The Joy Luck Club

This section features stories by the mothers, except for the story told by Jing-Mei. The stories highlight the greater understanding that evolves between the mother/daughter pairs.

The grandmother in the opening story relished her carefree baby granddaughter’s life. The woman lamented that the hardships of her life caused her to teach her daughter lessons that were intended to spare her heartache but ultimately left her daughter unhappy. The grandmother called the baby the reincarnation of the Queen Mother of the Western Skies, the goddess of prosperity and eternal happiness. “Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever,” she says (265). This symbolizes the way that the woman has come to understand that she can learn from her descendants, that old ways adapt with new generations.

This generational perspective is part of An-Mei’s reflections on the lessons from her mother she tried to teach Rose. An-Mei says that despite her attempts to raise Rose to be a strong woman, Rose exhibits fatalism: “All of us are like stairs, one step after another, going up and down, but all going the same way” (266).

An-Mei’s mother was forced into a bitterly unhappy life due to customs of the time. She believed that it did no good to bemoan your fate, because this would be used against you. “Your tears do not wash away your sorrows. They feed someone else’s joy,” she says (269). Her sorrows brought happiness to Second Wife. Yet An-Mei’s mother refused to allow her daughter’s life to be ruined by Second Wife. This was part of another lesson: “This necklace that had almost bought my heart and mind now had one bead of crushed glass” (288). An-Mei was told to remember how easy it is to be blinded by outward appearances. Her mother gave her a sapphire ring, something of true value (this was the ring that An-Mei later threw into the sea, underscoring its sacrificial value).

An-Mei’s mother fought for her daughter’s future by sacrificing her own life: “When the poison broke into her body, she whispered to me that she would rather kill her own weak spirit so she could give me a stronger one” (299). Then, An-Mei crushed the fake pearl necklace in front of Second Wife to show her that she had no power over her. In the present, An-Mei convinces Rose to stand up to Ted and fight for her future. As the reader knows from the story “Without Wood,” An-Mei accomplishes this. An-Mei talks about an article she read about magpies in China. Farmers finally made so much noise that the birds couldn’t eat their crops. To An-Mei, this story symbolizes the need to stop suffering in silence when those who take advantage of you, the “Magpies” of the story title, feed on your tears.

Ying-ying suppressed her life story, due to deep shame that she aborted her baby, so Lena didn’t understand who her mother truly was. Now Ying-ying sees the peril Lena is in, how she has settled for an unhappy life, and Ying-ying must show her true “tiger” self: “It is the only way to penetrate her skin and pull her to where she can be saved” (302). Again there is the metaphor of cutting the skin to connect to the true self.

“When my daughter looks at me, she sees a small old lady. […] She has no chuming, no inside knowing of things. If she had chuming, she would see a tiger lady,” Ying-ying says (310). She was born in the year of the tiger, but after she lost her family, her personality changed. She had lived the “gold” side of the tiger, the fierce half that made her abort her baby out of revenge towards the husband who betrayed her. Ying-ying let the “black” half of her tiger personality emerge and she retreated. She says that she waited patiently for her next opportunity. Clifford presented himself as Ying-ying’s chance for a new life and she turned into someone who needed saving. She became a “tiger ghost.” This is a reference to how Clifford changed Ying-ying’s birth year so that she was no longer a “tiger.” This also calls back to Ying-ying’s story of the Moon Lady, when she “lost” herself and changed. Ying-ying thinks Lena cannot be the daughter of a ghost. There must be greater understanding between them, and that will start with Ying-ying telling the truth about her past.

Lindo bemoans that she failed to pass on Chinese “thinking” to Waverly: “Only her skin and her hair are Chinese. Inside—she is all American-made” (317). Lindo means that Waverly is unaware of what truly matters, such as familial obedience and the value of industriousness. Waverly proudly proclaims that she is her own person, a very American way of thinking, which Lindo cannot fathom. To her, all people should remain eternally connected to those that came before them and those who come after.

Lindo says that Americans never truly look at each other, just as Waverly and the stylist speak to each other’s reflections at the salon. Waverly doesn’t truly “see” her mother and Lindo is ashamed because the divide between them makes her daughter think poorly of her: “Because she is my daughter and I am proud of her, and I am her mother but she is not proud of me” (319).

Lindo decides to tell Waverly about her past. According to Lindo, one’s character and fortune can be seen in one’s face. Lindo’s mother shows her that they shared auspicious features, a straight nose and honest eyes. These all indicated a favorable future for Lindo, but the many hardships Lindo endured changed her face. She learned to have an “American face” that hid her true feelings.

Even her straight nose was ruined, when Lindo bumped her face right before Waverly was born. In China, a woman with a crooked nose was said to be doomed to misfortune. Lindo saw how like her Waverly looked and wanted a better life for her baby. Lindo named her after the street they lived on as an aspiration: “But I also knew if I named you after this street, soon you would grow up, leave this place, and take a piece of me with you” (329). Lindo sees the nose that Waverly shares with her as bad fortune that she passed on. Waverly replies that this nose is fine because it makes them look “devious.” Waverly explains, “We mean what we say, but our intentions are different” (334). Lindo realizes that her daughter learned from her better than she had thought, that Waverly understands the benefit of having a “double face,” both American and Chinese elements, the title of the story.

Jing-Mei fears, when she goes to China, that she is too American. As a teenager, she had rejected the notion that she had Chinese elements. Suyuan insists that someday Jing-Mei will realize that she possesses Chinese thinking and behavior: “It is in your blood, waiting to be let go” (335). Jing-Mei thought of “Chinese-ness” as the annoying things her mother did that embarrass her, like haggling with shopkeepers.

Jing-Mei grew up under the shadow of her mother’s lost babies, who represented the idealized “good,” dutiful Chinese daughter, while Jing-Mei was the willful, “bad” American daughter, as shown in the story “Two Kinds.” Now Jing-Mei worries that she has no idea what it means to be Chinese. She fears that her sisters will fault her for showing insufficient filial piety. ”They'll think I’m responsible, that she died because I didn’t appreciate her” (341). But when Jing-Mei finally hears that story of why her mother left her babies, she gains a greater understanding of Suyuan. Jing-Mei needs to know why her mother abandoned the babies, because she feels abandoned now that her mother died without explaining this definitive event in her life. Jing-Mei reflects on the ways that people leave each other and feels sadness that her mother died so suddenly. Suyuan, whose name means “Long-Cherished Wish” had named her daughter “Best Quality Pure Essence Younger Sister.” These names are symbolic, as Suyuan’s long-cherished wish was to be reunited with her daughters. Yet she had also wished to imbue her younger daughter with the “pure essence” of those babies, to know that she is of “best quality.”

The climax of the story comes when Jing-Mei meets her sisters. Her fears were unfounded, for the three women immediately feel a connection. Jing-Mei sees her mother in their faces and in her own as well, proof that the maternal bond runs deeply. “And I know it’s not my mother, yet it is the same look she had when I was five and had disappeared all afternoon, for such a long time, that she was convinced I was dead” (368). Jing-Mei realizes that it doesn’t matter that she and her sisters don’t share the same language and culture; they are their mother’s legacy. The story’s title “Two Tickets” references the two tickets Jing-Mei held in her hand as they flew to meet her sisters, but symbolically stands for her two sisters, her “tickets” to understanding her mother and the inherited traits she possesses.