The Two Daughters Left Behind

2. The Joy Luck Club

3. My thoughts on the chapter are that I really liked the reason why the women created the joy luck club. The reason was that the women would either sit and cry about what was lost and what they don't have, or they could celebrate what they do have. I like the idea of forgetting your troubles, even if for just one day in the entire week, and have a good time with your friends. The silly weekly tradition carried on until they were having children, and their children were having children. This warms my heart because of the strength of the bond these friends had.

I also thought that it was sad that An-Mei Hsu's gifts were rejected by her family on her trip back to China. It really annoyed me that her family could be so greedy and leech $9000 from her and her husband.

4. Lindo Jong and Suyuan Woo were very competitive with one another. They weren't competitive because of their own talents, but by how good and talented their daughters were. The scene that supports this is when Jing-Mei told of all the things they would compete about.

5. A writing technique Amy Tan uses well to enhance the story is flashbacks. The story about the people living in Kweilin leaving because of the Japanese invading sets up the rest of Jing-Mei's story in this novel. Without that flashback, we would not have been able to imagine that struggle that her mother had, the pain it must have felt to abandon her own daughters in China, or why Jing-Mei was needed to go back to China to visit.

6. A few things I learned about Chinese culture are a few food dishes people in China ate. I learned that they played mah jong to pass the time. I also saw how competitive parents were when it came to education and their children. They also seemed to value family if they told Jing-Mei to find her long-lost sisters and tell them about the mother they never had.