The Joy Luck Club

The Joy Luck Club (1989) is a best-selling novel written by Amy Tan. It focuses on four Chinese-American immigrant families who start a club known as "the Joy Luck Club," playing the Chinese game of Mahjong for money while feasting on a variety of foods. There are twelve chapters divided into four sections, and each woman, both mothers and daughters, (with the exception of one mother, Suyuan Woo, who dies before the novel opens) share stories about their lives in the form of vignettes.

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The Joy Luck Club

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:00:26

The old woman remembered
a swan she had bought...

:00:29

many years ago in Shanghai
for a foolish sum.

:00:34

"This bird," boasted
the market vendor...

:00:37

"was once a duck that
stretched its neck...

:00:39

in hopes
of becoming a goose.

:00:41

And now look.
It is too beautiful to eat."

:00:52

Then the woman and the swan
sailed across an ocean...

:00:54

many thousands of li wide...

:00:57

stretching their necks
toward America.

:01:07

On her journey
she cooed to the swan...

:01:09

"In America I will have
a daughter just like me.

:01:14

But over there, nobody will say
her worth is measured...

:01:17

by the loudness
of her husband's belch.

:01:23

Over there, nobody will
look down on her...

:01:26

because I will make her speak
only perfect American English.

:01:37

And over there, she will always be
too full to swallow any sorrow.

:01:48

She will know my meaning
because I will give her this swan...

:01:52

a creature that became more
than what was hoped for."

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