There are a number of differences between the eastern and western cultures. These differences have always existed in eastern and western cultures. The differences in both cultures are clearly visible in terms of lifestyle, thinking, dressing, eating and even expressing emotions and love to each other. There are also differences in the power of love between Eastern and Western Culture and the same has been reflected in various films and novels. This paper proposes a discussion on how eastern and western cultures have different power of love because of three main reasons: firstly, because family is considered as the top priority in eastern culture even if it causes discomfort, secondly, because western culture emphasizes on comfort in love or relationship even if it results into multiple marriages and divorces; thirdly, because western culture emphasizes on power and control, whereas, eastern culture emphasizes on harmony and sacrifices.
“The Joy Luck Club” is a bestselling novel by Amy Tan that portrays the power of love of eastern culture and hints at the differences in the power of love between Eastern and Western Culture. Amy Tan was born in United States in a Chinese immigrant family. Belonging to eastern culture, Tan is aware of emotions and love in her culture and being raised in western culture, she can practically analyze the differences of love in eastern and western cultures. Story of the novel revolves around Chinese immigrant families who are settled in the United States. Amy tan has beautifully portrayed family relations, love and their struggle in order to sustain in a completely different western culture.
There are Chinese mothers in the story who live with their America born daughters. Chinese mothers expect their daughters to adopt qualities of Americans, but at the same time, they expect their daughters to stick to Chinese customs and behave accordingly. Daughters, on the other hand, expect their mothers to adopt the western culture and behave accordingly. A clear division between the eastern and western culture is portrayed in the story. Mothers and daughters love each other but the cultural differences may confuse readers of disputes and differences among them.
In the novel, “The Joy of Luck” a mother Suyuan intervenes angrily while her daughter Jing-Mei was going to eat a crab with a broken leg. Mother stops her daughter because according to Chinese beliefs, eating a crab with broken leg invites misfortunes. Her America born daughter may not understand her emotions and love, but mother’s love for her daughter remains the same. In America, such things are not in practice and children enjoy enormous amount of independence in their homes. Unlike eastern culture, American children take major decisions of their life themselves. Neither they follow decisions of their parents nor do their parents interfere in life of their children life (Tan).
Another Chinese mother An-Mei Hsu was overanxious about her daughter as she had witnessed the sufferings of her mother. She was overprotective about her daughter. Chinese mothers may not hug or kiss their children fifty times in a day but it does not reduce their love for their children. Chinese mothers do not express their love by saying “I Love You” several times in a day, as mothers do commonly in the western culture, but they have their own way of expressing their love to their children. The maternal love is somewhat silent in the eastern culture as compared to western culture. In the Novel, “The Joy of Luck” Chinese mothers keep suggesting their daughters to behave wisely while taking any decision that may affect their life.
The way of expressing love differs in different cultures and the same is applied on eastern and western cultures too. In the novel, “The Joy of Luck” mothers’ maternal love for their daughters, that they try to convey, is influenced by the eastern culture. Joy luck mothers express their love for their daughters through regular watching of their activities and planning for their better life. In a traditional Chinese society, mothers are generally supposed to take every important decision of their daughters’ life from education to lifestyle and career to marriage (Tan).
The power of love and relationships are substantially impacted by cultures, and the same is reflected in movie “The Namesake”. The movie is full of love, romance and changing relationships. The movie shows power of love in eastern and western cultures along with describing how differences in culture influence power of love and relationships. Ashoke and his wife Ashima are first-generation immigrants to United States. The couple respects and follow their Indian traditions and share strong love bonding with each other and with their children (Tabbu et al.).
Gogol, the lead character of the movie and son of Ashoke and Ashima does not like Indian culture and feel ashamed of it. The movie shows impacts of cultural identity and its influence on relationships between son and mother, son and father, as well as, between lovers. Gogol does not understand why his parents uphold Eastern traditions when they are living in United States. Gogol is influenced with western culture and changes his name from Gogol to Nick and falls in love with a Caucasian girl named Maxine. However, Gogol’s family was unable to understand his love and relationship.
In Eastern cultures, family plays an important role in making all decisions related to education, love and marriage. In eastern countries, parents select life partners for their children whereas, in Western countries family plays a little role in making all major decisions related with children. In Namesake, Gogol parents hesitate while accepting Maxine. Living together before marriage was just beyond imagination. On other hand, Maxine’ parents do not only accept Gogol without caring about his background but also allow him to stay with them.
The Namesake shows that in Eastern culture, people are more committed in love, relationships and marriage. They are ready to compromise on several aspects for their love and relationship. For example, Ashima always wanted to stay in India and loved her country, but she decided to move to United States for her husband. On other hand, Maxine wanted Gogol to leave Indian traditions behind and become completely an American man. Maxine and Gogol break-up when Gogol refused to leave his true identity.
Moushumi is another character in the movie that has identity crisis, and struggling between Indian and American identities. Moushumi, under influence of Western culture, divorces with Gogol and starts her new life with her old boyfriend in Paris. Since Moushumi was influenced with the western culture, she sacrificed her marriage without much thinking. Affairs and divorces are very common in western societies but coming out of marriages and taking divorce is not appreciated in the eastern cultures.
“Gone with the Wind” is classic romantic movie that display power of love under different circumstances and how love for one person survive through various hardships. Scarlett O’Hara secretly loves Ashley who is about to get engage with his cousin. Scarlett informs Ashley about her feeling but he refused and said that Melanie is more compatible with him. The movie shows despite of Scarlett’s love for Ashley, she marries to three different men through the movie under different circumstances (Leigh et al.).
The movie is knitted during the time of Civil War, and the culture prevailing at that time has significant influence on the decisions taken by characters in the movie. Scarlett is shown as very determined woman who marries to three men in order to fulfil her own interest of money, position and entertainment. Rhett, another important character in the movie loves scarlet even after knowing the fact that she loves Ashley. Rhett makes all efforts to develop same feeling in Scarlett, but never succeeded.
The movie “Gone with the wind” displays how western culture influences the love decisions taken by the individuals. The power of love kept Scarlett going on taking several decisions to save Tara and support her family during the crisis time. Whereas, Rhett accepted Scarlett the way she was and receive disappointment at several occasions. Such incidences are not common in Eastern Culture. In eastern Culture people scarifies their desires in order to sustain their marriage.
In Eastern countries such as India and China, marrying to three-four persons and taking divorce is not common. Women in eastern culture give up their desires and career to secure the interest of her husband and children, which is reflected in the movie Namesake; whereas, in western culture individuals aspirations and interests often dominate relationships. In movie Gone with the wind Scarlett asked Ashley to escape with her without considering other relationships. Scarlett keeps on loving Ashley without even thinking about her daughter.
Levine et al. (1995) in their article mention that love receive more importance in western culture as compare to Eastern culture when it comes to marriage. According to research, western countries have higher marriage and divorce rate because western culture does not consider multiple marriages and divorces as bad thing. However, in Eastern culture multiple marriages are considered as social stigma. People scarify to maintain their relationship and marriage in Eastern culture (Levine et al.).
Novel, “The Joy of Luck” and movies “The Namesake” and “Gone with the Wind” describe the differences between eastern and western cultures and also highlight the differences of love in both cultures. The differences between eastern and western cultures have existed since a long time and there are various factors that keep these differences alive. Such differences are not abnormal and exist in other cultures and are based on a variety of factors. “The Namesake” and “The Joy Luck Club” show the gap that exists in two generations due to influence of culture. Children who were brought up in western culture take decision by themselves whereas; their parents are unable to understand this behaviour because they never saw such things. In movie “Gone with the wind” all characters decide their partners without consulting even with their parents whereas, in the movie, “The Namesake” Gogol tries to take approval of his parents.
Opponents claim that culture does not impact power of love hence it is same across all cultures. Things have changed in the era of globalization and cultures do not have any boundaries. It was certainly a common practice in eastern culture that parents used to decide about every aspect of their children and children used to follow their parents, but now things have drastically changed in eastern culture. Children now decide themselves about their future including love and marriage decisions.
According to opponents, individualism, that was a common feature of western culture, is now equally practiced in eastern culture. Family is not a priority in eastern culture anymore as joint families have converted into nuclear families and now people are more focused about themselves. Individualism has become a common feature of eastern culture. Now people keep their interests at the first place and take care of their needs before thinking about anyone else in eastern cultures (Seoul and Taipei).
Quest for power and control is equally visible in all cultures. Seoul and Taipei mentioned that eastern culture is changing due to increase in employment of women and late marriages. Women now do not scarify for the family and children, and both partners are equally responsible for development of children. Women like their husband are focused on career building and achieving power (Seoul and Taipei).
After observing the cultural differences of eastern and western cultures and differences in the power of love between Eastern and Western Culture, as described in above noted novel and movies, the paper concludes that such differences are quite normal. These differences are bound to occur in eastern and western cultures due to difference in various aspects of life. The difference in love applies on all kinds of love, be it maternal, paternal or husband-wife relations in eastern and western cultures. People of both cultures love their near and dear ones, but their way of expressing their love differs because of several differences in eastern and western cultures.
Works Cited
Gone with the Wind. Dir. Victor Fleming. Leigh, Vivien, Gable, Clark, Howard, Leslie and Havilland, Olivia de. 1939.
Levine, Robert, Sato, Suguru, Hashimoto, Tsukasa and Verma, Jyoti. "Love and Marriage in Eleven Cultures." Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 26.5 (1995 ): 554-571.
Seoul and Taipei. "The Flight from Marriage." 20 August 2011. Economist. 26 April 2015.
Shi-xu, Kienpointner, Manfred and Servaes, Jan. Read the Cultural Other. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2005.
Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. London: Random House, 2008.
The Namesake . Dir. Mira Nair. Tabbu, Khan, Irrfan, Penn, Kal, Barrett, Jacinda and Robinson, Zuleikha. 2006.
