Yushi Pang
Miss. Kreso
ENG4USL
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 is seen when Choy writes ”’There’s no war in Canada,’ I said. ’This is Canada.’ Poh-Poh sighed deeply, gave me a condescending look. ‘You not Canada, Liang,’ she said, majestically, ‘you China. Always war in China.’”(Choy 34). Poh-Poh intensely believes that Jook-Liang is a Chinese, she can never be a Canadian, because of her culture, her identity even her gender. Girls are useless, in Grandmother’s opinion; a useless person cannot be assimilated into Canadian society. With this negative point of view, Poh-Poh always forces her to be a Chinese. Jook-Liang refutes that they are in Canada now, they should assimilate into the Canada society, but it is useless to Grandmother. Secondly, most people in her family do not pay attention to her. “He’s mine, I wanted to shout. He’s mine! Something old sprang from me, something struggled to defy even Poh-Poh.”(Choy 25). This is the inner thought when Wong Suk said that Jook-Liang is not afraid of him, which means they would be friends. Jook-Liang is very excited and happy, because she finally got a friend. Before Wang Suk, no one is willing to pay attention to her or make friend with her. The reason for that is the gender discrimination. She is the only girl-child in Chen’s family, with the negative traditional Chinese thinking that she is useless. Therefore no one wants to take care about her. They put all their concentrations on the boys, it makes Jook-Liang struggle to assimilate into her