The Joy Luck Club - Playing the Game

A vivid portrait of the struggles, as well as the joys, of three generations of Asian American families is painted for us on the off white canvas used by Amy Tan in 1989, the pages of her book, The Joy Luck Club.   In this portrayal of Chinese immigrants and their American born children, four family stories are brought to light, through a series of vignettes told from the view points of eight women, as they change and grow in their lives. Lives that become the pigment that, along with Tan’s taintless brush strokes become a painting fit for a museum.   As the stories are unveiled to us, we begin to find the connection between mothers and daughters, as well as ties between friends. These connections, however, often turn out to be lacks of connections, as the generations find themselves having a hard time relating to one another. One family in which misconceptions occur throughout the entirety of the daughter’s life is the Jong family, whose story leads us through generations of women, who, by living their out their lives, look at things instead as simply, playing the game.





  The mother of the Jong family, Lindo, is a member of the Joy Luck Club, and an American immigrant who, throughout her life, as always tried to keep a balance between her Chinese self, and her new American self. Lindo fears that she may have given her daughter, Waverly, too many American opportunities, and therefore denied her of her Chinese heritage. With the Americanization of her daughter, she feels she may have closed the doors on part of her own self as well, and become herself, too American. Before Lindo came to America, she learned at an early age the power of invisible strength, of hiding ones thoughts until the time is right to reveal them. She discovers these values while in an unhappy relationship to a man she was betrothed to at an early age. “ I wiped my eyes and looked in he mirror. I was surprised at what I saw. I had on a beautiful red dress, but what I saw was...