Cultural Adaptation of Chinese Americans in The Bonesetter’ Daughter

Abstract

The Bonesetter's Daughter is one of the masterpieces of Amy Tan, a famous Chinese-American writer. In this novel, Amy Tan, with her memories of the old era and her own life experiences, took the subtle mother-daughter relationship as the main line, and illustrated the cultural conflicts and barriers of communication between mother and daughter, depicting the cultural phenomena in immigrant families vividly. When The Bonesetter's Daughter was published, the novel aroused a warm response and enjoyed high reputation at home and abroad, which not only established Amy Tan’s position in the American literary circles, but also set a good example for Chinese writers. 

Based on Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension, this paper analyzes the verbal and non-verbal behavior of the protagonist in the novel and researches the process of cultural adaptation of Chinese immigrants in the United States from the perspective of dimensions of individualism and collectivism, power distance. This paper is divided into four parts: the first part introduces the Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory; the second part explains conflicts in this novel from the perspective of cultural dimension ; the third part introduces cultural fusion in this novel. Finally, the author puts forward some reflection on the cultural adaptation of Chinese American immigrants so as to better understand the importance of cross-cultural communication in cultural adaptation.

Key words: cultural adaptation, cultural conflicts, cultural fusion, Chinese Americans