cap vert comptoir des voyages

Le JavaScript semble être désactivé sur votre navigateur. Javascript doit être activé dans votre navigateur pour que vous puissiez utiliser les fonctionnalités de ce site internet.

• Afrique du sud
• Burkina Faso
• Corée du nord
• Corée du sud
• Philippines
• Pays Baltes
• République Tchèque
• Nouvelle-Calédonie
• Nouvelle-Zélande
• Polynésie Française
• Arabie saoudite
• Azerbaïdjan
• Emirats Arabes Unis
• Kirghizistan
• Ouzbékistan
• Iles Canaries
• Iles Cyclades
• Ile Maurice
• Iles Salomon
• Rép. Dominicaine
• Voyage de noces
• En septembre
• En novembre
• En décembre
• En amoureux
• À la Toussaint
• À Noël et au Nouvel An
• Circuit accompagné
• Voyage en famille
• Toutes les inspirations
• Nos événements culturels
• Carnets de voyage
• La Maison de thé
• Qui sommes-nous
• Notre valeur ajoutée
• Notre engagement responsable
• Notre agence de voyage
• Revue de presse
• Demander un devis
• Contactez-nous
• Prendre un rdv
• Me connecter
• Voyage Afrique >

Voyage Cap Vert

Votre prochain voyage sera inoubliable

Accès rapide

Amoureux de nature et d’authenticité, à la recherche d’énergie, d’harmonie et de cadre idyllique, découvrez nos voyages au Cap-Vert, concoctés par notre équipe de spécialistes. Laissez-vous entraîner par les rythmes brésiliens qui invitent à la fête et séduire par la gentillesse de son peuple métissé, fier de ses racines africaines et européennes. Sodade… Sodade… D'île en île, cet archipel posé au large des côtes sénégalaises, terre d’escale des navigateurs, surprend par ses paysages extrêmes, entre déserts, vallées luxuriantes, cités coloniales, volcans et plages désertes. À São Vicente, sillonnez les ruelles bordées de maisons colorées, puis partez en randonnée sur l’île-jardin de Santo Antão, entre villages perchés et superbes plantations. Les paysages vertigineux de Sao Nicolau se combinent à ces joyaux lors de notre croisière à bord d’un bateau local. Nos circuits au Cap Vert vous mènent également à Santiago et ses villages pittoresques, au volcan de Fogo, à Brava, l’île aux fleurs, aux salines de Pedra Lume, sur un ancien cratère de volcan sur l’île de Sal. Pour goûter aux plaisirs de la mer le temps d’un séjour au Cap Vert   là où se rejoignent les sables dorés et les eaux étonnamment cristallines et turquoise de l’océan Atlantique, laissez-vous tenter par les plages de Sal, à l'ambiance festive, ou de Boa Vista, île des dunes et de la morna où s’étend l'immense désert de Viana qui a inspiré nombre de musiciens cap-verdiens. À Santa Maria, une infinie palette d’activités sportives s’offre à vous : kitesurf, windsurf, planche à voile, plongée… Pour un voyage sur mesure au « Petit Pays » de Césaria Evora, n'hésitez pas à nous communiquer vos envies…

Affiner votre recherche

Trio irrésistible du Cap-vert

Circuit accompagné 9 Jours / 8 Nuits

À partir de 2 490 €*

Séjour à Sal, désirs de sable doré

Séjour 8 jours / 7 nuits

À partir de 1 370 €*

A la découverte des îles du Cap-Vert

Voyage sur mesure 13 Jours / 12 nuits

À partir de 2 995 €*

Cap-Vert : les îles du Sud - Santiago, Fogo et Brava

Voyage sur mesure 9 Jours / 8 Nuits

À partir de 2 520 €*

Joyaux secrets du Cap-Vert

Voyage sur mesure 12 jours / 10 nuits

À partir de 2 890 €*

Délices et plaisirs du Cap-Vert

Voyage sur mesure 8 Jours / 7 Nuits

À partir de 2 150 €*

Séjour sur l'île aux dunes, Boa Vista

Séjour 8 Jours / 7 Nuits

À partir de 1 490 €*

Cap-Vert, séjour à Sal et Sao Vicente

Séjour 6 Jours / 5 Nuits

À partir de 1 560 €*

Flexibilité

Report sans frais sur toutes nos destinations ou remboursement en cas de fermeture de frontière.

Des conseillers spécialistes connaissant dans les moindres détails leurs destinations

Contact téléphonique 24h/24 , 7j/7 pendant tout votre voyage.

Culture & voyage

Les clés pour bien préparer votre voyage au cap-vert.

Conseils de nos experts, témoignages et coups de cœur

L’AVIS  DE CHLOÉ, CONSEILLÈRE VOYAGE AFRIQUE

« Terre d’escale des navigateurs au large des côtes sénégalaises, l’archipel du Cap-Vert m’a surprise, lors de mon premier voyage, par ses paysages extrêmes, déserts, vallées luxuriantes, cités coloniales, volcans, plages désertes. Si comme moi vous êtes amoureux de nature, d’authenticité et de rythmes qui invitent à la fête, vous serez conquis ! »

LES 4 COUPS DE CŒUR CAP-VERDIENS DE CHLOÉ

• Plonger et randonner à Santo Antao Les meilleurs spots de Santo Antao ? Atlantis Palace, Critters Walk, Find Wally, Pared Bitxon ou encore Vapor, une belle épave d’un ancien bateau à vapeur dont on n’a jamais trouvé le nom, où l’on admire les raies, carangues, murènes, mérous, langoustes, nudibranches... Côté terre, il fait bon se balader dans la Vallée de Paul et dans la caldeira de Cova, sur la route des crêtes, vaste cratère à la terre fertile pour les plantations.
• Avoir l'impression de découvrir plusieurs pays en un seul voyage ! Sal et Boa Vista , paradis balnéaires ; Fogo, sauvage et volcanique ; Santo Antao, l’île-jardin... D'île en île, cet archipel posé au large des côtes sénégalaises, terre d’escale des navigateurs, surprend par ses paysages extrêmes, entre déserts, vallées luxuriantes, cités coloniales, volcans et plages désertes. De courts vols intérieurs permettent de relier les îles entre elles. Mon conseil : pas plus de 3 îles en 10 nuits.
• Savourer la cuisine locale et rencontrer la population à Mindalo Ville natale de Cesária Évora, la capitale culturelle de l’archipel se découvre en musique, qui résonne dans les rues, les cafés, les cabarets. Ici, j’adore me balader au marché pour rencontrer la population et je me régale de la cuisine, délicieux mélange de saveurs africaines et portugaises, dans les nombreux restaurants typiques.
• Vivre le carnaval de Mindelo en février C’est l’ événement le plus réputé de l’archipel et le plus beau moment pour se rendre à Sao Vicente , et plus particulièrement à Mindelo. Le dimanche précédent Mardi Gras et le grand défilé rivalisant de couleurs, de musique et de plumes, la parade des Mandingas entièrement peints en noir, représentants de l'héritage africain du peuple capverdien, est impressionnante.

OÙ PARTIR AU CAP-VERT ? Notre top 10 des lieux cap-verdiens incontournables

• Les salines de Pedra Lume , à l’est de l’île de Sal , exploitées du XIXe au XXe siècle.
• Le désert de Viana , un kilomètre de large et cinq kilomètres de long, mélange de sable fin apporté du continent africain par le vent, de roches volcaniques et de végétation créant un paysage insolite sur l’île de Boa Vista .
• Le cratère volcanique de Cova , au nord-est de l’île de Fogo, qui culmine à 1 166 mètres d’altitude et dévoile un panorama à couper le souffle.
• La zone de Chã das Caldeiras , une caldeira située sur l’île de Fogo dont le rempart montagneux mesure près de 2 700 mètres.
• La citadelle Velha , ou sidadi, sur l'île de Santiago, qui fut autrefois la capitale du Cap-Vert, inscrite au patrimoine mondial de l’Unesco.
• La belle plage de sable blanc de Tarrafal sur l’île de Santiago. Non loin se trouve le camp de Tarrafal où prisonniers politiques portugais, indépendantistes angolais et mozambicains étaient jadis retenus.
• La vallée de Paul sur l’île de Santo Antão et ses immenses champs de canne à sucre, entre falaises basaltiques, cultures tropicales en terrasses et hameaux traditionnels.
• Le village de Fontainhas aux maisons colorées, perché à flanc de montagne sur l'île de Santo Antão, qui a, dit-on, la deuxième vue la plus belle du monde.
• Les roches de Carberinho sur l’île de São Nicolau, formations géologiques incroyables aux couleurs variées.
• Le parc naturel du Monte Gordo , écrin de verdure de l'île de São Nicolau où de nombreuses balades sont possibles à travers forêts de caféiers, sisals, pins et eucalyptus.

LES BONNES RAISONS DE PARTIR AU CAP-VERT Notre top 10 des expériences uniques à vivre au Cap-Vert

• Danser au rythme de la morna dans le sillage de Cesaria Evora, « la diva aux pieds nus ».
• Dévaler les dunes du désert de Viana , le Sahara de l’océan Atlantique.
• Observer les tortues pondre à Boa Vista et Sal , îles où l’on retrouve le plus grand nombre de nids, et participer à leur protection contre le braconnage. La ponte se fait entre les mois de juin et d’octobre.
• Découvrir la culture locale au musée historique de Castaway ou au Museu dos Naufragos, à Boa Vista.
• Faire du snorkeling à Santa Monica , l’une des plus belles plages du monde .
• S’aventurer en trek dans le nord de Santo Antão , deuxième plus grande île de l’archipel, entre montagnes spectaculaires, côte escarpée et villages perchés.
• S’immerger dans la vie locale, en travaillant la terre avec « l’inchada », la roue locale, et en préparant une « catchupa », le plat national à base de maïs et de haricots secs.
• Se baigner dans les piscines naturelles à Juncalinho (São Nicolau) ou à Fajã de Água (Brava).
• Embarquer sur une barque de pêcheurs pour longer la côte nord de Santo Antão.
• Visiter un trapiche , lieu de fabrication du fameux grog capverdien.

QUAND PARTIR AU CAP-VERT ? La meilleure période pour partir au Cap-Vert

Vous pouvez partir en voyage au Cap-Vert tout au long de l’année. Les mois de décembre à mars sont très venteux, idéal pour les surfeurs et véliplanchistes. Les mois de septembre et octobre, plus chauds et pluvieux, restent quand même agréables pour randonner ou profiter des plages.

Voyage sur mesure Cap Vert

Randonnée, plongée, farniente, découverte... Lors de votre voyage sur mesure au Cap-Vert , archipel volcanique face aux côtes sénégalaises, laissez libre cours à vos envies et faites de cet ancien repère de pirates au cœur de l’océan Atlantique, votre terrain de jeu.

Séjour Cap Vert

Un séjour au Cap-Vert , le « Petit Pays » de Césaria Evora, est la promesse d’une parenthèse enchantée rythmée par les plaisirs balnéaires, la musique omniprésente et l'accueil chaleureux des Cap-Verdiens.

Circuit accompagné Cap Vert

Partez en petit groupe et profitez de nos circuits au Cap-Vert , accompagnés par des guides francophones experts, afin d’explorer tous les trésors de l’archipel.

Découvrez le Cap Vert autrement :

Croisière Cap Vert

Les plus belles plages Cap Vert

Spa et détente Cap Vert

Hors des sentiers battus Cap Vert

Trek Cap Vert

Voyage de noces Cap Vert

Voyage en famille Cap Vert

Voyage à deux Cap Vert

Quand partir au Cap Vert

Besoin d'un conseil ?

01 56 81 38 29

Prendre un rendez-vous

• Nos villes et étapes au Cap Vert
• Nos suggestions de voyage
• Infos pratiques

À São Vicente , vous aimerez les nombreux restaurants et bars de Mindelo et le riche patrimoine historique. À Santo Antao , vous débarquez à Porto Novo et c’est le paysage de montagnes qui vous séduira. À Sal , les magnifiques plages de sable fin invitent à la détente… À ce trio irrésistible du Cap Vert, ajoutez Fogo , dont le village de São Filipe et le volcan sont les joyaux ; Santiago, où siège Praia , la capitale de l’archipel ; Brava , son relief montagneux et sa végétation généreuse ; l’île sauvage et préservée de São Nicolau ; l’exotique Boa Vista … Accessibles en ferry, les splendides îles du Cap-Vert sont autant de voyages en soi.

Voyage Afrique du Sud

Voyage Algérie

Voyage Bénin

Voyage Botswana

Voyage Burkina Faso

Voyage Egypte

Voyage Ethiopie

Voyage Kenya

Voyage Maroc

Voyage Mozambique

Voyage Namibie

Voyage Ouganda

Voyage Rwanda

Voyage Sénégal

Voyage Tanzanie

Voyage Togo

Voyage Zambie

Voyage Zimbabwe

Voyage Ile Maurice

Voyage Reunion

Voyage Madagascar

Voyage Mayotte

Voyage Seychelles

Voyage Zanzibar

Inscrivez-vous à notre newsletter pour recevoir nos inspirations de voyage en avant-première

Soyez informé en avant-première de tous nos voyages et de tous nos circuits

• Contact : [email protected] Prendre un rendez-vous en ligne 76, rue Bonaparte Paris 6 ème Europe & Orient : 01 56 81 38 30 Inde : 01 56 81 38 38 Asie : 01 40 51 95 15 Chine : 01 40 51 95 00 Afrique & océan indien : 01 56 81 38 29 Amérique du Nord : 01 53 63 13 43 Amérique Latine : 01 53 63 13 40 Australie & îles du Pacifique : 01 70 36 35 40
• Qui sommes nous ?
• Notre Maison de thé
• Nous rejoindre
• Votre agence de voyage à Paris
• Votre voyage de A à Z
• Voyage groupes
• Idée voyage
• Écotourisme
• Voyage sur mesure
• Nos brochures
• Calculateur CO²
• Sécurité & confidentialité
• Conditions générales de vente
• Conditions générales d'utilisation
• Mentions légales
• Charte avis voyageur

© Les Maisons du Voyage

À l’assaut de São Nicolau Circuit sur les îles capverdiennes de São Nicolau et Sal.

• Voyager en décalé
• Activités nature

Voyage au Cap-Vert sur les îles de São Nicolau, dont les sentiers de rando sont restés confidentiels, et Sal, connue pour ses plages.

Bien souvent, les voyageurs cherchent un juste milieu entre l’aventure et la détente, entre les destinations confidentielles et celles renommées. Pour un voyage au Cap-Vert,  combiner l’île de São Nicolau et l’île de Sal est la garantie d’un bon équilibre ! Les paysages vallonnés et parfois difficiles d’accès de São Nicolau invitent à de grandes randonnées, très loin des foules de touristes, tandis que ses petites plages offrent le choix entre sable blanc et sable noir. Dans les villages, l’atmosphère est authentique et chaleureuse… Après s’être baladé en long, en large et en travers, on se pose sur les longues plages de l’île de Sal, là où les adeptes des sports nautiques et du farniente se donnent rendez-vous.

La bonne saison

Que ce soit en rando ou en baignade, ces deux îles du Cap-Vert se découvrent de préférence en octobre-novembre ou de mars à juillet. Le temps est en général beau et chaud (entre 21 et 27 °C en moyenne) ! Si la période de décembre à février affiche elle aussi du soleil, le vent souffle plus fort, ce qui a une incidence sur les vols intérieurs et les vagues. Pluies d’orage et fortes chaleurs caractérisent les mois d’août et de septembre.

• Crapahuter dans les vallées luxuriantes de l’ouest de São Nicolau avec un road book.
• Sillonner les terres volcaniques de l’est de l’île avec un chauffeur privé.
• Sentir sous ses pieds la chaleur du sable noir de Tarrafal.
• Vous régaler de poissons, langouste et buzios fraîchement pêchés.
• Préparer ses gambettes sur l’île de Sal au début du voyage… et les reposer à la fin !
• 1 Jours 1 - 2 ÎLE DE SAL
• 2 Jours 3 - 4 ÎLE DE SÃO NICOLAU (RIBEIRA BRAVA)
• 3 Jours 5 - 6 ÎLE DE SÃO NICOLAU (TARRAFAL)
• 4 Jours 7 à 10 ÎLE DE SAL

À partir de

prix par personne calculé sur la base de 2 personnes

Ce prix comprend

• Les vols aller-retour Paris/Sal avec escale
• Les vols intérieurs aller-retour Sal/São Nicolau
• Les transferts aller-retour aéroports/hôtels
• La mise à disposition d’un chauffeur à São Nicolau pendant une journée
• Un road book pour la journée de randonnée libre à São Nicolau

Ce budget varie en fonction de la saison et de la disponibilité.

Si le Cap-Vert s’avère tentant pour passer les fêtes de fin d’année, cela a un coût : les prix sont plus chers de 20 % environ à cette période.

1 ÎLE DE SAL

2 ÎLE DE SÃO NICOLAU (RIBEIRA BRAVA)

3 ÎLE DE SÃO NICOLAU (TARRAFAL)

4 ÎLE DE SAL

Nos Welcome Hosts au Cap Vert

Ils vous donneront les clés de leur ville, loin des clichés habituels, et partageront, autour d’un verre, bons plans du moment et anecdotes sur leur vie quotidienne. Un échange convivial, spontané et naturel, pour capter l’ambiance du pays. Une rencontre offerte par Comptoir des Voyages.

Le temps d'un café, faites connaissance avec notre Welcome Host Helena, qui vit à Mindelo depuis 2013.

Une envie particulière ?

• Randonnée
• Île de Sal
• Plage de Santa Maria
• Île de Santo Antao
• Île de Sao Vicente
• Ponta do Sol
• Route de la Corde
• Île de Santiago
• Plages de Tarrafal et de Monte Trigo

Suivez vos envies et demandez conseils à nos spécialistes

• Ils sauront organiser votre itinéraire au plus près de vos envies et de la réalité du pays.
• Échangez en face à face ou depuis nos studios connectés en agence, mais aussi par email ou téléphone.
• Vous gardez le même interlocuteur avant, pendant et après votre voyage.

D'autres idées de voyage au Cap Vert

• En famille Cap Vert

Les marmots à Santiago Circuit autotour en famille sur l’île capverdienne de Santiago.

Génération Cap-Vert Circuit famille sur les îles de São Vicente, Santo Antão et Sal.

• Voyager à l’essentiel

Rencontres et balades capverdiennes Circuit sur les îles capverdiennes de Santo Antão et São Vicente.

Pas de résultat à afficher.

l'appli qui vous guide au Cap Vert

• L’itinéraire vers votre sobrado en 1 clic
• Notre sélection de marchés 
• Les plus belles caldeiras géolocalisées
• L'album souvenirs à composer vous-même

Pourquoi voyager avec nous

Soyons honnête, nous ne sommes pas les seuls à proposer des voyages sur mesure, mais nous avons quelques atouts qui font incontestablement la différence.

Abonnez-vous à notre Newsletter

• Voyage Cap Vert

Nature et art de vivre

Noël & réveillons, sous le soleil exactement, vacances de février, vacances de la toussaint, vacances de pâques, voyages avec vos enfants, voyages de noces.

Contactez un conseiller spécialiste Cap Vert 01 86 95 65 62

Idées voyages au Cap Vert

Voyages itinérants Cap Vert - São Vicente - Santo Antão

De são vicente à santo antão- une semaine à la rencontre du cap-vert.

D'une île à l'autre, prendre le temps de s’imprégner de la culture créole du Cap-Vert

8 jours, de 2500 à 3400 €

NOS VOYAGES CAP VERT

Voyages itinérants Cap-Vert - São Vicente - Santo Antão - Santiago - Fogo

Des dunes de mindelo au cratère du fogo- le cap-vert grandeur nature.

Quatre nuances de (Cap) Vert : un voyage actif pour profiter de l'archipel au naturel

11 jours, de 2800 à 3800 €

Voyages itinérants São Vicente - Santo Antão - Santiago - Boa Vista

D'île en île, en douceur - tous les visages du cap-vert.

Une rencontre avec des îles singulières, à l’histoire riche et aux cultures métissées

12 jours, de 3100 à 4200 €

Envies Cap Vert

WIFI NOMADE : 1GO/JOUR INCLUS

Conciergerie francophone

Appli carnet de voyage

Gagnez des miles

Modifier son voyage en cours

Absorption CO2

Bravo pour l’accompagnement de Voyageurs du Monde tout au long de la préparation du voyage et au cours de celui-ci : les îles du Cap Vert sont à découvrir avec des habitants adorables. La qualité de service de Voyageurs du Monde est au delà de mes attentes.

un pays très attachant, au plus prêt des habitants et de la nature

Mon voyage au Cap Vert a été considérablement réduit à cause de la pandémie. Je remercie vdm de m'avoir tenu au courant de façon très pro et de m'avoir proposé une solution de rapatriement avant qu'il ne soit trop tard (et aussi de m'avoir convaincu de la choisir, ce qui n'était pas évident !)

Le guide Cap Vert

Guide Pratique

Quand partir au Cap Vert

A vivre absolument au Cap-Vert

A vivre au Cap-Vert et nulle part ailleurs

Où Voyager au Cap Vert ?

Plus de 200 conseillers spécialisés par pays et régions, vous aident à créer un voyage selon vos envies et votre budget.

Personnalisation

Suivant les suggestions de votre conseiller mais aussi vos idées, nous construisons un voyage ultra-personnalisé : étapes, hébergements, activités, rencontres...

Conciergerie francophone à destination, assistance 24/24, salons lounge, douanes rapides, early check-in : un éventail de services d’excellence à votre disposition.

• Conseillers destinations
• Nos agences

Bonjour, Ni attente ni loupé dans nos Cités des Voyageurs. En prenant rendez-vous au jour et à l’heure qui vous conviennent, vous pourrez confortablement échanger avec l’un de nos spécialistes pays.

01 86 95 65 62

Bonjour, Nos conseillers par destination sont à votre écoute sur rendez-vous par téléphone ou par visio du lundi au samedi de 9h à 19h, ou bien en agences de 10h à 18h.

Où souhaitez-vous partir ?

• Afrique du Sud 01 84 17 57 32
• Argentine 01 84 17 19 49
• Australie 01 84 17 21 66
• Birmanie 01 85 08 10 41
• Brésil 01 84 17 21 65
• Cambodge 01 83 64 79 43
• Canada 01 84 17 57 98
• Chili 01 83 64 79 44
• Chine 01 84 17 19 21
• Costa Rica 01 83 64 79 38
• Croatie 01 83 64 79 48
• Cuba 01 83 64 79 40
• Egypte 01 84 17 19 01
• Espagne 01 83 64 79 06
• Etats-Unis 01 84 17 57 96
• Finlande 01 85 08 10 45
• Grèce 01 84 17 21 63
• Ile Maurice 01 84 17 70 91
• Inde 01 84 17 21 64
• Indonésie 01 84 17 19 12
• Islande 01 83 64 79 42
• Irlande 01 83 64 79 21
• Italie 01 84 17 46 76
• Japon 01 84 17 19 48
• Maldives 01 83 64 79 35
• Maroc 01 84 17 21 68
• Mexique 01 84 17 21 67
• Namibie 01 83 64 79 41
• Norvège 01 85 08 10 42
• Oman 01 85 08 10 43
• Pérou 01 84 17 21 60
• Polynésie 01 84 17 21 62
• Portugal 01 84 17 21 69
• Réunion 01 83 64 79 45
• Royaume Uni 01 85 08 10 40
• Russie 01 84 17 21 61
• Seychelles 01 84 17 70 92
• Sri Lanka 01 83 64 79 39
• Tanzanie 01 84 17 57 33
• Thaïlande 01 84 17 19 47
• Turquie 01 85 08 10 44
• Vietnam 01 84 17 19 46
• Autres Pays 01 42 86 16 00

Bonjour, Appelez-nous et prenez rendez-vous ! Du lundi au samedi de 10h à 18h dans nos Cités des Voyageurs. Ou encore sur rendez-vous par téléphone ou par visio du lundi au samedi de 9h à 19h. Et que le voyage commence !

• Bordeaux 05 57 14 01 48 28, rue Mably 33000 Bordeaux
• Bruxelles +32 2 543 95 50 Chaussée de Charleroi 23 1060 Bruxelles
• Genève +41 22 518 04 94 Rue de la Rôtisserie 19 1204 Genève
• Grenoble 04 76 85 95 90 16, boulevard Gambetta 38000 Grenoble
• Lausanne +41 21 519 10 65 Rue de bourg, 6 1003 Lausanne
• Lille 03 20 06 76 25 147 bld de la Liberté 59000 Lille
• Lyon 04 72 56 94 56 5, Quai Jules Courmont 69002 Lyon
• Marseille 04 96 17 89 17 25, rue Fort-Notre-Dame 13001 Marseille
• Montpellier 04 67 67 96 30 8, rue du Palais Des Guilhem 34000 Montpellier
• Montréal +1 514-722-0909 295 rue de la Commune Ouest H2Y 2E1 Montréal
• Nantes 02 40 20 64 30 13 rue du Moulin 44000 Nantes
• Nice 04 97 03 64 64 4, rue du Maréchal Joffre 06000 Nice
• Paris 01 42 86 16 00 55, rue Sainte-Anne 75002 Paris
• Québec +1 418-651-9191 540 rue Champlain G1K 4J3 Québec
• Rennes 02 99 79 16 16 31 rue de la Parcheminerie 35102 Rennes
• Rouen 02 32 10 82 50 17-19 rue de la Vicomté 76000 Rouen
• Strasbourg 03 88 15 29 48 16 rue Sainte Barbe 67000 Strasbourg
• Toulouse 05 34 31 72 72 26, rue des Marchands 31000 Toulouse

• En immersion
• Astuces de Comptoir

Les coulisses

• En direct de
• Paroles de blogueurs
• Posts Tagged "Cap-Vert"
• Actus - Coups de cœur - En immersion
• 8 novembre 2016

Dans les cuisines du monde : suivons Very Food Trip

Goûter à de nouvelles saveurs, découvrir des savoir-faire, des traditions et des quotidiens d’ailleurs, c’est l’objectif que se sont donnés Louis et Marine à travers leur projet Very Food Trip . Pendant plusieurs mois, ils parcourent différents pays et partent à la rencontre de leurs habitants à travers le repas, porte d’entrée vers l’échange culturel et le partage. Lire la suite

• Actus - Les coulisses
• 16 juin 2016

Déjeunez chez l’habitant avec Comptoir des Voyages et VizEat

Ceux qui nous suivent sur Twitter le savent peut-être déjà, Comptoir des Voyages vient de signer un partenariat avec VizEat, le leader européen du repas chez l’habitant. Dès cet été, nos clients pourront donc déguster des linguine alla Luciana à la table d’un hôte à Naples ou bien un bún chả à Hanoi ! Lire la suite

Spécialiste du voyage sur mesure, Comptoir des Voyages a désormais son blog… sur mesure. Apprenez à mieux nous connaître en lisant les interviews de nos conseillers et toutes les actualités de notre marque. Vivez le voyage tel que vous l'aimez et tel que nous le concevons chaque jour.

Toute l’équipe de Comptoir des Voyages

Articles récents

• Une année particulière à Malte 6 juillet 2021
• Une année particulière en Irlande 23 juin 2021
• Comptoir des Voyages s’installe à Nice 11 février 2020
• Le PRO à roulettes du PAF 3 juillet 2018
• Isabelle, notre partenaire pour les voyages accessibles à Stockholm 3 juin 2018
• Actus (166)
• Astuces de Comptoir (16)
• Calendrier de l'Avent (14)
• Coups de cœur (48)
• En direct de (36)
• En immersion (23)
• Les coulisses (35)
• Nos tops (30)
• Paroles de blogueurs (29)

Bienvenue au Cap Vert

Trouvez votre prochaine expérience, thémes populaires, parmi les voyageurs, plages & littoraux, voyage en famille, avantages de notre agence.

Agence locale experte de la destination pour des voyages au tarif le plus juste

Paiement par carte bancaire sans frais auprès du collectif Nomadays, agence française

Réservation encadrée par la législation française. Remboursement intégral ou report sans frais en cas de fermeture des frontières

Agence plébiscitée par la communauté des voyageurs, et reconnue pour son professionnalisme

Inspirations

Laissez-vous inspirer par nos idées de circuit, et construisons ensemble un voyage à votre mesure.

Avec les enfants dans le paradis perdu

Circuit 4 îles: santo antao, sao vicente, fogo et santiago..

Tous nos voyages peuvent être privatisés et personnalisés selon vos envies. N'hésitez plus, contactez-nous !

Trek intense - Santo Antão

Le paradis de randonneurs, voyage en famille - cap vert, la grande traversée de santo antao, votre voyage au cap vert.

On vous propose un randonnée sur l’ile de Santo Antão . C’est l’une des meilleurs ile du Cap Vert où les gentes vivent surtout d’agriculture. Donc on vous fera participer dans la culture de cette ile et vous aurez mêmes l’opportunité de faire la plantation des légumes dans quelques village. Vous pouvez de même suivre un cours de cuisine où vous verrez comment se prépare la fameuse cachupa capverdienne et d’autres plats typiques du pays

Découverte de la ville de Mindelo , la capitale Culturelle du Cap Vert. Sao Vicente c’est une ile colorée artistique avec ses paysages extraordinaires. Vous pourrez profiter de la visite de la ville, ses marchés, musée, nombreux bars et restaurants, la plage de Laginha qui en font une ville très animée (excepté le dimanche où tout est fermé – l’animation se concentre à la plage). La ville est reconnue pour sa musique et ses musiciens et abrite un musée en l'honneur de la chanteuse Cesária Évora.

Découverte du volcan de Fogo . Partir à Fogo c’est connaitre l’un des paysages plus spectaculaires de l’archipel du Cap Vert. L’ile est entièrement dominée par l’imposant Volcan Pico du Fogo. Le volcan très actif a un fort impact sur l’agriculture, le mode de vie et le travail quotidien. Vous pouvez faire l’exploration à pied du cratère qui vous permet d’avoir une vision complète de Chã das Caldeiras.

Partir à Santiago où on se trouvent la capitale du Cap Vert (Praia) pour découvrir ses villes coloniales uniques, ainsi que pour sa riche histoire et sa beauté naturelle. Visiter cette ile est vraiment l’une des meilleures choses à faire au Cap Vert. On vous propose de visiter la Cidade velha pour connaitre la première capitale de l’ile et ancien comptoir colonial, classé au patrimoine mondial de l’humanité.

Visiter Boavista et Sal , avec ses dunes de sable blanche, et de la morna. Pour ceux qui aiment l’aventure ces iles est propice pour pratiquer de sorts nautiques (snorkeling, plongée, surf, kitsurf, excoursion en bateau, voir les baleins) vous trouvez aussi les meilleures plages de Cap Vert, (Plage de Santa Monica, Santa maria et plein d´autres. On vous propose de mêmes de vivre une aventure dans la désert de vianna sur un quad.

Séjours solidaire et participatif au village de Aguada sur l'ile de Santo Antao: nous vous proposons des activités ou chantiers solidaires, en individuel ou en groupe (famille, randonneurs, étudiants ou autres). Rejoignez-nous pour la création d’un jardin d’enfants et la rénovation des maisons du village et vivez une expérience inoubliable

Nouvelles du Cap Vert

Que faire à mindelo, capitale de são vicente , les randonnées incontournables au cap-vert, quelles sont les îles à découvrir au cap-vert , abonnez-vous à nos lettres d'information.

Cap Vert Aventure est une agence de voyage francophone basée à Mindelo sur l'Île de San Vicente au Cap Vert.

Spécialisée dans le tourisme d'aventure et culturel au Cap Vert, nous proposons des circuits randonnée trekking sur les iles de Santo Antão, São Vicente, Santiago, Fogo, Brava et São Nicolau mais aussi des séjours balnéaires sur belles grandes plages de sable blanc des iles de Sal et Boavista.

• Nos agences
• Voyages Groupes & entreprises
• A propos de VERDIÉ
• Liste Cadeaux
• Newsletters

Voyages au CAP VERT

Au large des côtes sénégalaises, cet archipel éparpille ses dix îles dans l'océan Atlantique. Riche de son métissage racial, mais aussi culturel, le Cap-Vert est au carrefour de trois continents : l'Afrique, l'Europe et l'Amérique du Sud. L'île a su garder et mêler les influences de chacun d'eux. La nature y est préservée et variée et le voyageur-spectateur ira de surprise en surprise et de beauté en trésor. Parmi les plages désertes ou les paysages de verdure, au pied du volcan Fogo ou dans les yeux des insulaires qui partagent leurs traditions et leurs passions comme la musique, seconde nature pour les Cap-Verdiens et connue de tous grâce à Césaria Evora.

Voyages en petit groupe : circuits, itinéraires d'exploration, croisières

Voyages individuels : voyages itinérants, circuits privatifs, séjours, voyages sur mesure

... Envie d'un voyage entièrement sur mesure ?

La destination ou le voyage de vos rêves ne se trouve pas dans nos collections ? Décrivez en détail votre projet à l'aide de ce formulaire, nos conseillers vous contacteront pour en discuter

Consultez ou commandez nos brochures en ligne en cliquant sur ce lien.

Soyez au courant des dernières nouveautés, abonnez-vous à nos différentes thématiques en cliquant ici !

• Circuits accompagnés
• Version DÉCOUVERTE
• Version EXPLORATION
• Version CROISIÈRES
• Voyages individuels
• Version LIBERTÉ
• Groupes, Associations, CE
• Liste de mariage & cadeaux
• Chèques cadeaux
• Conférences
• Nos brochures
• Conditions Générales et Particulières de Vente
• Assurances et garanties
• Mentions légales
• Gestion des données personnelles
• Recrutement
• Qui sommes nous ?
• Séjours jeunes
• verdiehello.com
• verdieopenclass.com
• Services aux entreprises
• verdiebusiness.com

Bienvenue à toutes et à tous sur www.capvert-voyage.com ! Nous sommes ravis de pouvoir enfin vous accueillir sur ce nouveau site exclusivement consacré aux voyages au Cap-Vert, petit pays extraordinaire où nous avons la chance de vivre. Avec un enthousiasme sans limite et une énergie entièrement à votre service, Capvert-Voyage vient changer la donne en vous proposant les meilleurs prix sans porter préjudice aux acteurs locaux.

VOTRE SÉLECTION

Nos rubriques.

Séjours (vols + hôtels) Randos & Trekking Guide |  Liberté |  Groupe Circuit à la carte Vos billets d'avion Qui sommes-nous? Dernières news Conseils pratiques

ACCÈS DIRECT

Découvrez les témoignages de voyageurs ayant fait appel à nos services pour leur voyage au Cap-Vert !

Un voyage au Cap Vert sauvage et authentique

Découvrez notre sélection de voyages au Cap-Vert, laissez vous inspirer et contactez nous pour créer votre voyage sur mesure !

La richesse du Cap-Vert c’est sans conteste sa nature incroyablement variée , avec des paysages d’une beauté à couper le souffle ! Entre volcans aux paysages lunaires et arides et vallées verdoyantes et tropicales, entre plages paradisiaques de sable blanc et eaux turquoises et plages de sable noir volcanique… Vous vivrez chez nous une aventure naturelle extraordinaire . Que dire de plus, si ce n’est que voyage au Cap Vert promet donc d’être incroyablement varié : randonnées, farniente, plages, culture, villes coloniales, sports nautiques, découvertes culinaires… Ici, tout est possible !

À partir de 1595€

À partir de 510€

À partir de 1235€

À partir de 1300€

Découvrez les îles du Cap Vert

Le Cap Vert est un archipel de dix îles volcaniques dont chacune possède sa spécificité . On peut néanmoins les regrouper selon leur topographie : il y a les îles plates aux immenses plages telles que   Sal , Boa Vista et Maio puis il y a les îles aux reliefs plus prononcés comme Santiago , Fogo , Brava , Sao Nicolau et Santo Antao . A côté de cela restent deux îles : Sao Vicente , l’île des Arts avec la ville animée de Mindelo et Santa Luzia , une île déserte difficilement accessible pleine de légendes et de mystères.

Découvrez notre sélection de voyages au Cap Vert sur chacune de ces îles.

Iles volcaniques et voisines aux somptueux paysages

Les îles les plus paradisiaques du Cap-Vert

Santiago, la vibrante île capitale, et Maio, hors des sentiers battus

Découvrez trois îles superbes et préservées, entre immersion culturelle, rencontres et authenticité

Ils reviennent de notre beau pays et nous font part de leur avis suite à leur voyage sur-mesure au Cap-Vert !

...et ce qu'ils disent de nous !

Découvrez nos envies de voyage au Cap Vert ! Chaque voyageur a des attentes particulières, nous avons donc sélectionné plusieurs thématiques de voyage pour que chacun puisse trouver un voyage au Cap Vert qui vous ressemble.

Notre thématique En couple   comblera les amoureux en quête d’intimité et d’évasion, nos voyages En Famille s’adressent aux petites et grandes tribus recherchant l’aventure et le dépaysement en toute sécurité. Pour les plus amateurs de trekking, nous avons une également une rubrique Randonnée .  Il est également possible de se détendre sur des splendides littoraux, pour cela, rendez vous sur la rubrique Les plus belles plages .  Enfin, pour les amateurs de culture et de rencontres, découvrez notre rubrique Culture et métissages .

Conseils de voyage au Cap Vert

Vous êtes en pleine préparation de votre voyage sur-mesure au Cap Vert ?

Ce guide est réparti par thématique pour mieux vous aiguiller : conseils et astuces sur le pays, sa culture et sa géographie.

Découvrez notre   guide de voyage  au Cap Vert !

Vocabulaire essentiel pour votre voyage au Cap-Vert

Le Cap-Vert de A à Z

Les plus beaux sites de trek au Cap-Vert

Top 5 des plages paradisiaques du Cap-Vert

L'histoire du Cap-Vert depuis sa découverte

Vos rêves commencent ici...

Au large des côtes Sénégalaises, le Cap-Vert "petit pays", indépendant depuis 1975, conserve l'empreinte très forte des traditions Portugaises.

Au carrefour de 3 continents, le Cap-Vert est pourvu d'un métissage culturel et racial d'une grande richesse.

Chaque ile du Cap-Vert est un voyage en soi, de plages désertes en volcans et des cités coloniales en vallée luxuriantes.

Les charmes subtils séduiront tout autant les amateurs de farniente que les randonneurs ou encore les amoureux de la pêche et de la plongée.

Capitale : Praia

Devise : Escudo cap-verdien

Hymne : Cântico de Liberdade

Comptoir Evasion

320 Rue du Beaujolais 69460 SAINT ETIENNE DES OULLIERES 53 rue M al de Lattre de Tassigny 01190 PONT DE VAUX

09 86 25 16 86

Contactez-nous

COMPTOIR EVASION - 20 Rue du Beaujolais, 69460 Saint-Étienne-des-Oullières - 09 86 25 16 86 - Mentions légales © 2018 COMPTOIR EVASION - Conception BOOSTER Communication

Cap-Vert Mer, Terre, Volcan et Nature...

Une terre authentique

Le Volcan de Fogo

Plages de sable fin

Une destination inoubliable

Le Cap-Vert en quelques mots c'est:

Le Cap-Vert offre bien plus qu'une île paradisiaque. Les visiteurs ont la possibilité d'explorer une région authentique, habitée par une population chaleureuse.

Le Cap-Vert offre une nature authentique et préservée, avec des paysages variés, des plages magnifiques et une hospitalité chaleureuse.

Des kilomètres de plages de sable blanc à Sal, Boa Vista, Sao Vicente... vous attendent au Cap-Vert, offrant aux visiteurs des rivages paradisiaques à explorer.

Admirer les tortues marines pondre sur les plages du Cap-Vert est une expérience inoubliable, mettant en lumière la richesse de sa faune marine.

Le Pico de Fogo, également connu sous le nom de volcan Fogo, est l'un des points culminants du Cap-Vert, offrant un paysage spectaculaire et volcanique. Ce stratovolcan actif est célèbre pour son cratère colossal, où les visiteurs peuvent observer des paysages lunaires, des champs de lave noire et même des vignobles qui prospèrent sur ses flancs, créant un contraste saisissant entre la vie et la destruction volcanique. L'ascension du Pico de Fogo est une aventure populaire pour les amateurs de randonnée, offrant des vues à couper le souffle sur l'île de Fogo et au-delà.

Sur l'île de Fogo, vous découvrirez de longues plages de sable noir aux vertus médicinales. Ces plages offrent une expérience unique, où vous pourrez vous détendre et profiter des bienfaits naturels du sable volcanique, réputé pour ses propriétés thérapeutiques.

Pendant le Carnaval de Mindelo, les rues de la ville sont envahies par des défilés somptueux mettant en scène des troupes de danseurs, de musiciens et de spectateurs déguisés dans des costumes élaborés et extravagants. La musique joue un rôle central, avec des rythmes entraînants tels que la musique traditionnelle cap-verdienne, le funaná et la morna.

La cachupa est le plat national emblématique du Cap-Vert, apprécié pour sa richesse en saveurs et son rôle central dans la cuisine cap-verdienne. Il s'agit d'un plat à base de maïs, de haricots, de légumes (comme la patate douce, la citrouille et la courge) et de viandes ou de fruits de mer, selon la disponibilité locale. La cachupa peut varier d'une région à l'autre et d'une maison à l'autre, offrant une diversité de recettes et de goûts.

Marché de Praia (Marché de Plateau - Mercado de Sucupira) : Situé dans le quartier du Plateau à Praia, le marché de Sucupira est le plus grand marché de la ville et l'un des plus animés du pays. Vous y trouverez une grande variété de produits, notamment des fruits et légumes frais, des épices locales, des vêtements, de l'artisanat, des souvenirs, des produits de la mer et bien plus encore.

Cesária Évora était renommée pour sa voix puissante et émouvante, ainsi que pour son interprétation expressive de la musique cap-verdienne, notamment les genres de la morna et de la coladeira. Sa musique était imprégnée de mélancolie et de sa propre expérience de vie difficile, ce qui lui conférait une profondeur émotionnelle unique.

Santo Antão est l'une des îles les plus impressionnantes et verdoyantes de l'archipel du Cap-Vert, offrant un cadre naturel magnifique pour les voyageurs en quête d'aventure et de beauté tropicale.

Boa Vista et Sal sont deux des îles les plus prisées du Cap-Vert, célèbres pour leurs plages de sable doré, leurs stations balnéaires de luxe et leurs activités nautiques captivantes.

Pionniers sur le Cap Vert

Nous avons au fil des années constitué un réseau réceptif qui assure notre logistique sur toutes les îles. TSA (ex visas) , Transferts, vols domestiques et tickets de ferry sont toujours inclus dans nos offres. Dans tous nos circuits au Cap-Vert , vous serez accueillis dès votre arrivée à l'aéroport (même arrivée tardive après minuit) Vous serez transférés à votre Hôtel Nos représentants conviendront avec vous, de l'horaire à fixer pour le prochain transfert. Nous soutenons un commerce équitable au Cap-Vert .

LA PHILOSOPHIE DU VOYAGE

Vous partez pour une destination, qui, peut-être, vous est encore inconnue. Il faudra, sans doute, faire preuve de toute votre philosophie et parfois de patience pour découvrir un pays ou population et traditions sont certainement différents… Toutefois, nous savons tous que c'est cette même différence qui fera la richesse et les souvenirs de votre voyage ! Si vous rencontrez certaines imperfections, soyez indulgent et compréhensif : les îles du Cap Vert, viennent tout Juste de s’ouvrir au tourisme …. C’est le début d’une nouvelle ère pour ce petit pays très attachant.

Nous avons sélectionné un panel de circuits "en toute liberté " afin de vous donner des idées de voyages et vous guider au mieux dans vos choix.

Nos circuits sont à la carte et vous pouvez mixer le nombre de jours sur les îles et dans la mesure du possible choisir votre programme sur mesure. tous nos circuits incluent en plus des hôtels: les vols, le visa, les transferts et l'assistance de nos représentants sur chacune des îles.

Consulter nos offres

A la recherche d'un voyage au Cap Vert ? Envie de partir dans les îles du Cap Vert ? Découvrez notre sélection de séjours et partez visiter:

Sal, Boavista, Sao Vicente, Santiago et Maio. Nous avons sélectionné les meilleurs hôtels du Cap vert pour votre séjour "Relax", en solo, en couple, en famille ou en groupe. Hôtels 4 et 5 étoiles en club et en formule all inclusive ou en hôtel de chame à la carte sur les îles.

Vous pouvez maintenant passer 1, 2 ou 3 nuits à lisbonne dans le cadre de nos forfaits cap vert pour découvrir le portugal à mi-chemin.

Bienvenue dans l'une des plus belles villes d'europe, mais aussi des plus fascinantes. a pied, en vélo ou à bord du tramway, partez à la découverte de la culture lisboète qui vous donnera un premier aperçu du charme de la capitale à travers ses petites ruelles tortueuses

Météo Cap-Vert:

Quel temps fait-il au Cap-Vert ? Prévisions météorologiques sur 7 jours. Les données sur la météo: température, pluie, vent, humidité, pression... Le climat varie selon les îles du Cap-Vert. Partez à la meilleure période ! Découvrez où et quand partir pour être sûr d\'avoir une météo idéale pour vos vacances.

• Demande de devis
• Nos agences

• Destinations

Pourquoi choisir cette destination ?

Posé sur l’Atlantique, au large du Sénégal, le Cap-Vert propose dix grandes îles, dont neuf habitées, et huit îlots. Comme nulle part ailleurs, des volcans, des paysages arides et montagneux extraordinaires, des vallées vertes, des plages de sable blanc, une population créole très accueillante, la musique capverdienne, les fêtes et les festivals, les poissons et les langoustes à déguster pour quelques escudos ; bref un petit pays très contrasté....

La saveur du Cap-Vert vient aussi de son ambiance, son atmosphère musicale aux rythmes brésiliens qui invitent à la fête ; et de l’accueil chaleureux de son peuple métissé, fier de ses racines africaines, européennes et sud-américaines.

Une destination idéale pour ceux qui recherchent dépaysement, nature et détente . Un combiné parfait entre balades à pied et séjours en bord de plage.

Notre circuit accompagné Splendeurs du Cap-Vertpart à la découverte des Iles-au-Vent , à São Vicente et Santo Antão.

La première est l’île de la musique et de la danse. On y découvre Mindelo , petite ville pittoresque qui s’étend le long d’une baie exceptionnelle. Ses racines universelles mélangent l’Afrique, le Brésil et la culture Portugaise. Elles font de la ville une petite cité cosmopolite où l’art est roi. Ses habitants ont le goût de la fête, ainsi sa vie nocturne et son Carnaval sont devenus une référence. Son centre colonial est tout en harmonie de couleur pastel rose et blanc. Il y fait bon vivre et séjourner !

Le magistral relief montagneux, la verdoyant vallée tropicale et les jolis villages font de Santo Antão la plus belle île de l’archipel. Les eaux cristallines chauffées par le soleil permettent des baignades à toute heure de la journée.

Cet archipel est parfait pour les randonneurs, mais également pour les amoureux des vacances farniente, entre soleil, plage et cocktails.

Le Cap-Vert est un pays incroyable, aux paysages fabuleux qui ne demande qu’à être visité.  Notre guide accompagnateur sera présent tout au long du séjour afin de partager son expertise et ses connaissances sur le terrain.

Contactez-nous au

Avis de l’expert

Affiner votre recherche

Splendeurs du Cap Vert 8J/7N - 2024

Chambre double

Repas selon le programme

Vols inclus

À partir de

TTC / personne

Une destination idéale pour ceux qui recherchent dépaysement, nature et détente. Un combiné parfait entre balades à pied et séjours en bord de plage. Le Cap Vert est apprécié pour ses paysages naturels incroyables et ses balades hors des sentiers battus.

Où et Quand partir

Le Cap Vert se visite tout au long de l’année. Les températures y sont agréables aussi bien pour les randonnées que pour la plage et la baignade. Préférez tout de même la saison sèche de novembre à mai.

En circuit accompagné, découvrez cet archipel en toute nature, sur les iles Sao Vicente et Santo Antao, où randonnées, balades, visites, dégustations et découverte de la culture seront au rendez-vous ! Notre guide vous accompagnera et partagera son expertise tout au long du séjour !

Info Pratiques

Décalage horaires

En été : – 3 heures ; en hiver : – 2 heures

La langue officielle est le portugais. Le français est peu parlé.

Les compagnies aériennes autorisent généralement : 1 valise par personne en soute + 1 bagage à main ou 1 valisette à roulette en cabine.Cependant, pour un meilleur confort durant la suite de votre voyage en autocar nous vous recommandons de remplacer la valisette à roulette par un sac souple ou sac à dos.

Sur les vols intérieurs : La franchise des bagages est très souvent inférieure à la franchise bagage des vols internationaux et souvent limitée à 20 kg/pers. pour les passagers en correspondance avec un vol international et susceptible de variation sans préavis.

Climat tropical sec fortement influencé par les vents. 2 saisons se distinguent : la saison sèche de novembre à juin/juillet et la saison des pluies de juillet/août à octobre. Les températures varient entre 20 et 30 C°.

Ils devront être adaptés aux saisons, températures douces et chaudes dans la journée, plus fraîches en soirée où un pull-over s’impose, voire un blouson. Tenues sport et “décontractées” partout, un peu plus habillées en soirée dans les hôtels et les restaurants.

L’unité monétaire est l’Escudo Cap Verdien (CVE) ; 100 CVE = 0.90 € environ.

Les principales cartes de crédit sont acceptées dans les hôtels ; il est également possible de retirer de l’argent auprès des distributeurs.

Électricité / wifi

Le courant est le même qu’en France ; pas besoin d’adaptateur.Le Wifi: accessible dans tous les hôtels au niveau de la réception. Dans les chambres, la connexion est parfois aléatoire ou très lente.

Gastronomie

La cuisine est très variée avec de nombreuses spécialités locales portugaises mais aussi d’influences brésiliennes.

La cachupa est le plat national, c’est une sorte de ragoût à base de maïs et de haricots noirs, qui est décliné selon les ingrédients à disposition : viandes, thon ou légumes. Le poisson est succulent. On peut parfois manger du requin et couramment de la langouste . Comme au Portugal, les plats sont en général accompagnés de riz, de salade, parfois d’igname et de patate douce.

Kilométrage et temps de route

Ils sont donnés à titre indicatifs et peuvent varier selon l’état des routes ou des pistes, des conditions climatiques et des impondérables pouvant survenir.

Le réseau routier est parfois encombré dans les villes, ce qui peut rallonger les temps de route.

Nos circuits

Ils comportent de fréquents levers matinaux et des parcours en autocar parfois fatigants, mais indispensables à la découverte de certains sites. Les routes encombrées sont parfois en état moyen, ceci pouvant allonger le temps de parcours. Les vols ou trains intérieurs peuvent être modifiés sans préavis. Le correspondant sur place fera le maximum pour trouver la meilleure possibilité. Nos circuits sont déconseillés et non adaptés aux personnes à mobilité réduite et aux enfants de moins de 12 ans.

Les hôtels n’ont ni les standards européens, ni une uniformité d’une ville à l’autre. Leur catégorie est parfois inférieure à celle de l’occident. Les hébergements que nous avons sélectionnés se rapprochent des standards occidentaux.Les boissons ne sont pas comprises, y compris l’eau durant les repas.

Guides et accompagnateurs

Selon le nombre de participants, les circuits accompagnés sont proposés soit avec un guide accompagnateur tout au long du circuit soit avec des guides locaux à chaque étape. Parfois, ceux-ci n’ont pas une maîtrise parfaite du français ou leur accent peut rendre la compréhension difficile. Cet aspect sera compensé par leur grande disponibilité, leur gentillesse et leur souhait de vous faire découvrir leurs régions.

Les visites

En cas de manifestation, fête ou de décision gouvernementale l’accès à certains touristiques pourrait être restreint, sans que nous en ayons eu connaissance au préalable.

À titre indicatif, les pourboires sont d’environ 4 € à 7 € par personne et par jour pour le guide et de 3 € à 5 € pour le chauffeur, mais restent à votre appréciation.

3 rue de Rigny, 75008 Paris – Tél : 01 42 12 73 50 – Courriel : [email protected]   et [email protected]  

Conseils aux voyageurs

http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr

Partez tranquille en vous inscrivant sur le portail Ariane pour rester en contact avec vos proches à tout moment, inscription gratuite : https://pastel.Diplomatie.Gouv.Fr/fildariane/dyn/protected/accueil/formaccueil.Html

Transfert de Aéroport de Moscou Domodedovo (DME) à Elektrostal

Aéroport de moscou domodedovo (dme) → elektrostal, 18.05.2024 11:05, elektrostal, avis sur les transferts.

• Réservation d'hôtels, Appartements, Pensions, B&B et Auberges
• Choisissez une devise

Elektrostal'

• Réservation d'hôtel
• Oblast de Moscou
• Hôtels Elektrostal'

Recherche d’hôtels

Choisissez vos dates pour voir les tarifs, prix (par nuit).

• 0 € - 47 € 60
• 47 € - 93 € 12

Avis voyageurs

Services et équipements.

• Télévision 42
• Climatisation 7
• Restaurant 7
• Baignoire/Douche 4

Type d'établissement

• Appartement 50
• Auberge de jeunesse 6
• Maison d'hôtes 2
• Appart'hôtel 1

Monuments à Elektrostal'

Central Air Force Museum 17 Km.

Saturn Stadium 28 Km.

Ramenskoye Bus Station 29 Km.

Ramenskoye Train Station 29 Km.

Complexe sportif Balashikha Arena 31 Km.

Aéroport de Elektrostal'

Aéroport de Moscou-Joukovski 33 Km.

Aéroport international Domodedovo 54 Km.

Djaz Hotel Auberge

• Description
• Commentaires

Équipements

Disponibilité.

Réservation en ligne:

Décorées avec simplicité, les chambres sont lumineuses et accueillantes. Une connexion Wi-Fi est disponible gratuitement. Certaines chambres disposent d'une télévision à écran plat et d'une salle de bains privative avec articles de toilette gratuits.

Situé à Elektrostal , l'Hotel Djaz dispose d'un centre de spa et de bien-être, d'un bar, d'un restaurant ainsi que d'une réception ouverte 24h/24.

Le stationnement sur place est gratuit. L'Hotel Djaz se situe à 68 km de l'aéroport international Chérémétiévo.

Doté d'une cheminée, le restaurant sert des spécialités locales. Vous pourrez vous détendre en soirée en dégustant un verre au bar de l'hôtel.

Prix à la nuit à partir de €18

Adresse: Ulitsa Korneeva 6B, 144099 Elektrostal, Russie

Nombre de chambres: 2

Avis sur l'établissement Djaz Hotel

Titre de votre avis, votre note globale, votre prénom.

Code de sécurité *

• Pas d'ascenseurs
• Fer et table à repasser
• Animaux de compagnie non admis
• Agent de sécurité
• Service de repassage
• Paniers-repas
• Salon de coiffure/institut de beauté
• Réception ouverte 24h/24
• Fax/photocopies
• Zones fumeur
• Blanchisserie
• Établissement entièrement non-fumeurs
• Salles de réunion/réception
• Chambres non fumeur
• Chambre familiale
• Installations pour barbecue
• Une connexion Wi-Fi est disponible dans les chambres gratuitement
• Wi-Fi gratuit

Aménagements de la chambre

• Réfrigérateur
• Cuisine commune

Restauration

• Menus pour régimes spéciaux

Divertissement

• Serviettes de plage/piscine
• Spa et centre de bien-être
• Parking gratuit
• Parking à proximité

Langues parlées

Conditions d’utilisation de djaz hotel.

À partir de 12h00

Jusqu'à 12h00  

Paiements par carte acceptés:

Maestro, Mastercard, Visa

Aucune restriction relative à l'âge ne s'applique pour l'enregistrement.

Hotel Pioner Hôtel Gorkovskoe Shosse 54 km Karla Marksa Street, 144001 Elektrostal', Russie

Niché dans la forêt verdoyante de Yamskiye, à 5 km du centre-ville d'Elektrostal, le Park Hotel Bogorodsk dispose d'un sauna et d'un restaurant. Il propose des chambres dotées d'une cuisine.

Hostel Edem Auberge de jeunesse Ulitsa Zheleznodorozhnaya 7, 144000 Elektrostal, Russie

Situé à Elektrostal, l' Hostel Edem propose une connexion Wi-Fi gratuite. L'établissement possède une réception ouverte 24h/24 et une cuisine commune.

Yuzhnaya Tribuna Hôtel Ulitsa Krasnaya 36, 144002 Elektrostal, Russie

Doté d'un sauna et d'une salle de sport, le Yuzhnaya Tribuna est situé dans le centre d'Elektrostal. Vous pourrez profiter d'un restaurant sur place. Un parking privé est disponible sur place.

Attractions à proximité

Central Air Force Museum 18 Km.

Saturn Stadium 29 Km.

Ramenskoye Bus Station 30 Km.

Ramenskoye Train Station 30 Km.

Complexe sportif Balashikha Arena 33 Km.

Gorenki Train Station 34 Km.

Lyubertsy Train Station 38 Km.

Reutov City Park 38 Km.

Métro Novokosino 38 Km.

Reutovo Train Station 38 Km.

Triumph Sport Hall 39 Km.

Aéroports les plus proches

Aéroport de Moscou-Joukovski 34 Km.

Aéroport international Domodedovo 56 Km.

institut pasteur voyage cap vert

amy tan personal essay

A Summary and Analysis of Amy Tan’s ‘Mother Tongue’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Mother Tongue’ is an essay by Amy Tan, an American author who was born to Chinese immigrants in 1952. Tan wrote ‘Mother Tongue’ in 1990, a year after her novel The Joy Luck Club was a runaway success. In the essay, Tan discusses her relationship with language, and how her mother’s influence has shaped her use of English, as well as her attitude to it.

You can read ‘Mother Tongue’ here before proceeding to our summary and analysis of Amy Tan’s essay below.

‘Mother Tongue’: summary

Amy Tan begins her essay by offering her personal opinions on the English language. She recalls a recent talk she gave, when, upon realising her mother was in the audience, she was confronted with the fact that the formal standard English she was using in the public talk was at odds with the way she spoke at home with her mother. She then contrasts this with a moment when she was walking down the street with her mother and she used the more clipped, informal English she naturally uses with her mother, and her husband.

Tan calls this a ‘language of intimacy’. She points out that her mother is intelligent and reads things which Tan herself cannot begin to understand. But many people who hear her mother speak can only partially understand what she is saying, and some even say they can understand nothing of what she says, as if she were speaking pure Chinese to them.

Tan calls this clipped informal language her ‘mother tongue’, because it was the first language she learned and it helped to shape the way she saw the world and made sense of it.

Tan notes the difficulty of finding a term to describe the style of English her mother, as a Chinese immigrant to the United States, speaks. Many of the terms, such as ‘broken’ or ‘limited’, are too negative and imply her English is imperfect.

She acknowledges that when she was growing up, she was ashamed of the way her mother spoke. Her mother, too, was clearly aware of how her use of the language affected how seriously people took her, for she used to get her daughter to phone people and pretend to be ‘Mrs Tan’.

She observes that her mother is treated differently because of the way she speaks. She recounts a time when the doctors at the hospital were unsympathetic towards her mother when they lost the results of the CAT scan they had undertaken on her brain, but as soon as the hospital – at her mother’s insistence – called her daughter, they issued a grovelling apology.

Amy Tan also believes her mother’s English affected her daughter’s school results. Tan acknowledges that, whilst she did well in maths and science, subjects with a single correct answer, she was less adept at English. She struggled with tests which asked students to pick a correct word to fill in the blanks in a sentence because she was distracted by the imaginative and poetic possibilities of other words.

Indeed, Tan conjectures that many Asian American children are probably encouraged to pursue careers in jobs requiring maths and science rather than English for this reason. But because she is rebellious and likes to challenge people’s assumptions about her, Tan bucked this trend. She majored in English at college and began writing as a freelancer.

She began writing fiction in 1985, and after several false starts trying to find her own style and idiom, she began to write with her mother in mind as the ideal reader for her stories. Indeed, her mother read drafts of her work.

And Tan drew on all the Englishes , plural, that she knew: the ‘broken’ English her mother used, the ‘simple’ English Tan used when talking to her mother, the ‘watered-down’ Chinese her mother used, and her mother’s ‘internal’ language which conveyed her passion, intent, imagery, and the nature of her thoughts. When her mother told her that what she had written was easy to read, Tan knew that she had succeeded in her aims as a writer.

‘Mother Tongue’: analysis

The title of Amy Tan’s essay is a pun on the expression ‘mother tongue’, referring to one’s first language. But Tan’s language, or ‘tongue’, has been shaped by her actual mother, whose first language (or mother tongue) was not English, but Chinese.

The different forms of English that mother and daughter speak are also a product of their backgrounds: whilst Tan’s mother is a Chinese immigrant to America, Tan was born in the United States and has grown up, and been educated, in an English-speaking culture.

Much of Tan’s 1989 novel The Joy Luck Club is about daughters and their relationships with their mothers. But Tan’s interest in language, both as a cultural marker and as a way of expressing thought and personality, is also a prevailing theme of the novel.

In this respect, if the parable ‘ Feathers from a Thousand Li Away ’ acts as preface to the novel, ‘Mother Tongue’, in effect, acts as a kind of postscript. It helps us to understand the way Tan approaches and uses language within the stories that make up The Joy Luck Club .

An overarching theme of Tan’s novel is mothers emigrating to America in the hope that their daughters will have better lives than they did. This is a key part of ‘Feathers from a Thousand Li Away’, and it helps us to understand Tan’s conflicted attitude towards her mother’s use of language as explored in ‘Mother Tongue’.

Many of the mothers in The Joy Luck Club , such as Betty St. Clair in ‘The Voice from the Wall’, feel isolated from those around them, never at home in America, and hyper-aware of their outsider status, despite becoming legal permanent citizens in the country. Tan’s autobiographical revelations in ‘Mother Tongue’ show us that her own mother struggled to be taken seriously among Americans, and Tan diagnoses this struggle as a result of her mother’s different way of speaking.

Tan, by contrast, used standard English – what used to be referred to, in loaded phrases, as ‘correct’ or ‘proper’ English – and was thus able to succeed in getting herself, and by extension her mother, taken seriously by others. Language is thus more than just a cultural marker: Tan reveals, in ‘Mother Tongue’, the extent to which it is a tool of power (or, depending on the use, powerlessness), particularly for those from migrant backgrounds.

In this connection, it is noteworthy that Tan chooses to focus on the school tests she undertook before concluding that her mother’s ‘broken’ style of English has been misunderstood – not just literally (by some people who’ve known her), but in terms of the misleading perceptions of her it has led others to formulate.

The class tests at school which reduced English proficiency to an ability to recognise a ‘correct’ answer are thus contrasted with Tan’s resounding final words of ‘Mother Tongue’, which see her seeking to capture the passion of her mother, the ‘nature of her thoughts’, and the imagery she uses: all things which her daughter has clearly inherited a respect for, and which school tests fail to capture or observe.

Discover more from Interesting Literature

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

Amy Tan’s “Confessions”: Writing the Short Narrative Personal Essay

This will be short.

Some seven years ago now, I published a story in the Raleigh News & Observer which garnered the attention of an editor. This editor, on the basis of that lone story, had asked to meet me. By the end of the meeting he offered me a job to write a monthly column.

“Just make sure it is true,” he said.

Timidly, I informed this editor that the story I published in his paper was fiction. He was somewhat dumbstruck, claiming it sounded so real. To be fair, the paper called for fiction and nonfiction, so the published piece was relevant if not opportunistic.

“The story was based upon a real-life event,” I said.

I expected him to take back the offer.

He looked at me hesitantly. “Well, for this column, it must be all true,” he said. “I need the first one in two weeks. One thousand words; not one more.”

The Beginning

The short narrative personal essay, like any flash nonfiction and flash fiction, should begin immediately. Chekhov talked about beginning in the middle. Samuel Beckett’s elusive narrator in The Unnamable says “… you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on.” But in order to make it short, one can’t go on too much. Perhaps what Beckett meant is what Carver had to say about the short story: “Get in, get out. Don’t linger. Go on.” In other words there is very little plot in a short narrative personal essay, exposition must be kept at a minimum, and prefacing preferably eliminated. So in that sense, describing what a short personal essay isn’t, to some extent, might be easier. The most obvious is it isn’t a long, braided, meandering piece of narrative. The short narrative personal essay, by its very nature, covers a manageable period of time and place. And it should be established quickly, according to Dinty Moore. What did he mean by that? He meant to get to the story’s core as soon as possible. You’re not telling your entire autobiography. It’s not a memoir. You’re really telling about one event in your life.

Therefore, the story must move forward almost immediately. Here are the first two sentences of Amy Tan’s short narrative personal essay “Confessions”:

My mother’s thoughts reach back like the winter tide, exposing the wreckage of a former shore.

Often she’s mired in 1967, 1968, the years my older brother and my father died.

Note how Tan puts the reader in time. From here she goes on to quickly establish place. Language here, the reader comes to understand, has multiple meanings. Memory is invoked through the natural tides of the sea, it comes in and it goes out, whereas, later, in the story’s final scene, the reader extrapolates that the tide has gone permanently out to sea, as Tan learns her mother has Alzheimer’s disease. Note, also, Tan’s choice of “winter tide,” which, as opposed to a different season’s tide, metaphorically invokes loss and death, and, perhaps a foreshadowing.

Dramatization

By the third paragraph, the narration has turned dramatic, and the single event for which the entire essay establishes its power is described in theatrical style, much of it propelled by dialogue. After the death of the father and older son, Tan’s mother has moved the family to Switzerland. One night she confronts the sixteen-year-old Tan about a relationship she has with a boyfriend, demanding she stop seeing him. The mother turns violent, slapping Tan “about the head.” The mother makes ever more demonstrative claims, while Tan carries on this remarkable dialogue inside her head, but without saying anything out loud. Finally the mother says, “I wish you the one die! Not Peter, not Daddy,” something which Tan had always suspected. And then the mother leaves but only briefly for “suddenly” she is back and, this time, she has a cleaver. Remarkably Tan continues her internal dialogue, at times bordering on melodrama, but she, remember, is only sixteen, and as her mother rambles on, threatening to kill her, Tan finally breaks down. “I want to live. I want to live.” She confesses.

Let’s pause for a second. But only for a second. Have you noticed what I have tried to do? I haven’t talked in broad strokes about writing, or sweeping generalizations about essay writing. Immediately I’ve started talking about getting in, getting out, going on. I haven’t even talked about character because the primary character in a personal essay is the writer. And when you’re talking about writing from personal experience, you follow the Socratic dictum, “Know thyself.”

If the drama occurs in the middle, the end often has some final authorial comment. Tan’s comes twenty-five years later, when at a writers’ conference the memory of the event with her mother unexpectedly surfaces. She wonders if her mother would have actually killed her if she hadn’t begged for her life. So she confronts her despite evidence of her mother’s deteriorating memory. Tan’s mother denies the event ever occurred. She says, “You always good girl, never even need to spank, not even one time.”

Tan doesn’t verbally respond to her mother, but the personal essay ends with this final authorial judgment: “How wonderful to hear her say what was never true, yet now would be forever so.”

The short narrative personal essay is much like poetry, a prose poem, and especially flash fiction in that every word must be vital, adding depth one essential sentence at a time, so that despite its length one is building, at least in terms of constructions, maybe not a full house, but a finely built room. In the short narrative personal essay there really is no room for tangents. Amy Tan manages to tell an event in her life, which has the feel of something rich and multilayered in just 660 words.

Parts of our life are hidden away. They rise up in short, sometimes traumatic ways. Find them.

by Robert Wallace

Works Referenced

Amy Tan’s essay “Confessions” appears in her collection of essays,  The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings ,  about her life, family, and influences.

About the Author

Read Robert Wallace’s essay “ Storytelling, the Pungo River, and the Search for Hemingway in North Carolina ” also in Cagibi Issue 4.

Browse Cagibi Issues

Issue 21: March 2024

Issue 20: November 2023

Issue 19: July 2023

Issue 18: April 2023

Issue 17: January 2023

Issue 16: July 2022

Issue 15: February 2022

Cagibi 2021: The Print Issue

Issue 14: August 2021

Issue 13: April 2021

Issue 12: January 2021

Cagibi 2020: The Print Issue

Issue 11: October 2020

Issue 10: April 2020

Issue 9: January 2020

Issue 8: October 2019

Issue 7: July 2019

Cagibi 2019: The Print Issue

Issue 6: April 2019

Issue 5: January 2019

Issue 4: October 2018

Issue 3: July 2018 // Recovery

Issue 2: April 2018

Issue 1: January 2018

Share this:.

• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
• Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Begin typing your search above and press return to search. Press Esc to cancel.

Mother Tongue Summary, Purpose and Themes

Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” is a compelling exploration of language, identity, and familial bonds. 

This nonfiction narrative essay, which debuted at the 1989 State of the Language Symposium and was later published in The Threepenny Review in 1990, delves into Tan’s multifaceted relationship with English, influenced significantly by her mother, a Chinese immigrant.

Full Summary

The essay unfolds in three distinct sections.

Initially, Tan introduces us to the concept of “different Englishes,” a theme central to the narrative. She describes the unique form of English spoken by her mother, referred to as her “mother’s English” or “mother tongue.” This language, distinct yet familiar, bridges the first and second parts of the essay.

In the heart of the essay, Tan reflects on the profound impact her mother’s language had on her life and identity. She recalls how her mother, not fluent in “perfect English,” often depended on Tan to bridge communication gaps. This experience shapes Tan’s understanding of language and its nuances.

The essay culminates in a powerful conclusion where Tan connects the dots between her mother’s English and her own writing style and career choices. She recounts how her mother’s presence at a talk for her book “The Joy Luck Club” triggered a realization about the various forms of English she uses. 

Tan contrasts the English she speaks at home, her “mother tongue,” with the standard English she learned in school and uses in professional settings. Notably, Tan shifts languages seamlessly, a transition unnoticed by others, including her husband.

Tan shares anecdotes from her past, illustrating how her mother’s language shaped her. She resists describing her mother’s English as “broken,” arguing that it implies deficiency. Instead, she views it as a reflection of others’ limited perceptions. 

This perspective is highlighted by the dismissive attitudes of her mother’s stockbroker and doctors, who fail to take her mother seriously, often necessitating Tan’s intervention.

Reflecting on her own journey with English, Tan discusses the challenges she faced in school, influenced by her mother’s unique use of the language. However, this challenge becomes a source of motivation rather than defeat. 

Tan’s determination to “master” English leads her to initially distance herself from her “mother tongue.”

It’s not until she begins writing “The Joy Luck Club” that Tan realizes the inaccessibility of the English she was using. 

Reconnecting with her “mother tongue,” Tan finds her authentic voice—one deeply influenced and cherished, the voice of her mother. In “Mother Tongue,” Tan not only narrates her personal journey with language but also raises profound questions about identity, culture, and the intrinsic power of language.

The purpose of Amy Tan’s essay “Mother Tongue” is multifaceted, encompassing several key themes and objectives:

• Exploration of Language and Identity : Tan delves into how language shapes identity. By discussing the different forms of English she uses, she illustrates how language is deeply intertwined with personal and cultural identity. The essay emphasizes that the way we speak and the language we use are integral parts of who we are.
• Highlighting Linguistic Diversity and Acceptance : Tan challenges the notion of standard English, advocating for the recognition and acceptance of linguistic diversity. She highlights the richness and complexity of her mother’s version of English, urging readers to reconsider what constitutes “proper” language.
• Examination of Mother-Daughter Relationships : The essay is also a reflection on Tan’s relationship with her mother. Through the lens of language, Tan explores the dynamics of their bond, emphasizing how language both connects and separates them.
• Commentary on Perception and Misunderstanding : Tan addresses how people are often judged based on their language proficiency. Her mother’s experiences with her stockbroker and doctors showcase the misunderstandings and dismissals non-native speakers frequently face. The essay serves as a critique of these societal attitudes.
• Personal Growth and Self-Discovery : “Mother Tongue” is also a story of Tan’s personal journey in understanding her own linguistic heritage and how it has shaped her as a writer and individual. She discusses her initial struggles and eventual acceptance and embrace of her linguistic roots, which significantly influenced her writing style.
• Cultural Representation and Advocacy : By sharing her experiences, Tan advocates for cultural representation and the importance of diverse voices in literature. Her journey to include her mother’s language in her writing is a statement about the value of different cultural perspectives in storytelling.

1. The Complexity and Impact of Language

Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” intricately explores the multifaceted nature of language and its profound impact on personal identity and relationships. 

The essay delves into the concept of “different Englishes” that Tan encounters and navigates throughout her life. These variations of English—ranging from the standard forms learned in school to the unique, simplified version spoken by her mother—serve as a backdrop for examining how language shapes our understanding of the world and each other. 

Tan’s narrative highlights the often overlooked nuances of language, demonstrating how the mastery or lack of mastery of a certain type of language can influence perceptions, opportunities, and interpersonal dynamics. 

Her reflections on the dismissive treatment her mother receives due to her non-standard English usage poignantly underscore the societal judgments and barriers language can create.

2. Identity and Cultural Heritage

Central to “Mother Tongue” is the theme of identity, particularly how it is intertwined with cultural heritage and language. 

Tan’s own sense of self is deeply connected to her mother’s “mother tongue,” an embodiment of her Chinese heritage. This connection is not just linguistic but also emotional and cultural. 

Through her narrative, Tan explores the struggles of balancing her American upbringing with her Chinese heritage, a challenge faced by many children of immigrants. 

The essay illustrates how language serves as a bridge and a barrier between her American identity and her Chinese roots. 

Tan’s journey of embracing her mother’s English is, in essence, a journey of embracing her own cultural identity, showcasing the complexity of navigating dual heritages.

3. The Power of Voice and Self-Expression

“Mother Tongue” is also a profound exploration of the power of finding one’s voice and the importance of self-expression. Tan’s journey as a writer is central to this theme. 

Initially, she struggles with standard English, perceiving it as the only legitimate form of expression in academic and professional realms. 

This belief leads her to distance herself from her “mother tongue,” which she initially views as inferior. However, as she evolves as a writer, particularly while working on “The Joy Luck Club,” Tan discovers the richness and authenticity of her mother’s language. 

This revelation allows her to find her true voice—a blend of her mother’s English and the standard English she has mastered. 

Tan’s embracing of her unique linguistic heritage as a tool for storytelling and self-expression underscores the empowering nature of owning and using one’s individual voice, transcending conventional linguistic boundaries.

Final Thoughts

“Amy Tan’s ‘Mother Tongue’ is an insightful reflection on language, culture, and identity. Through her personal narrative, Tan eloquently demonstrates how language is not just a tool for communication but a significant factor in shaping our experiences, perceptions, and relationships. 

Her essay underscores the importance of embracing linguistic diversity and challenges the conventional notion of ‘standard’ language, advocating for a broader understanding and acceptance of different forms of expression. 

Sharing is Caring!

A team of Editors at Books That Slay.

Passionate | Curious | Permanent Bibliophiles

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Mother Tongue

44 pages • 1 hour read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Essay Analysis

Key Figures

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Summary and Study Guide

Summary: “mother tongue”.

“Mother Tongue” explores Amy Tan’s relationship with the English language, her mother, and writing. This nonfiction narrative essay was originally given as a talk during the 1989 State of the Language Symposium; it was later published by The Threepenny Review in 1990. Since then, “Mother Tongue” has been anthologized countless times and won notable awards and honors, including being selected for the 1991 edition of Best American Essays .

The original publication of “Mother Tongue,” which this study guide refers to, breaks the essay into three sections. In the first Tan briefly primes the reader on her relationship with “different Englishes” (7). Tan bridges the first and second parts of the essay with descriptions of her “mother’s English,” or her “mother tongue” (7). In the second section Tan describes the impact her mother’s language had on her; Tan’s mother is a Chinese immigrant who often relied on her daughter to produce “perfect English” (7). In the concluding section Tan then connects her mother’s English to Tan’s own choices regarding writing style and career.

Get access to this full Study Guide and much more!

• 7,500+ In-Depth Study Guides
• 4,900+ Quick-Read Plot Summaries
• Downloadable PDFs

In the initial section of “Mother Tongue,” Amy Tan locates her position as “a writer… someone who has always loved language” (7). She describes the multiple Englishes that she uses, from formal academic language to the English she uses with her mother to the English she uses at home with her husband. The section concludes with Tan’s description of her mother’s “expressive command of English” (7), which is in conflict with her mother’s fluency in the language. Although her mother might speak English that is difficult for native speakers to understand, to Tan, her mother’s language is “vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery” (7).

As Tan moves through the second section of “Mother Tongue,” she describes some of the more difficult aspects of being raised by a parent who spoke English that others struggled to understand. Tan references the oft-used language of “broken” English and suggests that her mother’s English and way of speaking, despite its obvious interpersonal and social limitations (including harming Tan’s performance on such metrics as standardized tests), provided Tan a different semantic way of understanding the world.

The SuperSummary difference

• 8x more resources than SparkNotes and CliffsNotes combined
• Study Guides you won ' t find anywhere else
• 100+ new titles every month

The final section of “Mother Tongue” transitions into personal reflection as Tan describes how she has reckoned with being raised by her mother in a xenophobic society. As a writer, Tan only found success when she moved away from more proper, academic register and instead wrote “in the Englishes [she] grew up with” (8). The essay concludes with Tan’s mother’s opinion about Tan’s most famous novel, The Joy Luck Club , in which Tan attempted to write in this fashion. Her mother’s “verdict: ‘So easy to read’” (8).

Don't Miss Out!

Access Study Guide Now

Related Titles

A Pair of Tickets

Fish Cheeks

Rules of the Game

Saving Fish from Drowning

The Bonesetter's Daughter

The Hundred Secret Senses

The Joy Luck Club

The Kitchen God's Wife

The Valley of Amazement

Featured Collections

Books on Justice & Injustice

View Collection

Chinese Studies

Essays & Speeches

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Diaspora Criticism › Analysis of Amy Tan’s Stories

Analysis of Amy Tan’s Stories

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on June 24, 2020 • ( 1 )

Amy Tan’s (born February 19, 1952) voice is an important one among a group of “hyphenated Americans” (such as African Americans and Asian Americans) who describe the experiences of members of ethnic minority groups. Her short fiction is grounded in a Chinese tradition of “talk story” ( gong gu tsai ), a folk art form by which characters pass on values and teach important lessons through narrative. Other writers, such as Maxine Hong Kingston, employ a similar narrative strategy.

A central theme of Tan’s stories is the conflict faced by Chinese Americans who find themselves alienated both from their American milieu and from their Chinese parents and heritage. Other themes include storytelling, memory, and the complex relationships between mother and daughter, husband and wife, and sisters. By using narrators from two generations, Tan explores the relationships between past and present. Her stories juxtapose the points of view of characters (husband and wife, mother and daughter, sisters) who struggle with each other, misunderstand each other, and grow distant from each other. Like Tan, other ethnic writers such as Louise Erdrich use multiple voices to retell stories describing the evolution of a cultural history.

Tan’s stories derive from her own experience as a Chinese American and from stories of Chinese life her mother told her. They reflect her early conflicts with her strongly opinionated mother and her growing understanding and appreciation of her mother’s past and her strength in adapting to her new country. Daisy’s early life, about which Tan gradually learned, was difficult and dramatic. Daisy’s mother, Jingmei (Amy Tan’s maternal grandmother), was forced to become the concubine of a wealthy man after her husband’s death. Spurned by her family and treated cruelly by the man’s wives, she committed suicide. Her tragic life became the basis of Tan’s story “Magpies,” retold by An-mei Hsu in The Joy Luck Club. Daisy was raised by relatives and married to a brutal man. After her father’s death, Tan learned that her mother had been married in China and left behind three daughters. This story became part of The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God’s Wife.

Tan insists that, like all writers, she writes from her own experienceand is not representative of any ethnic group. She acknowledges her rich Chinese background and combines it with typically American themes of love, marriage, and freedom of choice. Her first-person style is also an American feature.

Although critics call it a novel, Tan wrote The Joy Luck Club as a collection of sixteen short stories told by the club members and their daughters. Each chapter is a complete unit, and five of them have been published separately in short-story anthologies. Other writers, such as the American authors Sherwood Anderson (Winesburg, Ohio) and Gloria Naylor (The Women of Brewster Place), and the Canadian Margaret Laurence (A Bird in the House), have also built linked story collections around themes or groups of characters.

The framework for The Joy Luck Club is formed by members of a mah-jongg club, immigrants from China, who tell stories of their lives in China and their families in the United States. The first and fourth sections are the mothers’ stories; the second and third are the daughters’ stories. Through this device of multiple narrators, the conflicts and struggles of the two generations are presented through the contrasting stories. The mothers wish their daughters to succeed in American terms (to have professional careers, wealth, and status), but they expect them to retain Chinese values (filial piety, cooking skills, family loyalty) as well. When the daughters become Americanized, they are embarrassed by their mothers’ old-fashioned ways, and their moth ers are disappointed at the daughters’ dismissal of tradition. Chasms of misunderstanding deepen between them.

Critical Analysis of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club

Jing-mei (June) Woo forms a bridge between the generations; she tells her own stories in the daughters’ sections and attempts to take her mother’s part in the mothers’ sections. Additionally, her trip to China forms a bridge between her family’s past and present, and between China and America.

The first story, “The Joy Luck Club,” describes the founding of the club by Suyuan Woo to find comfort during the privations suffered in China during World War II. When the Japanese invaders approached, she fled, abandoning her twin daughters when she was too exhausted to travel any farther. She continued the Joy Luck Club in her new life in San Francisco, forming close friendships with three other women. After Suyuan’s death, her daughter Jing-mei, “June,” is invited to take her place. June’s uncertainty of how to behave there and her sketchy knowledge of her family history exemplify the tensions experienced by an American daughter of Chinese parents. The other women surprise June by revealing that news has finally arrived from the twin daughters Suyuan left in China. They present June with two plane tickets so that she and her father can visit her half-sisters and tell them her mother’s story. She is unsure of what to say, believing now that she really did not know her mother. The others are aghast, because in her they see the reflection of their daughters, who are also ignorant of their mothers’ stories, their past histories, their hopes and fears. They hasten to tell June what to praise about their mother: her kindness, intelligence, mindfulness of family, “the excellent dishes she cooked.” In the book’s concluding chapter, June recounts her trip to China.

One of the daughters’ stories, “Rules of the Game,” describes the ambivalent relationship of Lindo Jong and her six-year-old daughter. Waverly Place Jong (named after the street on which the family lives) learns from her mother’s “rules,” or codes of behavior, to succeed as a competitive chess player. Her mother teaches her to “bite back your tongue” and to learn to bend with the wind. These techniques help her persuade her mother to let her play in chess tournaments and then help her to win games and advance in rank. However, her proud mother embarrasses Waverly by showing her off to the local shopkeepers. The tensions between mother and daughter are like another kind of chess game, a give and take, where the two struggle for power. The two are playing by different rules, Lindo by Chinese rules of behavior and filial obedience, Waverly by American rules of selfexpression and independence.

Another daughter’s story, “Two Kinds,” is June’s story of her mother’s great expectations for her. Suyuan was certain that June could be anything she wanted to be; it was only a matter of discovering what it was. She decided that June would be a prodigy piano player, and outdo Waverly Jong, but June rebelled against her mother and never paid attention to her lessons. After a disastrous recital, she stops playing the piano, which becomes a sore point between mother and daughter. On her thirtieth birthday, the piano becomes a symbol of her reconciliation with her mother, when Suyuan offers it to her.

Best Quality

“Best Quality” is June’s story of a dinner party her mother gives. The old rivalries between June and Waverly continue, and Waverly’s daughter and American fiancé behave in ways that are impolite in Chinese eyes. After the dinner Suyuan gives her daughter a jade necklace she has worn in the hope that it will guide her to find her “life’s importance.”

This is the concluding story of The Joy Luck Club. It recounts Jing-mei (June)Woo’s trip to China to meet her half-sisters, thus fulfilling the wish of her mother and the Joy Luck mothers and bringing the story cycle to a close, completing the themes of the first story. June learns from her father how Suyuan’s twin daughters were found by an old school friend. He explains that her mother’s name means “long-cherished wish” and that her own name Jing-mei means “something pure, essential, the best quality.” When at last they meet the sisters, she acknowledges her Chinese lineage: “I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood.”

Major Works Novels: The Kitchen God’s Wife, 1991; The Hundred Secret Senses, 1995; The Bonesetter’s Daughter, 2001; Saving Fish from Drowning, 2005. Children’s literature: The Moon Lady, 1992; The Chinese Siamese Cat, 1994. Nonfiction: “The Language of Discretion,” 1990 (in The State of the Language, Christopher Ricks and Leonard Michaels, editors); The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings, 2003.

Bibliography Becerra, Cynthia S. “Two Kinds.” In Masterplots II: Short Story Series, edited by Charles E. May. Rev. ed. Vol. 8. Pasadena, Calif.: Salem Press, 2004. Bloom, Harold, ed. Amy Tan. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2000. Chua, C. L., and Ka Ying Vu. “Rules of the Game.” In Masterplots II: Short Story Series,edited by Charles E. May. Rev. ed. Vol. 6. Pasadena, Calif.: Salem Press, 2004. Cooperman, Jeannette Batz. The Broom Closet: Secret Meanings of Domesticity in Postfeminist Novels by Louise Erdrich, Mary Gordon, Toni Morrison, Marge Piercy, Jane Smiley, and Amy Tan. New York: Peter Lang, 1999. Ho, Wendy. In Her Mother’s House: The Politics of Asian American Mother-Daughter Writing. Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press, 1999. Huh, Joonok. Interconnected Mothers and Daughters in Amy Tan’s ‘The Joy Luck Club.’ Tucson, Ariz.: Southwest Institute for Research on Women, 1992 .____________. Amy Tan: A Critical Companion. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998. Pearlman, Mickey, and Katherine Usher Henderson. “Amy Tan.” Inter/View: Talks with America’s Writing Women. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1990. Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. Amy Tan: A Literary Companion. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2004. Tan, Amy. “Amy Tan.” Interview by Barbara Somogyi and David Stanton. Poets and Writers 19, no. 5 (September 1, 1991): 24-32.

Share this:

Categories: Diaspora Criticism , Short Story

Tags: American Literature , Amy Tan , Amy Tan's Storise , Analysis of Amy Tan’s Stories , Character Study of Amy Tan’s Stories , Criticism of Amy Tan’s Stories , Essays of Amy Tan’s Stories , Literary Criticism , Literary Theory , Notes of Amy Tan’s Stories , Plot of Amy Tan’s Stories , Simple Analysis of Amy Tan’s Stories , Study Guides of Amy Tan’s Stories , Summary of Amy Tan’s Stories , Synopsis of Amy Tan’s Stories , Themes of Amy Tan’s Stories

• The Antagonist - Toptutor4me

You must be logged in to post a comment.

• Member Interviews
• Science & Exploration
• Public Service
• Achiever Universe
• Summit Overview
• About The Academy
• Academy Patrons
• Delegate Alumni
• Directors & Our Team
• Golden Plate Awards Council
• Golden Plate Awardees
• Preparation
• Perseverance
• The American Dream
• Recommended Books
• Find My Role Model

All achievers

Bestselling novelist.

Download our free multi-touch iBook Creative Writing: Learning from the Masters — available on Apple Books

Creative Writing: Learning from the Masters provides readers with a window into the extraordinary world of writing fiction. This interactive iBook produced by the Academy of Achievement gives aspiring writers a unique look at how fiction is created by six admired and successful authors.

Listen to this achiever on What It Takes

What It Takes is an audio podcast produced by the American Academy of Achievement featuring intimate, revealing conversations with influential leaders in the diverse fields of endeavor: public service, science and exploration, sports, technology, business, arts and humanities, and justice.

I think that’s why I’m a storyteller. I take all these disparate events and connect them. I have to make them seem inevitable and yet surprising and plausible. That’s what I think life is like too. I have the luxury to do exactly what it is we all need time to do... think about the mystery of life.

Amy Tan was born in Oakland, California. Her family lived in several communities in Northern California before settling in Santa Clara. Both of her parents were Chinese immigrants. Her father, John Tan, was an electrical engineer and Baptist minister who came to America to escape the turmoil of the Chinese Civil War. The harrowing early life of her mother, Daisy, inspired Amy Tan’s novel The Kitchen God’s Wife. In China, Daisy had divorced an abusive husband but lost custody of her three daughters. She was forced to leave them behind when she escaped on the last boat to leave Shanghai before the Communist takeover in 1949. Her marriage to John Tan produced three children, Amy and her two brothers. Tragedy struck the Tan family when Amy’s father and oldest brother both died of brain tumors within a year of each other. Mrs. Tan moved her surviving children to Switzerland, where Amy finished high school, but by this time mother and daughter were in constant conflict.

Mother and daughter did not speak for six months after Amy Tan left the Baptist college her mother had selected for her, to follow her boyfriend to San Jose City College.

Tan further defied her mother by abandoning the pre-med course her mother had urged, to pursue the study of English and linguistics. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in these fields at San Jose State University. In 1974, she and her boyfriend, Louis DeMattei, were married. They were later to settle in San Francisco.

DeMattei, an attorney, took up the practice of tax law, while Tan studied for a doctorate in linguistics, first at the University of California at Santa Cruz, later at Berkeley. By this time, she had developed an interest in the problems of the developmentally disabled. She left the doctoral program in 1976 and took a job as a language development consultant to the Alameda County Association for Retarded Citizens, and later directed a training project for developmentally disabled children.

With a partner, she started a business writing firm, providing speeches for the salesmen and executives of large corporations. After a dispute with her partner, who believed she should give up writing to concentrate on the management side of the business, she became a full-time freelance writer. Among her business works, written under non-Chinese-sounding pseudonyms, were a 26-chapter booklet called “Telecommunications and You,” produced for IBM.

Amy Tan prospered as a business writer. After a few years in business for herself, she had saved enough money to buy a house for her mother. She and her husband lived well on their double income, but the harder Tan worked at her business, the more dissatisfied she became. The work had become a compulsive habit, and she sought relief in creative efforts. She studied jazz piano, hoping to channel the musical training forced on her by her parents in childhood into a more personal expression. She also began to write fiction.

Her first story, “Endgame,” won her admission to the Squaw Valley writer’s workshop taught by novelist Oakley Hall. The story appeared in FM literary magazine, and was reprinted in Seventeen. A literary agent, Sandra Dijkstra, was impressed enough with Tan’s second story, “Waiting Between the Trees,” to take her on as a client. Dijkstra encouraged Tan to complete an entire volume of stories.

Just as she was embarking on this new career, Tan’s mother fell ill. Amy Tan promised herself that if her mother recovered, she would take her to China, to see the daughters who had been left behind almost 40 years before. Mrs. Tan regained her health, and mother and daughter departed for China in 1987. The trip was a revelation for Tan. It gave her a new perspective on her often-difficult relationship with her mother, and inspired her to complete the book of stories she had promised her agent. On the basis of the completed chapters, and a synopsis of the others, Dijkstra found a publisher for the book, now called The Joy Luck Club. With a $50,000 advance from G.P. Putnam’s Sons, Tan quit business writing and finished her book in a little more than four months.

Upon its publication in 1989, Tan’s book won enthusiastic reviews and spent eight months on The New York Times bestseller list. The paperback rights sold for $1.23 million. The book has been translated into 17 languages, including Chinese. Her subsequent novel, The Kitchen God’s Wife (1991), confirmed her reputation and enjoyed excellent sales. In the following years, Amy Tan published two books for children, The Moon Lady and The Sagwa , and two more novels: The Hundred Secret Senses (1995) and The Bonesetter’s Daughter (2001).

In 2003, she published The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings , an autobiography in which she disclosed her experience with Lyme disease, a chronic bacterial infection contracted from the bite of a common tick. Amy Tan’s case went undiagnosed for years before she received proper treatment, and she suffered intense physical pain, mental impairment and seizures. For years, Lyme disease made it impossible for Amy Tan to continue writing. With medication, she has been able to control the worst symptoms of her illness, and has resumed writing, but she also spends much of her energy raising awareness of Lyme disease, promoting its early detection and treatment, and advocating for the rights of Lyme disease patients.

With her illness under control, Amy Tan has completed two works of fiction. Her novel Saving Fish from Drowning appeared in 2005. In 2013, she published one of her most ambitious books to date, The Valley of Amazement , an epic saga told from the point of view of a part-American girl raised among the courtesans of Shanghai in the first years of the 20th century.  Tan published a powerful memoir, Where the Past Begins , in 2017. The book recounts her difficult childhood and complex relationship with her mother, as well as her evolution as a writer and collaboration with her longtime editor Dan Halpern, in an intense exploration of the relationship between memory and creativity.

In 1988, Amy Tan was earning an excellent living writing speeches for business executives. She worked around the clock to meet the demands from her many high-priced clients, but she took no joy in the work, and felt frustrated and unfulfilled. In her 30s, she took up writing fiction. A year later her first book, a collection of interrelated stories called The Joy Luck Club was an international bestseller, and Amy Tan’s life was changed forever.

Her subsequent books, The Kitchen God’s Wife and The Hundred Secret Senses, have been bestsellers, and the film of The Joy Luck Club was an unprecedented success. At the height of her success, Amy Tan was stricken with Lyme Disease. Although the infection went untreated for many years, she has overcome the devastating symptoms of this chronic illness and has continued to write bestselling novels, including Saving Fish From Drowning and The Valley of Amazement .

Only 30 years ago, a list of well-known American authors would have included virtually no Asian-Americans. Today Amy Tan is one of America’s most popular novelists. Although they are primarily concerned with the lives and concerns of Asian-American women, her stories have found an enthusiastic audience among Americans of all backgrounds, and have been translated into 35 languages.

How did you come to write The Joy Luck Club?

Amy Tan: I wanted to write stories for myself. At first it was purely an aesthetic thing about craft. I just wanted to become good at the art of something. And writing was very private. I also thought of playing improvisational jazz and I did take lessons for a while. At first I tried to write fiction by making up things that were completely alien to my life. I wrote about a girl whose parents were educated, were professors at MIT. There was no Joy Luck Club, it was the country club. I tried to copy somebody’s style that I thought was very clever. I thought I was clever enough to write as well as these people, and I didn’t realize that there is something called originality and your own voice.

One day, after being told one of these stories didn’t work, I thought, “I’m just going to stop showing my work to people, and I’m just going to write a story. Make it fictional, but they’ll be Chinese-American.” What amazed me was: I wrote about a girl who plays chess, and her mother is both her worst adversary and her best ally. I didn’t play chess, so I figured that counted for fiction, but I made her Chinese-American, which made me a little uncomfortable. By the end of this story I was practically crying. Because I realized that — although it was fiction and none of that had ever happened to me in that story — it was the closest thing of describing my life. Of the feelings that I had, of these things that my mother had taught me that were inexplicable or had no name. This invisible force that she taught me, this rebellion that I had. And then feeling that I had lost some power, lost her approval and then lost what had made me special. It was a magic turning point for me. I realized that was the reason for writing fiction. Through that, this subversion of myself, of creating something that never happened, I came closer to the truth. So, to me, fiction became a process of discovering what was true, for me. Only for me.

I went to a writer’s workshop. I met a wonderful writer there named Molly Giles. She looked at my work and said, “Where’s the voice? Where’s the story? There’s so many things that are happening that are not working, but there’s a possible beginning. If I were you, I would start over again and take each one of these and make that your story. You don’t have one story here, you have 12 stories. 16 stories.” She was right because those 16 stories became The Joy Luck Club.

I was at a stage where that kind of criticism didn’t dishearten me at all. It made me so excited because she had said it in the most constructive way — not simply saying, “This isn’t working, this is bad, this is nothing.” She said, “Look at this. Here you have a voice, and it’s inconsistent with this voice, but it’s an interesting voice. So maybe you should think about this question, what is your voice?” That’s a question I still ask myself today as a writer.

I had an agent who, by luck, read my stuff in a little magazine and wanted to be my agent. Believed in me as a fiction writer before I ever believed in myself. In fact, I told her, when she wanted to be my agent. I said, “I’m not really a fiction writer. I don’t need an agent. But if I ever write anything else, maybe ten years from now, I’ll let you know.” She pursued me, and she kept saying, “You have to write more fiction.” I said, “I can’t pay you anything.” She said, “I’m by commission. You don’t have to pay anything until you sell anything.” I said, “Well fine. You want to be my agent and not make anything.” I thought, “Boy, is she dumb.” She hounded me until I wrote a couple more stories, and then she sold that as a collection called The Joy Luck Club.

You’ve spoken of another turning point. In 1987 you traveled with your mother to China, where you had never been. What did you learn from that trip that was so important to you?

Amy Tan: I took this trip to China as a way of fulfilling a promise. I thought my mother was going to die, and I had sworn to God and Buddha and whatever spirits are out there that I would do this if she lived. And by God the little mother pulled through, so I went to China.

I was nervous about it because it meant three weeks with my mother, and I had hardly spent more than a couple of hours alone with her in the last 20 years. So it was a chance for me to really see what was inside of me and my mother. Most importantly, I wanted to know about her past. I wanted to see where she had lived, I wanted to see the family members that had raised her, the daughters she had left behind. The daughters could have been me, or I could have been them.

And I did see all of those things, and even more. I discovered how American I was. I also discovered how Chinese I was by the kind of family habits and routines that were so familiar. I discovered a sense of finally belonging to a period of history, which I never felt with American history.

When you read about the Civil War, a lot of people, like my husband, can say my great-great-grandfather fought in that war. We have the gun and all that kind of stuff. I have a good imagination, but I could never imagine my ancestors having been in any of this history because my parents came to this country in 1949. So none of that history before then seemed relevant to me. It was wonderful going to a country where suddenly the landscape, the geography, the history was relevant. That was enormously important to me.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be that way for everybody, but for me it was extremely important because I had spent so long denying that side of me. In fact, one of the subjects I hated the most was history. I thought it was completely a waste of time. It had absolutely no relevance. Today, I love history. I find it is absolutely relevant to everything that is going on. It’s not just some philosophical babble of how things repeat themselves. You see the undercurrents of change and culture and that is history. It’s those behaviors that are important. History really is a record of behaviors and intentions and actions and consequences.

So, I think going to China was a turning point. I couldn’t have written The Joy Luck Club without having been there, without having felt that spiritual sense of geography.

Was it also a turning point in your relationship with your mother?

Amy Tan: Oh yes. For example…

I used to think that my mother got into arguments with people because they didn’t understand her English, because she was Chinese. And I saw in China that she got in arguments with Chinese people. She was just as difficult in China as she was in America. I had to laugh about that. There are so many things that I could laugh about and see that my sisters were the same way, that we had inherited things from my mother. But there were differences as well. And my sisters, who had grown up thinking that they had been denied this wonderful, loving, nurturing mother who would have understood everything and been sweet and kind and never would have criticized them. Well suddenly they were shocked to find this mother saying, “You didn’t cook this long enough,” or “This is too salty,” and “Why do you wear that? It makes you look terrible.” They were shocked too. It had nothing to do with being American. They were daughters, also wanting their mother’s approval, and didn’t understand why their mother was so critical. So I saw my mother in a different light. We all need to do that. You have to be displaced from what’s comfortable and routine, and then you get to see things with fresh eyes, with new eyes. The new eyes can be very useful in breaking habits of relationships, the old irritations, the patterns of avoidance. You start talking about things. You still get into fights but you learn to just pick what’s important and say, you know, it’s not so important really for me to win this one. Really, what my mother wants is for me to think that what she has to say is valuable. That’s all.

So I saw my mother in a different light. We all need to do that. You have to be displaced from what’s comfortable and routine, and then you get to see things with fresh eyes, with new eyes. The new eyes can be very useful in breaking habits of relationships, the old irritations, the patterns of avoidance. You start talking about things. You still get into fights but you learn to just pick what’s important and say, you know, it’s not so important really for me to win this one. Really, what my mother wants is for me to think that what she has to say is valuable. That’s all.

Then there was The Joy Luck Club and endless weeks on the bestseller list. Many people are smart and have talent and potential. Why do you think it is that you succeeded, when not everybody does?

Amy Tan: You know, I get asked that question a lot and I never know the answer. The answer keeps changing. Sometimes I think that it’s pure luck, I won the lottery. Sometimes I think it’s because I’m a baby-boomer and what I wrote about are very normal emotions and conflicts that many people have, so somehow it struck a universal chord.

I think that I was in the right time and the right place. I met the right people, who were passionate about my work and, thus, able to get it in front of people who would sell the book in bookstores, readers who would pass the word along to their mothers or daughters or friends. I think it’s all of that.

I also begin to think there are things in life that we don’t understand, that are a mystery. I give credit to something beyond me. I’m not sure what that is exactly, except I think it’s a very benevolent force.

A lot of bad things have happened in my life. I never believed the sort of pap that ministers would say. You know, “Bad things happen for certain reasons. God decided to take your brother at this time for a reason.” I thought, “Bullshit, why would somebody allow such pain to happen to anybody?” It’s so difficult. We don’t have words to explain why things happen, and you can’t couch them in terms like that and explain them at the moment that they happen. It’s only later that you see what the connections might have been and how it led to something.

I think that’s why I’m a storyteller. I take all these disparate events and I have to connect them. I have to make them seem inevitable and yet surprising and plausible. That’s what I think life is like, too. I have the luxury to do exactly what it is we all need time to do, and that is just think about the mystery of life.

Speaking now only of your writing career, what setbacks or detours have you had along the way and how have you dealt with them and learned from them? Self-doubts, fear of failure?

Amy Tan: I didn’t fear failure. I expected failure. I think I’ve always been somebody, since the deaths of my father and brother, who was afraid to hope. So, I was more prepared for failure and for rejection than success. The success took me by surprise and it frightened me. On the day that there was a publication party for my book, I spent the whole day crying. I was scared out of my mind that my life was changing, and it was out of my control, and I didn’t know why it was happening. I thought it would ruin things, because at that moment in my life I was fairly happy. I was getting along with my mother. My husband and I had been married for a long time, we were happy, we had our first house, we had great friends, we were doing well, we weren’t starving. We had a comfortable living, and I thought, “Things are going to get messed up here, and I have no control over this.” I could already see how people were treating me differently. That’s the scary thing. You know, when people say, “How has success changed you?” you have to say, “No. How have people changed toward you as the result of success?” And “How have you dealt with that change in how people have changed toward you?” That’s the most difficult thing.

So I went through a terrible period of feeling that I had lost my privacy, that I had lost a sense of who I was. I was scared by the way people measured everything by numbers: where I was on a list, or how many weeks, or how many books I had sold. By the time it came to the second book, I was so freaked out, I broke out in hives. I couldn’t sleep at night. I broke three teeth grinding my teeth. I had backaches. I had to go to physical therapy. I was a wreck!

I started a second novel seven times and I had to throw them away. You know, 100 pages here, 200 pages there, and I’d say, “Is this what they liked in The Joy Luck Club? Is this the style, is this the story? No, I must write something completely different. I must write no Chinese characters to prove that I’m multi-talented.” Or “No, I must write this way in a very erudite way to show I have a way to use big words.” It’s both rebellion and conformity that attack you with success. It took me a long time to get over that, and just finally being able to breathe again and say, “What’s important? Why are you a writer? Why did you write that book in the first place? What did you learn? What did you discover? What was the most rewarding part of that?” Don’t think of what’s going to happen afterwards. If it’s a failure, will you think what you wrote was a failure, that the whole time was wasted? If it’s a success, will you think the words are more valuable? That crisis helped me to define what was important for me. It started off with family. It started off with knowing myself, with knowing the things I wanted as a constant in my life: trust, love, kindness, a sense of appreciation, gratitude. I didn’t want to become cynical. I didn’t want to become a suspicious person. Those were the things that helped me decide what I was going to write.

My mother, meanwhile, all the time kept saying, “Write my true story. That’s all you have to do. Write my true story.” I kept saying, “No, that’s not fiction. I’m not writing biography.” Writing is an extreme privilege, but it’s also a gift. It’s a gift to yourself, and it’s a gift of giving a story to someone. What better gift can I give my mother than to finally sit down and listen to her entire story, hour after hour after hour? She’s very repetitive. This is hard work, listening to her say the same laments in her life over and over again, but this time asking for more details. Getting this story out, I realized, was a gift that she was giving me. And there was a gift I could give back to her, and it didn’t matter what happened to that book afterwards. If it didn’t sell a single copy, if it was panned, that whole time I spent writing it, getting to know my mother, getting to know myself, all of it was worth it. Nobody — no review, no place on a list — could take that away from me or make it more important than what it already was.

I still have to think about that over and over again, with everything I do in life. It’s so easy to get derailed by success. You get distracted. You get opportunities. If I look back ten years ago, 15 years ago, I would not be able to believe that I would be saying, “No, I don’t want to make another movie. No, I don’t want to do a TV series.” You can get sucked into the idea that, “Gosh, this is impressive. Maybe I should do this. It will look good.” Or “I’ll write like this because it will impress that critic.”

I think a lot about death because of what’s happened in my life. And I like to hope that there is something after death. And I like to hope that if there is something afterwards, the people I love will be there. So, I say, “If I die, who’s going to be waiting for me on the other side — that critic, or that movie producer, or that TV exec? Or is it going to be my mother and my husband and my brother?” Gosh, it simplifies things a whole lot. It’s just crystal clear what’s important.

• 27 photos

Advertisement

Supported by

Amy Tan, the Reluctant Memoirist

• Share full article

By Alexandra Alter

• Oct. 16, 2017

Amy Tan really, truly did not want to write a memoir.

Her editor, Daniel Halpern, really wanted her to write one, but knew she would never agree to it. So he urged her to write a nonfiction book about her creative process — a collection of essays, perhaps, or a compilation of emails she’d written to him.

Reluctantly, she agreed. They made a pact requiring Ms. Tan to send him a minimum of 15 pages a week. The accelerated pace unlocked something, and soon, she was sending journal entries, deeply personal reflections on her traumatic childhood and harrowing family history, and candid passages about her creative struggles and self-doubt.

“I wrote this in a fugue state, not realizing what I was writing,” Ms. Tan, 65, said. “It wasn’t until I was done that I became a little distressed and thought, wait a minute, this is going to be published?”

Ms. Tan realized she’d unintentionally written a memoir.

The resulting book, “Where the Past Begins,” isn’t a conventional narrative autobiography. The disjointed chapters feel fragmentary and experimental, more like a collage or a scrapbook than a standard chronological excavation of the past.

Ms. Tan tossed in entries from her journals — she labels shorter ones “quirks” and longer ones “interludes” — where she muses on nature, fate, aging and mortality. There’s an excerpt from a ponderous essay she wrote when she was 14, and a drawing of a cat she sketched at age 12. She exhumes two fictional outtakes from discarded novels, including one about a linguistics scholar that she wrote more than 20 years ago.

Ms. Tan, who has published seven novels, also reflects on her writing life, and describes how she cried the day her debut novel, “The Joy Luck Club,” was published — not out of happiness, but out of dread and fear of criticism.

Mary Karr, the poet and memoirist, said “Where the Past Begins” gave her new insight into Ms. Tan’s evolution as a writer, and compared it to “Speak, Memory,” Vladimir Nabokov’s memoir. “It’s a book about the development of a sensibility as much as it is about the family trauma that led her to need a place of beauty and disassociation,” said Ms. Karr, a friend of Ms. Tan’s. “She’s an interesting person, because she’s both tortured and happy.”

Most books come into being through a mysterious alchemy between writer and editor. ut Mr. Halpern , a published poet and the publisher at Ecco, has helped to shape the careers of novelists like Joyce Carol Oates, Richard Ford, Robert Stone, T.C. Boyle and Jorie Graham. But he’s never been so visible in one of his writer’s books.

In Ms. Tan’s memoir, Mr. Halpern becomes a central, recurring character. She dedicates “our book” to him. His notes appear as interjections in the introduction. Later in the book, a chapter titled “Letters to the Editor” consists of dozens of email exchanges between the two. He sends her a poem he wrote. She tells him about attending a screening of a Woody Allen movie. In most of their exchanges, Mr. Halpern plays the role of muse and cheerleader as Ms. Tan oscillates between earnest reflection on her work and crushing self-doubt. “I keep asking myself how the hell I wrote such a long and bloated book,” she writes about her last novel in one message to him. In another, after seeking Mr. Halpern’s opinion on a scene, she writes: “Never mind. I deleted it. It was bad.”

Mr. Halpern and Ms. Tan have a warm, teasing relationship, which is on display in their email messages and even more evident in person. They got together two months ago in Manhattan, where Ms. Tan and her husband of 43 years, Louis DeMattei, a retired tax attorney, have a loft in SoHo. Over a bottle of wine at a restaurant on Park Avenue South, they discussed how the memoir came together.

They disagreed about whether the original book was supposed to be a book of essays or a collection of their emails to one another, but they concurred on other points.

“I’m a very slow writer,” Ms. Tan said.

“She’s not lying,” Mr. Halpern said. “It’s not slow so much as, there are a lot of psychological road blocks. You like to turn in a perfect piece of prose, and that almost never happens. This book was also a little bit of an anathema in that it started out as one thing, and slowly morphed into something else, and we were very careful not to say what that was, because we had our ground rules.”

“You never asked for a memoir,” Ms. Tan said.

“I knew you would never do it,” Mr. Halpern replied. “If you had thought that it was going to be a memoir, you never would have written it.”

“The test is going to be the book,” he later continued “Do you think that you will ultimately regret writing this book?”

“You know, it’s not regret,” Ms. Tan said. “My reluctance is always casting something out there that will be in the public and will be subject to public interpretation. I want nothing of that. It’s like taking the mask off, taking your clothes off, and having people say, oh my God. It’s nonfiction, and people can make fun of the way you think or say, oh that was trivial.”

In a way, it’s surprising that it took Ms. Tan this long to write about herself. Her fiction, which often features Chinese mothers and daughters, is full of family lore and semi-autobiographical material. Her 1989 debut novel, “The Joy Luck Club,” which has sold nearly 6 million copies in the United States, is an intergenerational epic about Chinese mothers and daughters. Her second novel, “The Kitchen God’s Wife,” features a Chinese-American girl in California who learns about dark secrets from her mother’s past, and is modeled partly on her own family.

There’s no shortage of dramatic material from Ms. Tan’s past, and she could have easily mined her childhood to write a traditional account of her life. Born in California in 1952 to Chinese immigrants, she grew up in fear of her volatile mother. Ms. Tan’s late mother, Daisy, was depressed and unstable, and repeatedly threatened suicide. She once tried to throw herself out of the car when the family was driving on the highway. When Ms. Tan was 16, her mother brandished a meat cleaver and threatened to kill her.

When she was 14, Ms. Tan’s family was struck by a double tragedy: her older brother Peter developed a brain tumor and died at age 16. Then her father, an electrical engineer and Baptist minister, was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and died not long after Peter. Her mother believed the family was cursed.

Ms. Tan also catalogs some of the trials and misfortunes she’s faced as an adult: her feeling of “relief and sadness” when she had a miscarriage at 28, and her struggle with chronic Lyme disease, which she contracted in 1999. The disease spread to her brain, causing seizures that sparked bizarre but benign hallucinations, like a Renoir painting or a spinning odometer. When she started taking medication to control the seizures, it made her giddy, and she worried it would make her write maudlin fiction. (The sideeffects eventually abated).

In the process of researching the memoir, Ms. Tan discovered more family secrets. She found a photograph of her maternal grandmother, a concubine who died of a possibly intentional opium overdose, dressed as a courtesan. She found letters to her parents from immigration officials, warning that their student visas had expired and they were at risk of deportation.

Now that the book is about to be published, Ms. Tan is feeling apprehensive. She worries about family members who might think she’s sullied her grandmother’s memory, and is terrified of the critical response. She’s accustomed to having her fiction critiqued, but this feels much scarier, and more personal. “There’s so much in there that’s raw,” she said.

Ms. Tan plans to have her papers destroyed when she dies, including her letters and the many partial novels she abandoned, so “Where the Past Begins” may be the most complete and intimate record of her life that her fans and readers will get.

And it very likely wouldn’t exist, she admits, had it not been for the gentle and insistent prodding from her editor. “In many respects,” she said, “This is his book.”

Follow Alexandra Alter on Twitter: @xanalter .

Follow New York Times Books on Facebook and Twitter (@nytimesbooks) , and sign up for our newsletter .

Explore More in Books

Want to know about the best books to read and the latest news start here..

Salman Rushdie’s new memoir, “Knife,” addresses the attack that maimed him  in 2022, and pays tribute to his wife who saw him through .

Recent books by Allen Bratton, Daniel Lefferts and Garrard Conley depict gay Christian characters not usually seen in queer literature.

What can fiction tell us about the apocalypse? The writer Ayana Mathis finds unexpected hope in novels of crisis by Ling Ma, Jenny Offill and Jesmyn Ward .

At 28, the poet Tayi Tibble has been hailed as the funny, fresh and immensely skilled voice of a generation in Māori writing .

Amid a surge in book bans, the most challenged books in the United States in 2023 continued to focus on the experiences of L.G.B.T.Q. people or explore themes of race.

Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .

• Entertainment
• Environment
• Information Science and Technology
• Social Issues

Home Essay Samples Literature Mother Tongue

Exploring Language and Identity in "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan

Table of contents, the power of language, connection and identity, challenges and empowerment, breaking stereotypes, embracing linguistic diversity.

• Tan, Amy. "Mother Tongue." The Threepenny Review, no. 43, 1989, pp. 10-15.

*minimum deadline

Cite this Essay

To export a reference to this article please select a referencing style below

• Superman and Me
• Benjamin Banneker
• Alice Walker

Related Essays

Need writing help?

You can always rely on us no matter what type of paper you need

*No hidden charges

100% Unique Essays

Absolutely Confidential

Money Back Guarantee

By clicking “Send Essay”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement. We will occasionally send you account related emails

You can also get a UNIQUE essay on this or any other topic

Thank you! We’ll contact you as soon as possible.

Jump to navigation Skip to content

Search form

• P&W on Facebook
• P&W on Twitter
• P&W on Instagram

Find details about every creative writing competition—including poetry contests, short story competitions, essay contests, awards for novels, grants for translators, and more—that we’ve published in the Grants & Awards section of Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it in the Writing Contests database, the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.

Find a home for your poems, stories, essays, and reviews by researching the publications vetted by our editorial staff. In the Literary Magazines database you’ll find editorial policies, submission guidelines, contact information—everything you need to know before submitting your work to the publications that share your vision for your work.

Whether you’re pursuing the publication of your first book or your fifth, use the Small Presses database to research potential publishers, including submission guidelines, tips from the editors, contact information, and more.

Research more than one hundred agents who represent poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers, plus details about the kinds of books they’re interested in representing, their clients, and the best way to contact them.

Every week a new publishing professional shares advice, anecdotes, insights, and new ways of thinking about writing and the business of books.

Find publishers ready to read your work now with our Open Reading Periods page, a continually updated resource listing all the literary magazines and small presses currently open for submissions.

Since our founding in 1970, Poets & Writers has served as an information clearinghouse of all matters related to writing. While the range of inquiries has been broad, common themes have emerged over time. Our Top Topics for Writers addresses the most popular and pressing issues, including literary agents, copyright, MFA programs, and self-publishing.

Our series of subject-based handbooks (PDF format; $4.99 each) provide information and advice from authors, literary agents, editors, and publishers. Now available: The Poets & Writers Guide to Publicity and Promotion, The Poets & Writers Guide to the Book Deal, The Poets & Writers Guide to Literary Agents, The Poets & Writers Guide to MFA Programs, and The Poets & Writers Guide to Writing Contests.

Find a home for your work by consulting our searchable databases of writing contests, literary magazines, small presses, literary agents, and more.

Poets & Writers lists readings, workshops, and other literary events held in cities across the country. Whether you are an author on book tour or the curator of a reading series, the Literary Events Calendar can help you find your audience.

Get the Word Out is a new publicity incubator for debut fiction writers and poets.

Research newspapers, magazines, websites, and other publications that consistently publish book reviews using the Review Outlets database, which includes information about publishing schedules, submission guidelines, fees, and more.

Well over ten thousand poets and writers maintain listings in this essential resource for writers interested in connecting with their peers, as well as editors, agents, and reading series coordinators looking for authors. Apply today to join the growing community of writers who stay in touch and informed using the Poets & Writers Directory.

Let the world know about your work by posting your events on our literary events calendar, apply to be included in our directory of writers, and more.

Find a writers group to join or create your own with Poets & Writers Groups. Everything you need to connect, communicate, and collaborate with other poets and writers—all in one place.

Find information about more than two hundred full- and low-residency programs in creative writing in our MFA Programs database, which includes details about deadlines, funding, class size, core faculty, and more. Also included is information about more than fifty MA and PhD programs.

Whether you are looking to meet up with fellow writers, agents, and editors, or trying to find the perfect environment to fuel your writing practice, the Conferences & Residencies is the essential resource for information about well over three hundred writing conferences, writers residencies, and literary festivals around the world.

Discover historical sites, independent bookstores, literary archives, writing centers, and writers spaces in cities across the country using the Literary Places database—the best starting point for any literary journey, whether it’s for research or inspiration.

Search for jobs in education, publishing, the arts, and more within our free, frequently updated job listings for writers and poets.

Establish new connections and enjoy the company of your peers using our searchable databases of MFA programs and writers retreats, apply to be included in our directory of writers, and more.

• Register for Classes

Each year the Readings & Workshops program provides support to hundreds of writers participating in literary readings and conducting writing workshops. Learn more about this program, our special events, projects, and supporters, and how to contact us.

The Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award introduces emerging writers to the New York City literary community, providing them with a network for professional advancement.

Find information about how Poets & Writers provides support to hundreds of writers participating in literary readings and conducting writing workshops.

Bring the literary world to your door—at half the newsstand price. Available in print and digital editions, Poets & Writers Magazine is a must-have for writers who are serious about their craft.

View the contents and read select essays, articles, interviews, and profiles from the current issue of the award-winning Poets & Writers Magazine .

Read essays, articles, interviews, profiles, and other select content from Poets & Writers Magazine as well as Online Exclusives.

View the covers and contents of every issue of Poets & Writers Magazine , from the current edition all the way back to the first black-and-white issue in 1987.

Every day the editors of Poets & Writers Magazine scan the headlines—publishing reports, literary dispatches, academic announcements, and more—for all the news that creative writers need to know.

In our weekly series of craft essays, some of the best and brightest minds in contemporary literature explore their craft in compact form, articulating their thoughts about creative obsessions and curiosities in a working notebook of lessons about the art of writing.

The Time Is Now offers weekly writing prompts in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction to help you stay committed to your writing practice throughout the year. Sign up to get The Time Is Now, as well as a weekly book recommendation for guidance and inspiration, delivered to your inbox.

Every week a new author shares books, art, music, writing prompts, films—anything and everything—that has inspired and shaped the creative process.

Listen to original audio recordings of authors featured in Poets & Writers Magazine . Browse the archive of more than 400 author readings.

Ads in Poets & Writers Magazine and on pw.org are the best ways to reach a readership of serious poets and literary prose writers. Our audience trusts our editorial content and looks to it, and to relevant advertising, for information and guidance.

Start, renew, or give a subscription to Poets & Writers Magazine ; change your address; check your account; pay your bill; report a missed issue; contact us.

Peruse paid listings of writing contests, conferences, workshops, editing services, calls for submissions, and more.

Poets & Writers is pleased to provide free subscriptions to Poets & Writers Magazine to award-winning young writers and to high school creative writing teachers for use in their classrooms.

Read select articles from the award-winning magazine and consult the most comprehensive listing of literary grants and awards, deadlines, and prizewinners available in print.

• Subscribe Now

Where the Past Begins: An Interview With Amy Tan

• Printable Version
• Log in to Send
• Log in to Save

CLick for signed COPY OF THE Backyard Bird Chronicles

COMING APRIL 23, 2024

novels, short stories, essays, memoir, children’s books, libretto, film and television adaptations, and illustrated nature journals

SPECIAL OFFERS

Time-limited offer: buy a ticket to the book launch event by april 16, and receive a signed book, free bird illustration postcard, and free quick start guide to nature journaling..

On April 23,  celebrate with me —live or streaming— the official launch of THE BACKYARD BIRD CHRONICLES, and receive free gifts with online ticket purchase.  Book Passage will present this program at Dominican University.  

SIGNED & PERSONALIZED bookplate and FREE Bird drawing postcard with PRE-ORDERS until April 30.

ORDER from LITTLE CITY BOOKS.  

OWL POSTERS, OWL TEE-SHIRTS, MULTI-BIRD POSTER, and BIRD STICKERS

Wild Wonder Foundation has merchandise available using my art.  Sales help to support this non-profit organization dear to my heart. You can also find books by John Muir Laws, including these two  that I have been using  to learn how to draw:   The Laws Guide to Drawing Birds and The Laws Guide to Nature Journaling and Drawing . 

THE QUICK START GUIDE TO NATURE JOURNALING

Purchase your ticket online to the official book launch on  April 23 and receive this QUICK START GUIDE with your book and bird portrait postcard.  If you have a color printer, you can also download the Quick Start Guide for free  and in any of seven languages. 

Advance Praise for THE BACKYARD BIRD CHRONICLES

“What an enchanting and illuminating book! How lucky for us that Amy Tan has turned her genius, her deep empathy and insight, her keen eye for what is telling, to birds. Every page of these chronicles radiates warm curiosity, wonder, and delight.” —Jennifer Ackerman, The Genius of Birds “With this book as your guide, embark into the bird world Amy Tan. This is an intimate view, a sort-of love affair with the birds and their behavior, that Amy has come to know over several years. Within the leafy universe of her own backyard, she has quietly beheld, patiently observed, and taken in-depth notations of an extensive array of bird species. In colorful detail, she describes various bird’s behavior, while capturing their beauty in exquisitely rendered illustrations. Species include fearsome predators and watchful prey, long distance migrants and hometown residents. Through her unique insight and gift as an author and artist, Amy exposes a world of intrigue, beauty, even humor about the birds we all share this world with.” —Keith Hansen, author of Hansen’s Field Guide to Birds of the Sierra Nevada    

“Amy Tan’s bird journals can change the way you see the world. They show that stories, mysteries, humor, and beauty are all around us if we take the time to pay attention. They remind us that we never stop learning and growing, and if we put in the work, we can learn and master new skills. These journals invite us to look out of our own windows with fresh eyes and wonder.” —John Muir Laws, author of The Laws Guide to Drawing Birds

 “ Backyard Bird Chronicles is fun reading. It shows how we can become engaged emotionally, literally and artistically with the natural world—to joyfully learn about the most accessible and yet wild animals, the often rare and beautiful birds that choose to come and live near and sometimes with us.” —Bernd Heinrich, author of Mind of the Raven

“Delightful . . . Tan’s lovely graphite and colored pencil drawings reveal yet another side of the multitalented author . . . Her depictions of their habits and foibles are laced with considerable wit . . . Her bird chronicles are fun, too — and informative.” —Heller McAlpin, Los Angeles Times

“Much of great writing comes from great interest, and in The Backyard Bird Chronicles , Amy Tan shows us how the world fascinates her, especially the birds. The result is both unexpected and spectacular.” —Ann Patchett, author of These Precious Days  

“This is one of the most infectious and convincing books about nature I’ve read. For the bird-watcher, the would-be bird-watcher, or for the bird-watching skeptic, this offers great delight and unexpected intrigue. Through Tan’s ecstatic eyes, what could be a dry treatise on ornithological happenings becomes something far more fun and much more profound. It’s really a book about seeing.”    —Dave Eggers, author of Ungrateful Mammals  

“If you promise me a witty birder book—birds as windows on life!!!—then great, and if the great Amy Tan is writing it, even better. The perfect antidote (with illustrations!) to whatever these past few years have been.” —Lit Hub, “Most Anticipated Books of 2024”

“If you really want to understand something, draw it. That’s the conclusion I’ve reached in witnessing how much Amy Tan has learned about the bird community in her back yard. No matter how much you think you know about birds, you are guaranteed to learn something surprising and inspiring from this charmingly illustrated and creatively-conceived book.” —Michael J. Parr, President of American Bird Conservancy

“Anybody even mildly interested in birds, or thinking about getting interested in birds (which are, after all, the indicator genus for the health of the planet), will want this book perched on their shelf, if only for the gift of Amy Tan’s eye and the example she gives us of how to pay attention. What a treasure.” —Robert Hass, Pulitzer Prize-Winning author of Summer Snow: New Poems

“A charming bird journey . . . [Tan] fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches . . . An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.” — Kirkus

Copyright © 2024 Amy Tan’s website - All Rights Reserved.

Powered by GoDaddy

This website uses cookies.

We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.

Amy Tan’s and Personal English Learning Experience Essay

Introduction, arriving in the u.s..

Over the past few months while I have been studying in the U.S., the use of English has been a constant companion whereas in the past within my native country I had little use for it. It is due to this change in perspective and use that I have come to a realization that there are a variety of nuances and subtleties to it that I did not even realize and similarly to the character of Amy Tan in the story “Mother Tongue” I also noticed that my use of English at the present in comparison to that of my father is far better both grammatically and phonetically. Such a realization came as a surprise since prior to my arrival in the U.S. I actually thought that my father could actually speak English rather well. It is due to this that I came to the realization that the context of experience often changes prior opinions based on new information that has been encountered.

In order to better understand why I was so surprised with this sudden jarring realization (I describe this as jarring since I have always looked up to my father and idolize him), some context is necessary so as to better understand my point of view. When I was younger, I had often seen my father communicate with a variety of individuals using English. At the time I was quite impressed with him since bilingualism was not a common trait where I am from and to see him talk to others in English was quite a feat in my eyes back then. Do note though that at time I barely understood English and had very little context to actually understand what my father was saying. As such, the words that came out of his mouth and the way that he communicated was in my eyes “flawless”. A few years before I left to study in the U.S., I attended a local language school in order to prepare myself and improve upon my meager rudimentary knowledge of the English language.

At the time I still thought that my father’s version of “English” was quite good and that I should aspire to be just as good as him. However, over time I noticed a few subtle differences, just as Amy Tan in the story “Mother Tongue” noted that how her mother spoke English held her back, I believe that how my father spoke English similarly held me back in developing the manner in which I communicated in that particular language. As I mentioned earlier, I idolized my father and tried to emulate him in every way possible, the same applies to the manner in which he spoke English. Despite the language school teaching me a variety of grammar and types of phonetically appropriate methods of speech in relation to proper English speaking, I always differed back to the way in which my father spoke English and how he communicated with it. Thus, I mostly used his rules and his version rather than what the language school taught. What you have to understand was that at the time, my father’s way of speaking English was all I knew and all I aspired to. I had little in the way of sufficient outside context and admittedly the language schools could only do so much without sufficient immersion in the English language to teach me.

Based on the previous section, I am sure you can agree that when I arrived in the U.S. I was due for a significant level of “culture shock” so to speak, both due to the new culture I was experiencing and the fact that the utilization of English here was far different to what I was used to. As I became fully immersed in the local language and over a series of calls I had with my family back home to tell them I was alright, I started to notice that what I knew as English back then was a pale imitation of the real thing. Just as Amy Tan from the story “Mother Tongue” described her mother’s way of speaking as “broken English” I began to notice that the way in which my father spoke was oddly similar. His phrases, grammar usage, phonetics and even the way in which he would describe certain things was slightly “off” in my opinion since by then I had more than sufficient context to compare it to. It was an eye opener to be honest since, as I have mentioned several times before, I idolized my father and to consider him “inferior” in any way was anathema to everything that I stood for. Yet, as the conversations between me and my family kept on coming I was constantly forced towards the realization that what I thought of as I my ideal was something that was from it.

Based on everything that has been presented, it can be seen that the context of experience often changes prior opinions based on new information that has been encountered. In my case, I came to the realization that my father’s English is not as perfect as I once believed it was, however, this does not mean that I respect him any less, rather, I am at the present more open to admitting that he is not perfect but still a good, honest and caring man in my eyes and that is all I have ever needed from him.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2021, April 9). Amy Tan’s and Personal English Learning Experience. https://ivypanda.com/essays/amy-tans-and-personal-english-learning-experience/

"Amy Tan’s and Personal English Learning Experience." IvyPanda , 9 Apr. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/amy-tans-and-personal-english-learning-experience/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'Amy Tan’s and Personal English Learning Experience'. 9 April.

IvyPanda . 2021. "Amy Tan’s and Personal English Learning Experience." April 9, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/amy-tans-and-personal-english-learning-experience/.

1. IvyPanda . "Amy Tan’s and Personal English Learning Experience." April 9, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/amy-tans-and-personal-english-learning-experience/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Amy Tan’s and Personal English Learning Experience." April 9, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/amy-tans-and-personal-english-learning-experience/.

• The Specifics of the Margaret Hossack Criminal Case
• “Mother Tongue” Article by Amy Tan
• Mother Tongue by Amy Tan: English v. The "Broken Language"
• Linguistic Dominance in the "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan
• Amy Tan’s Story “Mother Tongue”
• Friendship and Friend’s Support
• Linguistic Identity. “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan
• Geoffrey Hill’s “Genesis” Poem Analysis
• Denotation and Connotation on the Basis of Amy Tan’s Mother Tongue
• Mother Tongue by Amy Tan: What Does Your Language Say about Your Identity?
• Sociological Perspective of a Chicago Citizen
• Chinese Immigration to Cambodia in Personal Story
• Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps' Experience
• Culture, Identity, Diversity in the Sikh Tradition
• Project Management Course: Goals and Ambitions

Amy Tan didn't think 'The Backyard Bird Chronicles' was publishable. Clearly it was

LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: If you know author Amy Tan for "The Joy Luck Club," a novel about Chinese immigrant families in San Francisco, her new book, "The Backyard Bird Chronicles," might seem like a deviation. That's because she never intended to write this book. She was just trying to lose herself in nature. But soon she had pages and pages of observations and drawings.

AMY TAN: And that's what this is. It's like a spontaneous memoir, and I just didn't think that it was publishable.

FADEL: But clearly, it was. I spoke with Tan about what drove her to the birds and the delight she found looking out her window.

TAN: I tend to be an obsessive person to begin with. But one of the things I obsessed on in 2016 was the degree of racism that was being shown. And people now considered it almost their freedom of expression to say exactly what they thought about other people who were of a different race. It was people ignoring me as if I were invisible in a store - everybody else being served, but not me. It happened on an airplane not that long ago. And the first thing that comes to mind is racism.

FADEL: Yeah.

TAN: And I never had that feeling before, and it was horrible. So I needed to get it out of my mind that I would have this suspicion any time, you know, I had somebody do something rude. And I decided to go back into nature and also start learning how to draw.

FADEL: Did it help with all of this terribleness that you were feeling and experiencing?

TAN: Yes. It was like a reset for the world at the time because I was feeling so much despair that our world was turning uglier and uglier. And instead, here I was in nature, and it was beautiful. It was in the moment, and what better antidote to be in a place of biodiversity as opposed to hatred of diversity?

FADEL: Now, all of these scenes - I mean, you have these incredible drawings of California quail and golden-crowned sparrows and hummingbirds, pine siskins in different moods and health, but all of these scenes are from the bird life in your own backyard?

TAN: Every single bird in the book is from my backyard. Every bird that I've drawn is a bird that looked at me. I did use photo references for the more detailed illustrations that are in there, but the basic - you know, the sketches in there, they're all from the birds. I only write about the birds in my backyard, and that was just a decision that I made for myself, that I would make this very personal.

FADEL: You say, I'm a bit of an obsessive person. I mean, how many hours a day were you watching birds in your backyard? 'Cause you're documenting years of watching them from the time you wake up to the time you sleep.

TAN: You have to realize I have bird feeders visible from almost all of the windows in my house, and I have a lot of windows. So I was spending, I would say, on some days, 10 hours watching the birds and sketching them. I could eat right in front of the window because it was the dining room table. I was sitting and looking out on the patio where the birds were, and then I would be drawing at the same time. Now, I was learning to draw, so a lot of that time was simply drawing the same bird over and over and over again, just for the practice of it.

FADEL: You notice birds. I mean, you talked about almost getting to know them, and you also wondered what they noticed in you. Who is Amy Tan to these birds?

TAN: I suspect that they know me as the flightless creature who brings out the food. I once took away the feeders because there was an outbreak of disease that some finches had brought, and I took them all down for a very long time, and suddenly I had birds coming to the window in the bathroom. I never knew they were in the yard, and they were looking at me very intensely. These were birds I'd always wanted to see, and now here they were, coming to the window.

And I remember one of them just looked at me, an orange-crowned warbler, and then it tapped his bill on the window. And I thought, people say, oh, they're tapping it because they see their reflection, blah, blah, blah. But this was not that. When I moved to another room, it followed me and went to that window and just stared at me. And then it followed me to another window, and then, later in the day, when I opened the door, it flew in, and it just stared at me. It just perched somewhere and stared at me like, where is the food?

FADEL: I have to ask you - 'cause your husband makes a few little appearances in the book where he drives you to get some of the food for the birds, and I think at one point, you're spending $250 a month on food for the birds.

FADEL: What does he think about your hobby?

TAN: That's obsessive, I would say.

FADEL: (Laughter) It's obsessive.

TAN: I know. Well, not only that. I would buy these live mealworms. Sometimes, there were 20,000 of them.

FADEL: Wow.

TAN: And I would put them in containers, tons of these containers, and then I would put them in the fridge. And so when I started getting 20,000 instead of 10, Lou did say something about, you've got too many of these mealworms in here. The other thing that he was tolerant of is that sometimes I would have a dead bird. And I carefully wrap them up, put the date when they were found and what the breed was, and then I put them in the freezer to give to the California Academy of Sciences. Then I feel they're going off to, you know, a very advanced institution, and it makes me feel better, in a way, that they will serve a purpose, you know, even though they've died.

FADEL: Also, Lou really loves you.

TAN: Yeah. Lou loves it, too.

FADEL: I think that's a sign of real love.

TAN: We've been together for 54 years...

FADEL: Amazing.

TAN: ...So he knows me and my habits. And I've had dead snakes in the freezer in the past, so this is probably one step better.

FADEL: Par for the course.

FADEL: Amy Tan. Her new book is "The Backyard Bird Chronicles," and she's written and illustrated it. Thank you so much for this book and really such a joyful conversation.

TAN: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF EL TEN ELEVEN'S "MY ONLY SWERVING") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Amy Tan journeys from novelist to naturalist without leaving her backyard

• Show more sharing options
• Copy Link URL Copied!

Book Review

The Backyard Bird Chronicles

By Amy Tan Knopf: 320 pages, $35 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org , whose fees support independent bookstores.

Most birders have origin stories, the tales they tell of how birds, for whatever reason, moved from background to foreground in their lives. Novelist Amy Tan’s journey, cataloged in her delightful new nonfiction book “The Backyard Bird Chronicles,” began with a sketchbook and a pencil.

At the age of 64, she enrolled in a drawing class with naturalist John Muir Laws. She soon moved on to a class in nature journaling, which prompted her to begin closely observing the birds in the backyard of her Marin County home. She put out feeders and then documented — in words and sketches — the avian life that came to the buffet.

And quite a buffet it became. As her interest — some might say obsession — grew, Tan found herself catering to the tastes of dozens of species. She provided sunflower and nyjer seeds for the seed eaters, suet for the protein cravers, sugar water for the hummingbirds and sunflower chips for the ground feeders.

There were also mealworms, lots of mealworms, purchased thousands at a time and kept in the refrigerator until needed. “I pride myself a bit too much on having the best food for wild bird guests,” she writes. “I would never serve dried mealworms instead of live! That’s like giving your kid frozen broccoli instead of fresh organic.”

Tan’s observations of her avian guests, recorded in journal form, are both entertaining and informative. And the drawings that illustrate her musings are remarkable. In both her quick sketches and her more finished work, she captures not just the appearance but the demeanor of the birds she draws: the aggressive stance of a golden-crowned sparrow defending the birdbath; the hunched puffiness of a sick fox sparrow; the “yellow boots” and white eye-ring of a ruby-crowned kinglet; the unexpected tongue extension of a Bewick’s wren eating suet.

Often, she records some bit of avian yard drama graphic-novel style, with a headlined page of sketches and text documenting, say, how a “Hermit Thrush Goes Rogue,” or “Food Fights Among Juvenile Scrub Jays.” The drawings are charming, the text amusing.

That said, if you already know quite a lot about birds, you may find yourself annoyed that, initially at least, Tan is no expert. In one early journal entry, for example, she writes about her “palpitations from the excitement of spotting a species that I have never before seen in my yard.” After making a quick sketch, she tries to identify the bird with the help of an app, and decides (correctly) that it is a Townsend’s warbler.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with getting excited about a Townsend’s. They’re beautiful small warblers with vibrant yellow and black heads. But they regularly winter in coastal California, and you might find yourself wondering why someone who couldn’t identify a species this common at a quick glance had decided to write a book about birds.

Stay with the book, though, and you’ll come to appreciate Tan’s approach. Like the early naturalists, Tan learns by watching, bringing no preconceptions, and it’s a pleasure to sit with her as she observes and accumulates knowledge. She takes careful notes, she sketches what she sees and she tries to draw conclusions.

As David Allen Sibley puts it in his excellent introduction (which even on its own would make this a book worth reading), “The drawings and essays in this book do a lot more than just describe the birds. They carry a sense of discovery…, suggest the layers of patterns in the natural world, and emphasize a deep personal connection between the watcher and the watched.”

And Tan is well-suited to being one of the watchers. “My impulse to observe birds comes from the same one that led me to become a fiction writer,” she writes. “By disposition I am an observer. I want to know why things happen.”

Often, her conclusions are spot-on. She observes that when her yard goes quiet, the reason is often that a Cooper’s hawk or another predatory raptor has landed in one of her trees, and the smaller birds are hoping to escape notice. She notes how fledglings follow their parents around the yard begging to be fed as if they were in the nest. She watches as California towhees drop worms from her feeders into a flower pot below so they can scratch for them in the soil the way they usually find food.

As she becomes better acquainted with the avian life in her backyard, Tan also begins to notice anomalies, including illness among the birds. Three times, after spotting birds in the yard that suffered from salmonellosis, conjunctivitis or avian pox, she had to shut down her feeders until the risk passed to prevent the diseases from spreading. And she documents her birds’ “heartbreak at my window,” on finding the feeders empty.

Does that border on anthropomorphizing? Of course. And Tan is unapologetic. “I am aware I have committed the naturalist’s sin of stereotyping the towhee as jolly and Scrub Jay as conniving. Science would require me to be objective and to not let personal bias obstruct more accurate observations. Thank God I am not a scientist. I love the jolly towhee and the smart and conniving Scrub Jay.”

And if some of Tan’s conclusions don’t stand up to scientific scrutiny, she provides fair warning. “Certainly no one should depend on me,” she warns. “I am all about free-form guesswork. That’s the fiction side of me.”

Don’t expect, however, the kind of elegant, carefully composed prose and structure that you find in an Amy Tan novel. That’s not what she set out to do. “A novel is a torment,” she explains. “It needs structure, tending of language, constant shaping, refinement, excision and cumulative insights.” By contrast, she says, this book “was pure fun, spontaneous, a bit of a mess come what may.”

Fun, messy spontaneity, it turns out, can make for an awfully good book.

Sue Horton is an avid birder and former op-ed editor of The Times. She is working on her first novel.

More to Read

This Storybook cottage’s native plant wonderland shows how gorgeous no grass can be

April 15, 2024

They transformed a sad, junk-filled yard into a DIY native plant wonderland

April 3, 2024

Letters to the Editor: Burrowing owls deserve better from California

April 1, 2024

A cure for the common opinion

Get thought-provoking perspectives with our weekly newsletter.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

More From the Los Angeles Times

A disorienting, masterful, shape-shifting novel about multiracial identity

April 22, 2024

In Jane Smiley’s rock ’n’ roll novel, does good sense make good fiction?

April 19, 2024

A mysterious photographer of the Civil War, under a new microscope

April 18, 2024

Los Angeles’ mass uprisings in search of Black justice have punctuated my life, and my library

April 17, 2024

Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Cultural Identity — Amy Tan Fish Cheeks Summary

Amy Tan Fish Cheeks Summary

• Categories: Cultural Identity Family Relationships

About this sample

Words: 712 |

Published: Mar 13, 2024

Words: 712 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Prof Ernest (PhD)

Verified writer

• Expert in: Sociology

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

4 pages / 1769 words

8 pages / 3469 words

5 pages / 2461 words

1 pages / 581 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Cultural Identity

Bamberg, M. (2010). Who am I? Narration and its contribution to self and identity. Theory Psychology, 21(1), 3-24. Coolican, H. (2013). Research methods and statistics in psychology (5th ed.). Abingdon, United Kingdom: [...]

Cultural self-awareness is an essential skill in today's interconnected and diverse world. It involves recognizing and understanding one's own cultural background, biases, and values, and how they influence interactions with [...]

The debate between Afrocentrism and Eurocentrism has been at the forefront of discussions surrounding cultural identity, history, and representation. These two ideologies represent contrasting lenses through which individuals [...]

Culture is an intricate web of beliefs, values, traditions, and practices that shape the way we perceive the world and interact with those around us. From our earliest moments of existence, culture plays a pivotal role in [...]

In our country today, we recognize the importance of preserving culture, which will be discussed in this essay. As we are a nation of diverse cultures, our society is a beautiful blend of African American, Asian [...]

The country is chose is Brazil and for several reasons. Brazil is the largest country in south America and equally one of the richest in culture. It is known to be one of the most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations. It [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) 'Mother Tongue' is an essay by Amy Tan, an American author who was born to Chinese immigrants in 1952. Tan wrote 'Mother Tongue' in 1990, a year after her novel The Joy Luck Club was a runaway success. In the essay, Tan discusses her relationship with language, and how….

ESSAY Mother Tongue Don't judge a book by its cover or someone's intelligence by her English. By Amy Tan • Art by Gabe Leonard I am not a scholar of English or literature. I cannot give you much more than personal opinions on the English language and its variations in this country or others. I am a writer. And by that definition, I am

Mother Tongue, by Amy Tan I am not a scholar of English or literature. I cannot give you much more than personal opinions on the English language and its variations in this country or others. I am a writer. And by that definition, I am someone who has always loved language. I am fascinated by language in daily life.

Here are the first two sentences of Amy Tan's short narrative personal essay "Confessions": My mother's thoughts reach back like the winter tide, exposing the wreckage of a former shore. Often she's mired in 1967, 1968, the years my older brother and my father died. Note how Tan puts the reader in time.

Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue" is a compelling exploration of language, identity, and familial bonds. This nonfiction narrative essay, which debuted at the 1989 State of the Language Symposium and was later published in The Threepenny Review in 1990, delves into Tan's multifaceted relationship with English, influenced significantly by her mother, a Chinese immigrant.

Summary of Mother Tongue by Amy Tan. "Mother Tongue" is a personal essay that explores the author's relationship with the English language. Tan reveals that she grew up in a bilingual household where her mother's English was considered "broken" or "limited" by the dominant English-speaking community. Tan's mother's language proficiency was ...

"Mother Tongue" explores Amy Tan's relationship with the English language, her mother, and writing. This nonfiction narrative essay was originally given as a talk during the 1989 State of the Language Symposium; it was later published by The Threepenny Review in 1990. Since then, "Mother Tongue" has been anthologized countless times and won notable awards and honors, including being ...

Amy Tan's ''Mother Tongue'' is an important essay because it discusses the concept of code-switching. This is the phenomenon by which people change how they speak depending on the situation they ...

Analysis of Amy Tan's Stories By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on June 24, 2020 • ( 1). Amy Tan's (born February 19, 1952) voice is an important one among a group of "hyphenated Americans" (such as African Americans and Asian Americans) who describe the experiences of members of ethnic minority groups. Her short fiction is grounded in a Chinese tradition of "talk story" (gong gu tsai), a ...

Essays and criticism on Amy Tan - Tan, Amy (Feminism in Literature) ... The contradictions between personal experiences and documented history exemplified by this passage clearly exhibit the text ...

In 1988, Amy Tan was earning an excellent living writing speeches for business executives. She worked around the clock to meet the demands from her many high-priced clients, but she took no joy in the work, and felt frustrated and unfulfilled. In her 30s, she took up writing fiction. A year later her first book, a collection of interrelated stories called The Joy Luck Club was an international ...

Amy Tan really, truly did not want to write a memoir. ... deeply personal reflections on her traumatic childhood and harrowing family history, and candid passages about her creative struggles and ...

Summary. In her essay 'Mother Tongue', Amy Tan tries to use her personal experience to describe the importance of language in a society. In this analysis, the author compares perfect English language with 'broken language'. Using English as an example, the author attempts to explain how language is important in communications.

In conclusion, Amy Tan's essay "Mother Tongue" offers a poignant and thought-provoking exploration of the complexities of language and communication.Through her personal anecdotes and reflections, Tan challenges readers to reconsider their assumptions about language and to recognize the diverse ways in which language shapes our lives.

In conclusion, Amy Tan's essay "Mother Tongue" provides a thought-provoking exploration of the role of language in shaping personal identity. By examining the implications of language diversity on identity formation, we gain a deeper understanding of how language influences our perceptions of self and others. Moving forward, further research in ...

Amy Tan's essay "Mother Tongue" explores the intricate relationship between language and identity. Through her personal experiences and reflections on her mother's language, Tan delves into the complexities of linguistic diversity, societal biases, and the ways in which language shapes our perceptions and interactions.

Amy Tan, whose new book is Where the Past Begins: A Writer's Memoir, published by Ecco in October. (Credit: Julian Johnson) Tan, the author of six novels, including The Joy Luck Club (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1989), as well as two children's books, struggled with writing her last novel, The Valley of Amazement, first exploring one storyline ...

Identity and language. In Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue," the theme of identity and language is explored. Through the personal anecdotes and experiences shared in the essay, Tan highlights how language can shape one's sense of identity. She reflects on how her mother's limited English proficiency affected their communication and how it ...

Species include fearsome predators and watchful prey, long distance migrants and hometown residents. Through her unique insight and gift as an author and artist, Amy exposes a world of intrigue, beauty, even humor about the birds we all share this world with.". "Amy Tan's bird journals can change the way you see the world.

Amy Tan (born February 19, 1952, Oakland, California, U.S.) is an American author of novels about Chinese American women and the immigrant experience.. Tan grew up in California and in Switzerland and studied English and linguistics at San Jose State University (B.A., 1973; M.A., 1974) and the University of California, Berkeley.She was a highly successful freelance business writer in 1987 when ...

The essay explores Amy Tan's article "Mother Tongue," focusing on the author's intent and the themes presented in the piece. The central argument of the essay is that Amy Tan's goal in the article is to challenge the notion that individuals who do not speak "perfect" English are not intellectual. ... Tan's personal experiences growing up with ...

This essay, "Amy Tan's and Personal English Learning Experience" is published exclusively on IvyPanda's free essay examples database. You can use it for research and reference purposes to write your own paper. However, you must cite it accordingly. Donate a paper. Removal Request.

AMY TAN: And that's what this is. It's like a spontaneous memoir, and I just didn't think that it was publishable. FADEL: But clearly, it was. I spoke with Tan about what drove her to the birds and the delight she found looking out her window. TAN: I tend to be an obsessive person to begin with.

By Amy Tan. Knopf: 320 pages, $35. If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. Most birders have origin ...

Amy Tan's short story "Fish Cheeks" is a poignant and heartwarming tale that delves into the complexities of cultural identity, teenage insecurity, and the universal desire for acceptance.Set against the backdrop of a traditional American Christmas dinner, the story follows the protagonist, Amy, as she grapples with her feelings of embarrassment and shame over her family's Chinese customs.