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Book Club: Joy Luck Club · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Steph.
0:08
Speaker 1: I never told your production of I Heart Radio it
0:18
Speaker 1: is time for another book club. We're a little late
0:20
Speaker 1: on this one. Yeah, we get we're a little hind
0:23
Speaker 1: but we'll get there. Yeah, we are there. In fact,
0:27
Speaker 1: this is another listener suggestion because today we're talking about
0:31
Speaker 1: the Joy Luck Club and this is also another book
0:34
Speaker 1: that you had already read, right, yes, yes, And I
0:37
Speaker 1: think it's fantastic that we're doing this also because it
0:40
Speaker 1: is a p I Heritage month and um, though I
0:44
Speaker 1: don't necessarily think too much on it because my heritage
0:48
Speaker 1: is Korean, but all of those like so I'll think
0:50
Speaker 1: about it all the time necessarily, but I think it's
0:53
Speaker 1: a good time for us to visit this book. And yes,
0:57
Speaker 1: I have read it. Before I leave. I read it.
1:01
Speaker 1: I think it was one of my accelerated reader books
1:05
Speaker 1: because I told you I like to do the adult
1:08
Speaker 1: version so I could get all the points. And it's
1:09
Speaker 1: a very long book and I'm pretty sure I had
1:13
Speaker 1: read it for that specifically, But it was such an
1:17
Speaker 1: impactful book because when I read it, I believe I
1:20
Speaker 1: was in my teens early teens, and I had not
1:24
Speaker 1: read many books I had any type of Asian persons
1:28
Speaker 1: or Asian representatives at all, even though it's not my
1:32
Speaker 1: culture and it's not my heritage. Obviously, I am a
1:35
Speaker 1: Korean uh and so therefore it's very different. As well
1:38
Speaker 1: as the fact that I was raised in the mountains
1:41
Speaker 1: of Georgia beginning from six seven on, because I moved
1:44
Speaker 1: into the US at seven, it was still reminiscent and
1:48
Speaker 1: made me long for a thing that I felt like
1:51
Speaker 1: I was missing out on. But it also felt nice,
1:54
Speaker 1: especially since the movie came out in and seeing Asian
1:58
Speaker 1: faces as an actual storyline instead of just you know,
2:02
Speaker 1: secondary figures or um the stereotypical figures. You know that
2:07
Speaker 1: it's often just a mockery of Asian people, so it
2:11
Speaker 1: was nice to see this and to see them human.
2:13
Speaker 1: Of course, we can talk about all of the critics
2:16
Speaker 1: who have a lot to say about how this may
2:18
Speaker 1: be enhancing negative stereotypes, for sure, But for me at
2:24
Speaker 1: that point in time, living in the mountains of Georgia
2:27
Speaker 1: with all the white people's seeing faces that looked reminiscent
2:31
Speaker 1: to mine as actual humans and families and stories was
2:36
Speaker 1: phenomenal and reading that as well, so definitely something that
2:39
Speaker 1: I was really excited to read, and I'm really glad
2:42
Speaker 1: to get to revisit it. Yeah, I had never read
2:44
Speaker 1: it before, but I have an interesting story about I
2:46
Speaker 1: already owned it and before you came to work with
2:50
Speaker 1: the Samantha, we had a really cool tradition in our office.
2:52
Speaker 1: This was also when we were a much smaller company
2:55
Speaker 1: and it's like thirty of us, but we would do
2:59
Speaker 1: a white elf fins where we would all wrap a
3:03
Speaker 1: book that we'd already read and exchange. This is a
3:07
Speaker 1: real blast from the past. But if anybody has listened
3:11
Speaker 1: to the entire catalog, or I guess just older episodes
3:13
Speaker 1: of Stuckuments in History Class. One of the older host, Sarah,
3:20
Speaker 1: her entry was joy Let Club and that's the one
3:24
Speaker 1: that I picked. And I had heard of it because
3:28
Speaker 1: of the movie, I think, and it did. I mean
3:31
Speaker 1: when it came out when we'll talk about this, it
3:33
Speaker 1: was really popular and really were well received. But I
3:36
Speaker 1: had not read it because you know, you can't see
3:39
Speaker 1: it listens with savant Acain. I have a lot of
3:41
Speaker 1: books and I had to remember when I was like,
3:44
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to set aside sometime to search survival.
3:48
Speaker 1: I like that fact that you look back saying like
3:50
Speaker 1: oh no, essentially trying to figure out a plan how
3:53
Speaker 1: to dig this book from the pile. And it was
3:57
Speaker 1: really really funny because I like put it on my calendar.
3:59
Speaker 1: I blocked off like an hour. I rolled up my sleeves,
4:02
Speaker 1: I put my hair up, and I was like, here
4:04
Speaker 1: we go. And I got on my step sool and
4:07
Speaker 1: it was the first book on to Okay, I's gonna
4:09
Speaker 1: ask how long did it take? So like fifty eight
4:12
Speaker 1: minutes left. It was pretty nice nice. So you just
4:17
Speaker 1: blocked off of some reading times right there. I did.
4:21
Speaker 1: I did, and I was like you said, it's a
4:23
Speaker 1: long book, but it was pretty quick read for me.
4:26
Speaker 1: Um I it was really really well written, and I
4:29
Speaker 1: enjoyed it quite a bit. I think that's one of
4:32
Speaker 1: the things about that Boo gets stuck with me. The
4:34
Speaker 1: of course re reading it, it's been a long long
4:36
Speaker 1: time and rereading it, I still remember these impactful scenes
4:40
Speaker 1: which we're gonna talk about and just thinking on like
4:44
Speaker 1: the level. And of course we've talked about this earlier.
4:46
Speaker 1: We talked about this in our recent Happy Hour episode
4:48
Speaker 1: about heritage and legacy, and this is just dripping with
4:52
Speaker 1: all of those themes. And I definitely have a moment
4:55
Speaker 1: of trying to reconcile the fact that I don't have
4:58
Speaker 1: this legacy and I don't this heritage and trying to
5:02
Speaker 1: debate how to find that and how that that works
5:05
Speaker 1: for me. And reading this book definitely reminds me of that.
5:08
Speaker 1: I think that's why I loved it too. It fulfilled
5:10
Speaker 1: a bit of me then you didn't have that makes sense? Um. Yeah,
5:15
Speaker 1: And this book was actually first published in nineteen eighty nine,
5:17
Speaker 1: and yeah, it became a movie in ninety three with
5:20
Speaker 1: Mgna Win, which I talked about all the time because
5:23
Speaker 1: I love her. I love her so much. I think
5:25
Speaker 1: she was one of the first Asian actresses that I
5:28
Speaker 1: actually saw with depth. Like of course, many more Chinese
5:33
Speaker 1: movies came out, and I love those. So I love
5:35
Speaker 1: hero and all of all the different actresses that we
5:37
Speaker 1: see and actors we've seen that, but Magna when had
5:40
Speaker 1: the you know, the Asian cheeks that I feel like
5:43
Speaker 1: I had that like a little sticker and cute, but
5:45
Speaker 1: like she's a beautiful woman who was not seeing just
5:48
Speaker 1: as a prop where she was the voice in Mulan,
5:51
Speaker 1: which made me love her even more in the Disney
5:55
Speaker 1: animation version, of course, and of course she's now part
5:59
Speaker 1: of the Our Wars world. And I was so excited
6:01
Speaker 1: I kept screaming at the TV and my partner just
6:04
Speaker 1: looked at me, like, what what's going on because he
6:06
Speaker 1: couldn't understand how excited I'm like. And also, this woman
6:09
Speaker 1: has not aged. This woman has not aged, Like there's
6:13
Speaker 1: something phenomenal about having watched her literally over what twenty
6:19
Speaker 1: something years, twenty seven years, twenty eight years is the
6:23
Speaker 1: first time I saw her and she has not changed.
6:27
Speaker 1: But anyway, I love Also Russell Wong. I have a
6:30
Speaker 1: huge crush on him, so seeing him he was actually
6:33
Speaker 1: a bad guy in this movie. So Murph, Yes, I
6:39
Speaker 1: have enjoyed mg Nowen and uh the Mandalorian, and I
6:44
Speaker 1: loved when she geeked out about Star Wars and she
6:46
Speaker 1: was like, this is how impactful the Skywalker was for me,
6:49
Speaker 1: and to imagine I'd be acting with him, and I
6:52
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I feel you, feel you. I just
6:55
Speaker 1: love her at Dragon Convents, it was very cool. Oh,
6:58
Speaker 1: I think I might actually like if I actually worked
7:00
Speaker 1: to meet her. I don't get to fluster with celebrities.
7:03
Speaker 1: Because I'm just like, yeah, whatever. She would be one
7:07
Speaker 1: of those that I'd just be like, oh my god,
7:08
Speaker 1: I love you, and you like quietly back, and then
7:14
Speaker 1: I never actually speak to her. Yes, yes well. This
7:21
Speaker 1: book is written by Amy Tan and it follows four
7:24
Speaker 1: fictional Chinese immigrant families, particularly mothers and daughters, after they
7:29
Speaker 1: migrate to the United States. With sixteen interwoven stories, it
7:33
Speaker 1: tells the intergenerational and intercultural stories and conflicts of the
7:37
Speaker 1: mothers and their daughters who were raised in America when
7:41
Speaker 1: it comes to things like yes, culture and heritage. One
7:44
Speaker 1: of the daughters, Jing May or June, journeys to China
7:49
Speaker 1: to meet her half sisters twins that her mother was
7:52
Speaker 1: forced to leave there she fled Japanese invasion during World
7:55
Speaker 1: War two. Um and their mom intended to return for
7:59
Speaker 1: her daughters, but died before she could. So it's kind
8:01
Speaker 1: of framed around that premise of Jing May learning that
8:07
Speaker 1: and then having questions about heritage and culture and these
8:11
Speaker 1: stories of her mother and how can she tell those stories. Yeah.
8:15
Speaker 1: The four families come together to form the joy Luck Club,
8:18
Speaker 1: a weekly gathering to play meijng and eat delicious booze
8:22
Speaker 1: that Jimmy's mother, so young part took up in China,
8:25
Speaker 1: and we started with the three other Chinese immigrant families
8:27
Speaker 1: in San Francisco. So and of course the differentiations between
8:32
Speaker 1: the two clubs are very evident, uh, including the fact
8:35
Speaker 1: that it kind of now has become an investment club
8:39
Speaker 1: and they take their money and invest in different stocks.
8:41
Speaker 1: So I thought that was interesting. After her mom's death,
8:44
Speaker 1: and Jimmy takes her mom's spot in the club, and
8:47
Speaker 1: that's how she learns of her half sisters in China
8:49
Speaker 1: and her mother searched for them. The other women in
8:52
Speaker 1: the club encouraging May to continue her mother's work and
8:55
Speaker 1: reunite with our half sisters, and she may express his
8:58
Speaker 1: concerns that she won't be able to tell her mother's story,
9:01
Speaker 1: and the other women at the club, Thando yinging in
9:04
Speaker 1: On May admit her concerns might not be unfounded and
9:07
Speaker 1: that they have some similar concerns about their own daughters. Structurally,
9:11
Speaker 1: the book is set up like a ma Gen game
9:14
Speaker 1: four sections further divided into four narratives, and the first section,
9:18
Speaker 1: the mothers tell the stories of their lives and remember
9:21
Speaker 1: their own mothers. Although Jing May tells her own mother
9:24
Speaker 1: story what she knows of it since her mom had
9:26
Speaker 1: passed away, And yeah, they worry that their daughters won't
9:29
Speaker 1: remember them with the same appreciation or dedication that they
9:33
Speaker 1: feel like they remember their own mothers. And the next
9:36
Speaker 1: section we learned about the four daughters, jing May, Waverley, Rose,
9:40
Speaker 1: and Lena and their experiences and their own memories of
9:43
Speaker 1: their their mother's stronger perhaps than the mothers believe that
9:46
Speaker 1: they are. The following section digs into problems the adult
9:51
Speaker 1: daughters are having in things like relationships and careers, and
9:55
Speaker 1: also conflicting ideas about how the ways of their mothers
9:59
Speaker 1: don't fit in with their American upbringing and ways to
10:02
Speaker 1: reconcile that. In the last section, the mothers try to
10:05
Speaker 1: bridge that gap and in the process learn more about
10:08
Speaker 1: themselves and their daughters and the things they've passed on
10:10
Speaker 1: our haven't, whether it's culture, religion, our passivity. Each section
10:17
Speaker 1: opens with a parable related to the themes to be
10:19
Speaker 1: covered in the coming section, like sacrifice and loss, and
10:24
Speaker 1: the stories are presented in short vignettes. Through it, the
10:28
Speaker 1: readers learn the formative experiences that made each of the
10:31
Speaker 1: characters who they are, whether it's watching your mother making
10:34
Speaker 1: sacrifices for her own mother that disowned her and arranged
10:37
Speaker 1: marriage or yes, leaving your daughters behind right, jim May
10:41
Speaker 1: travels to China and locates her half sisters and by
10:43
Speaker 1: telling them about their mother, tells her mother's stories and
10:46
Speaker 1: helps strengthen two more mother daughter relationships. From Amy Tan,
10:50
Speaker 1: when reflecting on thirty years of this book, she said,
10:53
Speaker 1: the characters are mothers who immigrated from China and their
10:56
Speaker 1: modern thirties something American born daughters. The relationships are wrought
11:00
Speaker 1: with years of misunderstand things and accumulated pain. A mother's
11:03
Speaker 1: hopes and expectations become a daughter's sense of failure. A
11:07
Speaker 1: mother's advice is received by a daughter as a rejection
11:09
Speaker 1: of who she really is. The mother, in return, fills
11:12
Speaker 1: her daughter knows nothing about her and has learned nothing
11:15
Speaker 1: from her mother, the one who loved her best. In
11:19
Speaker 1: that same article, she wrote about how many people often
11:21
Speaker 1: perceived this book as a memoir even though it's not,
11:25
Speaker 1: but how fiction can take pieces of truths from ourselves
11:28
Speaker 1: and twist them or a Japan was a really interesting take,
11:31
Speaker 1: and I loved her anecdotes of people coming up to
11:34
Speaker 1: her like how did you deal when your mother did this,
11:36
Speaker 1: and she's like, well, actually, my mother never did that.
11:38
Speaker 1: I was just The power of storytelling is one of
11:43
Speaker 1: the main themes throughout the novel. Quote, it's useless to
11:46
Speaker 1: write about these things, my uncle said to my mother.
11:48
Speaker 1: She can't change the past. My mother said in a
11:51
Speaker 1: fire response, she can tell people what my mother suffered
11:55
Speaker 1: a stain. She could not rebuff her back. She can
11:57
Speaker 1: tell the world. That's how she can change it. And
12:00
Speaker 1: the story itself was in part the result of a
12:03
Speaker 1: promise Tam made to her mother and any deity that
12:06
Speaker 1: would listen after her mother had what was at the
12:09
Speaker 1: time preliminary believed to be a heart attack. It turned
12:11
Speaker 1: out it wasn't it. Tam promised that if her mother survived,
12:14
Speaker 1: she would truly listen to her mother's stories and travel
12:16
Speaker 1: to China with her and meet her daughters from her
12:19
Speaker 1: first marriage, and she did so. The bestselling book has
12:21
Speaker 1: won numerous awards and received widespread critical acclaim, and regularly
12:26
Speaker 1: is included on required reading lists around the country, including
12:29
Speaker 1: My Accelerated Reader, and around the world. Some did criticize
12:33
Speaker 1: it for what they saw as perpetuating negative Asian stereotypes
12:37
Speaker 1: particularly around Asian men. And yeah, there's a big conversation
12:41
Speaker 1: back and forth about is this a great representation? Is
12:44
Speaker 1: just that again model minority level of stereotyping that they
12:49
Speaker 1: put onto this. Are we perpetuating again a negative look
12:53
Speaker 1: at the Asian men and whether or not they are
12:57
Speaker 1: um as abusive, as or as neglectful as they see
13:01
Speaker 1: him in this book? And of course that's not at
13:03
Speaker 1: all from what I gathered what was being perpetuated. It
13:06
Speaker 1: just was not a story about these men in general.
13:10
Speaker 1: But yeah, I know it was a big back and
13:12
Speaker 1: forth even I could remember about, wow, this does not
13:16
Speaker 1: look good for a lot of like the Asian conversations,
13:20
Speaker 1: including the fact of like the tiger mom, the overbearing mom,
13:23
Speaker 1: which has been also another stereotype that continues to build
13:28
Speaker 1: and not go away, right for sure, for sure, And
13:32
Speaker 1: speaking of we have a lot of themes that we
13:34
Speaker 1: wanted to cover, but first we're gonna pause for a
13:37
Speaker 1: quick break for work from responsor. Hey we're back, Thank you, sponsor.
13:53
Speaker 1: And we wanted to start with the theme of family
13:57
Speaker 1: because that's probably one of the biggest the entirety of
14:03
Speaker 1: the of the actual stories, right and especially here the
14:07
Speaker 1: mother daughter relationship, which is the primary theme throughout the
14:10
Speaker 1: book as we jump from mother to daughter and the
14:12
Speaker 1: stories we get to see um all of these different
14:16
Speaker 1: stories as they weave together to show a balance of
14:18
Speaker 1: how each of their lives did come together and reflect
14:23
Speaker 1: within each other and off of each other. Through each
14:26
Speaker 1: of the mothers, we see the stories of loss of connection,
14:30
Speaker 1: loss of innocence, lots of family, and loss of spirit.
14:33
Speaker 1: They talked about the lessons they learned through all of
14:35
Speaker 1: this and how desperately they try to teach these lessons
14:38
Speaker 1: to their daughters so that they would understand the depth
14:40
Speaker 1: of loss and maybe could prevent their daughters from going
14:43
Speaker 1: through the same tragedy. Right, So we wanted to talk
14:46
Speaker 1: specifically about the tragedy and hardships, and we're gonna start
14:50
Speaker 1: with suan Wu, who again we come to the story
14:53
Speaker 1: after her death, so that's kind of the catalyst of
14:56
Speaker 1: how this begins, and we get to hear the story
14:59
Speaker 1: of origins and even the beginning of the Joy Lug
15:01
Speaker 1: Club and why it's created. And her story is a
15:04
Speaker 1: constant tell of tragedy and loss and her struggle in
15:07
Speaker 1: escaping with as much as she could at the time,
15:09
Speaker 1: including her two daughters that later gets left behind thinking
15:13
Speaker 1: she was about to die. Um. And then we see
15:16
Speaker 1: the new struggle of her trying to start over in
15:18
Speaker 1: the US and reclaim her past. But again moved forward
15:21
Speaker 1: in the present and we see through the eyes and
15:24
Speaker 1: ears of her daughters and how little she knew about
15:27
Speaker 1: her mom and her past, and and again the regrets
15:30
Speaker 1: that her mother had, like she really had to sit
15:33
Speaker 1: and pull from each of the aunties of the uh
15:37
Speaker 1: my Gen Club, as well as her father who didn't
15:40
Speaker 1: know too much either. He just knew bits and pieces
15:43
Speaker 1: and it had to be pulled. And then through her
15:45
Speaker 1: looking back, we know she did what she had to do.
15:47
Speaker 1: Her mother's guilt is something that is evident for the
15:50
Speaker 1: reader and for June or Jing May, and is rectified
15:53
Speaker 1: when June is able to meet her long lost sisters
15:56
Speaker 1: at last, and as she says, put her family together
15:59
Speaker 1: and her mother's story out there right. And then um,
16:04
Speaker 1: if we look at on May, Sue Amy's life so
16:08
Speaker 1: very different from Sue Yahn's, also full of tragedy. We
16:13
Speaker 1: learn about her childhood and the loss of her father
16:15
Speaker 1: and the shame of her mother. She talks about the
16:18
Speaker 1: many superstitions of her grandmother and her aunt and uncle
16:20
Speaker 1: as she is raised believing her mother as a ghost,
16:23
Speaker 1: only to realize that they had rather her mother be
16:26
Speaker 1: dead than the life she had chosen as a concubine
16:30
Speaker 1: or fourth wife of a wealthy man. Of course, we
16:34
Speaker 1: learned it wasn't through her mother's own choices, but through
16:36
Speaker 1: manipulation and lack of support that she was forced into
16:39
Speaker 1: this life. Her mother's shame is something that her grandmother
16:43
Speaker 1: Popo and the rest of the family has used against
16:45
Speaker 1: her and tried to keep her away from her daughter.
16:49
Speaker 1: After the suicide of her mother, on May is able
16:51
Speaker 1: to get a type of justice for her mother and
16:53
Speaker 1: for herself and her brother, but still has the loss
16:56
Speaker 1: of her mother and her family to deal with. Later
17:00
Speaker 1: in her adult life, with her family in America, she
17:02
Speaker 1: goes through loss and tragedy as her youngest son being
17:07
Speaker 1: drowns and um is the body is unable to be recovered,
17:11
Speaker 1: and much like herself, her daughter Rose feels the loss
17:15
Speaker 1: and responsibility of his death. And then there's Lindo Jong
17:19
Speaker 1: whose tell what was it? Tell? Of will and determination.
17:22
Speaker 1: Though she was trained to be a wife to her
17:24
Speaker 1: future husband Tianyu, she was able to find a way out,
17:28
Speaker 1: and she was able to secure freedom for herself while
17:30
Speaker 1: giving Hi an opportunity to a servant girl who had
17:32
Speaker 1: gotten pregnant. So the story, of course has a lot
17:35
Speaker 1: of omens and dreams and interpretations. But she was promised
17:41
Speaker 1: and to this young man she was trained up when
17:46
Speaker 1: she was young to be his wife. He had no
17:48
Speaker 1: interest in her, and then she had described the relationship
17:51
Speaker 1: as a brother and sister, and she seemed okay with
17:54
Speaker 1: that except when it was time for to get pregnant,
17:56
Speaker 1: and because he refused to touch her and lied about
17:58
Speaker 1: all these things. You know, the mother was very very
18:01
Speaker 1: abusive towards her um. And then we get to see
18:04
Speaker 1: her take that and turn that into her freedom and
18:07
Speaker 1: being able to take what she knew and to survive
18:10
Speaker 1: then coming to America. Though it allowed her the freedom
18:13
Speaker 1: to become a new woman, it also was a threat
18:15
Speaker 1: to her losing her own Chinese identity. But with this
18:19
Speaker 1: is the divide between her and her daughter, Waverley, who
18:21
Speaker 1: was raised to be American and with that seemingly ashamed
18:25
Speaker 1: but at the same time guilty of the lack of
18:28
Speaker 1: doing everything perfectly as she thought her mother expected. Um
18:32
Speaker 1: and The conversation between Lindo and and and her daughter
18:35
Speaker 1: is really interesting to see, especially when she like the
18:37
Speaker 1: battle of their wills essentially, and yet at the same
18:40
Speaker 1: time they also are fearful of each other and feel
18:43
Speaker 1: guilty around each other. And it's an interesting like back
18:46
Speaker 1: and forth with that family. But the struggle alone trying
18:48
Speaker 1: to keep their identity at the same time, it is
18:52
Speaker 1: interesting to see. Yeah, I was telling some maath before
18:56
Speaker 1: we started recording. I read this in kind of a
18:57
Speaker 1: world wind couple of hours and because of the way
19:01
Speaker 1: there these stories are told from the first person, like
19:04
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the section it tells you who
19:06
Speaker 1: it is, but then at least in my book, it
19:09
Speaker 1: doesn't say at the top, so you have to kind
19:10
Speaker 1: of keep in your mind, Okay, who is this and
19:13
Speaker 1: how are they related to everybody? And I started being like, okay,
19:15
Speaker 1: this is the clever one, um, And that's how I
19:18
Speaker 1: remembered Linda and Waverley is. I was like, Oh, she
19:20
Speaker 1: was clever to get out of that marriage. Waverley is
19:23
Speaker 1: clever in her chest. Like the connections. Yeah, linking the
19:28
Speaker 1: families you have to because I did that too, because
19:30
Speaker 1: some of them are some of course, because they go
19:32
Speaker 1: through similar situations, it does seem a bit similar to
19:36
Speaker 1: each other, and they are intertwined, as we know Waverley
19:39
Speaker 1: and later on we know Waverley in Jing may are
19:43
Speaker 1: photomise the lack of better terms. Yeah, yeah, and I
19:48
Speaker 1: do think and we'll probably talk about this more later,
19:50
Speaker 1: but Waverley in particular to her like final section where
19:54
Speaker 1: you can just see her like making her mom into
19:57
Speaker 1: the enemy. But her mom he wasn't even there. I
20:00
Speaker 1: hadn't said anything, like she was her own. I'm sure
20:05
Speaker 1: that you know. Part of that is how she was raised.
20:08
Speaker 1: But it was just interesting to see her have all
20:10
Speaker 1: these doubts about like her new boyfriend is what I'm
20:13
Speaker 1: thinking of right getting married to him? And this is
20:16
Speaker 1: before she'd even talked to her mother. But she's like,
20:18
Speaker 1: oh my, she's not gonna like this. She's going to
20:20
Speaker 1: tear it apart. And then there's Yinging or Betty st Clair.
20:26
Speaker 1: She was a beautiful, wealthy young girl who grows old
20:30
Speaker 1: at eighteen. She shared the story of her first husband,
20:33
Speaker 1: who was cruel and eventually left her. We first hear
20:36
Speaker 1: about some of her loss when she lost her third
20:38
Speaker 1: son through her daughter Lena who translates her Chinese when
20:42
Speaker 1: her father can't understand. We later learned that Yingying had
20:46
Speaker 1: had an abortion and felt the loss of her third
20:48
Speaker 1: son was a punishment. She also fears that she's somehow
20:53
Speaker 1: taught her daughter to be as fearful and unable to
20:55
Speaker 1: speak up for herself like she was during her first marriage.
20:59
Speaker 1: Though she as a tiger, she didn't show her tiger's
21:02
Speaker 1: side and feared her daughter was doing the same and
21:05
Speaker 1: try to help her right. And I think the interesting
21:08
Speaker 1: part is that her daughter didn't really know about that
21:12
Speaker 1: first marriage until later on, and the reason why when
21:16
Speaker 1: she was saying you need to speak up, you need
21:19
Speaker 1: to work, you need to talk to your husband, she
21:21
Speaker 1: wasn't saying fight for her marriage, which is what we
21:23
Speaker 1: learned that things is happening because Lena never makes a
21:27
Speaker 1: decision like she works for her husband, and then her
21:31
Speaker 1: husband takes her ideas and then they have to split
21:33
Speaker 1: everything evenly, even if it's not something that she wants.
21:36
Speaker 1: She doesn't want to fight, so she just goes along
21:37
Speaker 1: with it. And there's this whole level of like everything's
21:40
Speaker 1: unbalanced for Yingying. She talks about being able to see
21:43
Speaker 1: the future, being able to see omens as well. So
21:47
Speaker 1: that's what she's talking about, and like she hasn't taught
21:49
Speaker 1: her daughter these things and can see how her side,
21:54
Speaker 1: her quiet side, is coming out, but she needs that
21:56
Speaker 1: tiger side that she talks about the gold and black
21:59
Speaker 1: and the black coming out being the fish side. So
22:02
Speaker 1: it was interesting to see too, right right, right right.
22:05
Speaker 1: And So one of the things that we've been touching
22:07
Speaker 1: on throughout this and is another prominent team in the book,
22:11
Speaker 1: is this idea around criticisms are miscommunication, like the daughter's
22:16
Speaker 1: feeling criticized non mothers to a lesser extent, and yeah, miscommunication.
22:21
Speaker 1: Obviously I don't have the same complex multicultural or racial
22:25
Speaker 1: layer here, but I did relate to this because since
22:28
Speaker 1: my dad has died, I have been reflecting a lot
22:31
Speaker 1: on our relationship and where it went wrong, as they say,
22:34
Speaker 1: And one of the things I keep coming back to
22:35
Speaker 1: is I really fundamentally think we did not understand. He
22:38
Speaker 1: didn't I didn't understand where he was coming from, and
22:41
Speaker 1: I did. I did find out he had a first wife,
22:43
Speaker 1: and I never knew about it. Like I had these
22:44
Speaker 1: things where I'm like, wow, I never asked, and now
22:47
Speaker 1: I can't ask it's too late, and that there was
22:50
Speaker 1: this idea for me, maybe for some maybe for jing May.
22:56
Speaker 1: I don't know, but there was this idea that those
22:57
Speaker 1: questions were too painful and maybe he was ashamed of
23:00
Speaker 1: the answers and that's why we didn't talk about it.
23:04
Speaker 1: But then it's the same at the end, when j
23:07
Speaker 1: May learns this is like hugely important story about her
23:10
Speaker 1: mom why she left her daughters, it's like this formative
23:13
Speaker 1: traumatic experience, and to not know that until after she's gone, right,
23:19
Speaker 1: I do think, yeah, there's that comes up a lot
23:23
Speaker 1: in this of miscommunicating and not feeling like just being
23:30
Speaker 1: on separate pages and not really realizing for sure exactly
23:34
Speaker 1: what the other person means or what they're saying. I mean,
23:36
Speaker 1: I think there's definitely a whole level because I've thought
23:38
Speaker 1: about this too, because when you are the child of someone,
23:43
Speaker 1: you don't really think of them beyond the parental figure,
23:46
Speaker 1: and then when you realize the stories of bigger stories,
23:49
Speaker 1: you start wondering, wow, what happened? Because I've thought about
23:52
Speaker 1: that too again, about heritage and legacy, what we're passing on.
23:57
Speaker 1: What would I say? Would they know about these things
23:59
Speaker 1: of my past which part of my past. What I
24:01
Speaker 1: tell them, the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, what.
24:05
Speaker 1: And I think that's again part of that conversation of
24:08
Speaker 1: this level of miscommunication. Again of course literally they miscommunicate,
24:13
Speaker 1: whether it's a language barrier because their parents can't say
24:15
Speaker 1: it in English, and and even trying to formulate exactly
24:19
Speaker 1: what they mean by it, they may not have a
24:22
Speaker 1: translation for what they're saying. Just kind of back and
24:24
Speaker 1: forth between Rose and her mother, and her mother trying
24:29
Speaker 1: to say to save their marriage. She's known that that's
24:31
Speaker 1: not gonna happen. She's just trying to say, say what
24:34
Speaker 1: you want finally come out. You don't have to change
24:37
Speaker 1: your personality for each person. Be who you are. I
24:40
Speaker 1: see you, you're you know, all these things. But she
24:43
Speaker 1: could not say it, even though that's what she was
24:46
Speaker 1: trying to say, and her of course, her daughter took
24:48
Speaker 1: that as an insult of you need to work this
24:50
Speaker 1: marriage out. You're gonna be a failure. Yeah, and yeah,
24:54
Speaker 1: I think that's what we think of a lot of
24:56
Speaker 1: ourselves with our parents. Whether it's again a miscommunication of
25:00
Speaker 1: maybe hearing something as a child and believing that was
25:03
Speaker 1: the only thing and misinterpreting what that was said, right,
25:07
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? I think that's some big thing.
25:08
Speaker 1: And again, whether we're talking about a language barrier or tradition,
25:11
Speaker 1: the relationships show a breakdown a communication through the stereotype
25:15
Speaker 1: of the tiger mom, which is pretty heavily weighed throughout stories.
25:19
Speaker 1: Even sually we learned the deeper levels of why the
25:21
Speaker 1: mothers communicate or don't communicate the way they do, which again, yeah,
25:26
Speaker 1: the backbone of the fact that is they're fearful that
25:29
Speaker 1: much like Jumi who says that literally says, I did
25:32
Speaker 1: not know my mother, and they all protested like, oh, no,
25:35
Speaker 1: of course you do, she's in your bones. That was
25:38
Speaker 1: just more of a hope for themselves and they're like, oh,
25:40
Speaker 1: we have to talk about this. But again, it isn't
25:43
Speaker 1: just the fierceness of the mothers, but it's a level
25:45
Speaker 1: of resentment from the daughters, who are first generation Chinese
25:49
Speaker 1: Americans trying desperately to fit in at the same time
25:52
Speaker 1: are afraid of not getting the approval of their mothers.
25:55
Speaker 1: So it's an interesting again back and like you said,
25:57
Speaker 1: a perceived idea of resent much much like other families,
26:01
Speaker 1: we see a dismissal of the mother's ways and traditions
26:04
Speaker 1: from the daughters, which often seem to see their mothers
26:07
Speaker 1: as just old relics or maybe just old fashioned um as.
26:10
Speaker 1: In fact, as a story proceeds, we see a perspective
26:12
Speaker 1: from the mothers that show how they feel their daughters
26:15
Speaker 1: not only dismiss them or ignore them, but push them away. Yeah,
26:19
Speaker 1: kind of see them as maybe weak or foolish, um,
26:24
Speaker 1: not worth listening to. Yeah. At the beginning of the story,
26:29
Speaker 1: we see the fears of the mothers as June does, yeah,
26:32
Speaker 1: when she talks about her deceased mom and how she
26:33
Speaker 1: didn't really know her mother at all, and um, that
26:38
Speaker 1: is the moment when all the mothers are like, oh, yeah,
26:42
Speaker 1: maybe they their own daughters feel the same way. And
26:46
Speaker 1: we've talked about failing and not living up to expectations
26:50
Speaker 1: in this context, but that is a pretty big theme,
26:54
Speaker 1: especially I think in the first I don't know, maybe
26:56
Speaker 1: in both sections of the daughters. So they're like Waverley,
27:00
Speaker 1: who was the chess prodigy. She thinks she's smarter than
27:02
Speaker 1: her mother. We see her stubborn pride get quickly dismantled
27:07
Speaker 1: when she is no longer able to win at chess
27:09
Speaker 1: and prove herself as a prodigy. In fact, she loses
27:11
Speaker 1: to somebody, she a young boy that she'd easily beat.
27:15
Speaker 1: And this was all part of a kind of a
27:18
Speaker 1: tetchet argument with her mother, and she was like, I'm
27:21
Speaker 1: not playing chess, and she thought her mom would be like,
27:24
Speaker 1: do you have to? But she was kind of like,
27:26
Speaker 1: m hmm, it did. It backfired, and she talks about
27:31
Speaker 1: her failure alongside the idea that her mother. She felt
27:34
Speaker 1: that her mother was taking credit for her abilities, that
27:39
Speaker 1: she was bragging about her like she was a trophy,
27:42
Speaker 1: but as if her mother had done it and not waightfully. Yeah,
27:46
Speaker 1: she spoke about doubt when she refused to give in
27:49
Speaker 1: to her refusal to play, and then yeah, later we
27:52
Speaker 1: see her doubts creep into relationship with Richard, who she
27:55
Speaker 1: was desperately sinking at the very least her mother's acknowledgment.
27:58
Speaker 1: And it's it's I liked that after because it was written.
28:01
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of it was infuriating, but it
28:02
Speaker 1: was written like a chess game between her and her mother,
28:05
Speaker 1: almost of like, oh, that's her play, I will do
28:08
Speaker 1: this play to outsmart her. Just that kind of layer
28:12
Speaker 1: of thinking where it was like at least it read
28:16
Speaker 1: to me, where Weaver really was her own worst enemy,
28:18
Speaker 1: and a lot of rolice once again. And then you
28:21
Speaker 1: have Rose when Rose story is about finding her voice
28:25
Speaker 1: when she is silent, I would say due to shock
28:28
Speaker 1: when she watches her youngest brother fall into the waters,
28:32
Speaker 1: uh and and not being able to recover, and I'm
28:34
Speaker 1: her blaming herself, not being able to speak and just being.
28:36
Speaker 1: And then in her relationship with her husband, ted, whether
28:40
Speaker 1: it's an inability to talk to her husband or to
28:42
Speaker 1: save our marriage, or to even talk with her mother
28:44
Speaker 1: or talk with our friends or her there but she
28:46
Speaker 1: talks about how she talks differently with each one, almost
28:49
Speaker 1: as if she's trying to appease them, like given them
28:52
Speaker 1: what they want to hear and whatever she wanted. And
28:55
Speaker 1: of course the level of disappointment criticism is internal and
28:58
Speaker 1: it seems to flow throughout her life, and an inability
29:01
Speaker 1: to speak, which she finally does later and she wins
29:04
Speaker 1: always like Hurrah, you did it. I did love seeing
29:07
Speaker 1: the correlation between her and the garden, the weeds and everything,
29:13
Speaker 1: and which talks about just loving the mass and the chaos.
29:15
Speaker 1: And then that's when she comes out and like, yeah,
29:17
Speaker 1: this is how I feel. I like it entually. I
29:21
Speaker 1: really appreciated that too, as someone who does often find
29:25
Speaker 1: myself doing similar things. I want to make the decision
29:28
Speaker 1: that makes everyone else happy. It's not necessarily like I
29:32
Speaker 1: what I want, and I don't think that's always bad
29:34
Speaker 1: at all. But when she was making decisions and she
29:37
Speaker 1: wasn't sure why, but she was finally making the decisions,
29:39
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, that's I appreciate this. And then
29:44
Speaker 1: there's Lena. Lena, like her mother in her first marriage,
29:47
Speaker 1: has become a ghost in her marriage and is frustrated
29:50
Speaker 1: with her life. She struggles and finding her place and
29:54
Speaker 1: being able to work out what she wants for herself. Right,
29:58
Speaker 1: So this is the one was what little diff and
30:00
Speaker 1: as you don't see what happens with that marriage, her
30:02
Speaker 1: husband is completely happy the way it is because he
30:05
Speaker 1: pretty much dictates everything that happens as where she's just
30:09
Speaker 1: like okay, and she's been fine with that up until recently,
30:13
Speaker 1: but doesn't even know what she actually wants. So and
30:16
Speaker 1: then we come to Jumae or June, whose life seems
30:19
Speaker 1: to be a layer of what she sees as failures
30:21
Speaker 1: from her inability to play piano, to not being able
30:24
Speaker 1: to be the next Shirley Temple or to her dripping
30:26
Speaker 1: out of college. She sees her failures as who she
30:29
Speaker 1: has become, often considering herself to Waverley because her mother
30:33
Speaker 1: does it too. She is also the one to sacrifice
30:36
Speaker 1: for others as well, as we talked about when everybody
30:39
Speaker 1: else picks for the very best for themselves, she's going
30:41
Speaker 1: to be the one that sacrifices for other people to
30:44
Speaker 1: get the best. And then it isn't until much later
30:47
Speaker 1: she learned that her mother wasn't disappointed in her, but
30:49
Speaker 1: proud of who she was um and that she was
30:52
Speaker 1: proud of that she was such a kind and giving woman.
30:55
Speaker 1: And it's really sweet, as we know this kind of
30:57
Speaker 1: happens to in the book when she really feels like
30:59
Speaker 1: since you wasn't able to be what her mom wanted
31:03
Speaker 1: her to be, always feeling like she was a failure.
31:06
Speaker 1: And then we know that on her thirtieth birthday, her
31:10
Speaker 1: mom gives her with the piano that she refused to
31:13
Speaker 1: play and does not do well, and it feels like
31:15
Speaker 1: like for her it felt like closure and forgiveness. So
31:19
Speaker 1: it's a really sweet sort story. And then she continues
31:22
Speaker 1: her journey as she learns to discover her mother, and
31:24
Speaker 1: as she learns more and more of her story that
31:26
Speaker 1: she never knew, realizing the depth of her mother's love
31:29
Speaker 1: and excited to share that. It was really beautiful. Yeah,
31:32
Speaker 1: that was a very sweet scene where this embarrassing moment
31:36
Speaker 1: for foraging May at the table when we really kind
31:40
Speaker 1: of really knocks her down and big. And then afterwards
31:44
Speaker 1: the conversation Jing May has with her mom where her
31:47
Speaker 1: mom's like kind of saying, all these things you see
31:50
Speaker 1: as failures, I see is these things that make you
31:53
Speaker 1: you that yeah, kind and giving woman. And I don't know,
32:00
Speaker 1: it was just so sweet to hear that. I think
32:04
Speaker 1: for any anybody, it's sweet to hear that somebody sees
32:07
Speaker 1: these things in you that maybe you've just been beating
32:10
Speaker 1: yourself up for reading, but they just accept you when
32:13
Speaker 1: they love you for it. Very sweet, less sweet. There
32:19
Speaker 1: are some of the marriages in this in this book,
32:23
Speaker 1: there are not too many good examples of marriage, and
32:26
Speaker 1: here I want to include this quote. In patriarchy, human
32:29
Speaker 1: possessed the highest status, so that women's position is subordinate
32:33
Speaker 1: to them, and that's from Lena, and yeah, there's a
32:36
Speaker 1: lot about duty and not so much about love in
32:42
Speaker 1: these marriages. And I would say also a lot of miscommunication. Yeah,
32:51
Speaker 1: there's a lot going on to complicate these marriages for sure, right,
32:56
Speaker 1: and again not about love. It's definitely about duty and
33:00
Speaker 1: indoor obligation. An Yeah, again, she doesn't really get into
33:04
Speaker 1: the depths of the husbands as much except to show
33:08
Speaker 1: their failures or their progress or any of that. It's
33:12
Speaker 1: just kind of a springing springboard for them to perpetuate
33:16
Speaker 1: the story, which I kind of like, I'm not gonna lie,
33:19
Speaker 1: it's not you don't see too much of that. You
33:21
Speaker 1: don't see it where it's like centered around the marriage
33:24
Speaker 1: and the husband in general, and even for the mothers,
33:28
Speaker 1: you barely hear what's happening, and it's a lot of
33:32
Speaker 1: it is just out of obligation or survival rather than love.
33:38
Speaker 1: And you don't hear much about love other than love
33:41
Speaker 1: for their children and who they were and what they've
33:44
Speaker 1: done for them. And so I find that interesting too. Again,
33:48
Speaker 1: we see even the new relationships like Waverley and Rich,
33:53
Speaker 1: they don't really talk about love. She's more embarrassed and
33:56
Speaker 1: ready to show him off more so than anything else,
33:58
Speaker 1: which is kind of interesting in itself, but yeah, I
34:03
Speaker 1: think it's necessary, but not something they gloat about. And
34:12
Speaker 1: I would I would put in here a reminder that,
34:14
Speaker 1: for you know, the long time, historically marriages have been
34:18
Speaker 1: usually things of convenience or economics, often at the benefit
34:22
Speaker 1: of the man in the detriment of a woman in
34:24
Speaker 1: a very head or normative sense. And we do see
34:27
Speaker 1: that in enjoy Le Club, especially in the mothers. But
34:29
Speaker 1: when it comes to the daughters. One of the things
34:32
Speaker 1: I appreciated about that where the problems of the marriage
34:36
Speaker 1: might have been key, but the marriage itself wasn't. But
34:39
Speaker 1: we see through that you get to touch on issues
34:41
Speaker 1: of like sexism, where yeah, your idea, your husband is
34:45
Speaker 1: getting paid seven times more than you and yet everything
34:49
Speaker 1: must be equal, and also just the fallout of misunderstanding
34:56
Speaker 1: their mother. And I feel like I could be totally wrong,
34:58
Speaker 1: but I feel like there's a lot of overcorrect ng
35:01
Speaker 1: in this where the mothers just like I so badly
35:04
Speaker 1: don't want this from my daughters, that they overcorrect, and
35:08
Speaker 1: then the daughters are like I so badly don't want
35:10
Speaker 1: to be like my mother's so they overcorrect like kind
35:14
Speaker 1: of seeing that play out through through their marriages, right,
35:18
Speaker 1: does seem like a push back and forth, which I
35:20
Speaker 1: don't think is similarly to each other. Yeah, yeah, and
35:22
Speaker 1: I think that's pretty common. I don't think it's a
35:25
Speaker 1: specific right, fairly like characters in this book. But and
35:29
Speaker 1: something else we wanted to talk about is friendship, another
35:33
Speaker 1: theme in here. Just I mean, the whole idea of
35:35
Speaker 1: the joy Luck Club is about friendship, and um, they
35:40
Speaker 1: you see that the importance of shared community spaces for
35:43
Speaker 1: marginalized folks, and as always the power of women sharing
35:47
Speaker 1: experiences and supporting each other. The original joy Luk Club
35:51
Speaker 1: that Jingmei's mom started in China, it was very dark,
35:55
Speaker 1: painful time for a lot of people, and this was
35:57
Speaker 1: like a time where they got to for it that
36:00
Speaker 1: and have fun and be happy, and they would pretend
36:02
Speaker 1: like they were having this big feast even though they
36:04
Speaker 1: weren't right and just how powerful that wasn't as you
36:07
Speaker 1: said in San Francisco, the new iterations of Joylet Club
36:12
Speaker 1: did become kind of an investing opportunity and they paid
36:17
Speaker 1: for the plane ticket they raised the money for At
36:21
Speaker 1: the time, I believe it was for her mom's Sun
36:23
Speaker 1: to go, but then they gave it to Um Jing Mei,
36:27
Speaker 1: and I think that's right, wonderful. Yeah, And it's definitely
36:31
Speaker 1: through the friendships we see the connection of the old
36:34
Speaker 1: world versus the new world for the lack of better terms,
36:36
Speaker 1: and how they're trying to correct wrongs together, whether it's
36:41
Speaker 1: they compete with each other about their daughter's success or
36:44
Speaker 1: they talk about their pasts as if it was the
36:49
Speaker 1: good time to guess. And you're right, yeah again, like
36:52
Speaker 1: you said, they got the funds together so that Jing
36:55
Speaker 1: Make could complete with San was doing to begin when
36:59
Speaker 1: it was a part of their legacy to for her
37:02
Speaker 1: to fulfill this, and I think it was really beautiful.
37:05
Speaker 1: But I also love the fact that, yes, Jim May
37:07
Speaker 1: was welcomed into that community and she took her mom's spot.
37:11
Speaker 1: So it's a matriarch that's allowed this and continued this,
37:15
Speaker 1: and I think it's beautiful because we don't see enough
37:16
Speaker 1: of that in general. Yeah, it's amazing how rare it
37:20
Speaker 1: is to see multigenerational representations of with me right, Yeah,
37:26
Speaker 1: And I mean that does feel very poetic and that
37:28
Speaker 1: you know, Jing May is stepping in. She was so
37:31
Speaker 1: concerned she couldn't tell her mother's story. And I love
37:34
Speaker 1: that description at some point in the book where it's
37:37
Speaker 1: like mothers and daughters are like stairs, like they're always
37:41
Speaker 1: going in the same direction, which I think was meant
37:44
Speaker 1: to be a bad thing, but I thought that, you know,
37:47
Speaker 1: as much as they might have been, this distance between
37:51
Speaker 1: the daughters and their mothers at different points, and you know,
37:54
Speaker 1: Waverley has that moment where she's like, do we really
37:56
Speaker 1: look alike? And she's looking at her mother and herself
37:58
Speaker 1: in the mirror, and but those are the those things
38:00
Speaker 1: that will pass on to the next generation. We do
38:04
Speaker 1: have a little bit more for you listeners, but first
38:06
Speaker 1: we have one more quick break or word from our sponsor,
38:21
Speaker 1: and we're back. Thank you sponsor. We did want to
38:24
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about immigration. The daughters don't seem
38:28
Speaker 1: to see the level of courage their mothers go through
38:31
Speaker 1: to get to the United States. But there is a
38:33
Speaker 1: battle between the new identity and freedom with the old
38:37
Speaker 1: traditions and past of the mothers that we see a
38:40
Speaker 1: lot um. We see a lot of now as adult
38:42
Speaker 1: children try to retain heritage in their families and pass
38:46
Speaker 1: it down to their children. We also see through the
38:49
Speaker 1: mothers what it is like to try to adjust to
38:51
Speaker 1: this new culture and how to survive. And within this,
38:55
Speaker 1: of course, it's also the big push, that big conversation
38:58
Speaker 1: of the American dream, which is an idea that the
39:01
Speaker 1: daughters get pushed into by the mothers who hope for quote,
39:05
Speaker 1: the gold mountain for them or something that makes them
39:08
Speaker 1: rich and successful, which is why we see the whole
39:11
Speaker 1: you need to be the next shorally Temple, or you
39:14
Speaker 1: need to be the prodigy, and and pushing them to
39:16
Speaker 1: be the better of whatever this is. And they're hoping
39:20
Speaker 1: that the daughters can fulfill the level of success that
39:23
Speaker 1: they dream of. And and because there's this whole big
39:27
Speaker 1: idea that the US or America is where you can
39:31
Speaker 1: become whatever you want to be, grow that that whole
39:34
Speaker 1: idea is just you know, put your mind to it,
39:37
Speaker 1: work hard, and you can have that which we know
39:39
Speaker 1: is the falsehood. But for their mothers it wasn't um.
39:44
Speaker 1: And of course again being able to come into the
39:47
Speaker 1: US and thinking that they can get this was a
39:49
Speaker 1: part of the hope that they put onto their children
39:52
Speaker 1: and placed onto their children to the detriment of their
39:55
Speaker 1: relationship to a certain point, right, yes, for sure. And
39:59
Speaker 1: something else we wanted to talk about a little bit
40:01
Speaker 1: is um these ideas around heritage and legend and tradition,
40:07
Speaker 1: because those are throughout just so key and often really
40:12
Speaker 1: beautifully written. I thought, right, I think there's this whole
40:16
Speaker 1: level of of course, like the East versus West or
40:19
Speaker 1: East and West cultural ideas, and we do see when
40:23
Speaker 1: it comes to heritage, when it comes to legends, when
40:25
Speaker 1: it comes to stories, of course, China is going to
40:28
Speaker 1: have a longer history and depth that we don't have
40:31
Speaker 1: in the US as a very young country as we
40:35
Speaker 1: know this, and also like being really established several times over.
40:39
Speaker 1: But they do talk a lot about balance and the
40:41
Speaker 1: whole idea of keeping one corner watching this corner and
40:45
Speaker 1: making sure things are in its place. Yinging talks about
40:49
Speaker 1: that to the room uh in which Lena has put
40:52
Speaker 1: her thinking that this is such the guest room is
40:55
Speaker 1: off balance, the table is off balanced, and she saw
40:58
Speaker 1: the future of it falling apart and not being able
41:01
Speaker 1: to withstand, and that was really important to her. And
41:03
Speaker 1: then you you have that whole idea of the corners
41:06
Speaker 1: for my young and the fact that Jimmy's mom specifically
41:10
Speaker 1: picked that side as the newness a type of thing,
41:14
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, of course that's her side. She
41:15
Speaker 1: knew exactly what her mother would pick because of that
41:18
Speaker 1: superstition and that idea. And I think, you know, as
41:21
Speaker 1: well as the crabs, they talked about the like of
41:24
Speaker 1: course food is all throughout and we know this and
41:28
Speaker 1: this is part of tradition. I think any Chinese, I
41:31
Speaker 1: feel like any tradition with when we talked about the matriarch,
41:34
Speaker 1: we talked about food in general, but this when we
41:36
Speaker 1: talk about crabs and talking about the new year, the
41:39
Speaker 1: Chinese new year and the good luck and the bad
41:42
Speaker 1: luck and who chooses what, and it was kind of
41:43
Speaker 1: an omen and of course yeah, and it showed Jimmy's
41:47
Speaker 1: character as well as Waverley's character and who saw what,
41:50
Speaker 1: and it was very obvious what that meant. Of course,
41:54
Speaker 1: throughout all of the story we hear about the omens
41:57
Speaker 1: and the luck like a deaf I love the whole
42:00
Speaker 1: story with it was ho Lindo used that omen of
42:05
Speaker 1: you know, the birthmark as being like, oh, it's gonna
42:08
Speaker 1: eat his face. The grands, you know, the grand ancestors
42:11
Speaker 1: are going to come into you know, all of being displaced,
42:13
Speaker 1: and she used that to her advantage because she knew
42:16
Speaker 1: the superstitions that would help her. And you say, you
42:19
Speaker 1: hear those stories, and I'm fascinated by these stories. I
42:23
Speaker 1: don't know how real they are and how cultural irrelevant
42:26
Speaker 1: they are, but we know that these exists, and the
42:28
Speaker 1: idea of ghosts exists. The Tale of the Turtles was
42:34
Speaker 1: one of my favorites too, and the omen in the
42:36
Speaker 1: and the eating of the tears. Yeah, and then I
42:40
Speaker 1: think you can see that in a lot of beliefs
42:43
Speaker 1: and belief systems and religions and superstitions around the world.
42:47
Speaker 1: But like, for instance, the whole thing about the rice
42:49
Speaker 1: if you don't eat the rice, and the pocketing of
42:52
Speaker 1: the boy's skin and then he died, and then blaming yourself,
42:55
Speaker 1: Like that's something when I was young and we talked
42:58
Speaker 1: about first Smith and I, I is really religious, and
43:02
Speaker 1: I would get in my head that's something I had done,
43:06
Speaker 1: had caused to this terrible outcome, and just feel extremely
43:11
Speaker 1: guilty about it. So, yeah, that resonated with me too. Yeah,
43:17
Speaker 1: and we know this is a depth of legend and
43:19
Speaker 1: into these cultural ideas and and again it's not just
43:23
Speaker 1: necessarily that it's cultural, but it's familiar. Is something that's
43:26
Speaker 1: passed on from family to family and family, and it's
43:29
Speaker 1: just like religion and ideas and stories and all of
43:32
Speaker 1: these things. It exists as a part of their heritage
43:36
Speaker 1: and what gets passed on. And I think that's beautiful.
43:39
Speaker 1: I think I love that story because it did have
43:41
Speaker 1: the fantastical superstitions behind the sadness as well. It was
43:47
Speaker 1: definitely again one of those things because it was originally
43:50
Speaker 1: intended as vignettes or short stories, and then put together
43:54
Speaker 1: because she created this giant, beautiful book of different stories
43:58
Speaker 1: that could be broken down into short story. It's a
44:00
Speaker 1: little confusing, so you have to keep going back about
44:04
Speaker 1: who's doing what, and who's talking to whom and whose
44:06
Speaker 1: parents to whom It does flow beautifully together, I think, yeah, well,
44:12
Speaker 1: and I love I love when any author is able
44:14
Speaker 1: to accomplish something without like to tell so much with
44:21
Speaker 1: so little, and so I felt like Amy Tan did
44:25
Speaker 1: that fantastically, where just through these short vignettes and even
44:29
Speaker 1: through like a sentence, she's communicating so much about me
44:33
Speaker 1: to this character and what might be seemingly a small
44:37
Speaker 1: detail or like an unimportant thing, but you're like, Okay,
44:40
Speaker 1: I know something about this person just because of this,
44:43
Speaker 1: which I think is really powerful writing. Right um, And
44:47
Speaker 1: as we talked about earlier, amy Tan wrote this book
44:49
Speaker 1: and part as a promise to listen to her mother's stories.
44:52
Speaker 1: But unlike the characters, she didn't have children at the time,
44:55
Speaker 1: and as in fact several reasons why she didn't want
44:58
Speaker 1: to have children and she hasn't. She did and have children,
45:00
Speaker 1: and again not really based on her life, even the
45:03
Speaker 1: portions again do play into this. She did write a
45:06
Speaker 1: memoir in twenty seventeen titled Where the Past Begins a
45:10
Speaker 1: Writer's Memoir, so there is one out there if you
45:13
Speaker 1: want to know more about her life. But I do
45:15
Speaker 1: love her telling of the story of how her mother
45:18
Speaker 1: was so proud of her writing this book and would
45:22
Speaker 1: just hand out these books about you. She wrote this
45:26
Speaker 1: book and then hands it out, And I love that
45:28
Speaker 1: at such an amazing moment to see how proud she was,
45:32
Speaker 1: because from what we gather from what amy Tan's own
45:37
Speaker 1: re iteration of her relationship with her mother, it was rocky,
45:41
Speaker 1: much like some of the relationships in this book. But
45:45
Speaker 1: to see her mom just being so proud of her
45:49
Speaker 1: was probably one of the biggest accomplishments, I guess, for
45:52
Speaker 1: the lack of better terms, uh, something that she's also
45:55
Speaker 1: been proud of, so I can imagine and I love that.
45:58
Speaker 1: I love that as part of her story as well.
46:02
Speaker 1: But before we end, yeah, I didn't want to talk
46:04
Speaker 1: a little bit about again, as I said at the
46:08
Speaker 1: beginning of this episode, how it was so impactful for
46:11
Speaker 1: me to see a mainly all Asian cast, which was
46:14
Speaker 1: so rare for an American movie that it was phenomenal
46:20
Speaker 1: to me to see these women, beautiful women being a
46:24
Speaker 1: big story that people were latching onto. Even though yeah,
46:27
Speaker 1: the population, we know there's a lot of Asian American
46:30
Speaker 1: people here. We know the story is not strange because
46:34
Speaker 1: we know that this community exists and it's has been
46:39
Speaker 1: around for a very long time, but it's taken so long,
46:43
Speaker 1: and honestly, I think even with as popular as it
46:47
Speaker 1: was when Crazy Rich Asian came out, it kind of
46:50
Speaker 1: revamped that, oh my gosh, it's an all Asian cast,
46:54
Speaker 1: because again, we still don't have that outside of international movies,
46:58
Speaker 1: and it's really of setting to see when you know
47:02
Speaker 1: that there's a large population of the A p I
47:05
Speaker 1: community out there whose stories should be told, you know,
47:09
Speaker 1: And I think it was something that's phenomenal to me. Manari.
47:12
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that it has gotten the attention it has.
47:15
Speaker 1: But it also again the kind of was named a
47:18
Speaker 1: an international movie, and it's like, but it's a family
47:23
Speaker 1: that moves to the Midwest, what like parasite understandable, there's
47:29
Speaker 1: a Korean movie, okay, Manori. No, it's literally about Korean
47:36
Speaker 1: family that immigrates to the US and their adjustment to
47:40
Speaker 1: the U s which I haven't seen. I'm going to
47:43
Speaker 1: see and I'm excited to see, and I'm glad it's
47:46
Speaker 1: getting all of the accolais that is. But the fact
47:49
Speaker 1: that it's still very rare and it is outlined like that,
47:53
Speaker 1: it says a lot for what it is. Yeah, And
47:57
Speaker 1: I know in interviews, Amy Tan has talked about her
48:00
Speaker 1: kind of frustration around and how her her viewpoints has
48:04
Speaker 1: kind of changed in his nuance. But the idea that
48:07
Speaker 1: a lot of times this book was classified as multicultural
48:11
Speaker 1: or something, and we've talked about that too with um.
48:15
Speaker 1: Some women have shaped it like the women's literature kind
48:18
Speaker 1: of title, and then that very often will make you
48:24
Speaker 1: a niche where you don't you aren't a niche and
48:26
Speaker 1: you don't need to be, and that decreases your audience.
48:31
Speaker 1: Yeah claims you probably not as prominently displayed or whatever
48:35
Speaker 1: it is. But yeah, yeah, I really really enjoyed this
48:39
Speaker 1: book and I am glad that we read it. There
48:42
Speaker 1: are so many themes we didn't touch on that we could.
48:45
Speaker 1: So there's a lot too, a lot too. There's a
48:48
Speaker 1: lot in this book. Yes, oh yes there is. But
48:52
Speaker 1: that is it's for now. Please keep your suggestions coming.
48:55
Speaker 1: What should we read for our next book club? You
48:58
Speaker 1: can email us at step dm Stuff at I heart
49:00
Speaker 1: media dot com. You can find us on Twitter at
49:02
Speaker 1: mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram as Stuff I've Never
49:04
Speaker 1: told you, I thinks It's always to our super producer, Christina.
49:07
Speaker 1: Thank you Christina, and thanks to you for listening Stuff
49:10
Speaker 1: I Never told you his protection of I Heart Radio.
49:12
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