All
a child ever wants in life is to become successful and make their parents
happy. Especially in Asian culture, parents expect their children to become
prodigies at their talents and make them proud. All Suyuan ever wanted in life was
to visit her long lost twin daughters who were lost in China many years before.
Jing-Mei knew about this, and wanted to finish what her mother had started. In
the end, Jing Mei did fulfill her mother’s legacy and finds her twin sisters in
which her mother has been looking for her entire life.
In her younger days, Suyuan lived in
China happily with her family. There was at the time however, the rising threat
of the communists and Japanese invasions that could very well threaten the
survival of the family. One day, the Japanese arrived at Suyuan’s town and
bombed it until it was destroyed. Suyuan had received a forewarning that the
invasion was coming, so she was able to evacuate herself along with her
daughters and few possessions. Suyuan traveled down the road, and every step
drained little bits of her energy. First she had to leave her trunks behind, because
the burden of it was just too much for her to handle. Then she left the bags of
food behind. Finally, it had come down to her own daughters. Suyuan was weak,
she had tried everything she could in order to get her twin daughters out of
there, but she wasn’t strong enough. Suyuan couldn’t bear the idea of her won
daughters dying in front of her. They were the only hope she had left I the
world. In a final attempt to save them, Suyuan left her daughters on the side
of the road in hopes that someone might find them and rescue them from a
terrible death. Suyuan continued down the road until all she saw was darkness.
When Suyuan woke up, it was in a different
place. She was in America and wrote letters to China trying to find her
daughters. For years Suyuan had searched, but she never had any luck. It wasn’t
until before she had died, did Suyuan locate her twin daughters’ address.
Suyuan’s love for her daughters had
proved to be very strong, and although Jing-mei never fully realized it, Suyuan
loved her very much too. On page 39 of The Joy Luck Club, Jing-Mei’s Auntie
Ying told her, “Your mother was a very strong woman, a good mother. She loved
you very much, much more than her own life. And that’s why you can understand
why a mother like this could never forget her own daughters. She knew they were
alive and before she died she wanted to find her daughters in China”. This
quote shows us how Suyuan’s main mission in life was to find her daughters.
After Jing-Mei’s aunt tells her this, she then gives her a check for $1,200 to
go to China and find her half-sisters.
Jing-Mei was astonished by the
generosity the mahjong club had shown her, but she did not know what to tell
her sisters about her other. On page 40 of The Joy luck Club, Auntie
Ying tells her, “You must see your sisters and tell them about you mother’s
death, but most important, you must tell them about her life. The mother they
did not know, they must now know.” This was the beginning of Jing-Mei’s journey.
Jing-Mei bought her tickets and was
on her way to see her sisters in Shanghai, but prior to her arrival, she was
very anxious. Jing-Mei’s anxiety was building up, but when she arrived at the
airport and spotted her sisters, all of that went away. They immediately
recognized her and tan straight up to her with joy. Their father captured the
moment on camera and Jing-Mei was able to see the resemblance of her mother in
both of her sisters faces. Jing –Mei went a long way and she did eventually
fulfill her mother’s legacy. The last words of the novel are, “Together we look
like our mother. Her same eyes, her same mouth, open in surprise to see, at
last, her long- cherished wish.”
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