The Conflicts and Integration between American and Chinese Cultures -An Intercultural Approach to The Joy Luck Club

戴好運(yùn)

【Abstract】The Joy Luck Club written by Chinese American writer Amy Tan depicts the conflicts and reconciliation between the Chinese-born mothers and American-born daughters, reflecting the clashes and fusions of two different cultures. This paper sets out from the intercultural perspective to probe into the cultural factors which contribute to the failure in communication, and strives to get inspirations from the four pair of mothers and daughters to eliminate cross-culture communication barriers.

【Key words】The Joy Luck Club; Intercultural communication; Conflicts and integration

0Introduction

The Joy Luck Club tells the stories about 4 Chinese immigrant families in San Francisco. Suyuan, Lindo, Ying-ying and An-mei came to US to escape from their tragic life in old China. However, the deep-rooted Chinese culture in their blood made it difficult for them to adjusted to the mainstream culture in America, they confined themselves in Chinese traditions and cultures and refused to change into American. Their daughters, on the other hand, were educated in America, always trying to escape from their Chinese identities. Acculturated by the American values and mainstream culture, which are quite different from Chinese culture, the daughters always can not understand their mothers, resulting in quarrels and misunderstandings occurring everywhere. All the conflicts between mother and daughter reflect the clashes of two different cultures, and their ultimate reconciliation bridges the culture gap through love and communication. Reading this novel from the perspective of intercultural communication will help understand the difference and conflicts between Chinese culture and American culture, thus providing inspirations for the integration and communication in the context of globalization.

Intercultural communication, essential in creating a productive and non-threatening communication environment, deals with situated communication between individuals or groups of different languages and culture backgrounds. Hofstede (1980)s cultural theory proposed the five dimensions of culture theoretical framework: individualism & collectivism; power distance; uncertainty avoidance; male nationalism and feminism; long-term orientation & short-term orientation. Hall (1982) later developed a theory to differentiate high-context cultures from low-context cultures, depending on the degree to which the meaning can be inferred from the settings or words. Both Hofstede and Halls theory provide valuable insights into the intercultural communication conflicts in The Joy Luck Club. This paper will look into the issue of individualism Vs collectivism and high-context cultures Vs low-context cultures, which lead to the conflicts and clashes between mothers and daughters. The reconciliation will also be touched upon to study the integration and fusion of different cultures.

1Individualism Vs Collectivism

Individualism is a typical western culture which emphasizes self-reliance and independence. Collectivism, on the other hand, attaching greater importance to group interest and family honor, is highly valued in eastern cultures such as Chinese culture (Hofstede, 1980). The mothers in The Joy Luck Club came from old China with traditional Chinese values of collectivism, while their daughters were educated and raised up in American individualism. The clashes of the two distinct cultures will inevitably lead to conflicts in every way, see the following example:

Waverly had special talents in playing chess and won the national champion when she was young, and her mother Lindo Jong viewed her achievement as the honor of the whole family. Lindo even paraded her daughter like a living trophy, which made Waverly extremely angry. In Waverlys opinion, her success all came from her own talent which had nothing to do with her family and everyone should take credit only for what he has accomplished by himself. So she argued with her mother :“why do you have to use me to show off? If you want to show off, why dont you learn to play chess?” (Tan, 1989: 99).

Noteworthily, collectivism also creates hierarchy in family relationships. It is demanded that younger generations should respect and obey older generations. Children should be filial to parents guidance and arrangements. Nevertheless, individualism stress equality between parents and children. In this kind of family, parents encourage their children to be themselves and childrens opinions are respected. The families in The Joy Luck Club, however, are culture-mixed families, with mothers collectivism and daughters individualism, therefore, the mothers authority meet with daughters fight for freedom. Suyuan had always wanted the best of her daughter Jing-mei, pushing her to do the things she didnt like and insisting on excellence from her. Jing-mei could not stand her mothers imposing authority and launch a battle to fight for autonomy and independence, arguing “this isnt in China”, “Im not your slave”, “I could only be me” (Tan, 1989: 152-154). But the response she got was that only obedient children can exist in this home, which led to fiercer misunderstanding and conflicts.

From the above examples, we can see that the conflicts and differences between collectivism and individualism result in conflicting attitudes towards individual freedom and family responsibility. The mothers and daughters, with respectively consolidated value orientation, are bound to meet up with misunderstandings and communication failures.

2Low-context culture Vs High-context culture

Edward Hall made a distinction between low-context culture and high-context culture based on the extent to which meaning can be inferred from settings or words. In high-context culture, for the consideration of modesty and politeness, unspoken message should be inferred automatically from the context. People tend to convey and interpret information through non-verbal hints such as gestures, status and individuals associates (Samovar, 2001). Chinese culture is a typical high-context culture, and the mothers in The Joy Luck Club are deeply influenced by its implicit mode of expression. In contrary to high-context culture, low-context culture is more explicit and direct. The verbal message contains most of the information and very little is embedded in the context (Samovar, 2001). People in this culture worship directness openness and frankness, and they believe that it is more efficient and time-saving to express opinions and feelings through clear and concise messages. The daughters born in America apparently approach the direct and explicit style of low-context culture.

There is an interesting phenomenon in The Joy Luck Club, daughters talked to their mother in English while the mothers tended to answer back in Chinese. The bilingual communications in these families are actually a game of translation, but the accurate translation requires not only language proficiency but also the ability to supply implied or missing context (Wei, 2006). The America-born daughters tended to interpret their mothers high-context information in a low-context way, leaving the unsaid message unnoticed, which led to misunderstandings and conflicts. While the mothers were always inclined to think more than what was really conveyed by their daughters explicit words. Waverly remembered an incident between her and her mother “When I was first married, she used to drop by unannounced, until one day I suggested she should call ahead of time. Ever since then, she has refused to come unless I issue an official invitation.” (Tan, 1989: 168). From this incident we can see that the daughters explicitness was misunderstood by her mother. Waverly proposed this suggestion simply because she was used to the well-planned American style and any unexpected issue would interrupt their arrangements. However, Waverlys frankness was misinterpreted by her mother as ignorance and unwelcome.

In the high-context culture and low-context culture conflicts, misinterpretations of the conveyed information led to unavoidable clashes. Just as Jing-mei said :“we translate each others meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more.” The low-context reading of high-context message results in incomplete and partial understanding, while high-context reading of low-context message creates unnecessary and unpleasant misinterpretations.

3Integration and Fusion of Cultures

Through all those fierce quarrellings and struggles, the misunderstandings resulting from intercultural communication barriers are finally resolved. As time flies by, the mothers life stories and wisdom helped their daughters out of difficulty and find their true identity, and daughters began to understand all the good intentions hidden behind their mothers mean words. When Rose was in a marriage crisis, her mother told Rose her life experience and advised her to stand straight and strong, which helped her find the essential true self. When Lena met problem with her husband but didnt know where it lied and couldnt express it, Ying-ying gave her the courage to figure out what she really wanted in this marriage and find true love. The deep love and mothers initiative to offer help with their life wisdom made the daughters begin to understand them and their Chinese heritage. Jing-mei finally fulfilled her mothers dream of going back to China and saw her Chinese twin sisters. Her journey to China symbolizes a fundamental change-from rejection to acknowledgement of Chinese culture, and leads to the other three daughters reexamination of the relationship with their mothers. Though the Chinese born mothers and American born daughters hold quite different and even opposite values and beliefs, love and communication crash down the intercultural barriers.

Apart from the reconciliation of mothers and daughters, culture fusion can also be reflected in the American-born daughters acceptance of Chinese culture. Though the daughters are born in America and worship American values and beliefs, they are unconsciously influenced by Chinese culture. They felt like being split by two cultures and had a feeling of between worlds (Ling, 1990). On the one hand, they cant break up with the past and culture roots, on the other hand, the new environment wont accept them completely because of racism. Though they receive American education and consider themselves Americans, their black hair and yellow skin determine that it is impossible for them to integrate into the American mainstream. The only solution for them is to accept their ancestors culture and the Chinese root in their blood. Only in this way can they learn more about Chinese culture, thus learn more about themselves, eventually taking the two cultures as complementary forces and reestablishing their identity (Wang & Wang, 2007). When Jing-mei fulfilled her mothers dream to go back to China and reunited with her Chinese sisters, it is a symbol of culture identity realization. For these American born daughters, living between cultures brings them pains as well as richness, because they are equipped with two perspectives to look at the world. As long as they can keep a balance in the two worlds and establish culture identity, the integration of cultures will enrich their life. Therefore, the acceptance and respect of other cultures will help promote the equality, integration and communication between different cultures.

4Conclusion

The Joy Luck Club shows the clashes between Chinese culture and American culture through the conflicts between Chinese-born mothers and American-born daughters. All these conflicts can be traced back to the different values, beliefs and ideologies. Chinese culture, characterized as high-context culture, advocates collectivism. Conversely, American culture is low-context culture which worships individualism. So we can see the endless fighting and quarrelling resulting from mothers imposing control and daughters yearning for autonomy and freedom. Though misunderstandings occurred everywhere, the deep love between them and their mutual effort in communication helped them overcome the barriers of culture difference and finally reached reconciliation. Amy Tans story presents the aspiration of culture integration and fusion. Love, respect and mutual effort in communication are essential in eliminating misunderstandings and promoting culture integration.

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［責(zé)任編輯：湯靜］