In this opening chapter of The Joy Luck Club, June is reminded heavily of her recently deceased mother. She is reminded even more so of her mother when her father asks her to fill her mothers place in the Joy Luck Club. June believes that her and her mother are very different. Tan uses the mother-daughter relationship to create an analogy. June, the narrator, says, "These kinds of explanations made me feel my mother and I spoke two different languages, which we did, I talked to her in English, she answered back in Chinese." June is referring to the time she asked her mother to explain to her the difference between Jewish mah jong and Chinese mah jong. June felt she never received a direct answer from her mother, and in opposition her mother felt June never understood her. June also says, "My mother and I never really understood one another. We translated each other's meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more." June and her mother are similar in the way that they do not not understand each other. Maybe if they had had more time together they may have found this as a common thread as to which they could begin to understand each other.
The other members of the Joy Luck Club are sending June to China to meet her mother's daughters, from a previous marriage that she left behind on a road when the Japanese were invading China. The members of the Joy Luck Club: An-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-Ying St. Clair, want June to meet her sisters and tell them of their deceased mother. Maybe this journey to China and promise to tell her sisters everything she remembers about her mother will help June to understand her mother's hardship and furthermore, her personality. While reading this chapter I thought about how sometimes my mother and I misunderstand each other and how important it is to try and understand where the other person is coming from and how they feel.
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