Fish Cheeks

"Fish Cheeks" is a 1987 one page narrative essay by Chinese-American author Amy Tan and her first published essay.[1] The work was first published in Seventeen and covers a Christmas Eve dinner when Tan was 14 years old.[2][3] It was subsequently published as a part of The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings.[4]

The work has been used in Common Core classes and features themes of acceptance of differences, growing up, family, heritage, and cultural differences.[2][5][6] It typically is used for seventh grade and eighth-grade classes.The work has been compared to a similar work by American chef and author Gabrielle Hamilton, "Killing Dinner".[7]

Summary

The narrative takes place on Christmas Eve, when the author was 14 years old. Her Chinese family had invited American friends, a minister's family including a boy Tan has a crush on, for a traditional Chinese dinner. Amy is embarrassed by her family and by the food (including fish cheeks) served to the guests, and again by her father's belching after dinner, although he explains that it's a polite Chinese custom that shows satisfaction. After their guests leave, Tan talks with her mother, who tells her, "[the] only shame is to have shame" and that she should have pride in her own heritage.[7][8]

References

  1. ↑ Mussari, Mark (2010-09-01). Amy Tan. Marshall Cavendish. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-7614-4127-4.
  2. 1 2 Kevra, Susan K. (2015). "From Raw to Cooked: Amy Tan's "Fish Cheeks" through a Lévi-Straussian Lens". Asian American Literature: Discourses and Pedagogies. 6: 27–32. Retrieved 2 November 2016.
  3. ↑ McWhorter, Kathleen T. (2005-12-23). Seeing the Pattern: Readings for Successful Writing. Macmillan. pp. 118–121. ISBN 978-0-312-41905-9.
  4. ↑ "The opposite of fate : a book of musings". worldcat.org. WorldCat. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
  5. ↑ Bambrick-Santoyo, Paul (2014). "When students don't meet the bar: help students meet Common Core standards through careful and extensive lesson planning that uses exemplars and anticipates trouble spots". Phi Delta Kappan. 95 (7): 72. Retrieved 2 November 2016 – via HighBeam. (Subscription required (help)).
  6. ↑ Snodgrass, Mary Ellen (2004-08-26). Amy Tan: A Literary Companion. McFarland. pp. 51, 59, 61, 66, 67. ISBN 978-1-4766-0260-8.
  7. 1 2 Cadbury, Vivian C. (2014-02-26). A Taste for Writing: Composition for Culinarians. Cengage Learning. pp. 34–36. ISBN 978-1-133-27791-0.
  8. ↑ "Fish cheeks". busyteacher.org. Retrieved June 12, 2018.
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