MajorAlbatrossMaster744
AMY TAN is a gifted storyteller whose first novel, The Joy Luck…
AMY TAN is a gifted storyteller whose first novel, The Joy Luck Club (1989), met with critical acclaim and huge success. The relationships it details between immigrant Chinese mothers and their Chinese American daughters came from Tan’s firsthand experience. She was both in 1952 in Oakland, California, the daughter of immigrants who had fled China’s civil war in the late 1940s. She majored in English and linguistics at San Jose State Univer-sity, where she received a BA in 1973 and an MA in 1974. After two more years of graduate work, Tan became a consultant in language development for disabled children and then started her own company writing reports and speeches for business corporations. Tan began writing fiction to explore her ethnic ambivalence and to find a voice for herself. Since The Joy Luck Club, she has published three more novels -The Kitchen God’s Wife (1991), The Hundred Secret Senses (1995), and The Bonesetter’s Daughter (2001) -as well as children’s books and The Opposite of Fate (2003), a collection of autobiographical essays. She also sings in the Rock Bottom Remainders, a rock band of writers.
“Fish Cheeks” is a very brief narrative, almost an anecdote, but still it deftly portrays the contradictory feelings and the advantages of a girl with feet in different cultures. The essay first appeared in Seventeen, a magazine for teenage girls and young women, in 1987.
For a complementary view of growing up “different,” read the preceding essay, Maya Angelou’s “Champion of the World.”
I fell in love with the minister’s son the winter I turned fourteen. He was not Chinese, but as white as Mary in the manger. For Christmas I prayed for this blond-haired boy, Robert, and a slim new American nose.
When I found out that my parents had invited the minister’s family over for Christmas Eve dinner, I cried. What would Robert think of our shabby Chinese Christmas? What would he think of our noisy Chinese relatives who lacked proper American manners? What terrible disappointment would he feel upon seeing not a roasted turkey and sweet potatoes but Chinese food?
On Christmas Eve I saw that my mother had outdone herself in creating a strange menu. She was pulling black veins out of the backs of fleshy prawns.
The kitchen was littered with appalling mounds of raw food: A slimy rock cod with bulging eyes that pleaded not to be thrown into a pan of hot oil. Tofu, which looked like stacked wedges of rubbery white sponges. A bowl soaking dried fungus back to life. A plate of squid, their backs crisscrossed with knife markings so they resembled bicycle tires.
And then they arrived -the minister’s family and all my relatives in a
clamor of doorbells and rumpled Christmas packages. Rohert grunted hello, and I pretended he was not worthy of existence.
Dinner threw me deeper into despair. My relatives licked the ends of their
chopsticks and reached across the table, dipping them into the dozen or so plates of food. Robert and his family wait&d patiently for platters to be passed to them. My relatives, murmured with pleasure when my mother brought out the whole steamed fish. Robert grimaced. Then my father poked his chopsticks just below the fish eye and plucked out the soft meat. “Amy, your favorite, he said, offering me the tender fish cheek. I wanted to disappear.
At the end of the meal my father leaned back and belched loudly, thank-
ing my mother for her fine cooking. “It’s a polite Chinese custom to show you are satisfed,” explained my father to our astonished guests. Robert was looking down at his plate with a reddened face. The minister managed to muster up a quiet burp. I was stunned into silence for the rest of the night.
After everyone had gone, my mother said to me,”You want to be the same
as American girls on the outside.” She handed me an early gift. It was a miniskirt in beige tweed. “But inside you must always be Chinese. You must be proud you are different. Your only shame is to have shame.
And even though I didn’t agree with her then I knew that she understood how much I had suffered during the evening’s dinner. It wasn’t until many years later long after I had gotten over my crush on Robert – that I was able to fully appreciate her lesson and the true purpose behind our particular menu.
For Christmas Eve that year, she had chosen all my favorite foods.
1- The embarrassing thing/action which stuns Tan into silence for the rest of night is..
A- when her father belches loudly.
B- the food that is served.
C- the fact that her family only spoke Chinese to the minister’s family.
2- The phrase that does not describe the Chinese dinner in the story is..
A- “white sponges” of tofu.
B- “roasted turkey.”
C- “slimy rock cod.
D- “soaking dried fungus.”
3- The title “Fish Cheeks” indicates all of the following except…
A- the difference between Chinese and American customs.
B- Tan’s embarrassment over her family’s customs.
C- Tan’s favorite part of the fish.
D- Tan’s name for herself after that Christmas Eve.
4- Remember, there are four acculturation models: Integration (both cultures), Assimilation (new culture), Separation (old culture), and Marginalization (no culture). What acculturation model does Tan seem to follow (as a child)? What acculturation model does Tan’s family follow?
A- Tan: Integration / Family: Assimilation
B- Tan: Assimilation / Family: Integration.
C- Tan: Marginalization / Family: Separation
D- Tan: Integration / Family: Separation
5- What about the dinner Tan’s mother made shows that her mother understands her?
