Selling the Asian-American Community in The Joy Luck Club I wish I could join in the universal praise for Amy Tan and her bestselling novel "The Joy Luck Club joy and luck. I wish I could find the latest Chinese-American literary dish as appetizing as the rest of the American public but I can't until Amy Tan comes on the scene, the public images of the. Asian America had not developed since the middle of the century; the Asian-American man did not exist except as a barbaric Japanese or Vietnamese soldier; the Asian-American woman remained the dream of the adolescent Suzy Wong. , played for a while and then abandoned, Amy Tan, a gifted writer, had the chance to change these images, dispel public misconceptions and forge a new Asian-American identity instead, she missed. to his obligations, meekly reinforcing every stereotype imaginable. If Tan's first novel, "The Joy Lucky Club," is to be believed, Asian America is a mystical oddity, consistent with the mascot culture view of thirty-something white women that predominated at the time. Tan is reading. San Francisco's Chinatown is filled with hysterical Chinese women playing secret games of mah jong. China itself is a dreamscape, filled with secrets and traditions, all exuding a delicate storybook aura. Chinese mothers are all one-dimensional, superstitious and ignorant. their Chinese phrases are delightful italics with picturesque meanings. Of course, what Chinese comedy would be complete without a few garbled English words? When Tan was late for her reading at Berkeley, her white husband asked the audience to imitate her mother's playful syntax: "Why so late?" The rimshot.amy tan heroines are the white stepmom's dream come true. these porcelain dolls speak and have strong female sympathies. as one of Tan's heroines admits, "I used to push my eyes to the sides to make them rounder." a futile renunciation, but, oh, isn't it cute? Tan's heroines gain their identity by separating themselves from their culture and despising it. When the heroine of "The Kitchen God's Wife" hears of her great-aunt's "spirit money," she sneers because her aunt's attempt to "bribe her way into Chinese heaven" immediately suggests a negative contrast with the “real” Western paradise. the same dichotomy is also used with men. Asian American men are inadequate: they are either troublesome brothers or failed lovers that lead to "apathetic boredom." Love with a white man, however, is different..