Instead of beating around the bush, Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club exposes the not-so-merry relationships between Chinese mothers and their opposing Chinese-American daughters . Mothers struggle to express the importance of their Chinese heritage while maintaining balance with “good” American characteristics for their daughters; as the daughters struggle with their identities and relationships with others. The Joy Luck Club is written as a collection of flashbacks told by Chinese mothers and their American daughters. The book ventures through time through the memories of the mothers and daughters and contrasts are created to show comparisons between the lives of the mothers and their American daughters. Mothers constantly try to instill Chinese teachings, morals, and ways in their daughters, but their daughters turn a deaf ear and ignore their mothers' preaching. Chinese mothers understand the special and indestructible present in “[their] bones,” yet daughters lack this understanding, causing caustic relationships between mother, daughter, and culture (Tan 27). Amy Tan's style of using flashbacks reveals the unbreakable bond not only between mother and daughter, but also between person and culture. American daughters often feel uncomfortable with their own customs and culture and want nothing to do with anything Chinese. Jing-Mei Woo's mother Suyuan Woo died of an aneurysm. Suyuan was responsible for managing the Joy Luck club and was one of the original members of the Ladies of Kweilin, and due to her death the responsibility fell onto Jing-Mei's shoulders. This, at first, weighs on Jing-Mei. Jing-Mei sees the Joy Luck Club as “an ungraceful event” (Tan 35). The Joy Luck club has gone from being a small club with... middle of paper... others or if mothers finally understand the difficulties their daughters have in understanding them and understanding and accepting their identities. The reader can only hope that Jing Mei finds a way to reach the rest of the daughters and tell them about their mothers before it is too late, as is the case with Jing-Mei. Tan's use of flashbacks not only shows the differences between the lives of mothers and daughters, but also provides background information to help the reader understand both the mother and daughter sides of the story. Tan's use of present tense after flashbacks shows the growth of the characters and the growing and shrinking relationships between daughters and other daughters, daughters and other people, and daughters with their mothers. Overall the book is a great depiction of the struggle between mother and daughter and self versus culture.