Having spent a year in China (1948), I admit to a soft spot for the Chinese people and their stories, and especially for Amy Tan, whose books I have read and loved. This superlative movie was based on her book of the same name.
In this story (the script was written by Tan and Ronald Bass) the tension between four Chinese women, who were born in China and later came to the United States, and their Americanized daughters, is the foundation of the story, and is the theme that epitomizes Amy Tan's stories. She has noted in an interview that such tension existed in her own life between her and her own mother.
Much of the tension is due to the cultural clash. Times in China were hard a few short decades ago, and life was harsh. Starvation and disease was rife even in later years, when I was there in the late 'forties. When Americans today refer to poverty or hunger in this country, they have no conception of the real poverty and hunger that existed in China in the 'thirties and 'forties, or customs like the very painful historical binding of women's feet, which in effect crippled them for life, in the name of beauty, or the custom of wealthy Chinese men often having multiple wives and concubines, or the total degradation of women which existed and was totally accepted throughout the culture. Not to mention the impact of continuing warfare between warlords, the nationalists (Kuomintang) and communists, and the Japanese occupation all of which lasted for generations.
This is an emotion evoking story. It is more than simply entertainment; it is a story with which you will identify, with characters with which you will empathize.
Amy Tan knows whereof she writes, and her stories are compelling and sympathy evoking. Another Chinese woman who wrote her autobiography which touched on some of the same themes, who was in Tsingtao when I was, and whose tale enchanted me, was Dr. H. Mei Lu, who now lives in Honolulu, and whose book was titled, "Grandfather's Microscope" q.v. Coming from a humble background, in China, she became an esteemed pathologist in the United States. I heartily recommend her book as well as Amy Tan's, for any Sinophile. These ladies both write extremely well, and have immensely interesting things to say.
Joseph (Joe) Pierre, USN (Ret)author of The Road to Damascusand other books
