Chinese Traditional Thinking Affect Jook-Liang in the Jade Peony

A strong, intelligent, independent boy is what every traditional Chinese family wants. Unfortunately, Sek-Lung is not such an ideal child. In the novel, The Jade Peony, Sek-Lung is a marginal character. He is rejected by the dominant group, first being made to feel insignificant and second to feel uncomfortably visible.

“Two kinds” is a story, a Chinese girl whose life is influenced by her mother. Her mother came to America after losing everything in China. Jing-Mei’s mother was immigrated early to America from China who has “American dream”. Her mother had high expectations on her daughter and did not care how it could affect her. It made Jing-Mei become a stubborn and rebellious person. “In the years that followed, I failed her so many times, each time asserting my own will, … for unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be, I could only be me. (104) She expressed her anger by going against her mother's expectations in ‘who I am’, it inferred that such tendency come from her childhood experiences. Jing-Mei was frustrated because she could not satisfy her mother.

Also, their relationship is shaped by the pressure Suyuan puts on her daughter. When Jing-Mei was growing up, her mother had the need for her daughter to be smart, talented, and a respectful Chinese daughter. This pressure put on Jing-Mei resulted in misunderstanding between mother and daughter. Jing-Mei constantly believed, “that she was disappointing her mother,” because she felt as if she failed at everything her mother wanted her to do. She believed she could never be as perfect as her mother was. Therefore she doesn’t think she is worthy enough to take her mother’s place at the Joy Luck Club “They must wonder now how someone like me can take my mother’s place” (Tan, 27). Jing-Mei does not understand that her mother wanted the best for her; Suyuan wanted Jing-Mei to challenge herself because that is how one builds up character. Suyuan thinks her daughter could do anything she proposed to do but never put enough effort into anything “Lazy to rise to expectations” (Tan 31). Furthermore, Suyuan forced Jing-Mei to learn how to play the piano and then perform at a recital. Jing-Mei rebelled against her mother and refused to learn how to play the piano well. So, at the recital she ends up forgetting the music notes. Jing-Mei blames her embarrassment on her mother and states,

All of the woman who migrated from China all have a curtain pride for their own mothers and cultures cultures respectively. Major acts of pride go into what these woman do while raising their daughters, as they want to push their daughters for success. “What will I say? What can I tell them about my mother? I don’t know anything. . . .” The aunties are looking at me as if I had become crazy right before their eyes. . . . 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 other mothers are flabbergasted that June does not know that much about her mother. The mothers also have their own pride in their daughters, and all the daughters have been together, so this phrase from June scares the other mothers of what their own daughters might think about them. In Chinese tradition, respecting your mother is very important, due to June being raised in America, she does not realise what she has just proclaimed as bad until the other mothers react to it.

One of the themes of the Jade Peony was the difficulty that the early Chinese immigrants had to face when they came to Canada in the late 1800s. Wong Suk is one of the early immigrants, believing there is a "gold mountain" that could make them rich. "There had also been rumours of gold in the rivers that poured down those mountain cliffs, gold that could make a man and his family wealthy overnight." (pg 17). When he first arrived, he found out the "gold mountain" was only a lie, instead waiting for him is dangerous railroad work, a low-paying job "with only a few dollars left to send back to China every month, and never enough dollars to buy passage home." (pg 17). He also had to face a racist Canadian government, who "passed the Chinese

Early in childhood Jing Mei dreamed of finding her prodigy and being a famous Chinese American, mostly because of the views and actions her mother placed on her. Her mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. (pg 405) Her mother was always pushing new tests and talents on Jing Mei. She even went as far as having her daughter Jing Mei models her physical appearance and actions after a child-star Shirley Temple. Her other was always testing her with many different things trying to discover Jing Mei’s talent. Later Jing Mei started to feel like her mother was just trying to make her into someone she was not and started to just fail and not try to do anything right hoping her mother would give up. When her mother died she had realized what her mother had been trying to do. Her mother had only wanted her to do her best. She had then to realize what her mother had

When An-Mei was a child, she was taught disciplined shou, a deep respect for her parents, elders, and ancestors. An-Mei’s grandmother, her primary maternal figure, would often tell her parables to cement this traditional Chinese belief early in her life, often concluding with moral-like statements such as, “Your own thoughts are so busy swimming inside that everything else gets pushed out” (43), and “If you are greedy, what is inside you is what makes you always hungry” (43). Not only do these statements reinforce the primary teaching of shou, to have respect for one’s elders, but also instills in An-Mei a fear of thinking and acting for herself. As a result, An-Mei is completely driven by her superego in her early life. In

This novel explores similar themes in regards to language. The children appear to be threatened throughout the novel by second-gen knowledge of the English language. Toward second-gens and the English language itself, resentment is clearly portrayed in these characters. During serious conversations, Jook-Liang is looked upon by the adults with suspicion. Her presence is clearly perceived as untrustworthy as she is characterized as a child with “Big Eyes. Big Ears. Big Careless Mouth. A Mouth that went to English school and spoke English words. Too many English words,” (Choy, 50). While “the Jade Peony” emphasizes children as translators, disparities in English proficiencies between first and second-gens appears to generate hostility toward

Jing-Mei feels differently though, “Unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to. I could only be me,” (359/80) and she was correct for she had no natural musical talent. Jing-Mei has a desire to please her mother, but an even stronger one to choose her own life. She pacifies her mother by going to piano lessons but puts in no effort. Jing-Mei is “…determined to put a stop to her blind foolishness,” (356/48) but her mother’s desire to create a prodigy to compete with Aunt Lindo’s daughter, keeps her focused on the impossible. That is, until Jing-Mei escalates this conflict to its breaking point in rebellion. Stunning her mother, she shouts “Then I wish I’d never been born! I wish I were dead! Like them,” (359/77) referring to the twin daughters her mother lost in China. Sadly, the mother’s desire to have Jing-Mei conform to her expectations creates a constant battle between mother and daughter, and, in rejecting those expectations, seeing disappointment in her mother’s face all too often causes Jing-Mei to feel, “something inside me began to die” (353/18).

As she recalls back on this time by telling her daughter what she calls her Kweilin story, Suyuan describes her feeling during this horrible time as “And inside I was no longer hungry for the cabbage or the turnips of the hanging rock garden. I could only see the dripping bowels of an ancient hill that might collapse on top of me. Can you imagine how it is, to want to be neither inside nor outside, to want to be nowhere and disappear?” (22) At this point in her life Suyuan was separated from her husband who is in the military and eventually is forced to abandon her two young daughters. This aspect of Suyuan’s life parallels the life of Amy Tan’s mother. Daisy tan was also married to a military man during the Chinese Civil War and like Suyuan was forced to abandon her two daughters in Shanghai. This was an experience that would affect her mother for the rest of her life and a story she would continue to tell and never forget. The life of Amy Tan is also a parallel to the life of Jing-Mei Woo of “June”. As a young girl June was forced to play the piano and practice constantly to become the best like Amy Tan was as a child. Along with playing the piano Suyuan also had high expectations for June as far as her future. She wanted her daughter to be the best in her class and go off to medical school to become a well educated doctor, the same expectation’s Amy Tan’s mother had for her. Both daughters decided to follow their dreams and

Jing-mei realized that she was an ordinary individual and that she would not let her mother’s expectations change that. She no longer believed that she “could be anything [she] wanted to be, [rather she] could only be [herself]” (Tan 44). In using a limited, first-person point of view, Tan is able to show Jing-mei’s emotional progress of following her mother’s dreams to finally realizing her own dream.

Every man who met Sun Luoyang could agree he was unlikeable, and any woman who was not smitten by his looks would say the same. Even his parents would speak such words behind his back, ‘cultivation this’ ‘women that’ was how they imitated his speech. And no one who believed he was terrible was wrong, in fact it was most certain that Sun Luoyang had a rotten personality. Ma Ai, the woman closest to this Sun Luoyang, could even say he was a cruel partner who felt he needed more than one woman by his side every night. Bad to the point where his own lover would turn her head in disgust rather than admit that was the man she slept with!

It offers her a standard of living by affecting how she is seen, who she can identify with, and what opportunities she will be able to experience. Furthermore, her financial position plays a major factor in the construction of the perfect public image she created so as to “save face” as the primary reason for this persona is due to her family’s desire for prosperity. This concept is initiated by the instability of penny stocks and the neglected status of low class Asian Canadians in the job market. As a consequence, Jade’s parents don’t understand or widely publicize her aspiration to be an actress and would rather her choose a more practical career in business provided by the dominant industrialized class. This motivates her to lie about her successful employment in acting, adding a false attribute to her character. On top of that, the medium through which the power structures distinguish the proletariats bring high inequality, making Jade physically vulnerable. In respect to the given notion, she is offered multiple Chinese men who can take care of her through their good income and stability from being a doctor or lawyer. This system of ideas and ideals that form the basis of production communicates to the parents that their children are unable to obtain a voice or leave a trace in their new country. Nonetheless, it is the existence of the economic divisions of a society that take part in shaping identities to some

Interestingly, the narrator's mother does not apply this believe to herself. This demonstrates that she is attached to Chinese tradition culture that her opportunity in life was gone. She could not envision herself moving ahead. The narrator and her mother have similar history; however they went through a difficult time because they did not believe in the same culture. Furthermore, the narrator and her mother did not get along because they were raised

Discrimination of girls in China comes down to the preference of boys over girls at birth. The roots to this preference can be found deep within the Chinese culture. Boys are wanted as they will carry on the family name and care for the parents in old age. Girls on the other hand, are seen as a waste of time as they will marry into another family, change names, and only look after their in-laws. The One Child Policy was implemented by Deng Xiaoping in 1979 and ended in 2015 as a plan to reduce the growth rate of China’s enormous population. As a result of the one child policy, the numbers of mothers proceeding with abortions if they found out they were having a girl spiked and it also spiked with the introduction of ultrasound technology in. Even when girls are lucky enough to make it through pregnancy, they are still often abandoned or thrown in the trash to die. Others are given to orphanages to be adopted out. Families would do anything to get a boy as their only child: “Mothers that are poisoned and given forced abortions, babies that are thrown against walls, smothered or drowned newborns, and infants that are left in the trash to die.” When girls are able to make it past their first few years of life with supportive families, they are able to experience as equal opportunities as boys.