Cultural Chameleons

Since Amy Tan's "Fish Cheeks" was probably the essay I most connected with this week, I guess I'll write about that.

So what I found most interesting about her piece (and in retrospect this is probably true about me as well) is that she varies her behavior depending on her environment. She has no qualms about her relatives having Chinese habits when they are all she is around. After all, she reveals at the end of her piece that her mother had cooked all of her favorite foods for Christmas, so she clearly has enjoyed them at one time or another (most likely with the company of her relatives).

However, when she is in the company of the priest's family, she wants an American nose, a family with American manners, etc. She wants to be American when in the company of Americans.

So the obvious question (for me) is fairly straightforward. Simply put, which culture does Amy belong to? Her default appears to be Chinese, but most of the time, she's also in the company of her Chinese friends, so that may not be true. Alternatively, she could be American by default, but I'm not sure. She could also be a mix of the two (which would mean she blends in to either culture she wants to at any given moment), which would explain her mixed habits and wants, as well as the confusion she feels when presented with both options. What do you think? I'm actually pretty interested in getting more input here.

On an entirely unrelated note, when I was opening my riverside to get to our active reading assignment, I happened to open it to "Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain" on page 305, and I decided to read it because why not. That had the unintentional side effect of making me question the point of everything that was happening in "Grade A." Whoops.