Joy Luck Club and The Wedding Banquet
Jun. 7th, 2024 04:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avreliaI finished reading Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, which I read for my book club, but which also was my own suggestion. Then I watched the movie (thankfully, it’s available on Hoopla library app), then I happened upon a cool youtube video about a legacy of that book and movie now, more than thirty years after https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIO7RXNAa08.
When I said read – I meant a long confusing process that had me grabbing book and reading it forgetting everything else, then dropping it for weeks, and coming back, trying to remember all the name combinations and characters and wondering what I am missing, not knowing anything about Mahjong and very little of Chinese history and geography.
The names were confusing not so much because they were Chinese, but because there were so many of them at once. I would be just as confused dealing with Mary/Barbara/Edna/Betty/Nancy/Jennifer/Jessica/Sarah. If they were Russian names, I might have either time remember the generation – I know well that Elena and Ekaterina are more likely to be my generation, and Natalia and Valentina are more likely to be from my parents generation (but I know a lot of Natalia’s of my age and younger, so it is all moot) Beside. I just can’t remember all the names. ]
anyway.
I loved the book. And I loved that it works on several levels, some are not accessible for me, some are very close.
A lot of specifically Chinese stuff is pretty much closed to me, I loved it, I empathized, but without the feeling of immediate recognition.
But I felt the immigration pain, and the immigrant parenting pains, and of course, mother-daughter pain. Though the daughters are of the same generation as my mother, and the mothers are closer to my (older) grandmother in age. And I imagine, if they were to talk, these fictional women (but based on real one) would found a lot of common ground with my grandmother.
Look at me – coming back to finish this post two weeks later. And having nothing to say beside me still being impressed.
In the video I noted the discussion of criticism that it provided an overly stereotypical portrayal of Chinese culture an American Chinese women. And the rebuttal that it is not a stereotype when it is 1) based on what really happened 2) it was the first of its kind, and the inspiration of many other books. Alas, not as many movies, since movies picturing Chinese immigrants were not that common even after the success of Joy Luck Club.
I did watch The Wedding Banquet, which is a gay rom com featuring mostly Taiwanese cast, and why have I never heard of it before? It was very sweet and feel-good movie. Both very 90s, and surprisingly progressive in how kind it is to its characters, and how human everyone is there.
(I’ve learned about it following the news about its remake, and I have no faith in the remake at all.)
must post before I got distracted again.
When I said read – I meant a long confusing process that had me grabbing book and reading it forgetting everything else, then dropping it for weeks, and coming back, trying to remember all the name combinations and characters and wondering what I am missing, not knowing anything about Mahjong and very little of Chinese history and geography.
The names were confusing not so much because they were Chinese, but because there were so many of them at once. I would be just as confused dealing with Mary/Barbara/Edna/Betty/Nancy/Jennifer/Jessica/Sarah. If they were Russian names, I might have either time remember the generation – I know well that Elena and Ekaterina are more likely to be my generation, and Natalia and Valentina are more likely to be from my parents generation (but I know a lot of Natalia’s of my age and younger, so it is all moot) Beside. I just can’t remember all the names. ]
anyway.
I loved the book. And I loved that it works on several levels, some are not accessible for me, some are very close.
A lot of specifically Chinese stuff is pretty much closed to me, I loved it, I empathized, but without the feeling of immediate recognition.
But I felt the immigration pain, and the immigrant parenting pains, and of course, mother-daughter pain. Though the daughters are of the same generation as my mother, and the mothers are closer to my (older) grandmother in age. And I imagine, if they were to talk, these fictional women (but based on real one) would found a lot of common ground with my grandmother.
Look at me – coming back to finish this post two weeks later. And having nothing to say beside me still being impressed.
In the video I noted the discussion of criticism that it provided an overly stereotypical portrayal of Chinese culture an American Chinese women. And the rebuttal that it is not a stereotype when it is 1) based on what really happened 2) it was the first of its kind, and the inspiration of many other books. Alas, not as many movies, since movies picturing Chinese immigrants were not that common even after the success of Joy Luck Club.
I did watch The Wedding Banquet, which is a gay rom com featuring mostly Taiwanese cast, and why have I never heard of it before? It was very sweet and feel-good movie. Both very 90s, and surprisingly progressive in how kind it is to its characters, and how human everyone is there.
(I’ve learned about it following the news about its remake, and I have no faith in the remake at all.)
must post before I got distracted again.
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