In literature, sayings, which are similar to dialogue, are used in numerous ways. It can be used to portray society, action, and religion, or used to further elaborate on an idea in the story. Amy Tan is an american author who mainly writes about Chinese mother-daughter relations. In her short story “Rules of The Game” she uses two main sayings to exaggeratedly portray Chinese tradition and action.
Here is a brief summary on Tan’s short story. There is a young Chinese girl called Waverly who lives on Chinatown with her parents and two brothers. One day, she decides to start playing chess, and over the period of a few days, she improves tremendously. Her mother also teaches her sayings. Waverly decides to attend at a competition a few weeks later, and in her mind, she thinks about her mother’s sayings. When her mother realizes that Waverly is starting to become famous and appear on news, her mom goes outside to brag and also makes her brother do more chores. Waverly gets extremely annoyed at her mom’s behavior, and her mom gets furious.
The first saying is how Waverly’s mother uses the concept “American Rules”. When her mom is looking through the chess book, the author describes it as, “She scanned the pages quickly, not reading the foreign English symbols…This American Rules” (Tan 3). Her mother truly does not understand the rule book, as it is foreign, and proceeds to call it american. This is because Waverly’s mother does not enjoy being seen as bad, hence always wants to be the best. She simply denies that it is because she is not fluent in English, but instead concludes that it is because that the rules were american. Additionally, when Waverly’s brother has to do more chores than her, they obviously complain, but her mother says that this, “Is new American rules [sic]” (Tan 4). Her mother obviously favors her daughter because she has become a master at chess, so she makes her do less chores. Instead of telling the honest truth, she tells her sons that it is a new American Rule. Since the mother thinks American rules are foreign, and bad, she assumes that her sons think the same. She is taking advantage of “American Rules” so that she is not blamed. Tan uses the “American Rules” to create something that the Chinese see as foreign, bad, or irrelevant.
The second saying is, “he not go against wind…[he] come from [sic].” (Tan 1). The saying means that one must not go against something, but rather go with it. This further simplifies down to go with the flow. Going with the flow helped her in chess in many ways. In the world of chess, go with the flow translates to adapting to your opponent’s moves. Do what flows best, what strikes the enemy best. As the situation changes, so does the “wind”, and one should move differently accordingly to their opponent. Tan portrays how Chinese tradition involves creating sayings to help people improve on different activities.
In conclusion, Amy Tan’s usage of sayings shape the way of how the reader sees Chinese tradition in this “made-up” story. “American Rules” is something, foreign, and “he not go against wind…[he] come from [sic].” is one of the many possible sayings used to help people succeed. The Chinese in this story are thought to enjoy being honored and also enjoy creating sayings to further elaborate certain doings.