ipl-logo

Christmas Dinner By Amy Tan Essay

642 Words3 Pages

The top destination for Chinese immigrants to migrate is the United States (Raquel Rosenbloom and Jeanne Batalova Par. 8). The United States allows for lower living costs and higher economic freedom which attracts the Chinese. Although, Chinese immigrants face difficulty attempting to assimilate into American culture while trying to merge Chinese culture with American culture. Amy Tan highlights this complication by narrating an embarrassing story about her household hosting Robert and his family for Christmas dinner, including shameful dishes and embarrassing traditions at the time. Tan negatively describes her Chinese cultural dishes as strange meals and provides an extremity of visual images relating to her relatives and food throughout …show more content…

Tan’s mother creates a strange menu filled with popular Chinese cultural dishes: “Tofu, which looked like stacked wedges of rubbery white sponges” (Tan Par. 3). Tan compares her Tofu to sponges to narrate the shame she will experience when Robert sees various assortments of her cultural dishes instead of his normality of American meals. Tan wishes for the Chinese group to recognize this shame and to form an appreciation toward their different traditions and cultures. Amy’s mother aids Amy in the process of assimilating into American culture while also reminding her of her original heritage as well: “... ‘You want to be the same as American girls on the outside’... ‘But inside you must always be Chinese” (Tan Par. 7). Tan’s mother gifts to her a miniskirt that consists of beige tweed to prove to Amy that it is satisfactory to be involved with two different cultures. By forcing Amy to feel a lack of pride in her culture, Amy can reflect and appreciate her culture through a positive perspective. Tan hopes this profound outlook on a balance of cultures will enable her Chinese readers to endure that point of view as well. Tan uses a variety of distasteful comparisons leading to strong visual images throughout her story to show her previous disdain towards her Chinese

Show More
Related

Mexicans Begin Jogg Analysis

505 Words | 3 Pages

The author Amy Tan, in her text she deals with living in the American society more than the other author because she gives the reader a clear idea of what she is going through at the moment. In the story “Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan, it says “What would Robert think of our shabby Chinese Christmas? What would he think of our noisy Chinese relatives who lacked poor proper American manners?” Tan

Read More

Analysis Of Judith Ortiz Cofer's The Myth Of The Latin Woman

797 Words | 4 Pages

Tan that despite its evident differences to Cofer’s memoir is discussing the same trials ethnic, culturally diverse people experience. On page 881, Cofer recounts her first public poetry reading where an older woman mistook the Puerto Rican author for a waitress that ignites passion to the reading, “her lowered eyes told me that she was embarrassed,” [4] at the sheer power and conviction of Cofer enforcing that she is an educated Latin woman that deserves respect for her identity. While academically Tan’s teachers would always direct her to STEM subjects as viable career options which contradict the author's passion for writing despite not being on-par with the typical standard of what’s expected of a Chinese-American girl. However, what sets both pieces apart is that Tan does this examination through her mother and her own experiences as Chinese-Americans, while Cofer’s memoir encapsulates her own struggles that intertwine with the vast Latin woman’s

Read More

Kellie Schmitt's 'The Old Man Isn T There Anymore'

861 Words | 4 Pages

Schmitt narrates in a fascinating and descriptive way wherein her readers feel as if they are experiencing her circumstances with her. At the beginning of the narrative, the reader can relate to Schmitt’s challenge in getting to know her new neighbors, especially with the challenging language barrier. Schmitt speaks of how she is “persistence... repeatedly [trying] to engage [her neighbors], saying hello at every encounter” (Schmitt 108). The readers continue to relate to Schmitt’s struggle to understand a new culture with the following scenarios: Schmitt offers her neighbor brownies, only to have it occur to her “that Chinese traditionally don’t like excessively sweet Western desserts” (Schmitt), and when Schmitt arrives at her neighbor’s home with a basket of red roses to offer her sympathy for their mourning, she regretfully realizes

Read More

Is The Relationship Between Lindo And Waverly's Relationship In The Joy Luck Club

777 Words | 4 Pages

Tan also demonstrates how each mother's aspirations for their daughter in America and opinions about them affect them. The novel contrasts the past lives and experiences of each mother, as well as the conflicts between cultures and the adjustment to life in America. Numerous family secrets

Read More

Compare And Contrast Tan And Hurston

1409 Words | 6 Pages

For instance, her famous novel ‘The Joy Luck Club’ depicts the Chinese mother and her American daughter relationship where they go through various circumstances trying to understand each other including the evolvement that comes in their relationships as the daughters know more about their mother’s life stories. Secondly, Tan considers the theme of identity in terms of Chinese immigrants and their life experiences as an immigrant in the United States. She reveals how the children born to the immigrants strive in an environment which is a mixture of American and Chinese influence. Moreover, Tan is found to have explored identity issues through her fictive creations and tackled the issue of authorial identity (Becnel, 2010). Similarly, romantic love is another subject included in the literary artworks of Amy Tan which considers the relationships and romance an important aspect of human’s life.

Read More

Comparing Fish Cheeks And The Rights To The Streets Of Memphis By Richard Wright

630 Words | 3 Pages

The mother in “Fish Cheeks” wants her daughter Amy to not wish to be someone she is not. She tells Amy, “You want to be the same as American girls on the outside. But inside you are always Chinese” (Tan, 176). Amy’s mother doesn’t want Amy to have childish desires to be an American girl, and instead embrace her Chinese qualities like an adult. While Amy’s mother encourages adult maturity through pride and self-esteem, Richard’s mother teaches him to grow up with a stern and violent method.

Read More

Amigo Brothers Brave Quotes

656 Words | 3 Pages

Amy is brave allowing Robert to come to a Chinese style Christmas even though he might not like it. Her mother said, “ But inside you must always be Chinese”. This quote means that no matter what she wants to be, she will always be chinese inside her heart. Amy becomes happy with her Chinese culture and is brave to not be embarrassed

Read More

Capturing Cultural Insecurities In Fish Cheeks, By Amy Tan

1288 Words | 6 Pages

Capturing Cultural Insecurities Through Symbolism “Fish Cheeks,” by Amy Tan, is a short story written from the perspective of herself as a little girl. It is about an experience she had as a child, where her mother invited the minister’s family over for Christmas dinner. Coincidentally, Tan had a crush on the minister’s son, which was already causing her a great deal of anxiety. To add to her anxiety, Tan’s mother decided to serve an assortment of traditional Chinese dishes to the minister's family, which Tan was completely ashamed of.

Read More

Amy Tan Fish Cheeks Analysis

694 Words | 3 Pages

At the end of the dinner Amy's father burped loudly as it is a sign of respect towards the cook showing gratitude for the food. After everyone had left, Amy’s mother noticed her embarrassment all night and said “You want to be the same as American girls on the outside.” She the handed Amy an early gift, It was a beige tweed colored mini skirt. After she told Amy that she must always be Chinese on the inside and to be proud of who she was, because the only shame is to be ashamed. It took Amy years to truly figure out what her mother was trying to teach her, and after she figured it out she was proud of her ethnicity.

Read More

Rice And Rose Bowl Blues By Amy Tan

579 Words | 3 Pages

The conflict between parents and children is a universal experience that transcends cultural boundaries. In Amy Tan's "Two Kinds," the protagonist Jing-mei struggles with her mother's expectations and her own desire for independence. In Diane Mei Lin Mark's "Rice and Rose Bowl Blues," the narrator navigates the tensions between her traditional Chinese parents and her American upbringing. Through the use of imagery, connotative diction, and allusion, both authors convey the emotional complexity of parent-child relationships. In "Two Kinds," Tan uses imagery to illustrate Jing-mei's internal struggle.

Read More

Asian Pacific America Summary

551 Words | 3 Pages

Many of the Chinese man were unable to have comfortable lives with a loving family due to immigration laws that prevented Chinese women from coming to the United States. (Timothy P. Fong, Pg

Read More

Joy Luck Club Character Analysis Essay

760 Words | 4 Pages

Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club is an amazing representation of what Chinese immigrants and their families face. The broad spectrum of the mothers’ and daughters’ stories all connect back to a couple of constantly recurring patterns. These patterns are used to show that how the mothers and daughters were so differently raised affected their relationships with each other, for better and for worse. To begin with, the ever-present pattern of disconnect between the two groups of women is used to show how drastically differently they were raised.

Read More

Joy Luck Club Mother Daughter Relationship

1177 Words | 5 Pages

Mother knows best. And yet so many daughters in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club feel slighted by what the matriarchal figures in their lives have in mind for them, or rather, what they believe their mothers have in mind for them. A perfect storm of expectation, true and false, about love, about success, about being Chinese. The souring of mother-daughter relationships in The Joy Luck Club stem from unrealistic or ill conceived expectations that both parties hold for the other.

Read More

The Importance Of Communication In The Joy Luck Club

1225 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout the entire novel, the mothers and daughters face inner struggles, family conflict, and societal collision. The divergence of cultures produces tension and miscommunication, which effectively causes the collision of American morals, beliefs, and priorities with Chinese culture which

Read More

The Pleistocene: The Latest Ice Age

729 Words | 3 Pages

The Pleistocene Age is regularly characterized as the time period that started around 1.8 million years back and kept going until around 11,700 years prior. The latest Ice Age happened then, as icy masses secured enormous parts of the planet Earth. There have been no less than five reported significant ice agesduring the 4.6 billion years since the Earth was framed — and no doubt numerous more before people went ahead the scene around 2.3 million years prior. The Pleistocene Age is the first in which Homo sapiens advanced, and before the end of the age people could be found in about all aspects of the planet. The Pleistocene Age was the principal age in the Quaternary Period and the 6th in the Cenozoic Time.

Read More

More about Christmas Dinner By Amy Tan Essay

Related Topics

Open Document