The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan

FilmClub: 25 de juliol a les 19 h a la Biblioteca Mestra Maria Antònia.

BookClub: 26 de juliol a les 19 h a la Biblioteca Mestra Maria Antònia.

(Extracte del punt de lectura.)

About the book

The Joy Luck Club presents the stories of four Chinese-immigrant women and their American-born daughters. Each of the four Chinese women has her own view of the world based on her experiences in China and wants to share that vision with her daughter. The daughters try to understand and appreciate their mothers' pasts, adapt to the American way of life, and win their mothers' acceptance. The book's name comes from the club formed in China by one of the mothers, Suyuan Woo, in order to lift her friends' spirits and distract them from their problems during the Japanese invasion. Suyuan continued the club when she came to the United States—hoping to bring luck to her family and friends and finding joy in that hope.

Amy Tan wrote it to try to understand her own relationship with her mother. Tan's Chinese parents wanted Americanized children but expected them to think like Chinese. Tan found this particularly difficult as an adolescent. While the generational differences were like those experienced by other mothers and daughters, the cultural distinctions added another dimension. Thus, Tan wrote not only to sort out her cultural heritage but to learn how she and her mother could get along better.

Critics appreciate Tan's straightforward manner as well as the skill with which she talks about Chinese culture and mother/daughter relationships. Readers also love it: women of all ages identify with Tan's characters and their conflicts with their families, while men have an opportunity through this novel to better understand their own behaviours towards women. Any reader can appreciate Tan's humour, fairness, and objectivity.

The author

Born in Oakland, CA, in 1952, now lives in San Francisco. The Joy Luck Club was her first and perhaps most well known book. It brought her great success and made her name known around the world. Much of the content of her books is autobiographical. In her stories, Tan blends Eastern and Western cultures, often by telling a "Chinese" story through "American" eyes, and vice versa.

This practice of combing and contrasting Eastern and Western culture began in Tan's early adulthood, when she reached a breaking point in her relationship with her mother. They had fought throughout her childhood, and Amy was bent on rebelling in whatever way she could. She gradually began to realize that one of their problems was that she did not understand her mother, who desperately wanted to be understood. Tan has said that her mother needed someone to truly listen to her, to relive her life with her. Long conversations with her mother evolved into TJLC the characters of Rose, Waverly, June and Lena to personify her own questions and concerns. She finally saw that she had to learn about her mother's life in order to understand her own history and personality.

She also has a history of electronic equipment malfunctioning in her presence. Though she accepts these traditionally Chinese otherworldly elements in her life, she also remembers that her mother's superstitions negatively affected Amy and her brother for a long time.

The Film

Director

• Wayne Wang

Cast

• Kieu Chinh - Suyuan Woo
• Tsai Chin - Lindo Jong
• France Nuyen - Ying-Ying St. Clair
• Lisa Lu - An-Mei Hsu
• Ming-Na - Jing-Mei 'June' Woo (as Ming-Na Wen)
• Tamlyn Tomita - Waverly Jong
• Lauren Tom - Lena St. Clair
• Rosalind Chao - Rose Hsu Jordan
• Michael Paul Chan - Harold, Lena's Husband
• Andrew McCarthy - Ted Jordan
• Christopher Rich - Rich
• Russell Wong - Lin Xiao
• Vivian Wu - An-Mei's Mother
• Chao-Li Chi - Canning Woo
• Victor Wong - Old Chong the Piano Teacher
• Irene Ng - Lindo (Adolescent)

Other books by the same author that you can find in English at the Public Libraries of Catalonia (link):

• The Bonesetter's Daughter
• The Hundred Secret Senses
• The Opposite of Face
• Saving Firsh from Drowning