Identity Dilemma in Amy Tan`s Rules of the Game - Living in American and Chinese culture

Table of contents

1. Introduction 

2. Waverly’s struggle with the Chinese culture 

          2.1 Her distant relation    
          2.2 The strict Chinese upbringing     

          2.3 Impacts of the Chinese conditions

3. Waverly’s conflict with the American culture

          3.1 The anti-American view of her mother

          3.2 Assimilation problems  

          3.3 Incongruity of the American and the Chinese culture

4.Conclusion   

5. Works cited 

Leibniz University of Hannover  
Academic Writing and Research

Identity Dilemma

Living within two cultures can be challenging, especially in the case of the contrasting American and Chinese culture. Many Asian Americans are exposed to this multicultural living in the United States. They can be differentiated by generational means, i.e. the first-generation immigrants, who were born in China and then migrated to the United States, and their offspring, the second-generation-immigrants, who were born in America and live there.

Only knowing China and its culture from their parents’ narratives, these second-generation immigrants do not have the same close relation to the Chinese culture as their parents,

but they are also likely to never completely fit into the American society due to their Chinese roots.

         In Amy Tan's short story, "Rules of the Game", the protagonist, Waverly Jong, struggles with growing up in-between two cultures and has difficulties to match the American way of life with the typical Chinese ideas of decent living. On one hand it is hard for Waverly to participate in American life, because she grows up in a Chinese environment.

On the other, she is not able to be a traditional Chinese daughter because of the fact, that she is born in America and also influenced by the American culture. 

      

   “Like most of the other Chinese children […] we didn’t think we were poor. My bowl was always full ,[…], beginning with a soup of mysterious things, I didn’t want to know the names of.”(Tan, 89) By means of this quote from the first passage of the text we can already guess that Waverly lives surrounded by elements of the Chinese culture but still feels a certain distance towards them.         Despite growing up with the Chinese culture, some Chinese objects still seem alien to her.

Through her parents and the Chinese neighbourhood she is accustomed to the Chinese culture (Tan 89-91), but outside home it is the American culture that Waverly encounters (Tan 98) and the daily exposure and acclimatization to American cultural standards make it difficult for Waverly to perceive the Chinese culture unbiasedly.

         William Wei phrases this as the general problem of Asian immigrants, who see the Asian culture through “the prism” (Wei 46) of another culture and therefore have problems considering the Asian culture in its origin. Thus, for Waverly a close relation to the Chinese culture is not as self-evident as for her parents because she has never been in China.

The theory stating that culture is a learned and acquired behaviour proves that Waverly does not “automatically have” the Chinese culture just “because of the biology of the parent”(Smedley 697) and “some genetic or genealogical connection”(Smedley 697 ). Culture is not inherited but must be learned, but even this learning of the Chinese culture constitutes an obstacle for Waverly due to problems in the communication with her mother.

Lindo Jong, as Waverly’s bench mark for the Chinese culture, only enunciates in broken English. Like this, meaningful units get lost in trying to mediate Chinese values to her daughter and make it hard for Waverly to comprehend her mother’s teachings (Ho 162).

         Internalising the Chinese culture for people that have Asian roots and were born in America is complicated by the fact that they tend to limit their parents’ culture to places like home and therefore only are part of the Chinese culture in the special respects that they select (Tong.180). We can apply this to Waverly’s situation, as she is surrounded by the Chinese culture, especially by the Chinese raising of her mother, at home and in her neighbourhood .Away from home, however, she is confronted with “American education and socialization” (Tong180)

Being exposed to the Western youth culture is considered by Bensong Tong as reason to be less likely to correlate the parents’ cultural ideas (Tong180).

        To sum up, it can be said that Waverly’s distant relation to the Chinese culture is a result of several factors, such as growing up with the American culture and the limitation of experiencing the Chinese culture to certain places and instances. Furthermore the difficult circumstances of learning the Chinese culture, and the instance that culture is not inherited but learned, are responsible for Waverly’s distance to the Chinese culture.                                                                                      

         A further reason for Waverly’s struggle with growing up under Chinese circumstances are her mother’s strict upbringing methods, that are common for Chinese families.

         As research shows, the primary focus on the academic efforts of their children widespread among Chinese and  Asian-American immigrant mothers  (Gorman 75). In their study about “Educational Expectations of Asian American Youths” Kimberly Goyette and Yu Xie found out that Asian-American pupils have notably high educational expectations whereas a main factor is constituted by the high expectations of their parents (Goyette and Xie 24).

This is what Waverly’s mother tells her right after winning a chess game. Waverly’s mother and other Chinese immigrants share the notion that “means and conditions of survival” play an important role in leading a successful life (Bloom 48). This is reasoned by the Chinese past, which due to its warfares and hunger crises demands this survival-mentality (Bloom 49).

To guarantee her daughter’s surviving in the world Waverly’s mother always imparts her Chinese rules and wisdoms (Tan 89). But Waverly has difficulties grasping the meaning of these sayings (Tan 89), as a six-year old girl, who did not encounter many situations that imply a particular survival-mentality.

    An old principle that has prevailed in the Chinese culture ever since, rooted in the xiang-yue system of the 17th century, is the convention to be “filial and obedient” to one’s parents (Baker 119). More modern mothers, like those from “The Joy Luck Club , such as Lindo Jong, apply this principle and premise the absolute dutifulness of their daughters (Ho 157).Waverly is confronted with the consequences of disregarding this rule after running away from her mother and not returning despite her mother’s cries.

So we can see that “Rules of the game” depicts some typical ideas of Chinese upbringing, applied by Waverly’s mother. Especially the widespread Chinese notion, that leading a decent life requires a certain survival mentality and efforts to gain academic success are demonstrated in the short story. Being obedient to one’s parents is also a major principle in Chinese culture, shown in “Rules of the game”.

          The common Asian upbringing methods reveal different impacts on Waverly. The Chinese wisdoms that her mother imparts her provide the base of Waverly’s success in chess (Tan 89). She can benefit from her mother’s lessons of “strategic” survival skills (Ho 177) and her teachings of “invisible strength” (Tan (for the whole game one must ) in order to beat her opponents.

          Nevertheless being raised under Chinese conditions often affects Waverly in a negative way. Lindo Jong and the other mothers in “The Joy Luck Club” indeed look after their daughters’ success in academic terms but therefore often forget about the emotional situation and feelings of their daughters (Ho 157).The high expectations of her mother put Waverly under enormous pressure and lead to the fear of failing or disappointing her family (Tan 96), which prevents her from enjoying the chess game.

         Her mother’s Chinese sayings and demanding attitude finally follow Waverly into her dreams. She has a nightmare about her mother , embodied by two slitted eyes as her opponent in chess, who imparts her Chinese wisdoms and has to be defeated by Waverly (Ho 157).

         All in allthe Chinese circumstances rather represent a burden, as Waverly does not have the self-evident understanding of her parents towards the Chinese culture and has to suffer from the strict raising methods of her Chinese-born mother. Indeed the Chinese cultural ideas are profitable for Waverly with regard to chess, but concerning her emotional state rather confuse and distress her.

     As Waverly is of American nationality and thus was born and grew up in America, one could suggest that she feels part of the American culture and is able to cope with living in America.

It is her multicultural background, however, that complicates establishing an American identity. At home she is exposed permanently to the America- neglecting attitude of her Chinese mother, and away from home Waverly is accustomed to the American culture, but can not hide her Chinese roots, because at least her Asian appearance always reminds her of those.

         “Chinese people do many things," she said simply. "Chinese people do business, do medicine, do painting. Not lazy like American people. (Tan 91). This quote picks up the apparent devaluating attitude of Waverly’s mother towards American people that Waverly is confronted with at home. The deprivation of the Americans’ diligence is spread within the Chinese nation, as studies concerning the international perception of America show ( Kohut 31-33).

Her mother’s hostile view misleads Waverly to see America in a negative light and prevent her from developing an unbiased and positive perception of America and also from perceiving it as her proper home country. When it comes to the question of playing in a local tournament, Waverly already presumes that she is not allowed to participate because the tournament is based on “American rules” (Tan 96) that her mother would neglect (Tan 96)

          Due to her mother’s anti-American view a negative image of America is imposed on Waverly.

It is difficult for her to find an appropriate attitude towards America as her home country due to the omnipresence of the Chinese negligence towards the American culture. Therefore Waverly can not properly assimilate to the American culture and the American life. It is difficult for her to create an American identity and a genuine identification with the culture of her home country, because she is “always the product of two cultures” (Bloom 31), namely the Chinese and the American culture.

As a result she can consider herself being neither a truly Chinese girl or an American girl and finds herself caught in a “cultural trap” (Bloom 19).

         Furthermore, growing up in a rather Chinese surrounding (San Francisco’s Chinatown) leads to an increased awareness of the Chinese ethnicity (Tong 180) for Waverly and therefore to the diminishing of American values. Even if Waverly understood herself as American citizen, this does not imply that the majority accepts her as one, because her “Chineseness”(Bloom 56) always affects her in being perceived as American by white people, which due to their foreign appearance are likely to perceive Asian – Americans as foreigners (Wei 44-45).

       Taking the mentioned problems into account we can state that Waverly’s multicultural background complicates establishing an American identity for her. The Chinese environment and her mother’s adherence to traditional Chinese values, as well as her Asian appearance, impede assimilation to the American culture and being accepted as American.

          The text offers characteristic principles of the Chinese culture: One of the first guideline we encounter in “Rules of the game”, is the ability to “bite back” one’s “tongue” (Tan 89, 96) which presents the importance of self-control. Also modesty is suggested in the text as requirement for decent and successful Chinese living ; realized by an older Chinese man’s advice to “never announce check with vanity” (Tan 95).

Another central aspect of the Chinese culture, postulated by Waverly’s mother, is the distinct achievement-orientation (Gorman 76). This displays a contradiction to a characteristic, which pursuant to a questionnaire on Asian mothers is typical American; namely “being too lenient” with their offsprings (Gorman 77) But it may be due to this laissez-faire attitude that “Americans are more optimistic and happier than most people and consistently express more satisfaction with the way that their lives are going” (Kohut 56-57).

         Especially these discrepant moral concepts, e.g. the focus on achievement, success and conformity in the Chinese culture and the emphasis on leading a happy life and individuality in the American culture, prohibit a successful arranging of both cultures and therefore prevent Waverly from matching the American ideas to her “other culture”.

To sum up, it can be said, that Waverly has to struggle with living with both the Chinese and the American culture, because each culture influences and complicates the other.

          Growing up in America and being accustomed to the American culture affects Waverly in adopting the Chinese culture as her original culture. Because she is exposed to the contrasting American values and views, she has difficulties understanding and submitting herself to her mother’s Chinese education methods, and therefore to be a traditional Chinese daughter.

          Waverly’s Chinese roots forbid creating a proper American identity and her American nationality implies that she can not truly be Chinese.

Bibliography

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Bensong, Tong. The Chinese Americans. Greenwood Press, 2000. Print.

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Gorman, Jean Cheng. “Parenting Attitudes and Practices of Immigrant Chinese Mothers of Adolescents”. Family Relations, Vol 47, No.1 (Jan., 1998), pp. 73-80. Print.

Goyette, Kimberly and Xie , Yu. "Educational Expectations of Asian American Youths: Determinants and Ethnic Differences." Sociology of Education Vol. 72 January 1999: 22-36. Print.

Kohut, Andrew, and Bruce Strokes. America Against the World. Times Books, 2006. Print.

Smedley, Audrey. “Race” and the Construction of Human Identity”. American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 100, No. 3 (Sep., 1998), pp. 690-702). Print.

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Wei, William. The Asian American Movement. Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1993. Print.