How does Amy Tan convey the importance of continuity in the novel The Joy Luck Club?

Continuity is an important motif in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. Tan reveals that continuity is critical to cope with life’s difficulties. To teach this lesson, she juxtaposes women and their daughters. The mothers follow through no matter how difficult life becomes, but their daughters give up easily when obstacles present themselves.
The Joy Luck aunties stay true to themselves, no matter what is happening around them. They have undergone unspeakable tragedies in their lives—war, displacement, the death of a child, and a mother’s suicide. Yet they have persevered through all their tragedies and have continued with their lives. The most recent tragedy is the death of Suyuan, one of their sisters and the founder of the Joy Luck Club.
Suyuan actually founded two clubs—the first one in China in the middle of the war. She knew she had to do something to maintain her sanity. The act of meeting once a week, eating and sharing conversation with other women who were going through the same horrors, playing a game, and pretending life was good is an example of Suyuan’s attempt to create stability in her life. Although others mocked her, she did not care because she knew this was the only way to get through tragedy unscathed. Even after losing her precious babies, Suyuan is determined to continue. She never gives up hope to find them, but she creates a new life for herself in America with a new husband and new friends in the Joy Luck Club.
Years later, Suyuan dies of a brain aneurism. Her friends are devastated to lose her and heartbroken because Suyuan dies with “unfinished business”—she searched all her life for her lost daughters and now dies without meeting them. An-Mei, Lindo, and Ying-Ying are determined to continue Suyuan’s search—and they are successful. Now, they know they must send Jing Mei to meet her sisters, to renew Suyuan’s “Long-Cherished Wish,” as her name implies in Chinese.
The women understand the importance of completing something and of closure. This is a concept they have struggled in vain to teach their daughters. For instance, Jing Mei has never completed anything in her life, in contrast to her mother, who pushes her to do her best and accomplish something. As a child, Jing Mei gave up piano because she was not willing to put in the time and effort to become an expert. Suyuan pushed her to practice and was determined that she would be a prodigy; she understood the importance of hard work. However, her daughter did not learn that lesson until much later in her life.
Jing Mei did not do well in school. She dropped out of college, and she now works in a mediocre job in which she fails to distinguish herself. Only after Suyuan dies and Jing Mei’s aunties tell her about her sisters does Jing Mei finally understand the importance of following through with something. Although hesitant at first because of her own self-doubts, she finally agrees she must continue what her mother could not. She gets on the plane to find Chwun Yu and Chwun Hwa and to fulfill her mother’s most important wish.