Barriers of cultural translation

Barriers of cultural translation
‘The Joy Luck Club’ is a short story that clearly explains the hindrances existing between two different cultures, the Chinese and the American cultures. The story depicts a variety of characters that find it difficult to translate ideas and beliefs of the different cultures. This difficulty is responsible for the limited knowledge of the language that the characters have. Apart from the fact that the mothers and daughters are unable to communicate to each other effectively, they translate words wrongfully such that the accepted meaning completely differs from the one intended.
Wrongful translation creates scandals if not misunderstandings between the parties in question. Take, for instance, Jing-mei’s mother, she derives an entirely different meaning than the one intended when Jing-mei makes an effort to elaborate to her about the Joy Luck Club. She concludes that mothers are taken for fools by their daughters due to their lack of knowledge in English. She is however bothered by their daughters who turn a cold shoulder on the Chinese culture and more so are reluctant to pass it to the next generation.
Telling stories of the girls has been a powerful weapon used by mothers to deal with the existing barriers in translation during communication. In turn, the daughters derive various lessons from the stories including; warnings and advises on the successful people in the past. Immigration to some extent has a significant impact on one’s identity. The daughters, for instance, find it difficult to practice Chinese culture in an American environment.

They despise their culture and find it old-fashioned due to erosion by the American culture. At first, the daughters are in denial about their Chinese heritage but later as they mature, they embrace and find interest in it.