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Jing-Mei In The Short Story 'Two Kinds' By Amy Tan

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Jing-Mei, in the short story “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, is indistinguishable to anyone because every individual has a sort of relationship with their mother, but in this case, she is predominately similar to those with parents who are immigrants. In this short story, there is tension between a mother and daughter interconnection due to the fact that an immigrant wants her daughter to live the “American dream.” Her characteristics allow the reader to comprehend and connect to the way she is growing up in her home because every individual has a particular connection with their parents. In her case, she is an American, but her parents are Chinese immigrants. Due to Jing-Mei’s mother having an immensely painful past, she decided to relocate in the …show more content…

“America was where all my mother’s hopes lay” (Tan 308). This indicates that her mother has ambition about living a better life in America. However, she decides to live her young life vicariously. She pressures her daughter into attempting to find a talent so that she can become the next prodigy in America. These activities consist of having Jing-Mei becoming a “Chinese Shirley Temple” by attending beauty training school, she tests anything that Jing-Mei should know, and she forces Jing-Mei into playing the piano. These events, as Jing-Mei grows up, leads her to become resentful towards her mother because she believes that she could not be someone who she is not. Even though Jing-Mei does not have any interest in what her mother forces her do, she still decides to follow along. Notwithstanding, she believes that her mother is never pleased with her attempts to enjoy these activities. She believes her mother is never going to be able to accept her for who she is. Jing-Mei becomes an impatient, annoyed, resentful, and rebellious person towards her mother due to the way her mother leads her to grow up to. As Jing-Mei begins to grow older, she begins to realize who she is and she knows that she is not the person her mother intends for her to

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Throughout her childhood life her mother, Suyuan, was continuously pushing her to be her best. Jing-Mei purposely tried to fail at everything to prover to her mother that she could never become a great and famous person. Then after a piano recital that went horridly wrong, her and her mother had an argument and their relationship was never the same. Many years later Suyuan tried to give Jing-mei the piano that she had as a child. She refused the offer, but than a year later her mother died and Jing-Mei was cleaning out her mother’s house and decided to play the piano and she was surprised that she still knew how.

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Culture differences, the differences of culture that has been created due to immigration, can create many tensions between generations in a household. The short story “The Jade Peony” manifests culture shock through two incidents. The first incident is depicted when Jung, Kiam, Liang were talking to their dad and telling him how grandma’s unacceptable disgusting behavior was causing them to get insulted by their friends. “The problem for the rest of the family was in the fact that Grandma looked for these treasures wandering the back alleys” “All our friends are laughing at us!”. Their father replied to this by telling to stop this but in the back of his head he thought “how could he dare tell the Grand Old One, his aging mother,

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June, however, struggled to please her mother in all she did, and never felt as if she had any worth. Their relationship becomes distant due to miscommunications. Asian culture and expectations weigh heavily on Suyuan’s mind as she worries about the path her daughter takes, one that is untraditional and looked down upon. June finally understands her mother, after it is too late. Secrets and traditions can either tear apart or build up a relationship.

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Shirley Temple was a great dancer and singer and Jing-Mei’s mom wants her to be the same. Jing-Mei has to get her hair like Peter Pan because a student messed it up. Jing-Mei’s mom wants her to be somebody that she does not want to be. In fact, Shirley Temple and Peter Pan are two people to reference to when trying to become a

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Daisy hopes that young Jing-mei will try to be her best at anything. The mother's encouragement shows how greatly important it is for her daughter to succeed. In any of her works, Amy Tan includes various Chinese cultural values. One value that is existent in every on of her pieces is family, for it is a very important aspect of Chinese culture that

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This disagreement quickly became a source of resentment and anger for both of them, but Jing-Mei and her mother were unable to resolve this conflict because of their different backgrounds and experiences. The story showcases how relationships between mothers and daughters can be strained because of differences in culture and a lack of communication. One of the difficulties between Jing-Mei and her mother is their different cultural backgrounds, which is supported by two points from the story. Firstly, Jing-Mei and her mother both disagreed on the opportunities that existed in America. According to Singer, Amy Tan uses “two entirely

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“After losing everything in China…She never looked back with regret. ”(Chunk 1 ¶3). Jing-Mei’s mother is a Chinese immigrant with the typical ‘everything is better in America’ mindset. Jing-Mei, being raised in America, had more of an American mindset. “You want me to be someone i’m not…I’ll never be the daughter you want me to be!”

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At first Jing-Mei grew in her dreams and desirers to be perfect for her family; “In all of my imaginings

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but she is also nervous because she is going to meet her twin half-sisters, whom she has never met before and she will have to tell them about their mother’s death. Her mother had to abandon the half -sisters and her dream was to have a family reunion but before that could have happened she had passed away. Jing understood the language they were speaking but couldn’t speak it

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She then uses these “new thoughts” and ideas to state that she “won’t let her [mother] change” her into the person she seeks her daughter to be. When Jing-Mei experiences a realization that she is her own person and not simply another part of her mother, she can embrace the comfort of knowing that she will not change for anyone, and is simply extraordinary for having her own thoughts and feelings. This reflects how Amy Tan can understand her thoughts and feelings about the hardships in her relationship with her mother as a way to connect more closely to her characters and make them more realistic in her writing (“How Amy Tan’s family stories made her a

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In The Joy Luck Club, written by Amy Tan, we are introduced to Suyuan and her daughter Jing-Mei “June” Woo. As with any relationship, there is conflict between Suyuan Woo and her daughter, as it seems that Jing-Mei doesn’t understand her mother’s Chinese culture and ambitions. In the Chinese culture, women are seen as inferior and often lack basic rights such as the right to marriage or financial holdings, thus deprived of their potential. This is why the rights in the U.S. are seen as privileges to Chinese women, among other minorities, and why Suyuan endeavored for her daughter to become a prodigy and excel in anything and everything. Yet as Jing-Mei was forced into this ideal, and the more her mother tried to enforce this idea, the further she begun to despise her mother for attempting to turn her into a “fraud”.

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(Vanity Fair) Jing-mei’s mother is always bossing her around to make sure that she will have a good future. It is not just the children who have weights on their backs, it is also the parents. “It’s about giving your kids a better life-- as if parenting didn’t come with enough pressures already.” (Vanity Fair) Jing-mei’s mother has a lot of pressure on her because she does not want to be embarrassed by other parents who are better at parenting than she is. She is always trying to make sure her daughter is better than the other kids.

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Jing Mei, while portrayed as an obedient child, is only willing to listen to her mother to a certain extent. Throughout the story, it is consistently hinted that Jing Mei would eventually explode against her mother as an attempt to free herself from her mother’s chains. In addition, after the fiasco at the piano recital, she eventually derives further from her mother’s wishes as she “didn 't get straight A...didn 't become class president...didn 't get into Stanford...dropped out of college.” (54). On the flip side, Jing Mei’s mother is a stereotypical Chinese parent who is fully determined to ensure her daughter’s success in a new environment.

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At her first glance at them, she knew exactly who they were because of their resemblance to their mother. However, as she approached them, she realized that there were no evident similarities in features between them and her mother, but that the similarities she noticed at first ran deep in their blood: they were family. And at this brief moment of realization, the most perceptible change in Jing-Mei took place. She said, “Now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious.

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“For unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be, I could only be me.” (Tan 24). With this statement you can see that she does not agree with her mother. Jing-Mei’s Mother was raised in Chinese culture, therefore she is very strict and demanding to Jing-Mei to do what she wants. From doing a chore, to hobbies or even Jing-Mei’s passion.

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