In the stride of Globalization, amidst the tide of cosmopolitanization. Acculturation and
Enculturation has become non unfamiliar, but actually a necessity, a social
phenomenon that is slowly penetrating the present state of social communication
structure, in terms of business communication, social education, nonetheless-
the family relationship. In this film, The Joy Luck Club, based on the
novel by Amy Tan. The author uses her personal experience as the keel of the
storyline, giving life to the characters and plot of the scene, vividly
interpreting the lives of a pioneer generation of Chinese immigrants and their
second generation. Here their second generations, children that have never had
a glance of their home China, but nourished with American milk and school books
after their birth, have no sense of Chinese culture. Thus after their
detachment from the mother bodies umbilical cord, the only infiltration of
cultural blood in their heritage, comes only from their mom. Although these Chinese
Asian American girls conflict with their mothers up-bring, even after they have
matured as mothers of their own children, this continuous strangle of conflict
still remains.... Culture
itself, is a continuous development and state of learning, understanding
the culture schema will take a lifelong learning process. A process that never
stops, till the day we depart from this world. And till that day, the world
will keep coming to us, therefore there is no stopping in cultural learning and
acculturation.
This novel
written in 1989, following the movie in 1993, was a phenomenon,
since it was an era of immigration, and immigration was only beginning to prosper due to the reviving economics
of the United States. But until today, after, with evidence
to Amy Chou’s “Battle Hymn of The Tiger Mom” (published in 2011), a confession of
Chua, as an autobiographic way of illustrating her experiences and efforts of applying
what she describes as a traditional, strict “Chinese” upbringing educating her own girls.
Personally, I enjoyed Amy Chou's novel very much, due to it's bald honesty and truthfulness,
and how she vividly displays her mind-set, while some still traditional Chinese parents, feel guilt of confessing of.
In the joy
luck club, the plot focuses on 4 sets of family, each of the Chinese mothers come from a tragic past in
China. Suyuan Wu a refugee from the Japanese invasion in China, is forced to
leave behind her twin babies in China, after escaping to the USA, she lives in
uncertainty of unknowing the babies dealth or well-being. Lindo Jong, a women
that has married at an young age to an unmature man, by the words of a
matchmaker, determined to escape this unfortunate
situation, managed a clever plan releasing herself from this marriage, later fledding to America. Ying-Ying, one of the four women,
marries a charismatic man named Lin Xiao at an young age, just to find out her
husband is revealed to be a womanizer and has an abusive characteristic. In an
extreme mental state, she accidentally drown her baby, and is heart-broken. In
anguish she leaves the country later marrying another man in America. These 4
women all finding hope in this new destination, leaving their past
behind. Opening the psychological effects of the a person’s Johari window, we
learned that when a person finds hope in a whole new country or environment.
Entering a new country makes the self- healing process begin, allowing those
hidden parts and Open parts rearrange. Thus later, these four women created
“the Joy Luck Club ”, which is a act of triumph and rejoice, celebrating their
bondage of rebirth in this new country.
We see these four independent women, and their daughters
going through the process of acculturation and enculturation, facing conflict
in Values and attitudes . As Jandt,F.E (2004) has said, No immigration, as long
as livelihood needs are to be met in a new country, can escape acculturation.
“Acculturation has four dimensions: integration,
Separation, assimilation and deculturation. When a minority moves into a
majority culture, he or she will chose one of these modes either consciously or
subconsciously”
Though the movie
has not illustrated too much personal inner-depth-voices of the mother’s
philosophy and life reflections. In the novel, Lindo confesses of
regret over losing some of her Chinese identity by living so long in America
(she is treated like a tourist on a visit to China), as evidence to integration
; however, she expresses concern that Waverly's American upbringing has formed
a barrier between them, destruction the mother-daughter relationship. Revealing
how an Integration and assimilation acculturation can conflict in
communication.
These mother
bring forth their old fashion values from China, yet their daughters,
enculturated in the western surroundings, possess American souls and mindsets inside.
Thus the conflict in communication cannot be avoided, simulating the mode of
intercultural communication. Since culture is a code we learn and share, and
learning and sharing requires communication, Alfred G Smith (1966) says, this
conflict is inevitable for relationship development in intimate family
relationships.
There are several traces in the movie, where we
can see the mother’s evidence of integration in forming acculturation, such as
one scene where
An-Mei Hsu questions her daughter about buying grocery:
An-Mei: Who’s coming to dinner?
Daughter (Rose): well, Ted is coming over, we’re having
sort of a meeting…
An-Mei Hsu: meeting? Flour, egg, bitter sweet Hersey bar,
Skippy chunky,
Sounds like Chocolate peanut butter pie!
An-Mei is integrated in western logic of cuisines, and knows that a
chocolate peanut butter pie is not linked to a meeting taboo dish, but
something more..
Although
acculturation increases the interconnectedness of cultures, differences are
sources of potential problems (Chaney L.H, Martin ,2007) Harvey (1985) said
that Family and personal issues can be disruptive to acculturation. In the Joy
Luck Club however, we can see the opposite, how acculturation affects and
disrupts the mother-daughter relationship. Since the childhood of their
daughters, Suyuan Wu and Lindo Jong, though good friend, compete on their
daughters behalf, turning June and Waverly into childhood
rivals, the 2 women each consider their daughter June (daughter
of Suyan Wu) & Waverly (Daughter of Lindo) as being more superior than the
other in their talents, Therefore, dominantly forcing traditional,
strict child-rearing on their daughters. But unlike
traditional Chinese children who are obedient in everything the parents say. June
who decides not to take up piano playing anymore after an embarrassing recital
scene, is forced by her mother physically to sit in front of the piano to
practice again, leading to her explode of rebel. Here June expresses her
individualistic statement of feeling and choice. We see the western
individualism spirit in her words of rebel, as oppose to her mother’s
traditional collectivism notion, that “only an obedient daughter stays under
this roof”.
The same
situation of how acculturation disrupts the mother-daughter relationship, in
terms of education, happens also in Lindo Jong’s household. Her daughter Waverly
is a gifted child chess champion.
After a
champion quest, Waverly’s photo is featured on the cover of Life magazine.
Feeling proud of her daughter, Lindo holds the magazine high upon her chest and
tells everyone she meets on the street that, her daughter is the covergirl, Waverly
is embarrassed as she walks by her mother’s side. Annoyed at her mother’s
action, Waverly angrily fights back, expressing how she doesn’t like her mother
using her accomplishments to show off. Her mother assumes her daughter is
ashamed of her. They have a fight on the street, where later when Waverly comes
home , her mother does not say much and remains silent against her fight in a
high-context communication.
There are distinctive cultural differences in the eastern and western component. Western
cultures such as Americans mostly communicate in a more low-context dialogue,
while Asians especially the Chinese communicate in a high-context
communication. Such as a period of silence, not revealing their thoughts,
allowing imagination and assumption of the counterpart, thus leaving space for
conflict in the process of encoding and decoding messages.
A similar
scene of conflict in encoding and decoding messages happens when Waverly has
casually promises her mother a trip to the beauty parlor before Waverly’s
wedding, while her mother possessing a traditional value of keeping a great
extent of respect to a promise made with their mothers, thinks Waverly would
remember the trip to the beauty parlor:
Mother(Lindo)(picks up the phone):
Waverly! You at the beauty parlor already?
Waverly: No
Ma. I have a headache.
Mother: So you
can’t keep promise to your own mother?
So you don’t
want to go? …
Her
mother encodes the message with her own assumptions, analyzing it in a Chinese
logic of value, to value their elders words. While Waverly’s statement of “No Ma, I have a headache” may
mean:”So I didn’t remember our date” or “So I’ll be late for the parlor. ” Her
mother interprets it into the meaning that her daughter is not going with her,
or that she is breaking the promise they made.
There are two
plots in the movie, covering the issue of cross-culture marriage. One is the
American-Chinese marriage of Waverly and Rich. The dinner scene of Rich coming
over to Waverly’s Chinese household for the first time, illustrates the dinning
matters between both cultures, differences that if not minded causes
impoliteness, such as do not take too much food from the same dish, when
everyone has not had their first helping. But Rich does not realize he is
conflicting with the cultural invisible rules, and takes an abundant amount for
himself. In the western way, it may be a bold way of expressing ”I like this
food. ”but it is embarrassing and impolite for Waverly and Waverly’s mother
(Lindo). So Lindo sarcastically says to Waverly “He has good appetite”, which
is a multilevel message expressed in a high context dialogue, meaning “Rich is
healthy, and can eat a lot”(in the Chinese concept), but also ostensibly
describing his behavior of helping himself to too much.
Lindo’s Xenophobic
characteristic towards Rich, inclination of an Asian parent to do so, can be
seen in scenes such as when Waverly confesses how she married a Chinese guy
just to please her mother, though later ending in divorce. And in the scene
where she shows Lindo the fur coat gift Rich has given to her as a gift. Lindo
harshly criticizes the gift, saying how the gift does not fit to be the best
for her, reflection how Lindo wants the best for her daughter, but also slight
evidence of xenophobicism towards this white son-in-law.
In Rose and
Ted’s case, Rose falls in love with Ted, an American that withholds a prestige
social status. Rose meets Ted’s parents for the first time, and has a not so
friendly conversation with Ted’s mother, she nurses a racism towards Rose when
she tells Rose that she will not be accepted by their families status acquaintances,
and describes in stereotype towards Rose how “Vietnam was not so popular”.
In comparison
of these two mother-in-laws we can see Ted’s mother, an American, being more
aggressive and communicating directly in the low-context style. While Lindo,
Waverly’s mother, is more implicit towards expressing towards Rich her true
feeling (High context communication), and holding the Chinese concept of “Face”
does not want to embarrass Rich in front of the table. Leaving Rich unaware of
his mother-in-laws true feelings.
Cultural synergy is the future competence of
enterprises in terms of expanding, therefore, nourishing a more alert sense to
culture, and willingness to adjust one’s cultural schema is inevitable. Learning to analyzing different
situations of cultural communication, can later be applied to analyzing
organization behaviors. Cultural learning is a
not just a scholarly humanistic subject, it's a soft skill competence that can be nourished and applied to Human resource managing.
