Identity In A Pair Of Tickets

In the short story “A Pair of Tickets,” Jing-Mei Woo visits China with her father to visit the twin sisters her mother left behind on the journey to America. Her mother, Suyuan, has passed away and the twin sisters are unaware of her death. Jing-Mei Woo has encountered struggles with her mixed heritage and questioned her combined American and Chinese culture her entire life. She feels out of place and doesn’t know how to speak Chinese. But now, her history of covering up her Chinese roots is being revaluated. Being raised in California, the Chinese half of her cultural identity was usually concealed and too “foreign” to be accepted in her hometown. On this trip, Jing-Mei Woo finally starts to feel like she figured out what it truly means to

My culture is split right down the middle, but it often feels like the majority of myself identifies with American culture. When I was younger I visited China and was overwhelmed by the sharp speech, pungent smells, and vast sea of people. It was a stark difference to my quiet and subdued neighborhood in Brooklyn. I felt like I was on the cusp of an entirely different world, not fully American, but not fully Chinese. Then I met Abby, a family friend, and we clicked immediately even though we had almost nothing in common, besides our shared Chinese culture. She was the sister I never had. We braided each other’s hair, her’s was thick and black, mine was thin and light brown. But it didn’t matter, the braids were identical.

Seeing that, it didn’t matter the circumstances of our contrasting lives, we were still connected through our Chinese culture. Even though I wasn’t the classic brown eyes and black hair Chinese girl, I finally understood what it meant to be half-Chinese. I didn’t have to see myself in Chinese customs and physical features, but I saw myself in my family, my roots. Suddenly, the other half of my identity made sense. The half of me that I did my best to suppress became the part of me that I treasure. I built a bridge between the two halves of me that I never thought could