Week 16 Part A The Joy Luck Club -Queen Mother of the Western Skies

Week 16 Part A The Joy Luck Club -Queen Mother of the Western Skies

• In this Chapter, one of the Chinese Mother An-mei tells her childhood life in China and her daughter Rose failing marriage in America
• An-mei remarks that although Rose believes she has run out of choices, Rose is in fact making a distinct choice in refusing to speak up for herself. An-mei knows this and she said “if I do not speak, she is making a choice. If she doesn’t cry try, she can lose her chance forever. I know this because I was raised the Chinese way: I was taught to desire nothing, to swallow other people’s misery, to eat my own bitterness” (p215)
• An-mei tells her story about her mother was a stranger to her and when she first arrived at An-mei uncle house in Ningpo. An-mei mother were not welcome to that house. An-mei’s mother came back to see her dying mother Popo. After Popo’s death, An-mei’s mother prepared to leave, and An-mei began to cry. Her mother told her that once, when she was a girl, she had sat crying by the pond when a turtle surfaced, swallowing her teardrops as they touched the water. The turtle then said that he had eaten her tears and therefore knew her misery. He warned her that if she continued to cry, her life would always be sad. He spat out the tears in the form of tiny eggs, which cracked open to reveal seven fluttering magpies, birds of joy. The turtle said that whenever one cries, one is not washing away one’s sorrows but feeding another’s joy. For this reason, one must learn to swallow one’s own tears.
• An-mei’s mother wanted to take An-mei with her. An-mei’s uncle told her she would ruin her daughter’s life as she had ruined her own. But An-mei wanted to go with her mother and her uncle finally agreed. But he said that she is deemed “finished”. An-mei finally found why her mother left her and her brother nine years ago, her mother lived with Wu Tsing, a rich merchant and she became his third concubine, or “fourth wife.”.
• An-mei soon saw how her mother live and how the Second Wife dictate her life. Second Wife had been searching for a third concubine for Wu Tsing who would keep him from wasting his money in the teahouses and give him a son. She could tell that An-mei’s mother was in mourning (her husband, a Buddhist scholar, had died one year earlier) from her white clothes, but she devised a scheme. She invited her for dinner and an evening of mahjong. After it became too late for An-mei’s mother to travel home, Second Wife had her sleep in her bed with her. In the middle of the night, Second Wife and Wu Tsing switched places, and Wu Tsing raped An-mei’s mother. Second Wife then announced to everyone that An-mei’s mother had seduced Wu Tsing. Entirely disgraced, An-mei’s mother had no choice but to marry Wu Tsing. She gave birth to a son, Syaudi, whom Second Wife took as her own.
• An-mei’s mother committed suicide after being humiliated. An-mei realized that the act was with intention. Before dying, her mother told An-mei that she was killing her weak spirit to make An-mei’s spirit stronger. Chinese are true believer to all folklore and follow revenge and states that the soul returns on the third day after death to “settle scores.” Wu Tsing, wanting to avoid a vengeful spirit, promised her spirit that he would raise An-mei and Syaudi as his “honored children” in addition to honoring her as he would a First Wife. Afterward, An-mei confronted Second Wife with the fake pearl necklace, crushing it underfoot. She says it was on that day that she learned to shout.
• Reference
• Tan, Amy (2015) The Joy Luck Club. Penguin Book, London England