At a young age Ying-ying learns a haunting lesson from her nursemaid when she tells her, “haven’t I taught you – that it is wrong to think of your own needs? A girl can never ask, only listen” (Tan 70). This notion stuck with her for a long time and caused her to “[keep her] mouth closed so selfish desires would not fall out” (Tan 67). She “kept [her] true nature hidden…” and no longer expressed her selfish desires nor asserted her identity (Tan 67). She laments that she “remember[s] everything that happened that day [the day she lost herself] because it has happened many times in [her] life. The same innocence, trust, and restlessness, the wonder, fear, and loneliness” (Tan 83).
Her belief in fate and individual destiny caused her to
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She unknowingly passed her passivity to her daughter after setting a bad example for her by being inactive. She expresses that “I remained quiet for so long now my daughter does not hear me…And because I moved so secretly now my daughter does not see me” (Tan 67). Realizing that her daughter has developed into a passive person like her and is struggling in an unhappy marriage, Ying-ying takes initiative to activate the tiger spirit in her daughter. She does not want her to suffer in an unhappy marriage and urges her to fight for herself by telling her daughter of her past and her failure to take initiative for herself: “I will gather together my past and look. I will see a thing that has already happened. The pain that cut my spirit loose. I will hold that pain in my hand…And then my fierceness can come back…I will use this sharp pain to penetrate my daughter’s tough skin and cut her tiger spirit loose” (Tan 252). Ying-ying cannot die without teaching her daughter what it means to be a tiger and take