Amy Tan
Chinese-American writer and member of the Rock Bottom Remainders, most famous for her novel The Joy Luck Club.
People look at me as this very, I don't know, Confucius-like wise person — which I'm not. They don't see all the shit that I've been through.
On the third day after someone dies, the soul comes back to settle scores. In my mother's case, this would be the first day of the lunar new year. And because it is the new year, all debts must be paid, or disaster and misfortune will follow.
I was no longer scared. I could see what was inside me.
I have always known a thing before it happens.
Only two kind of daughters. Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind! Only one kind of daughter can live in this house. Obedient daughter!
I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these things do not mix?
Look at this face. Do you see my foolish hope?
I was writing for businesses. I think my mother was a little skeptical in the beginning, but fortunately, as a free-lance writer I was successful almost immediately. And so she was very proud, because she measured success in terms of money, which is what I started to do as well. My goal then, became to increase the amount of money that I made each month. Not simply each year, but each month — I mean, talk about pressure — to have more billable hours each month. So that by the end of my third year of being a free-lance writer, I was billing 90 hours a week. I had no time to sleep. I had no life. People said I was crazy, that I was a workaholic. And I couldn't understand how it was that I had these wonderful clients, and I was making all this money, and I wasn't happy and I didn't feel successful. That's when I started to write fiction.
Your father is not my first husband. You are not those babies.
My father has asked me to be the fourth corner at the Joy Luck Club. I am to replace my mother, whose seat at the mah jong table has been empty since she died two months ago. My father thinks she was killed by her own thoughts.
Now that I'm angry at Harold, it's hard to remember what was so remarkable about him.