Tian Tan Buddha

Analysis: Kingston recollects her mother’s story telling about heroic Chinese females, similar to Fa Mu Lan, the young lady who went to fight for her father and returned a national legend. Kingston thinks her mother prepares her with the legends of solid women that she could develop into. That is what made Kingston feel that she can be a warrior woman; it is not impossible. In Kingston’s fantasy, she started to follow a bird up into the mounts until she passed by a shelter of an old couples,…

In Mona in the Promised Land, by Gish Jen, Mona Chang’s parents immigrate from China. In doing so, Mona, a teenager, is forced to assimilate to American culture. Mona’s friends, Barbara Gugelstein, helps her navigate through American culture; however, Mona’s parents help her hold on to her own culture. On the other hand, Ramón de las Casas, or Papi, in Negocios, by Junot Díaz, comes to America by himself, struggling to look for a stable home and job, having no one to look up to. Ramón and Mona…

In the Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kinston uncovers genuine China to pursuers through her accumulation of "talk-stories" from a Chinese mother to her little girl. Through her discussion stories, Brave Orchid broadens Chinese convention into the lives of her American kids and enhances their creative energy. While Brave Orchid's narrating is instructive and useful, it additionally emphasizes male centric and misanthropic messages of customary Chinese culture. In addition, as Brave Orchid does not…

be someone that I’m not!” (Tan, 153) This shows her struggle to become her own person. And to become her own person she needs to assert herself to her mother and crush her mother’s dream in doing so. Jing- Mei’s mother tries to control her only because she knows how harsh the world is and she must direct her to a path she thinks is good for Jing-Mei. “Only two kinds of daughters, she shouted in Chinese. Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!” (Tan, 153) From the mother’s…

Amy Tan, a Chinese-American freelance writer, is known for her novel The Joy Luck Club, which is mainly based on her and her mother’s life experiences. She was born in 1952 in Oakland, California. However, after her brother and father dead in 1966, her family moved to Switzerland to start a new life. Then she returned to America for college, and finally obtained her doctor degree in linguistics at UC Berkeley. In 1987, when her mother was diagnosed with a severe illness, they came back to China…

The Unseen Shame of Public vs. Private Conversations If you were to ask most people what the word “language” represented, you would likely be given a general and vague explanation such as, a system of letters and symbols with corresponding rules that when arranged to form words, and properly and uniformly pronounced allow individuals to communicate within their circles. The ability to communicate clearly is part of what holds a society together, it allows us to live and work together, and…

Loung and Chou are both girls living in Cambodia. what will happen when they are separated and only one can go to America? Loung went to America and Chou stayed in Cambodia although they are both visited by their dead parents frequently, through dreams and memories. Ma and Pa help Loung and Chou by being a source of comfort, helping them persevere, and sacrificing themselves for Loung and Chou's survival. Ma and Pa are a source of comfort to Chou and Loung. Ma and Pa comfort Chou by reassuring…

Like Water for Chocolate RWL #1 Throughout this quarter, I’ve deepened my understanding upon the common theme of “conflict”. Over time, as I was being given language arts content, such as the reading “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, the short story “By Any Other Name” by Santha Rama Rau, and the film “The Debut” that our class all watched, my knowledge grew upon the matter and I grew comfortable identifying key types of conflict. Literally, conflict remains present within everyone; whether it’s as small…

Upon reuniting with her lost sisters, Jing-mei sees the part of her which is Chinese, her family: “And now I also see what part of me is Chinese...It is my family. It is in our blood” (Tan 288). This is the elixir June has been searching for her entire life. Up until this point she never considered herself to be “Chinese” and thought she was more American than the latter all of her life. Now after finding this elixir June completes both…

There are many heroic characters in books and movies, but there is a particular hero that I would love to be, even for just a day, and her name is Fa Mulan. During her times, women were not respected in China and were only seen as wives and housekeepers. However, Mulan did not fit into either of those roles, but that did not discourage her from discovering a way to make a difference for her family and her country. She was a slim, ordinary farmer girl until her military boot camp training…