Only you pick that crab. Nobody else take it. I already know this. Everybody else want best quality. You thinking different.”
‘She said it in a way as if this were proof - proof of something good. She always said things that didn’t make any sense, that sounded both good and bad at the same time.’
As Jing Mei’s mother pass a pendant to her, she doesn’t feel like wanting it, but it’s like… her fate and she already accepted it without wanting to.
“For a long time, I wanted to give you this necklace. See, I wore this on my skin, so when you put it on your skin, then you know my meaning. This is your life’s importance.”
…
‘I wanted to give it back. I didn’t want to accept it. And yet I also felt as if I had already swallowed it.’
As Jing mei travels through China, she starts feeling naturally part of it.
‘The minute our train leaves the Hong Kong border and enters Shenzhen, China, I feel different. I can feel the skin on my forehead tingling, my blood rushing through a new course, my bones aching with a familiar old pain. And I think, My mother was right. I am becoming Chinese.’
