4/12/2011 - Chinese drama. . .

Sam first watched The Joy Luck Club a few years ago, before he and I had ever met.  It is a sprawling movie based on Amy Tan's book of the same name, an homage to Chinese-American daughters, their mothers, and often, their mothers' mothers, and how the histories of all these women shape the friendships they developed over a lifetime.  Oh, and mah jong. 

Yet I'm pretty sure out of all this, Sam really only took away two things:

• He learned to put his hand on my shoulder, look me square in the eyes and say, "Yes, sweetheart, I see you," when I annoy him while he sits enraptured by the latest made-for-TV masterpiece on the Syfy Channel.  For dramatic effect, he'd often repeat it in a whisper: "I see you."
• Also, he discovered what he thinks is the epitome of Chinese drama: committing suicide by overdosing on opium-filled sticky buns, but leaving a half-eaten one on the bedside table just like one of the characters did in order to give a better life to her daughter.  If he feels like I am overreacting to something (which, for the record, I would never), he'd say, "Could you please tone it down a notch?  I'm out of sticky buns."

Similarly, I watched The Joy Luck Club in high schol when it first came out, and I only took away two things as well: it was melodramatic, and completely overwrought with the kind of Chinese parental passive-aggression that I was already all too familiar with, as if there was nothing more to being Chinese than to perfect the art of suffering.  All of a sudden, critics hailed this sensitive portrayal of Chinese-Americans, and it was nothing more than my teenage life on a Sunday afternoon.  Rubbish!

However, I was reminded of it by a friend's post on Facebook, so Sam and I decided to rewatch it.  Yes, the drama factor was still high, and I still cringe at some of the characters' mannerisms--so accurate that I'd swear my mom was brought in as a creative consultant.  But otherwise, I couldn't remember why I disliked it so much back in high school.  It was actually pretty great and so much more nuanced than I remember it being.  When June, the main character who struggled in her relationship with her mother, finally receives the validation she craves when her mother tells her that she sees her "best-quality heart," I imagine countless daughters out there who ever had complicated relationships with their mothers simultaneously feel their hearts break at this scene.

I felt almost embarassed by how much I saw myself in all those Joy Luck daughters: the submissive one, the bitchy and competitive one, the one who, after years in adulthood, still wants to make her parents proud.  Amazing how universal some experiences can be, like growing up Chinese in America, as if led by a cultural DNA that grabs a hold of us shortly after birth and takes us through our own rites of passage.

And the more I thought about it, the more I suspected that a major reason for my dislike of this movie, and my change of heart watching it as an adult, was because it reminded me so much of home and myself.  Here is a story of parents wanting the best for their children and learning how to adapt as best they can when those children, so carefully raised with the highest hopes and expectations, turn out to be defiantly different.  Throw my mom and dad in front of a mah jong table and they could have been in this movie. 

But also, a theme that eluded me as a teenager was the idea of parents who found themselves caught between cultures: one of Chinese tradition, and another of American progression.  As a child, I was taught to speak Mandarin at home, go to Chinese school on Saturdays, grow up and marry a Chinese girl.  I now speak a mish-mash of Ch-English, didn't learn a thing during all those Saturdays, and regularly bring home my white boyfriend on the weekends.  My parents took these developments and rolled with it, as best they could. 

And really, that's what The Joy Luck Club was all about, I think--taking what is available to you and making the best of it.  Not passive-aggression, not suffering.  Just optimism, selflessness, and stoicism in the face of adversity.  What's not to like about that?