a. Being Superstitious
Chinese culture is identical with superstition. According to Bloomfield 85, in comparison with Chinese people, no other communities, including
American, seem to have a strong connection with dead people and ghosts. In contrasting with American people, Chinese people seem to maintain a strong
connection with the dead or their spirits. They also believe in luck, yin and yang, shio, feng shui, and so forth. Superstition then becomes part of their culture.
There is another problem with the way the daughters in these novels build a concept of a mother. They often see American mothers and they see that a good
or ideal mother is a mother like American mother. This perception makes them have a wish. They wish that they have a mother like what American mother is.
They do not realize that Chinese mother and American mother have different characters. They do not realize that between their mothers and them there is a big
difference: their culture. Their mothers are still conventional and hold the Chinese tradition, while the daughters hold the American modern tradition.
In The Bonesetter’s Daughter, LuLing is very connected with ghost. She believes that the ghost of her mother is there and always reminds her to something
good or bad. In China there is a common way to ask the spirits to know the best thing people should do in their life. It can be written by anyone with or without
skill by doing some rituals to honor the spirits at the beginning. It is popular both in the highest class and the lowest class of Chinese people. It is often being
practiced in every house.
In this novel, LuLing tries to make her daughter believe this “magic” too. Because Ruth is more knowledgeable than her, she always asks Ruth to talk to or
ask the ghost of Precious Auntie about everything they have done or what might happen TBD 85 – 88.
Ruth, who actually did not understand how to talk with ghost, thought her Mom is “crazy” and she made this “talking to the ghost” a game. She asked what
she wanted by saying that it was Precious Auntie’s wish. For example is their moving to San Fransisco is one thing that Ruth had wished for but she said that it
was Precious Auntie’s wish. She used it to outsmart her Mom. An hour later, while LuLing was knitting and watching television, Ruth
took down the sand tray by herself. “Precious Auntie wants to tell you something,” she told her mother.
“Ah?” LuLing said. She immediately stood up and turned off the TV, and eagerly sat down at the kitchen table. Ruth smoothed the sand with the
chopstick. She closed her eyes, then opened them, and began. You must move,
Ruth wrote. Now. “Move?” her mother cried. “Ai-ya Where we should move?”
Ruth had not considered this. Far away, she finally decided. “Where far?”
Ruth imagined a distance as big as an ocean. She pictured the bay, the bridge, the long bus rides she had taken with her mother that made her fall
asleep. San Francisco, she wrote at last. Her mother still looked worried. “What part? Where good?”
Ruth hesitated. She did not know San Fransisco that well, except for Chinatown and a few other places, Golden Gate Park, the Fun House at
Land’s End. And that was how it came to her, an inspiration that moved quickly into her hand: Land’s End. TBD 148-149
Ruth underestimates her mother and thinks that her mother’s belief can
help her to gain advantages or take chances to get what she wants. She does not think about it seriously. Sometimes it makes her fed up and makes she thinks that
it is easy to deceive her mother. Ruth even admitted that she wished that she did not have a mother like LuLing.
While in The Joy Luck Club, Ying-ying and An Mei Hsu are the example of two Chinese women who live with superstition. Ying-ying believes in good
luck and bad luck, soul mate, and prophecy. To this day, I believe my mother has the mysterious ability to see things
before they happen. She has a Chinese saying for what she knows. Chunwang chihan
: if the lips are gone, the teeth will be cold. Which means, I suppose, one thing is always the result of another. TJLC 161
While An Mei Hsu holds the Chinese belief that particular birth dates
might bring dangers. Rose explained it in the story, “My mother had a superstition, in fact, that children were predisposed to certain dangers on certain
days, all depending on their Chinese birthdate” TJLC 131. Ying-ying said to her daughter Lena, “Aii, Lena, your future husband have
one pock mark for every rice you not finish” TJLC 164. Lena feels that what her mother says very much influences her life. She tries to follow what her mother has
said. Besides, Rose, An Mei Hsu’s daughter, is very amazed with the belief or the faith that her mom holds. When Rose’s little brother, Bing, is lost in the beach,
she does what her mother has done although she feels confused with what her mom wants to do as stated in The Joy Luck Club, “This will go where Bing is. I
will bring him back,” she said fiercely. “I had never heard so much nengkan in my mother’s voice” TJLC 138.
This belief makes Lena and Rose feel confused and strange. Both of them and also Ruth think that their mothers are exaggerating. Their mothers are beyond
their reach. All of this is because the mothers do not try to teach the daughters from
the beginning and only talk about this and that easily. According to Nadeau, one
of the causes of the conflicts between mother and daughter is the teaching from the mothers. In this context, the mothers do not try to teach or explain what the
meaning of this belief and why they should believe it. The mothers seem to “push” the daughters to believe it. The daughters who live in the modern time feel
that the mothers are strange and this belief is nonsense. The mothers only think that the daughters have Chinese blood which signifies that they are Chinese
people and they will accept this information naturally. The mothers do not aware that the daughters are living in American culture that is very different from their
Chinese culture—a situation that can explain why their daughters cannot easily understand the Chinese superstition.
What the daughters should do is not trying to change their mothers. They cannot force someone to be what they want. However, they should share the
problems they face, what they like and dislike each other. As Baron and Byrne 9 – 13 state that there are five things that can
influence someone’s behavior. The first is the behavior and characteristics of other’s person
. The second is the social cognition one’s thoughts, attitudes, and inferences about other people around himher. The third is an ecological
variable . The forth is the sociocultural context in which a social behavior
occurs . The fifth is the aspect of one’s physical condition in relevance with
social behavior . The mothers should try to learn American culture where they
live now and try to have social intercourse with American mothers. It is not effective as if in The Joy Luck Club they only befriended with Chinese mothers.
They should think about their daughters’ social intercourse too. The mothers
should try to observe what their daughters like and what their daughters’ habits. It can help them to connect and then have a good sharing moment.
b. Boasting Habit
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