The Joy Luck Club Study Guide
Part I – Feathers From a Thousand Li Away
“Swan Parable”
1. What images/feelings/connotations does a swan bring to mind?
2. What hopes does the mother have for the swan in the new country? How is the mother affected
by the immigration process? How does the mother feel at the end of the story?
3. What tone does this vignette set for the opening of the novel?
4. The swan was transformed from a duck that “stretched its neck in hopes of becoming a goose”
(17). In what ways does this motif of “transformation/change” play out in each of the stories?
5. The mother in this parable in some respects represents the hope and dreams that immigrants
carry with them to a new land. What does Tan seem to suggest those hopes and dreams are?
Does the woman’s hopes/dreams come true? How do you interpret the last paragraph?
“The Joy Luck Club”
1. Describe the history of the Joy Luck Club. Why does Suyuan organize the club in the first place?
Why does she choose the words “joy” and “luck” for the name? Why is June (Jing-mei) invited to
join?
2. How would you describe June’s relationship with her mother? Be specific. What accounts for
some of their conflicts? In what way(s) can you relate?
3. What shocking fact does June learn from her mother? How do you suppose she felt upon
discovering this revelation? How would you feel if you were presented with similar news?
4. “I used to dismiss her criticisms as just more of her Chinese superstitions, beliefs that
conveniently fit the circumstances. In my twenties, while taking Introduction to Psychology, I
tried to tell her why she shouldn’t criticize so much, why it didn’t lead to a healthy learning
environment” (31).
What does this passage reveal about June and her relationship with her mother? Do you agree
with her point? How does she feel about assuming her mother’s place at the mah jong table?
Why is it significant that she sits in the East position?
5. “They are frightened. In me they see their daughters” (40). Explain. What are her aunties
frightened of? Are such fears justified? Do you think your parents have similar fears about you?
6. Consider the following statements:
“I talked to her in English, she answered back in Chinese” (34).
“We translated each other’s meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my
mother heard more” (37).
Is the problem just one of language? Explain.
“Scar”
1. Why is the title of this particular story “Scar”?
2. What are An-mei’s earliest perceptions of her mother and father? Why does An-mei’s Popo tell
her that her mother, Tai-tai, was a “ghost”? What is the point of the stories Popo tells her?
3. Popo tells her at one point that “When you lose face… it is like dropping your necklace down a
well. The only way you can get it back is to fall in after it” (44). What does she mean? What does
it mean to lose face? Is there an American version of this cultural idea? If so, does it hold the
same level of importance?
4. Using language from the story, trace An-mei’s reaction to and perception of her mother. What
understanding does she reach about her mother and about the relationship between mothers
and daughters?
5. Why does An-mei’s mother cut off a piece of her flesh? Would you do something similar for your
parents? Why or why not?
“The Red Candle”
1. What fear or worry does Lindo express in the passage that opens this story? Who is she talking
to?
2. What are some of the advantages of arranged marriages? What are the disadvantages? What can
you tell about Lindo’s view of marriage from this chapter?
3. Why does Lindo’s mother treat her differently after the marriage has been arranged?
4. Look at the language Amy Tan uses to describe the Huangs’ house on page 54-55. Why does she
spend so much time on its appearance? What is being suggested?
5. Lindo says that she “was like the wind” (58). How so? How did this realization come about?
6. Lindo says, “I sacrificed my life to keep my parents’ promise” (49). Explain her meaning. Is this
value strictly Chinese? Do you think American children are called upon to make the sort of
sacrifices that Lindo has had to make?
7. What is the significance of her bracelets? She also makes a promise “not to forget [herself]” (66).
What does she mean?
“The Moon Lady”
1. Ying-ying opens her story by saying that she “kept [her] mouth closed so selfish desires would
not fall out” (67). What does she mean? Has doing so made a positive impact on her life? Why or
why not?
2. Ying-ying says of herself and her daughter, Lena: “We are lost, she and I, unseen and not seeing,
unheard and not hearing, unknown by others” (67). Explain.
3. Who is Amah? What role does she play in Ying-ying’s life? Why is this important?
4. Amah teaches Ying-ying that “it is wrong to think of your own needs… A girl can never ask, only
listen” (70). What implications does this particular cultural value have for Ying-ying? For women
in general? How does this lesson impact her and her daughter Lena in later chapters?
5. Ying-ying’s mother tells her, “A boy can run and chase dragonflies, because that is his nature, but
a girl should stand still. If you are still for a very long time, a dragonfly will no longer see you.
Then it will come to you and hide in the comfort of your shadow” (72). Do you agree or disagree
with the sentiments expressed in this passage? Why or why not?
6. The Moon Lady is a mythological figure who sees that secret wishes are fulfilled. What parallels
to her do we have in American culture?
7. Why doesn’t Ying-ying’s mother come to get her on the dock after she smears her clothes with
turtle blood? What might her smearing her clothes with blood symbolize? What is the
significance of the fishing bird that Tan describes on page 75-76?
8. When Ying-ying finally sees the Moon Lady up close, what is her reaction? What is the moral of
the Moon Lady story?
9. Ying-ying remembers at the end of the story that she wished to be found. In what way(s) is she
lost?
Go back and re-read the parable. In what specific ways do each of the stories in this section reflect or
relate back to the motifs/images introduced in the parable?
Part II – The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates
“Bicycle Parable”
1. What is the mother’s attitude toward the girl? What is the daughter’s attitude toward her
mother and her mother’s warnings?
2. Why does the girl fall off the bicycle?
3. In what way are all the chapters in this section about children who are predisposed to danger?
4. What ideas/themes are suggested by this vignette?
“Rules of the Game”
1. What do Waverly’s thoughts and actions at the annual Christmas party reveal about her
character?
2. Although Waverly studies the rules, opening moves, and everything else connected to chess,
what really makes her successful?
3. After scanning the rulebook for chess, Waverly’s mother says, “Every time people come out from
foreign country, must know rules. You not know, judge say, Too bad, go back. They not telling
you why so you can use their way go forward. They say, Don’t know why, you find out yourself”
(94). In what ways do these words capture the immigrant experience? To what extent do you
agree or disagree with her comments?
4. In playing chess, Waverly discovers that “for the whole game one must gather invisible strengths
and see the endgame before the game begins… A little knowledge withheld is a great advantage
one should store for future use… It is a game of secrets in which one must show and never tell”
(95). How does she apply these rules to her own life? How well do they work for her?
5. What about her mother irritates her? When her irritation boils over one day and she runs off,
Waverly says she “ran until it hurt and [she] realized [she] had nowhere to go, that [she] was not
running from anything. The alleys contained no escape routes” (100). What is the significance of
this realization?
6. When she returns home after running from her mother, Waverly sees on the dinner table the
remains of a fish dinner, “its fleshy head still connected to bones swimming upstream in vain
escape” (100). Why does Tan use this particular image?
7. What ideas are suggested by the title of this story? Is the conflict between Waverly and her
mother a typical mother/daughter conflict, or is it one that only the child of an immigrant parent
can have?
“The Voice from the Wall”
1. In the beggar story that her mother tells Lena, the beggar says, “As the sword was cutting me
down, I thought this was the worst I would ever have to endure. But I was wrong. The worst is on
the other side” (102). What is “the other side”? How does Lena figuratively apply this story later?
2. Lena feels that it is important “to know what is the worst possible thing that can happen to you,
to know how you can avoid it, to not be drawn by the magic of the unspeakable” (103). Her
mother wonders, “Why do you Americans have only these morbid thoughts in your mind?” (103).
Who do you agree with more? Why?
3. How is Lena affected by her mother’s gruesome stories about the basement and the baby?
4. Lena is half Chinese, half English-Irish. How is her life different from that of her friends whose
parents are both Chinese? She says that she “used to push [her] eyes in on the sides to make
them rounder” (104). Why would she do this? Can you relate to her feelings or do you find them
strange or childish?
5. Describe the marriage between Lena’s mother and her American husband. What do you think
Tan is trying to say through their relationship?
6. How do the translation lies Lena tells differ from her father’s? What is he oblivious to that she
isn’t?
7. Her mother utters something in Chinese about “things not being balanced” (108). What is your
interpretation of this notion of “balance”?
8. Re-read Ying-ying’s description of the baby’s birth on page 112. How does Lena react? What does
her “vision” reveal?
9. What realization does Lena come to about her neighbors? Why does she cry for joy? How do you
interpret the end of the story?
“Half and Half”
1. The three oldest boys are called Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Why is the last son called “Bing” and
not “John”?
2. Rose admits that what she “initially found attractive in Ted were precisely the things that made
him different from my brothers and the Chinese boys [she] had dated: his brashness; the
assuredness in which he asked for things and expected to get them; his opinionated manner”
(117). Are such qualities unique to one particular cultural group?
3. In what ways does Rose change after marrying Ted? Is her transformation understandable given
the circumstances, or do you think that she is responsible for her weakness? She says, “When
something…violent hits you, you can’t help but lose your balance and fall. And after you pick
yourself up, you realize you can’t trust anybody to save you—not your husband, not your
mother, not God. So what can you do to stop yourself from tilting and falling all over again?”
(121) To what extent do you agree or disagree with her feelings?
4. Is Rose in any way responsible for Bing’s death? Give proof. Why does she go out with her
mother the next day?
5. What is nengkan? Does she share her mother’s nengkan? Why or why not?
6. Is there a parallel between An-mei’s losing faith in the Bible (at least on the surface) and the
child’s losing faith in the Moon Lady earlier in the book?
7. Is there a relationship between Rose’s present circumstances with Ted and the flashback to
Bing’s death? Why does Tan pair the two incidents together in this story?
8. Rose makes the assertion that her mother “believed faith…kept all these good things coming our
way, only I thought she said ‘fate,’ because she couldn’t pronounce the ‘th’ sound in ‘faith’… And
later, I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow
you’re in control. I found out the most I could have was hope, and with that I was not denying
any possibility, good or bad. I was just saying, If there is a choice, dear God or whatever you are,
here’s where the odds should be placed” (121). What do you think she means by this? How does
this belief play out in her own life? Do you agree with her? Why or why not?
“Two Kinds”
1. June recalls that her mother “believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. You
could open a restaurant. You could work for the government and get a good retirement. You
could buy a house with almost no money down. You could become rich. You could become
instantly famous” (132). To what extent do you think these beliefs are true? Do you think these
notions of America and American culture are borne out through the stories of the other mothers
in this book?
2. The prodigy part of her warns her that if she doesn’t “hurry up and get me out of here…you’ll
always be nothing” (133). In what sense does this “prediction” come true for June?
3. After seeing her mother’s disappointed face after repeated attempts at becoming a prodigy, June
discovers a new, rebellious side to herself. She “was angry, powerful…[she] had new thoughts,
willful thoughts, or rather thoughts filled with lots of won’ts” (134). What is the significance of
this wordplay? Do you find her promise not to change (“I won’t be what I’m not”) admirable?
Why or why not?
4. When she starts piano lessons, how does she deceive both her mother and Mr. Chong? What
does her determination not to try say about her?
5. Do you think that it is fair for June’s mother to hold her to such high standards? Do you think
such high expectations of children are the norm for immigrant parents? If so, why is this the
case?
6. After embarrassing herself at the talent show, June’s mother says “Well, she certainly tried.”
Why is this ironic? What had her mother told her earlier about trying?
7. Re-read the last two paragraphs of this story. What is the significance of the musical piece that
she plays and her realization?
Go back to the parable. In what way(s) do the themes/motifs introduced in the vignette manifest
themselves in each of the stories?
Part III – American Translation
“Mirror Parable”
1. What objects or images seem important in this parable? Why?
2. Mirrors show us reflections of ourselves. Why, then, is the daughter surprised to see “her own
reflection looking back at her”?
3. What is the point or key idea of this vignette?
“Rice Husband”
1. Lena claims that her mother has the “mysterious ability to see things before they happen” (149).
What is her attitude toward her mother’s “ability”? Does she see them as superstitions? As sage
advice? Has that attitude changed from when she was a child (“The Voice from the Wall”)? Are
there things about your parents that you find strange or inexplicable?
2. What trait(s) seem to distinguish Harold?
3. The key word in “Rice Husband” is “rice.” What do grains of rice left in a bowl represent to the
young Lena? What is Lena’s response to her mother’s superstition about not eating all of her
rice? Why does she feel responsible for Arnold’s death?
4. About Arnold, she asks, “Isn’t hate merely the result of wounded love?” (154) How is this true of
her feelings about Harold? How might her childhood have affected her relationship with Harold?
5. In what ways does money play an important role in Lena’s and Harold’s marriage? Why doesn’t
Lena resent Harold’s taking the credit for her “theme eating” idea? Do you find her feelings
about Harold and their relationship sympathetic? What would you say are the central problems
in Lena’s relationship?
6. Lena admits to feelings and thoughts of inadequacy, one that she shares with Rose Hsu Jordan,
who tells her, “I thought it was because I was raised with all this Chinese humility. Or that maybe
it was because when you’re Chinese you’re supposed to accept everything, flow with the Tao and
not make waves” (156). Do you think this is a fairly accurate cultural assessment? Do you think
it’s an accurate assessment of Lena?
7. What points are brought out in the discussion about the ice cream? What is significant about
Lena’s mother saying that “She become so thin now you cannot see her. She like a ghost,
disappear”? (163)
8. Discuss the significance of Harold’s table.
“Four Directions”
1. How is Marlene Ferber’s (Waverly’s friend) understanding of mother/daughter relationships
different from Waverly’s? What accounts for such a difference? Which perspective do you
subscribe to? Why?
2. In what ways does Waverly’s mother wear her down by “the strength of her will”?
3. Waverly, here an adult, describes again the time when she told her mother that she didn’t know
anything. Describe her perceptions of the event. Do you find her observations accurate? Why or
why not?
4. Why is Waverly afraid of telling her mom about her engagement to Rich? At the dinner she
brings him to, given her concerns, why doesn’t she coach and teach Rich about expected cultural
behaviors and customs before arriving? The day after, Waverly goes to her mother’s house to
“tell her off” (180). What stops her?
5. When Waverly claims that she knows Lindo hates Rich, her mother is greatly offended. Waverly
thinks, “Oh, her strength! her weakness!—both pulling me apart. My mind was flying one way,
my heart another” (181). Explain what she means.
6. What does Waverly realize? What does her epiphany in this chapter have to do with the title?
“Without Wood”
1. What is the significance of Rose’s dream about Old Mr. Chou at the beginning of this chapter?
2. Why does Amy Tan focus so much of our attention on the garden? What is she trying to suggest?
3. When Rose tells her mother that she is going to a psychiatrist, her mother asks her, “Why can
you talk about this with a psyche-atric and not with mother? A mother is best. A mother knows
what is inside you. A psyche-atricks will only make you hulihudu, make you see heimongmong”
(188). Why doesn’t she talk to her mother? Can you relate to Rose’s reluctance? Is her mother
right? Why or why not?
4. What is An-mei’s theory about why Rose is “so confused all the time”? (191) How on target is her
analysis? What other explanations could there possibly be?
5. Why does Rose decide not to sign the divorce papers? What finally makes her feel free? What is
the role of Old Mr. Chou in the second dream, and why does he resurface in this way?
“Best Quality”
1. What does June feel that she has lost with her mother’s passing? Is it an understandable fear?
Have you ever experienced similar feelings?
2. Early in the chapter, June makes the observation that “in a crowd of Caucasians, two Chinese
people are already like family” (198). What do you think about this statement?
3. How does June react to Waverly in this chapter? Is she overreacting or do you think she is
justified in her feelings?
4. Why does June’s mother say, “Only you pick that crab. Nobody else take it. I already know this.
Everybody else want best quality. You thinking different”? (208) What does she mean by it?
5. When her mother gives her a jade pendant, saying “This is your life’s importance” (208), June
doesn’t want to accept it but feels she has “already swallowed it” (208). Explain the mother’s
phrase and June’s reaction and choice of word.
Go back to the parable. In what way(s) do the themes/motifs introduced in the vignette manifest
themselves in each of the stories? What does the title “American Translation” mean in relation to each
of the stories in this section?
Part IV – Queen Mother of the Western Skies
“Grandmother Parable”
1. The grandmother says, “But later I threw away my foolish innocence to protect myself. And then
I taught my daughter, your mother, to shed her innocence so she would not be hurt as well”
(213). Why did she do this? How can a person lose innocence but not hope?
2. How does this parable provide a nice bookend to the first?
“Magpies”
1. In this story, An-mei says that she was “raised the Chinese way: [she] was taught to desire
nothing, to swallow other people’s misery, to eat [her] own bitterness” (215). How is this sort of
upbringing different from an American one? Which one do you think is superior? Why?
2. Explain the folkale about the Turtle and the magpies. What is the moral of the story? In what way
has her mother Tai-tai “swallowed her own tears” (217)? In what way has An-mei’s daughter,
Rose, done the same? What is Amy Tan trying to suggest with these parallel occurrences?
3. How does An-mei view life in her uncle’s house? Compare her first impressions of her new home
with her impressions several months later.
4. Why is Second Wife so powerful in the household? Why is An-mei initially drawn to Second Wife?
After pointing out the falseness of Second Wife’s gift, what does her mother give her? What
eventually happens to this gift (“Half and Half”)? In what way is this symbolic?
5. Why does An-mei’s mother plan her death to occur just before the Lunar New Year? How is this
act parallel to her actions in “Scar”? On the day that Wu Tsing promises to honor An-mei’s
mother and An-mei crushes Second Wife’s gift, An-mei says, “I learned to shout” (240). What
does this mean?
6. Earlier, An-mei tells her daughter that she is “without wood”; can the same be said of An-mei on
some occasions? How do you know?
7. What advice does she finally give her daughter at the end of this chapter? Has she learned these
lessons because of her Chinese culture or in spite of them? Explain.
“Waiting Between the Trees”
1. At the start of this chapter, Ying-ying says of Lena, “She and I have shared the same body. There
is a part of her mind that is part of mine. But when she was born, she sprang from me like a
slippery fish, and has been swimming away ever since. All her life, I have watched her as though
from another shore” (242). What is suggested here about the nature of mother/child
relationships? Do you think this is true of all mother/child relationships, or is this unique to Asian
or immigrant families? Can there be any other way?
2. In her flashback, Ying-ying recalls being “wild and stubborn” (243), and her mother telling her
that she is like “the ladies who drowned their shame and floated in living people’s houses with
their hair undone to show their everlasting despair” (243). How is this statement ironic?
3. In what way is Ying-ying’s name—Clear Reflection—appropriate?
4. What seems to lead her to her first marriage? What happens to her unborn son? Why? How does
this episode inform the chapter “The Voice from the Wall”?
5. Describe the two colors and ways of the tiger. She uses her “black” side after 10 years of “waiting
between trees” (248). In what way is this evident in her time as a shop-girl and her romance with
St. Clair?
6. What “transformation” does she undergo when she finally agrees to marry him? How does this
affect her and her relationship with Lena?
7. In prior chapters, she makes comments about things not being “balanced”; how is she proven
right? What does Ying-ying realize that Lena and her husband Harold do not? How do you
interpret the final three paragraphs of this chapter? What has Ying-ying decided?
“Double Face”
1. Lindo observes that Waverly “did not look pleased when [she] told her this, that [Waverly] didn’t
look Chinese” (253). What irony does she note about her daughter?
2. She goes on to say that she “wanted [her] children to have the best combination: American
circumstances and Chinese character. How could [she] know these two things do not mix?” (254)
Do you agree with her? Is it possible to reconcile or “mix” two different cultures? Why or why
not?
3. Lindo claims that “Chinese thinking is best” (254). Does this idea of one culture’s superiority over
another a valid belief? Why or why not? What about her claims that “Americans don’t really look
at one another when talking. They talk to their reflections. They look at others or themselves
only when they think nobody is watching. So they never see how they really look. They see
themselves smiling without their mouth open, or turned to the side where they cannot see their
faults”? (255) Are her comments about Americans and “American circumstances” accurate? Why
does she hold such views?
4. Explain the disconnect between mother and daughter while they are at Mr. Rory’s hair salon.
5. “It’s hard to keep your Chinese face in America” (258). Do you think that living in the United
States requires that one suppress if not eliminate one’s own culture, if only to fit in? Have you
found that to be true of yourself? Why or why not?
6. What point about translations is made in the reading aloud of the fortunes in the cookies? (262)
7. Lindo says she named her daughter Waverly so Waverly could eventually leave Waverly Place
and “take a piece of me with you” (265). What does she mean? How do you also explain her
actions that embarrass and anger her daughter as a child?
8. What does the last sentence of the story reveal?
“A Pair of Tickets”
1. In this chapter, June says that her mother believed that “Once you are born Chinese, you cannot
help but feel and think Chinese” (267). This contradicts Lindo’s point about the difficulty of
keeping “your Chinese face in America” from the previous chapter. Who is right?
2. June confesses that at 36 years old, she has “never really known what it means to be Chinese”
(268). Do you ever find yourself having similar feelings of cultural inadequacy? How do you deal
with them? Explain.
3. Why does she fear the twins will think her responsible for her mother’s death? What events lead
to her “becoming” Chinese?
4. What is June’s reaction to the story her father tells about Suyuan leaving the babies by the side
of the road?
5. When June visits China with her father toward the end of the book, she is constantly struck
by the signs of capitalism everywhere: in the hotel she finds “a wet bar stocked with
Heineken beer, Coke Classic, and Seven-Up, mini-bottles of Johnnie Walker Red, Bacardi rum
and Smirnoff vodka, and packets of M&M’s, honey roasted cashews, and Cadbury chocolate
bars. And again I say out loud, ‘This is communist China?’ ” (277). What does she mean by
this observation and question? What do you think she was expecting when she made the
trip? In this scene, June is also visiting her parents’ homeland for the first time, after hearing
so many stories about it. Have you ever visited a foreign place and found it to be very
different from what you had imagined?
6. Did Suyuan get her “long cherished wish”? Explain.
Go back to the parable. In what way(s) do the themes/motifs introduced in the vignette manifest
themselves in each of the stories?
General Questions – Considering the Text as a Whole
1. What do we discover about the past of each mother/daughter pair?
2. Each mother experiences an “unspeakable tragedy” or pivotal event in their life before America.
Describe the event and its effects on her character/life.
3. What inexpressible hopes are named or suggested for each mother character?
4. What are the specific conflicts between each mother/daughter pair? In what specific ways do the
mothers/daughter understand or find ways to understand each other?
5. What examples of strength and submissiveness can you find in each pairing?
6. Are the conflicts that the characters experience uniquely Chinese? Uniquely American? How
would things be different if, say, the characters were all culturally Chicano/Korean/Italian/etc.?
7. The game of mah jong is fairly complicated, but here are a few of the rules: The East wind always
starts the first round; the other corners of the table are the other winds; for all other hands, a
throw of the dice determines who will start; the order differs every time; the person who is the
prevailing wind rolls the dice and counts out the location of a break in the “wall” of tiles; the
game ends when one player’s hand is complete; all the other players have incomplete hands.
What parallels do you see between the game and the structure of the novel?
8. Tan incorporates quite a bit of imagery, dreams, myths, and other elements of Chinese mysticism
into her collection of stories. To name a few: shadows, weeds/garden, dreams and nightmares,
magpies, tiger, mirror, the color red, the wind. What does each of them represent? Are they
more Chinese or American? Which ones show an intersection of cultures? What other
images/motifs did you notice?