1.1 Literature Review

The previous studies of this novel covered wide range areas from literature to cross-culture, from linguistics to translation. Here this paper only presents studies which make a contribution between East and West culture, and study the differences in the values of two generations, communication difficulty, Chinese American women and mother love. These issues have experienced long period study and wide ranged discussion by a lot of scholars home and abroad, and become clearer and clearer for understanding. In their studies, some scholars believe “the concept China reflected in the novel was no more than an imaginary from the whole western society, which means a construction to the Orientalism, thus not a true one” (Xie Yunlong，2011: 5). Some people believe that “the conflicts between Chinese and American culture are on the basis of a process of maximizing oneself and opposing another. The Chinese American writers should try their best to resolute this opposition and show the common essence of all the nations by describing fusions” (Cheng Aimin，2001: 91). Some scholars interpret this novel from the perspective of females and believe that “Amy Tan aimed to express her own opinion through this novel, that the only way for Chinese American women to gain their status in Whitey is to cultivate themselves as the bridge between eastern and western culture and not repel any part” (Zhang Lianghong，2005: 45). Furthermore, some people studied The Joy Luck Club together with The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghost, another typical Chinese American novel by Maxine Hong Kingston. They wanted to understand better on “how those doubly marginalized Chinese American women successfully construct their own cultural nature by transcended the boundaries between eastern and western culture” (Jiang Liping，2011: 105). 来.自/吹冰论|文-网www.chuibin.com/

2 From Conflicts to Fusion 

2.1 Brief Introduction to Amy Tan and The Joy Luck Club

Tan’s life experience is quite similar with June’s, one daughter in the novel. Tan’s parents immigrated to Los Angeles in 1949 and she was born 3 years later in Auckland, California. The disaster cropped up to her family when she was only 15. Her father and elder brother died from brain tumor one after another in only 8 months. After that the whole family moved to Switzerland and Tan finished her studies in high school there. Afterwards she reached 2 bachelor’s degree—English and Linguistics, and further her study by receiving a master’s degree. She did jobs in many different types; such as “switchboard operator, carhop, bartender, pizza maker, counselor for developmentally disabled children and so on” (Sun Ying，2006: 7).