In the story "YES and NO", Amy Tan seems to think that people have tendency to criticize a language because they do not come from that culture. Tan completly disagree with the fact that people think that there is no such thing as "yes" and "no" in chinese. She writes, "Why do peoople keep saying these things? As if we truly were those little dolls sold in Chinatown tourist shop, heads bobbing up and down in complacement agreement to anything said!"(26 Tan). She is saying that American people think that they can say whatever they wanted about Chinese language, and get away with it, without any other chinese person riposting it, as if they were popette. Nobody has mastered his/her own language, so how can American people try to correct or add some vocabulary words to the Chinese language.People do not understand the chinese language. The fact that some of the wods in chinese are translated in English does not mean that every single chinese word can be represented in English.
Tan also point it out the difference between the Chinese and the American cultures. In the Chinese culture is respectful to beg someone to accept a gift or a food that you are offering to them. However in the American culture, people just ask once and than that's it. Tan writes,"Ai!"exclaimed my mother, completly exasperated."Nobody else wants it. if you don't take it, it will only rot!"(25). Her mother spent an amount of time begging her aunt to take the food, because in the Chinese culture it is a sign of respect.
People should be open minded about langauges. If you try to understand a language and the meaning of it, it will be easy to communicate with each other without judging. Chinese people themselves agree that they have a complicated language, but if they are able to learn other languages, why wont we?
The Linguists
14 years ago
I agree the very language is difficult and it is impossible to translate every sentence into another language. Amy Tan says that there are words for yes and no but it is not use as English speakers use it. If someone is asked in English if they would like to go somewhere the English speaker can just answer no but in Chinese the person would say I will not like to go. She demonstrates this when she asks there aunt and uncle if they would like to eat Japanese food on their last day in America.
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