Amy Tan - The Joy Luck Club (1989)

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To come so far, to lose so much and to find nothing. -Jing-mei

Amy Tan
My mother imparted her daily truths so she could help my older brothers and me rise above our circumstances. We lived in San Francisco's Chinatown. Like most of the other Chinese children who played in the back alleys of restaurants and curio shops, I didn't think we were poor. My bowl was always full, three five-course meals every day, beginning with a soup full of mysterious things I didn't want to know the names of.

Amy Tan
A psychiatrist does not want you to wake up. He tells you to dream some more, to find the pond and pour more tears into it. And really, he's just another bird drinking from your misery.

Amy Tan
If she doesn't speak, she is making a choice. If she doesn't try, she can lose her chance forever. -An-mei

Amy Tan
And for all those years, we never talked about the disaster at the recital or my terrible accusations afterward at the piano bench. All that remained unchecked, like a betrayal that was now unbreakable. So I never found a way to ask her why she had hoped something so large that failure was inevitable. And even worse, I never asked her what frightened me the most: Why had she given up hope?

Amy Tan
And after I played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song.

Amy Tan
There's no hope. There's no reason to keep trying. Because you must. This is not hope. Not reason. This is your fate. This is your life, what you must do.

Amy Tan
I did not lose myself all at once. I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain, the same way carvings on stone are worn down by water.

Amy Tan
And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood.

Amy Tan
How can the world in all its chaos come up with so many coincidences, so many similarities and exact opposites?

Amy Tan
Wise guy, he not go against wind. In Chinese we say, Come from South, blow with wind — poom! — North will follow. Strongest wind cannot be seen.

Amy Tan
Yesterday my daughter said to me, 'My marriage is falling apart.' And now all she can do is watch it falling.

Amy Tan
I had on a beautiful red dress, but what I saw was even more valuable. I was strong. I was pure. I had genuine thoughts inside that no one could see, that no one could ever take away from me. I was like the wind.

Amy Tan
People there only dream that it is China, because if you are Chinese you can never let go of China in your mind.

Amy Tan
I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these things do not mix?

Amy Tan
That was the night, in the kitchen, that I realized I was no better than who I was... And I no longer felt angry at Waverly. I felt tired and foolish, as if I had been running to escape someone chasing me, only to look behind and discover there was no one there.

Amy Tan
Now that I'm angry at Harold, it's hard to remember what was so remarkable about him.

Amy Tan
All these years I kept my true nature hidden, running along like a small shadow so nobody could catch me. And because I moved so secretly now my daughter does not see me.

Amy Tan
But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better. -Jing-mei

Amy Tan
But I will win and give her my spirit, because this is the way a mother loves her daughter. -Ying Ying

Amy Tan
I think now that fate is half shaped by expectation, half by inattention. But somehow, when you lose something you love, faith takes over. You have to pay attention to what you lost. You have to undo the expectation.

Amy Tan
I had new thoughts, willful thoughts, or rather thoughts filled with lots of won'ts. I won't let her change me, I promised myself. I won't be what I'm not.

Amy Tan
My father has asked me to be the fourth corner at the Joy Luck Club. I am to replace my mother, whose seat at the mah jong table has been empty since she died two months ago. My father thinks she was killed by her own thoughts.

Amy Tan
I love my daughter. She and I have shared my body. There is a part of her mind that is a part of mine. But when she was born, she sprang from me like a slippery fish, and has been swimming away ever since.

Amy Tan
A girl is like a young tree, she said. You must stand tall and listen to your mother standing next to you. That is the only way to grow strong and straight. But if you bend to listen to other people, you will grow crooked and weak. You will fall to the ground with the first strong wind. And then you will be like a weed, growing wild in any direction, running along the ground until someone pulls you out and throws you away.

Amy Tan