Similaties and Difference of Amy Chua and Joy Luck Mothers

Amy Chua’s article about being a "great" Chinese mother has some similarities to the book Joy Luck Club written by Amy Tan. In Joy Luck Club the mothers would treat their daughters like they are items to show off. In the Rules of the Game, Waverly Jong felt the same way. She felt that her mother was showing her off until on day she had enough of her mother showing her off. “My mother placed my first trophy next to the a new plastic chess [...] As she wiped each piece with a soft cloth, she said, ‘Next time win more, lose less’,”(Tan 97). Waverly’s mother only cared about her winning instead of being proud of her. It just proves that her mother is like Amy Chua. They both want their daughter(s) to be best so that they could represent their family name. Same thing happened in Amy Chua’s article titled Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior. She believed that chines parents are very strict and know that fun equals to working hard“What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work [..],”. Amy Chua’s thinking of Chinese mothers are the same as in the mothers in Joy Luck Club. They both force their daughters to do things that they do not want to do. They want to make their children to be perfect, so that within the future their kids would be independent and could stand on their own. But not all things are the same.

Even though there is a similarities in both reading, both are still different. The difference is that Joy Luck seems to be a little looser than Amy Chua. Because Amy Chua went all extreme, she made her daughter practice day and night their instrument and she did not let them go to any socialization with their friends or classmates.

"Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do: attend a sleepover, have a playdate, be in a school play, complain about not being in a school play, watch TV or play computer games, choose their own extracurricular activities, get any grade less than an A, not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama, [and] play any instrument other than the piano or violin”

. Amy Chua is much tougher than the mothers in Joy Luck Club, because they only have on goal as a parent is to make their children to be perfect. She expects a lot more in her daughter, she does these things because wanted her kids to be a prodigy. Same as in Two kinds at Joy Luck, Jing Mei Woo’s mother expected her as a prodigy when she was little girl. “‘Of course you can be prodigy, too,’ my mother told me when I was nine,”(Tan 132). Her made her do things that she did not want to do. She wanted to be a kid and play around all day long, but her mother wanted her to be a prodigy. But the difference in these two is that Amy Chua is harder on her children, but in Amy Tan’s book, the mothers are only expected on thing from their child, was to be perfect.

The Joy Luck Club and Amy Chua has the similarities because they both wanted to expect their daughters to be perfect and intelligent. But the difference is that Amy Chua is harder on her daughter, while the Joy Luck mothers are expecting their children to be perfect.