Why should you read “The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan? - Sheila Marie Orfano

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In her Auntie An-mei’s home, Jing-Mei reluctantly takes her seat at the eastern corner of the mahjong table. At the north, south and west corners are her aunties, long-time members of the Joy Luck Club. This gathering is the point of departure for a series of interconnected vignettes in Amy Tan’s debut novel. Sheila Marie Orfano explores why the novel still captivates readers worldwide.

Lesson by Sheila Marie Orfano, directed by Kayu Leung & Alo Trusz.

In her Auntie An-mei’s home,

Jing-Mei reluctantly takes her seat

at the eastern corner
of the mahjong table.

At the north, south, and west
corners are her aunties,

long-time members of the Joy Luck Club.

This group of immigrant families
comes together weekly to trade gossip,

feast on wonton and sweet chaswei,
and play mahjong.

However, the club’s founder, Jing-Mei’s
mother Suyuan, has recently passed away.

At first, Jing-Mei struggles
to fill her place at the table.

But when her aunties reveal a deeply
buried secret about Suyuan’s life,

Jing-Mei realizes she still has a lot
to learn about her mother, and herself.

In Amy Tan’s 1989 debut novel,
"The Joy Luck Club,"

this gathering at the mahjong table
is the point of departure

for a series of interconnected vignettes.

The book itself is loosely structured
to imitate the format of the Chinese game.

Just as mahjong is played over four
rounds with at least four hands each,

the book is divided into four parts,
each with four chapters.

Alternately set in China
or San Francisco,

each chapter narrates a single
story from one of the four matriarchs

of the Joy Luck Club
or their American-born daughters.

These stories take the reader through
war zones

and villages of rural China,
and into modern marriages

and tense gatherings
around the dinner table.

They touch upon themes of survival
and loss, love and the lack of it,

ambitions and their unsatisfied reality.

In one, Auntie Lin plots an escape
from the hostile family

of her promised husband,

ultimately leading
to her arrival in America.

In another, the Hsu family’s all-American
day at the beach turns dire

when Rose is overwhelmed by the
responsibility her mother assigns to her.

The resulting tragedy traumatizes
the family for years to come.

These tales illustrate the common
divides that can form

between generations and cultures,
especially in immigrant families.

The mothers have all experienced great
hardships during their lives in China,

and they’ve worked tirelessly
to give their children

better opportunities in America.

But their daughters feel weighed down
by their parent’s unfulfilled hopes

and high expectations.

Jing-Mei feels this pressure as she plays
mahjong with her mother’s friends.

She worries, “In me, they see
their own daughters, just as ignorant,

just as unmindful of all the truths
and hopes they have brought to America.”

Time and again,

the mothers strive to remind their
daughters of their history and heritage.

Meanwhile, their daughters
struggle to reconcile

their mothers’ perception of them
with who they really are.

"Does my daughter know me?"
some of the stories ask.

"Why doesn’t my mother understand?"
others respond.

In her interrogation of these questions,

Tan speaks to anxieties
that plague many immigrants,

who often feel both alienated
from their homeland

and disconnected
from their adopted country.

But by weaving the tales of these
four mothers and daughters together,

Tan makes it clear that Jing-Mei

and her peers find strength to tackle
their present-day problems

through the values their mothers
passed on to them.

When "The Joy Luck Club"
was first published,

Tan expected minimal success.

But against her predictions,
the book was a massive critical

and commercial achievement.

Today, these characters
still captivate readers worldwide.

Not only for the way they speak
to Chinese American

and immigrant experiences,

but also for uncovering a deeper truth:

the need to be seen and understood
by the ones you love.