The Symbolism in Amy Tan's "The Joy Luck Club"

For thousands of years, Chinese tradition and superstitions had been passed down through generations.  Still today those traditions and superstitions live on not only in China but in America.

Amy Tan’s, The Joy Luck Club, is the ageless classic of the telling of four Chinese immigrant women with their Chinese-American daughters, flowing through their lives together learning and building their relationships with each other through their hardships. The mothers raised in China with unspeakable hardships in their lives as young women, learn the meanings of elements and directions; and in turn, when their daughters are born they try to raise them in the same aspect.  All of the mothers have a set of morals built on Chinese culture and customs just as the daughters have morals built upon the American standards, Amy Tan masterfully tells the story of American born Chinese daughters learning the importance of China’s culture through the symbolism of the five Chinese elements and the importance of the East wind.

The Joy Luck Club’s plot is centered upon the relationships of the mother and daughters in America, all of the mothers play mahjong with each other each mother-daughter pair representing a different direction and element.  Suayan Woo, who is promptly replaced by her daughter Jing-Mei after her unfortunate death, is the East Wind.  “The East is where things begin…” (Tan 33).   This symbolizes the idea that Suayan Woo started the Joy Luck Club with An-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-Ying St. Claire and now that Jing-Mei has replaced her after her death she starts the new generation of the Joy Luck Club, the daughters.  When Jing-Mei joins the Joy Luck Club in her mother’s place, the winds of each woman changes, “... I’m told that Auntie Lin has become the East wind.  I’ve become the North wind, the last hand to play.  Auntie Ying is the South and Auntie An-Mei is the West” (Tan 24).  The shift of winds is due to Jing-Mei being inexperienced in what the Auntie’s call “Chinese” mahjong; it’s explained earlier that the difference between “Jewish” and “Chinese” mahjong is that the Jewish play with only their eyes, whereas the Chinese play with their minds by using tricks and strategies.   

In the Joy Luck Club, wind can symbolize the mothers and daughters spirits.  The mother-daughter pair, Lindo and Waverly Jong, clearly shows the importance of the wind to the story.  We can see this in Lindo Jong’s story, the Red Candle, when she leaves her newly-wed husband’s room and walks to the courtyard to watch the red marriage candle burn in the night, “... I was praying to Buddha, the goddess of mercy, and the full moon- to make the candle go out… My throat filled with so much hope that it finally burst and blew out my husband’s end of the candle.” (Tan 61).  This can show how her spirit was calling to her to blow out the candle like the wind, the wind is strong and fast yet no one can see it coming.  To understand the wind you must understand the art of invisible strength, Waverly Jong learns this lesson from her mother, Lindo Jong, when playing chess as a child, her mother pushes her to be stronger and more strategic, “Her lips would be sealed tight, and after each move I made, a soft ‘Hmmmph!’ would escape from her nose” (Tan 98).  The deep connection between Lindo and Waverly is more than mother-daughter, but they share the same mind.  Both of them think deeply, find ways to make unseen escapes, and furthermore showing they have the same understanding of the wind.  

In Chinese tradition, so many different elements and directions can be seen as good luck, something to describe someone or an omen.  Water is a very important symbol in the Joy Luck Club; for example, Jing-Mei as a college student claims she has “too much water” and flows in too many directions, “... like myself, for having started half a degree in biology, then half a degree in art, and then finishing neither when I went off to work…” (Tan 31).  Traditionally, water can symbolize that a person is indecisive, nervous, anxious, but they can also be honest, kind, and caring, filling up every inch of space they can.  In Ying-Ying St. Claire’s story, she carries the burden of a miscarriage and when she and her family move to a new apartment she rearranges it to try to regain balance in her life.  In Chinese culture, there is a belief called Feng Shui.  It is the belief that when certain objects energy in a home or building are in harmony with man-made and natural environments, it can impact good luck in your life.  When translated Feng Shui literally means “wind” and “water” and in the balance of wind and water come with the harmony of energy; water specifically meaning,  “... Water is the Element of all that flows-oil and alcohol as well as water itself, consequently also symbolizing transport and communication” (Hamilton 1999).  As Ying-Ying tries to ensure good Feng Shui she slowly starts to separate herself from her family and cuts off communication, showing that she is actually putting bad Feng Shui in her home and in the end not succeeding to regain balance in her life. 

The symbolism of the five Chinese elements and the East Wind are used throughout the story using feng shui and the representations of water and wind in the daughter and mothers characters.  Through each of these elements, Tan deepens the importance of Chinese culture to the Americanized daughters. 

Citations:

Hamilton, P. L. (1999). Feng shui, astrology, and the five elements: Traditional chinese belief in amy tan's the joy luck club. Melus, 24(2), 125-145. Retrieved from http://proxy.scld.org/login?name=ProQuest&url=?url=https://search-proquest-com.proxy.scld.org/docview/203770977?accountid=1631

Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. Penguin Books, 1989.