“The Rules of the Game” by Amy Tan is about Waverly Jong mother taught her the art of invisible strength when she was six years old, saying that it is a strategy for winning arguments and respect. At Christmas Waverly and her brothers received gifts from donations of members from another church. Waverly convinced her brothers, Winston and Vincent, to let her play chess by offering two of her life savers to stand in for the missing pieces. Waverly began playing with Lau Po, an old man who played chess in the park. He taught her many new strategies. Waverly began to attract attention because of her young age, and she became a celebrity within the Chinatown community. Waverly's mother would force her to go to the market with her, presenting
The story “The Rules of the Game” shows how Waverly’s ability to play Chess well increases her mother’s expectations throughout the story. In the beginning Waverly wanted to play chess so much so that she was begging her brothers to let her play. Waverly says “ Let me! Let me!’ I begged
In life, each person has to follow rules at some point. The rules can relate to school, home, religion, etc. Our society follows rules everyday to make their life better. Throughout the short story, “Rule of the Game”, the author, Amy Tan describes the title using life experiences of the protagonist, Waverly Jong. This story is about a young girl, Waverly who lives in Chinatown, San Francisco and is passionate about chess. While exploring the world of chess, Waverly learns that in life she will have to follow rules made by others to achieve success. Waverly follows rules while playing chess and her mother creates rules for her to succeed.
In Amy tans short stories Rules of the Game, Fish Cheeks, and Two Kinds part of the novel the Joys Luck Club uses topics concerning the limits and connections in the relationships between mothers and their daughters. In an Asian society, especially Chinese society assumes a vital part in every one of the three short stories, giving the primary conflict an interesting plot. Amy Tans short stories for the most part depict the inconveniences and strain between Chinese immigrant moms and their Americanized daughters through their common experiences in a captivating way. The daughters disregard the Chinese part of their heritage and personality and grasp the American side. They ponder their adolescence up with solid order and desires that the greater part of them have not met prompting future blame. Presently as developed ladies with their own particular families, the Americanized daughters mirror the past with contradictions they had with their Chinese society. Every daughter in the story’s in the long run perceives how their tradition and generation had huge influence in forming their characters making them grasp their Chinese legacy.
“Hunger”, by Lan Samantha Chang, is a cautionary tale of an immigrant Chinese family in this complex story about unrelenting hunger, oppression, love and loss. Narrated by Min; the deeply unhappy and obedient wife of Tian, a gifted violinist, finds work as a music teacher in New York, but ultimately fails to land a permanent job at the school. Driven by personal failure and his unrelenting hunger for the violin Tian cruelly forces his two daughters, Anna and Ruth to play the violin, so they can follow in his footsteps. Tian’s inability to separate himself from his violin ends up destroying his family. Chang uses Tian’s obsessive hunger for the violin as a symbol of his identity, showing us that we must be careful
In the realm of the filmic, one of the most creative scenes is the hunting
In Amy Tans “Rules of the Game” a first generation adolescent becomes fascinated with the game of chess and uses its rules as a strategy for life while growing up and away from her Chinese culture. This short story illustrates the struggle of growing up is especially difficult when in a culture different from ones parents.
This is because other than Mei, Jong is a “Chinatown’s Littlest Chinese Chess Champion.” But also showing that Jong Mom and Mei mom, always try to compare their daughters to each other as if their showing off. "She bring home too many trophy." Auntie Lindo lamented that Sunday. "All day she play chess. All day I have no time do nothing but dust off her winnings." She threw a scolding look at Waverly, who pretended not to see her. “Auntie Lindo said with a sigh to my mother. And my mother squared her And my mother squared her shoulders and bragged: "our problem worser than yours. If we ask Jing-mei wash dish, she hear nothing but music. It's like you can't stop this natural talent." And right then I was determined to put a stop to her foolish pride. This is showing that the parents are causing tension for Jong and Mei to hate each other since they want to be the very best for their parent, so they compete. “Chinatown Littlest Chinese Chess Champion,” Waverly Jong is Auntie Lindo’s daughter. She and the narrator have grown-up together and have long been competing with one another.” This shows that because of their mothers always bragging about who’s child was better, Mei and Jong tried hard to be the very best just for their mothers.
Waverly also had a significant upbringing because her mother desired to give her “American circumstances and Chinese character” (Tan 254). Waverly was raised with Lindo imparting traditional Chinese “daily truths” because Lindo wanted to give her daughter wise advice, but Waverly was too Americanized to listen to her mother (Tan 89). Waverly ignored her mother’s advice because her Americanized beliefs made her think any American way was better than any Chinese way. Waverly also lost her ability to act like a child when she became a chess prodigy. Eventually, Waverly stopped playing in the alley with the other children, so she could practice and learn new strategies because Lindo pressured Waverly to win tournaments.
To learn find her own identity within a set of rules .Lau Po an elderly man that goes to the park often, teaches Waverly new strategies of the game. Waverly finds her identity as a “Chess Campion” as a result her mother starts to brag about her accomplishments’ due to the fame Waverly feels she has been exploited but in Chinese culture is a good thing to be able to brag about your family members but due to Waverly up bringing the Americanized daughter feels that this bad for her so she argues with her mum shortly after this she runs off to an alley when she is walking back home “She rises above the board and floats over houses.
“A Pair of Tickets” is a short story written by the famous writer named Amy Tan. This story focuses on a woman called Jing-Mei Woo. Jing-Mei Woo is born in the United States, even though her parents are from China. She is considered as a Chinese American. In consideration of being born and raised in the United States, as Jing-Mei gets older she is having a hard time to accept that she is Chinese. Jing-Mei and her father, Canning Woo buys a pair of tickets to travel to China after her mother’s death because Jing-Mei wants to know what it feels to be Chinese and visit her sisters as well. Three places that Jing-Mei Woo shows her reactions and feelings are in the taxi, the hotel, and Shanghai Airport.
Growing up with parents who are immigrants can present many obstacles for the children of those immigrants. There are many problems people face that we do not even realize. Things happen behind closed doors that we might not even be aware of. Writers Sandra Cisneros and Amy Tan help us become aware of these problems. Both of these authors express those hardships in their stories about growing up with foreign parents. Although their most apparent hardships are about different struggles, both of their stories have a similar underlying theme.
Chinese Americans often stayed in Chinatown in San Francisco and while it was a cultural center that provided a strong community, racism and gentrification were inescapable. As Kathleen Yep analyzes in her article about this pastime, “basketball was used to carve out an empowering space against the context of poverty, racism, and the multiple forms of patriarchies in their lives.” Informal pickup games between a few women turned into an organized pastime where they trained to become better than any other women’s team, and even some men’s teams, in the city. Basketball was also used as a tool to combat racism. The Chinese women would consistently win over white women even without their privilege. They broke norms in the name of winning and bringing success to the ‘ghetto’ of Chinatown. Yep writes, “the Playground players defined themselves as Chinese American women through their strength, stamina, and toughness,” which is the complete opposite of the popular image of the small, frail, and timid Chinese
The physical and social settings portrayed in Amy Tan’s “The Rules of the Game” enables the story to emerge as more than the birth of a child prodigy. Thus they make the story more profound.
The title of this article is “Chess queen of Africa” which caught my attention because she represents the people from Africa and her slum, therefore she is the queen. There is so many more examples of why she is the queen in this article. Phiona helps her mom sell “maize” to earn money for food and rent, she has also helped her mom relocate five times in a course of four years. This article is even more special because the author of “The Queen of Katwe,” Tim Crothers writes this article. He talks about how he met Phiona, and different facts the famous chess prodigy Phiona Mutesi. Some of the fun facts are that the game chess is so foreign to Uganda that they don’t even have a word for the sport. This brings a good discussion topic that we can