《喜福会》中母女关系的解读(4)
When people from the high-context culture and low-context culture live together, conflicts immediately appear. It can be seen in the conversation of June and her mother Suyuan,
“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.” (Tan，1989: 27) .
June looks for the meaning in what is stated and does not know that her mother does not point out important information because Suyuan thinks her daughter should have known it; Suyuan, on the other hand, likes telling stories to her daughter, expecting her to get the meanings of her implications.
The difference on the expressing manners, is decided by the characteristics of the low-context and the high-context cultures. And it leads to the misunderstanding and conflicts.
2.1.2 Conflicts with Personal Value
In The Joy Luck Club, another conflict is the different understanding on personal value. No matter why four mothers in the novel immigrated to the United States, their personal value and ways of cultivating children are deeply and totally affected by the early experiences in Old China. Mothers believe the personal value belongs to the whole family. The daughters, however, believe the personal value comes first. We all know that in the Chinese traditional culture, in one family, parents have the absolute authority to make decisions, and children should respect their decisions. So in the mother-daughter relationship, mothers have the obligation to look after their daughters, and the power to arrange daughters’ lives. But in Western culture, they accept equity and freedom. In western families, parents and children like discussing about some important things together and share ideas. Therefore, two different personal values may cause different attitude towards life. In The Joy Luck Club, mothers would like to interfere with their daughters’ own affairs, and would like to make decisions for daughters without asking them about it.
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