She remembers how stuffy and unchanging the house has always been. Jing-mei arrives late to the Joy Luck Club meeting, which is being held at the Hsus' house. You are not those babies." Chapter 1, pg. When Jing-mei asks what happened to the babies, her mother simply says, "Your father is not my first husband. She walked with a wheelbarrow for days, surrounded by other fleeing people, until the things she carried got harder to bear and she had to discard them, one by one. Suyuan says that she was told to go to her husband in Chungking immediately. Then one night her mother tells her a totally different ending to the story. Jing-mei, listening to the story, always thought it was made up, since her mother always changed the details. But Suyuan knew that she had a choice: she could either sit quietly and wait for death, which could come at any time, or she could take happiness where she could find it. People thought they were crazy for laughing, and for treating themselves to what good food they could afford. They would play mah jong and place bets, so that each week they could look forward to winning, and they could eat, gossip and joke. She decided to try to overcome her feelings of helplessness by starting a Joy Luck club with three other women. There was violence everywhere, and Suyuan nearly went crazy with fear and anxiety. People of all races and classes flooded into Kweilin, looking for a safe place to stay. The Japanese were winning the war, and everyone knew it, though the newspapers pretended it wasn't true. He was in the army and had to go to Chungking. It was because her husband thought it would be safe for her and their two baby daughters. But when she finally got to go there, it wasn't for the beauty of the place. Speaking Chinese, her mother used to tell Jing-mei that she dreamt about Kweilin before she ever went there-everyone in China did, because it was supposed to be so beautiful. "Over the years, she told me the same story, except for the ending, which grew darker, casting long shadows into her life, and eventually into mine." Chapter 1, pg. Suyuan had had the idea even longer ago, when she was first married in Kweilin, and always told Jing-mei the story when she was talking about her days in Kweilin, so Jing-mei thinks of the story of Joy Luck as her "Kweilin" story. She understood that all of them had painful pasts, and knew that the idea of Joy Luck would cheer them up. The women, who all live in San Francisco, met in 1949, before Jing-mei (who calls herself June) was born, at a bible study group at the First Chinese Baptist Church, and Suyuan started the club. The club is composed of three other women: Lindo Jong, Ying-ying St. The Joy Luck Club Chapter 1, Jing-Mei Woo, The Joy Luck ClubĪfter Jing-Mei Woo's mother, Suyuan Woo dies of a cerebral aneurysm, Jing-Mei's father, Canning Woo, asks Jing-Mei to take Suyuan's place in The Joy Luck Club.
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