"Fish Cheeks" is a 1987 one-page
narrative
A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travel literature, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller (ge ...
essay by Chinese-American author
Amy Tan
Amy Ruth Tan (born on February 19, 1952) is an American author known for the novel '' The Joy Luck Club,'' which was adapted into a film of the same name, as well as other novels, short story collections, and children's books.
Tan has written ...
and her first published essay.
The work was first published in ''
Seventeen
Seventeen or 17 may refer to:
*17 (number), the natural number following 16 and preceding 18
* one of the years 17 BC, AD 17, 1917, 2017
Literature
Magazines
* ''Seventeen'' (American magazine), an American magazine
* ''Seventeen'' (Japanese m ...
'' and covers a
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve is the evening or entire day before Christmas Day, the festival commemorating the birth of Jesus. Christmas Day is observed around the world, and Christmas Eve is widely observed as a full or partial holiday in anticipation ...
dinner when Tan was 14 years old.
It was subsequently published as a part of ''
The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings''.
The work has been used in
Common Core
The Common Core State Standards Initiative, also known as simply Common Core, is an educational initiative from 2010 that details what K–12 students throughout the United States should know in English language arts and mathematics at the conc ...
classes and features themes of acceptance of differences, growing up, family, heritage, and cultural differences.
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".
Summary
As the plot in "Fish Cheeks" progresses, new characters and problems arise that the main character, Amy, struggles to handle. During the
exposition
Exposition (also the French for exhibition) may refer to:
*Universal exposition or World's Fair
*Expository writing
**Exposition (narrative)
*Exposition (music)
*Trade fair
* ''Exposition'' (album), the debut album by the band Wax on Radio
*Exposi ...
, you learn that the main character is a young Chinese girl. The narrative takes place on
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve is the evening or entire day before Christmas Day, the festival commemorating the birth of Jesus. Christmas Day is observed around the world, and Christmas Eve is widely observed as a full or partial holiday in anticipation ...
, 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.
At this point in the story her name is not yet mentioned. She becomes upset when she learns the news because she is afraid of what his white American family will think of their Chinese Christmas.
When the action of the story starts to rise and her mother begins to prepare for the dinner, Amy's worries continue to grow and all of the usual foods that her family makes become foreign as the kitchen is filled with appalling mounds of raw food.
When the story reaches its
climax
Climax may refer to:
Language arts
* Climax (narrative), the point of highest tension in a narrative work
* Climax (rhetoric), a figure of speech that lists items in order of importance
Biology
* Climax community, a biological community th ...
, both of the families are eating dinner and Amy has lost all hope. Her family acts different and doesn't show the same manners as Robert's family. Her father pulls the tender fish cheek from the fish and offers it to Amy because it is her favorite and this caused her to want to vanish from the dinner.
As the
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...
dinner goes on she feels more ashamed and doesn't know what to do.
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.
Once the night is over she is in silence and not sure what to even say. After their guests leave, Tan talks with her mother, who tells her, "
heonly shame is to have shame" and that she should have pride in her own heritage. It is not until later that she realizes how special that meal was for her. She
resolves all the hard feelings when she realizes that all the foods that were made for that meal were her favorite and she should have enjoyed the meal instead of worrying so much about the guests.
As the
plot
Plot or Plotting may refer to:
Art, media and entertainment
* Plot (narrative), the story of a piece of fiction
Music
* ''The Plot'' (album), a 1976 album by jazz trumpeter Enrico Rava
* The Plot (band), a band formed in 2003
Other
* ''Plot' ...
in the story moves on it reveals how Amy feels worse and worse about the dinner. She is deeply embarrassed of how different she is in her traditions compared to her crush and his family.
When Tan ends the story she shows how little that dinner actually meant to her later in life. The
internal conflict
An internal conflict is the struggle occurring within a character's mind. Things such as the character views for, but can't quite reach. As opposed to external conflict, in which a character is grappling some force of themself, such as wars or a c ...
that she had, went away and the story ends with her finding peace about the situation.
References
{{Christmas-themed literature, state=autocollapse
Works by Amy Tan
American short stories
Christmas short stories
Children's short stories