The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

“When I saw the hills I laughed and shuddered at the same time. The peaks looked like giant friend fish heads trying to jump out of a vat of oil. Behind each hill, I could see shadows of another fish, and then another and another. And then the clouds would move just a little and the hills would suddenly become monstrous elephants marching slowly toward me! Can you see this? And at the root of the hill were secret caves. Inside grew hanging rock gardens in the shapes and colors of cabbage, winter melons, turnips, and onions. These were things so strange and beautiful you can’t ever imagine them” (Tan pg.7)

Pre-Reading Notes (04/11/2023)

Starting with a slice of life family novel, this week I will be reading The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. I actually discovered this book in the Student Equity and Arts Lounge (the SEAL) on campus, and checked in out of their mini library months ago without reading it. I have a little background on the book, I know it follows four families, highlighting the Chinese mothers and their Chinese American daughters, and presents stories through vignettes. I do not however, know that much about how it connects to food studies, only that when I said I was a food studies student interested in different ideas of eating, the person in the SEAL said “oh my god you have to read this book”. The books is said to be structured like a Mahjong game, in four parts and sixteen chapters, I’m sure the deeper reasoning for this will become apparent but for now it’s an incredibly fun way to think of reading a book, as a collaborative game in many parts. The book is 329 pages, written originally in English, and published in 1989. The version I have was published in 2019 with an updated author preface.  

Preface Notes

This was Tans first novel, and she worried that it would not pick up due to it being a story about Chinese Americans by a Chinese American author. She also noted that people believe this book to be a thinly veiled memoir although she has never been divorced (spoiler?) or had any children. She mentions that though they are not direct memoirs of her life, she finds herself “emotionally shaken and exhilarated by unexpected epiphanies” at the completion of each novel, demonstrating how our chosen form of expression never fails to betray our true feelings. She tells us that though her mother is not exactly a character portrayed in “The Joy Luck Club”, her life and subsequentially Tans’ life does reflect intensely through this novel.  

She mentions the way her mother spoke about her childhood, and how it changed after the release of her first novel. I am familiar with the sudden switch from distain to pride once one has made a public achievement, but what stood out to me was the way in which her “lazy daydreaming” was now titled as a “wild imagination”. Despite these things, she concludes the preface with clear and desperate love for her mother.  ‘

Post-Reading Notes

It’s hard to summarize a book like this without giving you a multi-page breakdown of the many characters, interconnecting storylines, and moments of pure emotional turmoil this book lays out for you. If you were hoping to read that, I suggest you just go and read the book, it was an absolute masterpiece and stayed on my mind for days. While food is not the driving conflict of the novel, the plot is heavy with instances of food driving the main plotlines, and examples of how food transforms simple circumstances into extraordinary or notorious ones. I have picked a few to use as examples, but if you are interested in seeing a list of every kind of food names in the novel, I actually found one here.

The books titular story The Joy Luck Club follows Jing-Mei “June” Woo, as she is excepted to take her now deceased mothers place in the Joy Luck Club.

The Joy Luck Club was originally started as a way to cope with the war, after some research I think they are referring to the time period of the Manchukuo puppet government, so between 1931 and 1945. Four women who came together weekly to cook themselves a feast and bet what little money they had playing Mahjong, taking turns hosting and creating an abundance out of what little they could pull together for each other. They were not the poorest of those they lived around and often were shamed for cooking themselves elaborate meals in such difficult times, but continued to hold to the tradition, needing something to bring them that much needed joy and luck.  

While the story usually ends in a variation of her mother using the winnings to buy rice or broth, June recalls one time her mother told her the true ending to that story, which was that she fled the town with her two children on her back, beginning a long treck to find her husband stationed far away. Suyuan has to leave her two children on the side of the road to complete the journey, and while she never learns the fate of her children, at the end of the chapter it is revealed that they are alive and in communication with Junes family.  Throughout the chapter food is present in almost every scene, and when it is present it is described as varied and abundant, they do not describe in detail times in which they have gone without. The Joy Luck Club now deals in stocks at their meetings instead of betting with each other, and the food is bought from a local restaurant. June is pushed to travel to find her family, not to meet them per say, but to spread the memory of her mother.

Early on the book is heavy in themes of conflicting identify, with Junes memories of her mother being both fond and heavy with something that feels like regret, or discontentment. Suyuan dealt with external conflicts to her identity while using what little she had to create the “feasts” for the Joy Luck Club. There is also Junes conflict with her Chinese heritage, highlighted by her inner monologue surrounding her families clothing, and use of her American versus her Chinese name.  Conflicting identity seems to be one of the key themes of this book, demonstrated many times through food and consumption.

In “Scar” presented by An Mei Hsu, she recalls how after her mother left her and her brother, An-Meis family referred to them as “two eggs that nobody wanted, not even good enough to crack over rice and porridge”. She is encouraged to forget her mother, to act as if she never existed and when she returns is conflicted on how to approach being around her. Despite having been tossed aside by her family, An-Meis mother returns when her own mother gets sick, to create her a medicinal soup of herbs, medicine, and the flesh of her arm. This relates to food studies in both the act of consuming flesh as a form of medicine/sustenance, but also food as medicine, and the conflicting act of returning to a home that banished you, to draw your own blood for someone who may not do the same to you. This chapter was heartbreaking, and left me with so many questions for Amy Tan.

I’m having trouble picking my book for next week but I will be having my roommate pick for me at random when they get home.