Shanghai Girls - Book Review

Have you ever visited a place and just felt a connection Jing-Mei did when she visited China for the first time in remembrance of her mother. Jing-Mei’s story is told in Amy Tan’s book “The Joy Luck Club” in the section called “A Pair of Tickets.” Tan uses elements in the setting to develop the story of Jing-Mei, she uses the Locale and the Atmosphere to create emotional tension and resolution. The beginning of “A Pair of Tickets” is about Jing-Mei and her father traveling to China to meet her long-lost half sisters who her mother had to abandon because of the war that was going on in China.

To many Westerners, the parenting of a Chinese figure would largely be considered as tiger parenting because of it’s growing fame in the media. This style of parenting is generally defined as a child having absolute obedience while being forced to excel in any field of the parent’s choosing. Many would think that tiger parenting is a common practice in Chinese households because of the seemingly successful Asian community. However, not all Chinese homes are centered primarily around academics and instruments. Large works that attribute to giving the Chinese community this dreadful connotation are Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club and Amy Chua’s “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior”. Both the novel and article damages the reputation of Chinese

Four Chinese mothers have migrated to America. Each hope for their daughter’s success and pray that they will not experience the hardships faced in China. One mother, Suyuan, imparts her knowledge on her daughter through stories. The American culture influences her daughter, Jing Mei, to such a degree that it is hard for Jing Mei to understand her mother's culture and life lessons. Yet it is not until Jing Mei realizes that the key to understanding who her

Amy Tan’s A Pair Of Tickets is a story concerning family and roots. June May, like the author herself, was a Chinese born in USA and grew up with an American background culture, whereas her mother grew up in China and then immigrated to America. Looking at the repeated words, we discussed that one there are many words such as mother, sister, father and Aiyi. Most of the characters in this story belong to one family, June May’s family. It suggests to us that the tale is about relations and where we stand in our family. Even Aiyi brings practically her whole family to see her brother and niece. This is also one of the stronger traits of the Chinese cultures where there are many family occasions.

Lena St.Clair, on the other hand, was born in America and lives like an American girl. "But when she was born, she sprang from me like a slippery fish, and had been swimming away ever since,"

Both stories investigate the difference between American and Chinese parenting styles from two women’s point of view – Hanna Rosin and Amy Chua.

Between the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Chinese population had expanded dramatically from having only about 55 people to 151,000. Most of the population has immigrated to California as the livelihood in China had became awfully difficult for them by sacrificing most of their valuables in order to improve their lives. The majority kept the Chinese culture with them and expanded it through establishing Chinatown, a community full of Chinese influence, with their presence in a new environment. In the remarkable novel, Outrun the Moon, Stacey Lee describes a teenage girl named Mercy Wong with a unique historical backdrop who chases after her dream in becoming an entrepreneur to create a better life for her own family. This book is astounding

In the novel A Daughter of Han by Ida Pruitt, the readers are taken through a journey of one woman through her life’s highs and lows. Through the eyes of Ning Lao T'ai-t'ai, readers can truly understand the life of a working woman during this time period. Although life may not have been easy at times, Ning Lao shows the determination and passion she had for her family and for their lives to be better. The life of a working woman is never an easy life but adding in the social rules and opium addiction that effected each part of Ning Lao’s life made it much more difficult.

In Jan Wong’s entrancing expose Red China Blues, she details her plight to take part in a system of “harmony and perfection” (12) that was Maoist China. Wong discloses her trials and tribulations over a course of three decades that sees her searching for her roots and her transformation of ideologies that span over two distinctive forms of Communist governments. This tale is so enticing in due part to the events the author encountered that radically changed her very existence and more importantly, her personal quest for self-discovery.

In the story “Two Kinds”, author Amy Tan, who is a Chinese-American, describes the conflicts in the relationship of a mother and daughter living in California. The protagonist in this story Jing-mei Woo’s mother is born and raised in China, and immigrates to the United States to escape from the Chinese Civil War. For many years she maintained complete Chinese traditional values, and has been abided by it deliberately. This kind of traditional Chinese culture has also affected her daughter profoundly. However, Jing-mei is born and raised in the United States. Despite she has a Chinese mother; she is unfamiliar and uncomfortable with Chinese

Daisy and John Tan continued to cling to many elements of the culture of their homeland, living essentially insular life and socializing mainly with the members of California 's Chinese community, although their ambitions for their children included a certain degree of Americanization. (2)

Lisa See is an American writer and novelist born in 1955 in Paris, and grew up in the Chinatown section of Los Angeles. Her great-grandfather left his village in China to immigrate in Los Angeles at the beginning of the last century. Although she is only 1/8 Chinese, she spent he childhood in the Chinatown of Los Angeles, and her familial background has given her roots in Chinese culture and has had a great impact on her life and work.

The author positions the reader through her use of characters, language features and text structures to feel sympathetic towards the main character and unsympathetic towards the antagonist and represent China to be an extremely selfish, sexist country and concept of honour. We can see this clearly in examples such in the surrounding of which the story takes place, the author’s use of her characterisation and language features and textual structures.

Any revolutionary paradox, that includes an entire nation, might scare the victims and survivors to expose themselves and their experiences to the world. Most memoirs written are of those fighting for or against the cause. When it comes to the Cultural Revolution in China, most of these memories are drafted by the adolescents of that time who identified themselves as the Red Guards. However, once reading a book/story such as that of Nien Cheng’s, the perspective of the victim and every sort of political aspect of someone who understood everything makes the whole revolution within China come to life for the reader. Nien Cheng’s novel is the heart and living explanation of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution that China had almost 40 years ago. As the reading of someone that did not follow and practice the values of Chinese civilization, this is a book that had the competence to present the most unbiased viewpoint of the nation’s transformation. Therefore, with no other words to accommodate this subject, Life and Death in Shanghai is a book for anyone willing to learn, understand and experience the attributes of the darkest time period in Chinese history.

For the bulk of the mid- to late-20th Century, Eileen Chang’s name and literary prowess fell into obscurity as a result of events related to the Cultural Revolution and her own reclusion. In C.T. Hsia’s A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, he praised Chang for her use of "rich imagery" and "profound exploration of human nature.” In his book, he also claimed Chang to be “the best and most important writer” of mid-twentieth century China. Hsia’s remarks and Ang Lee’s film adaptation of her novella, Lust, Caution, have helped to bring Chang’s name back onto the literary scene.