For years, I avoided reading The Joy Luck Club based on the negative reviews of the book. When I was a new immigrant to America, the idea of writing about eastern cultures in a way that perpetuated and confirmed western stereotypes, was entirely unacceptable. Just on that basis, I could have a severely negative response to a book or a movie. The Joy Luck Club I felt would be one of those and I would regret having read it because some things you cannot unread. I had very little if any familiarity with Chinese culture coming from India and I did not want to start out with what reviewers were calling a major distortion. That was over twenty years ago and much has happened during that time. I can't claim to have any deep understanding of that culture even today but I learned things along the way from interactions with co-workers, neighbors and parents of J's friends.
So on a business trip recently, having a few hours of downtime in a town where there was not much to do, I watched the movie based on this book. Maybe its life stage or experience or both, the story to me was not at all about the negative and uncomfortable depictions of Chinese culture that has the pandering quality I recognize all too well because India writers and movie makers go down this exact path for western popularity. To me the story was one about the mother-daughter relationships and generational trauma that we pass to our daughters and make them suffer needlessly. Breaking the cycle is hard and if it does happen it can leave behind scorched earth. The complex cycle of love-hate, guilt-forgiveness is the lubricant to keep the relationship in equilibrium. That was the real story for me, just that the setting was an unfamiliar one. I was very glad to have seen the movie and a chance to think about my relationship with my mother and my daughter.
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