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High-context Cultures and Low-context Cultures
The Joy Luck Club explores the clash between Chinese
culture and
American culture. One way of understanding the difference is to look at
communication in these cultures. Chinese culture can be classified as a
high-context culture and American culture as a low-context culture.
First
I will define these terms, then explain the significance of these two
categories,
and finally apply them to The Joy Luck Club.
- Culture is the way of living which a group of
people has developed
and transmits from one generation to the next. It includes concepts,
skills,
habits of thinking and acting, arts, institutions, ways of relating to
the
world, and agreement on what is significant and necessary to know.
Race,
ethnicity, class, and gender are cultural creations; they derive their
meanings
from the culture.
- Context is the whole situation, background, or
environment
connected to an event, a situation, or an individual.
- A high-context culture is a culture in which the
individual
has internalized meaning and information, so that little is explicitly
stated
in written or spoken messages. In conversation, the listener knows what
is meant; because the speaker and listener share the same knowledge and
assumptions,
the listener can piece together the speaker's meaning. China is a
high-context
culture.
- A low-context culture is one in which information
and
meaning are explicitly stated in the message or communication.
Individuals
in a low-context culture expect explanations when statements or
situations
are unclear, as they often are. Information and meaning are not
internalized
by the individual but are derived from context, e.g., from the
situation
or an event. The United States is a low-context culture.
High-context Cultures
In a high-context culture, the individual acquires cultural
information
and meaning from obedience to authority, through observation and by
imitation.
To acquire knowledge in this way and to internalize it, children must
be
carefully trained. High-context cultures are highly stable and slow to
change,
for they are rooted in the past; one example is the Chinese practice of
ancestor worship. They are also unified and cohesive cultures.
In such cultures, the individual must know what is meant at
the
covert or unexpressed level; the individual is supposed to know and to
react
appropriately. Others are expected to understand without explanation or
specific
details. Explanations are insulting, as if the speaker regards the
listener
as not knowledgeable or socialized enough to understand. To members of
a
low-context culture, speakers in a high-context culture seem to talk
around
a subject and never to get to the point.
The bonds among people are very strong in a high-context
culture.
People in authority are personally and literally responsible for the
actions
of subordinates, whether in government, in business, or in the family.
(In
the U.S., on the other hand, the general practice is to find a "fall
guy"
or scapegoat who takes the blame for those with more power and status.)
In a high-context culture, the forms (conventional ways of behaving)
are important;
the individual who does not observe the forms is perceived negatively;
the
negative judgments for an individual's bad behavior may extend to the
entire
family.
In embarrassing or awkward situations, people act as though
nothing
happened. Individuality, minor disagreements, and personality clashes
are
ignored, so that no action has to be taken. Taking action tends to be
taken
seriously, because once started an action must generally be completed.
Individuals
can't stop an action because they change their minds, because they
develop
another interest, because unforeseen consequences arise, or because
something
better comes along. Consequently there is greater caution or even
reluctance
to initiate an undertaking or to give a promise. Chinese parents may
overlook
a child's behavior, because they expect that the strong family
tradition,
which is based on ancestors, will cause the child ultimately to behave
properly.
The Clash of Low-context and High-context Cultures in The
Joy Luck
Club
In a low-context culture, as Edward T. Hall explains, "Most
of
the information must be in the transmitted message in order to make up
for
what is missing in the context (both internal and external)." In a
low-context culture change is rapid and easy; bonds between people are
looser; action
is undertaken easily and can be changed or stopped once initiated.
The mothers in The Joy Luck Club expect their
daughters
to obey their elders and so learn by obedience, by observation and by
imitation,
as they did in China. Their elders did not explain. Because the mothers
internalized
values and knowledge, they seem to assume that knowledge is innate and
that
it is present in their daughters and only has to be brought out or
activated.
The internalization is so psychologically complete and so much a part
of
the mothers' identities that they speak of it as physical. Am-mei, for
instance,
sees in her mother "my own true nature. What was beneath my skin.
Inside
my bones" (p. 40); to her, connection to her mother or filial respect
is
"so deep it is in your bones" (p. 41).
But in this country, the mothers' warnings, instructions, and
example are not supported by the context of American culture, and so
their
daughters do not understand. They resent and misinterpret their
mothers'
alien Chinese ways and beliefs. Similarly, the mothers do not
understand
why they do not have the kind of relationships with their daughters
that
they had with their mothers in China. The Joy Luck mothers were so
close
to their own mothers that they saw themselves as continuations of their
mothers,
like stairs.
The communication problems that arise when one speaker is
from
a high-context culture and the other is from a low-context culture can
be
seen in the conversations of June and Suyuen, "My mother and I never
really understood one another. We translated each other's meanings and
I seemed
to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more" (p. 27).
June
looks for meaning in what is stated and does not understand that her
mother omits important information because she assumes her daughter
knows it and
can infer it; her mother, on the other hand, looks for meaning in what
has
not been stated and so adds to what has been stated explicitly and
comes
up with meanings that surprise her daughter.
The difficulties of growing up in a family from a
high-context
culture and living in a low-context culture appear in other
Asian-American
writers. The narrator of Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior
is unable to decide whether figures she sees are real persons or
ghosts,
whether stories she is told are true or fiction, what the meaning of
those
stories is, why she is told the stories, and whether an event really
happens
or is imagined.
The Talk Story
One way of maintaining and instructing children in traditional ways
which
Chinese immigrants adopted is the traditional Chinese talk story.
According
to Linda Ching Sledge, the talk story "served to redefine an embattled
immigrant
culture by providing its members immediate, ceremonial access to
ancient
lore"; it also "retained the structure of Chinese oral wisdom
(parables,
proverbs, formulaic description, heroic biography, casuistical
dialogue)."
In the talk-story the narrator expects the listener to grasp the point,
which
is often not stated (unlike the Western Aesop's Fables). Tan
adopts
the Chinese talk story in the mothers' warning stories to their
daughters.
The talk story serves another function in this novel; E.D. Huntley
explains,
Talk story enables women who have been socialized
into
silence for most of their lives--the Joy Luck mothers, for
instance--to
reconfigure the events of those lives into acceptable public
utterances:
painful experiences are recast in the language of folk tale; cautionary
reminders become gnomic phrases; real life takes on the contours of
myth.
More significantly, the act of performing talk story allows the
storyteller
to retain a comfortable distance between herself and her audience.
Thus,
the storyteller manages in some fashion to maintain the silence to
which
she is accustomed, as well as to speak out and share with others the
important
stories that have shaped her into the person that she is.
An issue for both mothers and daughters is finding a voice, that is,
finding
a way to express the essential self.
Amy Tan
Amy Tan does not see herself as primarily a Chinese-American writer
focusing
on the immigrant experience. She objects to being limited because of
her
heritage,
Placing on writers the responsibility to represent a
culture
is an onerous burden. Someone who writes fiction is not necessarily
writing
a depiction of any generalized group, they are writing a very specific
story.
There's also a danger in balkanizing literature, as if it should be
read
as sociology, or politics, or that it should answer questions like
"What does The Hundred Secret Senses have to teach us about
Chinese culture?"
As opposed to treating it as literature--as a story, language, memory.
Even though the main characters in all three of her novels are Chinese
or Chinese-American, she sees her writing as having larger concerns,
"What
my books are about is relationships and family. I've had women come up
to
me and say they've felt the same way about their mothers, and they
weren't
immigrants." She sees the writer as "storyteller, teacher, and
enchanter." And she believes the reason we read and write is "to feel
more deeply, to
see more clearly, to know what questions to ask, and to formulate what
we
believe."
The Joy Luck Club
The Joy Luck Club was a critical and a popular success.
Over 2,000,000
copies were sold, Tan received $1.23 million for the paperback rights,
and
it has been translated into seventeen languages--including Chinese.
It was originally intended as a collection of short stories,
an
origin which is still apparent. "The Red Candle" could stand alone,
even
though it is an integral part of the novel. The novel successfully
combines
numerous kinds of writing; Tan draws on the biography, the
autobiography,
the memoir, history, mythology, the folk tale, and the talk story.
The novel has a balanced structure; this is appropriate
because
the Chinese value balance and harmony. There are four sections, and
there
are four tales within each section. Because Suyuen Woo died before the
novel
opens, her daughter June speaks for both of them; this structural
device
expresses the harmony or understanding that the mothers and daughters
finally
arrive at. Because June speaks for herself and her mother, her
narrative
bridges two cultures and the two lives of mother and daughter.
The four sections and tales parallel the four directions,
which
have symbolic value for the Chinese. It is not chance that in the
mahjong
games, Suyuen's corner was east, for " The East is where everything
begins"
(p. 22). Suyuan founded the Joy Luck Club, and China (the East) is
where
the mothers begin and where the daughters' identities also begin. It is
where
the novel ends, with Jing-mei finding her full identity.
The short tales that precede each section introduce the theme
of that section.
- "Feathers from a thousand Li Away" has the feel of a fairy
tale. It
is about the mothers' hopes for their daughters and about
transformation,
"the swan that becomes more than was hoped for" (p. 3). Although
communication
is impossible because of the language difference, the mother in the
tale
waits patiently to communicate with her daughter. The feather is the
mothers'
Chinese heritage, which they want to pass on to their daughters. This
section
gives us the mother's stories in China.
- "The Twenty-Six malignant Gates" introduces the mothers'
protectiveness,
which is expressed in warnings. The daughters ignore the warnings, to
their
own harm. This section presents the daughters' childhood traumas and
development
and their lack of communication with their mothers.
- "American Translation" refers to the American daughters as
the
reflections or duplicates of their Chinese mothers; hence,they are
translations.
The daughters, now adults, discover that their mothers'warnings and
advice
were valid.
- "Queen Mother of the Western Skies" states the theme
explicitly,
"How to lose your innocence but not your hope" (p. 239) The mothers are
the Queen Mother, whose wisdom the daughters should listen to. The
mothers,
who lose their innocence through their terrible sufferings, never lose
hope
for their daughters. The living mothers and daughters come to an
understanding,
and there is hope for the daughters and their relationship with their
mothers;
June/Jing-mei completes her relationship with her dead mother and
experiences
her Chinese identity.
Themes in The Joy Luck Club
Identity.
The stories tell of events which shape the identities of the mothers
and
daughters and give direction to their lives. Though David Denby is
speaking
of the movie, his description applies equally well to the novel, "each
story
centers on a moment of creation or self-destruction in a woman's life,
the moment when her identity becomes fixed forever." The mothers do not
question
their identities, having come from a stable culture into which their
families
were integrated. Their daughters, however, are confused about their
identities.
Communication between American daughters and Chinese
mothers.
The mothers see their duty as encouraging and, if necessary, pushing
their
daughters to succeed; therefore, they feel they have a right to share
in
their success (the Chinese view). The daughters see the mothers as
trying
to live through them and thereby preventing them from developing as
separate individuals and from leading independent lives (the American
view).
The link of the Chinese mothers and Chinese daughters.
The Chinese mothers form a continuity with their mothers in China, a
connection
which they want to establish with their American daughters.
Love, loss, and redemption.
Throughout there exists what David Gates calls a "ferocious love
between mother and daughter" both in China and in this country. But the
women also
suffer loss, which ranges from separation to abandonment to rejection,
in
the mother-daughter relationship and in the male-female relationship.
Sometimes
the loss is overcome and the love re-established.
Connection of the past and the present.
The mothers' past lives in China affect their daughters' lives in this
country,
just as the daughters' childhood experiences affect their identities
and
adult lives.
Power of language.
Without proficiency in a common language, the Chinese mothers and
American
daughters cannot communicate. St. Clair cannot communicate with his
wife,
and so he changes her name and her birth date, taking away her identity
as a tiger. Lena St. Clair mistranslates for her father and for her
mother.
Also, words have great power.
Expectation and reality.
The mothers have great hopes for their daughters; their expectations
for
their daughters include not just success but also freedom. They do not
want
their daughters' lives to be determined by a rigid society and
convention,
as in an arranged marriage, and made unhappy as theirs were. The
American reality fulfilled their expectations in unanticipated and
unacceptable ways.
Another way of expressing this theme is The American Dream and its
fulfillment.
Chinese culture versus American culture.
This conflict appears throughout the novel, from the struggles of the
mothers
and daughters to Lena St. Clair's Chinese eyes and American appearance
and
Lindo Jong's Chinese face and her American face.
Imagery
Food.
Food expresses love. June cooks a dish her father likes after her
mother's
death to comfort him. It also shows relationships, like the competition
in cooking among the mothers. Waverly uses this competition to
manipulate
her mother into inviting Rich to dinner; she arranges to eat at Auntie
Suyuan's
house. Food also reveals character. Waverly selfishly takes the best
crabs
for her daughter, Rich, and herself; June considerately takes the worst
crab so her mother won't get it. Food makes cultural statements; the
first
meal Jing-mei has in China with her relatives is American fast food.
Food
also affirms life, as the Joy Luck meals at Kweilin. And it marks
significant
events--Lindo meets her husband at New Year when fish are being caught
and
cooked, and afterward she sees him at red egg ceremonies. When she
arrives
at her future husband's home, she is sent to the kitchen, a mark of her
low status;
another mark of her subordination is her cooking to please her husband
and
mother-in-law. An-mei almost dies after boiling soup spills on her
neck.
Clothing.
Clothing expresses cultural identity and clashes as well as hides
identity.
Suyuan brings expensive silk dresses from China, then has to wear
hand-me-down
Western clothes which are too big. As an old lady, she dresses
strangely
and wears colors which clash. In a photograph taken when Ying-ying
arrives
in this country, she is wearing a Chinese dress with a Western jacket
which
is too big. On the boat to Tientsin, An-mei is surprised at her
mother's
sudden appearance in Western dress and is thrilled at her own new
dress;
the change to Western clothing represents both the start of a new life
and
estrangement from Chinese tradition.
Dreams.
Dreams allow us to move between the conscious level and the unconscious
level, to express hidden feelings. June dreams of telling her sisters
of
her mother's death and being rejected. A dream brings release in
another
sense; Lindo makes up a dream to escape her marriage without
dishonoring
her family.
Wind and directions.
Waverly thinks of wind in her relationship with her mother and in her
chess
playing. Because "the north wind had blown luck and my husband my way,"
Ying-ying keeps the window open to blow "the spirit and heart" of her
womanizing
husband back; instead the north wind blows him "past my bedroom and out
the
back door" (p. 281).
Websites on Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club
Amy
Tan
Suggestions for teaching The Joy Luck Club.
Annina's
Amy Tan Page
Interviews with Amy Tan, biography.
Crystal's
Amy Tan Page
Stories of women in The Joy Luck Club and
links.
The
Joy Luck Lady
Feature story from The Detroit News>
Voices from the
Gaps:
Women Writers of Color: Amy Tan
Biography, selected bibliography, related links.
Tan Syllabus
Core Studies 6 Page ||
Syllabus
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