21 March 2013
Chinese traditional thinking affect Jook-Liang in The Jade Peony Can you imagine that everyone rejects you just because you are a girl? That actually happened universally in the last century, specifically in the old China. The gender discrimination was deeply rooted in people’s minds and became a traditional Chinese thinking. Wayson Choy illustrates this kind of discrimination really well in his novel The Jade Peony. In the novel, Grandmother continually reminds Jook-Liang that girl-child is useless, it affect Jook-Liang thinks about people, and change the views of various people. Also, it makes her struggle to assimilate to Chinese and Canadian society. Though, she tries her best to revolt this gender discrimination. In The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy, the traditional Chinese thinking that a girl –child is useless makes Jook-Liang change the opinion of people and struggle to assimilate to Chinese and Canadian, however, she is trying to resist this negative view. Jook-liang’s thought about people has been affected by Poh-Poh’s traditional Chinese thinking that a girl is useless. First of all, it makes Jook-Liang have a negative view about the boys. “Baby Brother was sick again. Always sick. Always getting all the attention; always snoring because of his congested lungs, though he had no fever.”(Choy 26). In this quote, Jook-liang is complaining about her little brother. Because he is a boy, he is always getting all the attention from others, when he was sick, he would be taken care of by all the family members. Even Jook-Liang has to wash the diapers for him. That is not fair in Jook-Liang’s view; she never receives such good treatment. So she has some contradiction about boys, because they are treated much better then her. Moreover, this traditional Chinese thinking makes her dislike her grandmother. “I hate the Old One: Grandmother never let me get on with my movie-star daydreams. And now the late morning sky...