`Joy Luck Club' Is About Sacrifice And Hope, On The Screen And In Life

In 1989 Amy Tan's novel, "The Joy Luck Club," was a surprise bestseller which introduced many of its fans to the conflicts and contradictions in Chinese-American family life. With last week's opening of a major Hollywood movie of "The Joy Luck Club," we asked a Chinese-American writer, new to the Seattle area, to respond to the novel's translation to the screen.

In my closet hang dresses Ma wore more than my lifetime ago. They are impossible dresses, neat and perfect, of pillowy wool with waistbands barely larger than bracelets. But I have proof: photographs of a young woman, not yet anyone's mother, beautiful in these same dresses.

These were the good clothes Ma rarely wore but kept locked away for a special occasion, inside plastic, in suitcases perfumed with mothballs.

"This is good enough for home," she would say, pulling on pants and a blouse stretched from use. By the time I, her eldest daughter, reached high school, Ma was filling my closets with her old good-as-new clothes while wearing my discards. I'm thin, but when I step into Ma's clothes, the fit is tight and the zippers refuse to rise.

And so, as I watched the daughters and mothers in the new film of "The Joy Luck Club," my face grew hot. I was a peeping tom into a familiar dressing room: Rose, Waverly, Lena and June struggle with their mothers' fits; at arm's length, they compliment the lovely wardrobes, secretly mark their weirdness, and push them to the back of the closet, only to try them on again later. None of the dresses fit; they will have to be altered, reshaped and made into the daughters' own.

The mothers fidget, too, uncertain whether their offerings are tainted by tragedies in their native China or how their American-born daughters will respond. The mothers expect nothing, since they had been taught that Chinese women are little more than producers for others' pleasures: food, sex, sons.

Both generations are fearful of revealing their true identities, yet hopeful of discovery. This is the greatest truth of "The Joy Luck Club," both the film and the novel. The mothers forged in old China overcome mandates of their worthlessness; in fashioning hope for themselves, they are able to pass on hope to their daughters. The younger generation, in turn, learns to accept their mothers and their histories without succumbing to the seduction of traditional self-sacrifice. The daughters learn that both sacrifice and hope come in many disguises.

Such revelations have come true for many Chinese Americans; others of us continue to work at distinguishing what is from what appears to be. Our progress is slower - after all, we have been trained to hide. Like Waverly's mother, Lindo, who picks her teeth while cupping one hand over her mouth, we are immersed in outward decorum even while gouging at ourselves. We meet coyness with coyness, but sincerely so: "Oh, this dish is very bad," demands the response, "No, this is excellent!" Intent becomes incidental to propriety.

Many Chinese-American women raised in traditional homes are adept at such disguise. We have learned our lessons too well, make ourselves as unobtrusive as possible. Baby boys are praised for their strong cries, while baby girls are hushed; girls grow, and remind themselves to hush. In the film, Rose and Lena are wonderful hiders - and so I cheered all the louder when they come out.

Awakenings like these are not exclusive to Chinese Americans, but are universal - another appeal of "The Joy Luck Club" - and important to celebrate. As a Taiwanese-American woman, I recognized these glints of awareness and identified with aspects of the main characters. And how refreshing to see Asians on the screen who were not flying through the air, throwing karate kicks, seducing sailors, or muttering wise Confucian sayings. For not cashing in on stereotypes, director Wayne Wang deserves credit.

Yet, while "The Joy Luck Club" moved my emotions, my logic remained unconvinced. Chinese-American women, for instance, gather kudos today as they climb society yet also are expected to keep tradition firmly in tow: produce handsome children, please men, cook good food. These demands are barely visible in the movie.

Instead, the plot is manipulated to provide easy outs. Sensing problems with the marriage, Ying-ying encourages daughter Lena to leave her husband; never have I head a Chinese mother sanction such action. Rather, I have heard mothers rage: "Unhappy? So what? Life is hard. You fight? It doesn't matter; you ignore him. But you stay married."

Likewise, the men in "The Joy Luck Club" are used as vehicles for reactions by the women, but little else. They commit dramatic acts, then disappear; when present, they often are one-dimensional ogres or buffoons. Caricaturing Chinese-American men should not be the trade-off for recognizing Chinese-American women.

Ultimately, "The Joy Luck Club" makes the mothers' and daughters' emergence look easy. Conflicts centuries in the making are overcome with good cries in conventional female domains - the beauty parlor, the kitchen, the bedroom. Implausibly quick resolutions, though prettily done.

Today, I keep my mother's dresses though they don't fit me. I add to the row of hangers by occasionally indulging myself and buying something new, something fashionable. I rush from the store to hang the dress in my closet, plastic shroud intact, in anticipation of a special occasion. Like my mother, I do not wear these dresses alone in my house. I wait.

At the least, "The Joy Luck Club" triumphs in reminding Chinese-American women that we can pull out our finery and admire ourselves anytime we want.

(Mary F. Chen, a former attorney, teaches writing at Tacoma Community College and recently won the Charles Angoff Award for a story in The Literary Review. She is at work on her first novel.)