Amy Tan Vs. Amy Chua

What similarities and differences do you notice between Amy Chua’s relationship with her kids and the mother-daughter relationships we see in “The Twenty-Six Malignant Gate”?

In the Twenty Six Malignant Gate, we see that each daughter in the four chapters were rebellious against their mother because they felt oppressed. It is similar to Amy Chua’s article, “tiger Mom’ because both of the stories explain about a mother who tells her daughter to do this and do that and that it will benefit them in the future. The daughter will end up rebelling and then a fight begins. In the fight, the daughter will be stubborn to see things from another view, and just view it one sided while the mother secretly knew everything. Then the daughter realizes something and made up with her mother.

In “Four Directions”, Waverly Jong talked about how when she was a ten year old prodigy, her mother would brag and tell Waverly what to do with chess although she didn’t really know the basics of it. Waverly got angry at her mother because she “hated the way she [mother] tried to take all the credit,” Tan 170). A fight started in the streets where Waverly told her mother that she did not know anything and then ran. When she went back home, her mother began to ignore her and then when they are back on normal terms, her mother did not stay by her side when she practiced and did not brag nor dust the trophies. With time, Waverly, “understand finally. Not what she had said. But what had been true all along,” (Tan 183). Their fight allowed Waverly to discover something about herself.

In “Tiger Mom” Amy Chua had a similar fight with her youngest daughter. Her daughter was not able to play this one piece in the piano because her two hands cannot play a different tempo at the same time. Amy Chua continued to force her daughter to practice hard until she gets it right:

“Finally, the day before her lesson, Lulu announced in exasperation that she was giving up and stomped off.
Get back to the piano now," I ordered“You can’t make me.”“Oh yes, I can.”Back at the piano, Lulu made me pay. She punched, thrashed and kicked. She grabbed the music score and tore it to shreds,” (Amy Chua).

The fight ended with Lulu discovering that she was able to play the piece and found out that she have the potential to play it, just that she needs to work a little harder.