The girl staring back at me was angry, powerful.” (Tan, 1989) I looked at my reflection, blinking so that I could see more clearly. And then I saw what seemed to be the prodigy side of me ^a face I had never seen before. Such a sad, ugly girl! I made high-pitched noises like a crazed animal, trying to scratch out the face in the mirror. Before going to bed that night I looked in the mirror above the bathroom sink, and when I saw only my face staring back”and understood that it would always be this ordinary face”I began to cry. I hated the tests, the raised hopes and failed expectations. ‘And after seeing, once again, my mother’s disappointed face, something inside me began to die. One day, after a fight with her mother about her lack of skill, she stares at her own reflection and promises herself that she wouldn’t let her mother change her into someone she’s not. The more she feels like she is disappointing her mother with her lack of talent, the more she purposely tries to sabotage herself. She begins to resent the way her mother pushes and test her on different skills, especially piano. But much like her mother’s other unsuccessful attempts Jing- Mei is has a rebellious attitude towards the lessons.Īs the story progresses the reader can see the internal conflict within Jing-Mei. She even goes as far as exchanging cleaning services for lessons from an old retired piano teacher who lived below them. Finally, she decides that Jing-Mei will be a piano expert.

She then tries with intellectual tests clipped from popular magazines, but Jing-Mei doesn’t show much potential in this area either. ‘In fact, in the beginning I was just as excited as my mother, maybe even more so I pictured this prodigy part of me as many different images, and I tried each one on for size.” (Tan, 1989) First, the mother tries to mold Jing-Mei into a child actress, but that doesn’t work. In the beginning of the story Jing-Mei seems to really aspire to reach her mother’s expectations. She’s not exactly sure what those talents are, but she is sure it is just a matter of finding Jing-Mei’s natural skills. To Jing-Mei’s mother, America is the land of opportunity and she has high hopes that her daughter has a talent that can be used to make her successful. Jing-Mei experiences being raised by a mother who wants more for her daughter than she had. However, her American-born daughter, Jing-Mei, neither understands nor comprehends what her mother has gone through in China. Before she came to America, Jing-Mei’s mother ‘… lost everything in China: her mother and father, her family home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin baby girls But she never looked back with regret Things could get better in so many ways”.(Tan, 1989) As the mother’s past is revealed, the tone of the story paints a picture of a strong-willed woman who beats all the odds to establish a better life in America. Jing-Mei and her mother, although related, are two contrasting characters mainly because of their different life experiences. ‘The Immigrant experience is traumatic, bringing as it does loss in any number of dimensions, from language and status, to social and kin networks, or in short, an internal map of the way the world works.”(Louie, 2004)’Two Kinds” is told as a flashback and opens with the narrator, Jing-Mei, reflecting on her mother’s life after she has passed. Many of them lost or left everything behind to travel for a better future and They placed their hopes and dreams on the children born in the land of opportunity. Naturally, a lot of the Chinese feared for their future with the Communist Party and fled to the United States. In 1949, after years of civil war, the Communist Party took control of China. This essay intends to support the view that the contrasting characteristics of both mother and daughter help guide the readers to an understanding and theme of the story.įor millions of immigrants, America is seen as the land of opportunity where anyone could become anything he or she wanted to be.

At times, having someone to push a child in a specific direction is beneficial, but much like this story it can sometimes backfire, and the child is left with feelings of disapproval and issues with self -esteem. At some point, in almost every family, parents often force their expectations on their children. This is typically a major conflict between children and their guardians. This story centers on the idea of figuring out what is best for someone else.

Tone in jing mei woo took kinds