Amy Tan focuses this section of The Joy Luck Club on the fears of Ying-Ying St. Clair and Lindo Jong that they have passed faulty characteristics onto their daughters or have failed to raise them properly. In “Waiting Between the Trees,” Ying-Ying St. Clair shares the story of her first marriage to an unfaithful man and the grief that she suffered when she discovered his infidelities. Over the course of the next several years, Ying-Ying met Clifford St. Clair, wed him, departed for America, and gave birth to Lena, but, unfortunately, she never regained the zest and passion which she harbored for life before the collapse of her first marriage. Forever scarred by the betrayal she suffered, Ying-Ying resolved to becoming a shadow of the fierce Tiger that she used to be. Lena was also born in the Year of the Tiger, but she has grown passive throughout her life and, like her mother, has resembled a shadow; consequently, Ying-Ying worries that she is the reason for Lena’s passivity and regrets the fact that her own quiet lifestyle has distanced her from Lena and led her to watch Lena grow up “from another shore.”
Lindo Jong has similar fears and insecurities in regard to her relationship with her daughter, Waverly. While Lindo and Waverly are at the beauty parlor together, Lindo compares their faces side-by-side and notices that they are very similar and even share “the same happiness, the same sadness, the same good fortune, the same faults.” Lindo raised Waverly with every intention of blending both Chinese and American culture in her life; however, as she looks at her incredibly Americanized daughter, Lindo becomes regretful that she did not instill more Chinese ideals in her daughter. Lindo worries in a manner startlingly similar to Ying-Ying that, because she was passive and allowed Waverly to adopt only American culture, she has forever alienated herself from her daughter. While Ying-Ying and Lindo share very different stories, the reader can certainly sympathize with both mothers who worry that their daughters do not understand them because of faults that they believe they made while raising their daughters.
In my opinion, the most potent quote in this section and perhaps one of the most important passages in the entire novel is when Lindo Jong, who is looking at both her own face and her daughter Waverly’s face in the mirror, remarks, “I think about our two faces. I think about my intentions. Which one is American? Which one is Chinese? Which one is better?” I believe that this quote embodies what is perhaps the most important theme of The Joy Luck Club, which is the influence that cultural differences has on the relationship between a mother and a daughter. Throughout the entire novel, cultural differences between Chinese mothers and American daughters are depicted as a sizeable barrier between the women which prevents them from truly understanding each other; however, as Lindo looks at the faces in the mirror, she can hardly discern which nationality each face represents or which she would prefer them to resemble. Lindo recalls that, while she regrets not instilling more Chinese ideals in her daughter, she also named her daughter “Waverly” after the American street on which she was born so that Waverly would always be reminded of where she truly belonged. This passage shows that the love and understanding shared between a mother and daughter is not limited to or inhibited by the physical characteristics or cultural backgrounds of each individual. The bond that exists is simply because of their unfailing love for each other. I believe that this lesson is something that people of all cultures can and should relate to, for it reminds us all to look for the internal qualities of a person as opposed to judging them based on their appearance, nationality, or cultural background. This theme, or variations of this theme, have also been repeated in many books, songs, movies, and other works, such as the French poem “L’homme Qui Te Ressemble” that I read in French class last year.
A literary term which is used in this section is maxim, or a concise statement that offers advice. When Lindo Jong was younger, she worked in a fortune cookie factory, and maxims, such as “Do not fight and air your dirty laundry in public. To the victor go the soils” were placed in each cookie.
**Visit http://learnspeak.blogspot.com/2006/09/lhomme-qui-te-ressemble-english.html for an English translation of the poem "L'homme Qui Te Ressemble."
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