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Jing Mei Character Analysis Essay

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Character Analysis In Amy Tan’s Two Kinds, a mother and daughter fight over the future of the daughter; Jing-mei, who wants desperately to become a "Chinese Shirley Temple" by making a career in singing and dancing. Her mother is consumed in the belief that Jing-mei is a genius, thus making her do pointless tests that she sees other prodigy children doing in magazines such as standing on her head and reciting world capitals. Jing-mei gets fed up with the test and would play a game with herself, seeing if her mom would give up on her before eight bellows. Jing-mei mother lived in china and always that you could be anything in america. you could open a restaurant, you could work for the government and get good retirement, you could buy a house with almost no …show more content…

She hated the test because it raised hopes and failed expectations, she would look in the mirror before bed and saw an ordinary face looking back at her and she would cry. Jing-mei wanted to make her mom proud but she wanted it to because of her own talent not some “tests” out of magazine articels. After her mother saw on the Ed Sullivan a young girl playing the piano, she bought Jing-mei piano lessons from a def ex-pianist in exchange she cleaned his apartment. Jing-mei realizes that she could mess up during her lessons because the man was old and his eyes couldn't keep up wit her fingers and he is deaf and couldn't hear when she messes up. She continued to do that until her mother signed her up for a talent show. Jing-mei was confident when she went up on stage until she started to play and her finger kept playing the wrong notes because that's the way she practiced and learned to play. After the talent show her mother didn't say a word to her and when they got home her mom went start to her room. The next day Jing-mei was watching tv and her mother came into the room at 4 o’clock telling her it was time for her piano practice. This ended in a big fight and Jing-mei ended up bring up the

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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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In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, mother and daughter relationships are put to the test. Four women meet to play a game of Chinese mahjong, keeping a tradition alive. Suyuan Woo, founder of the club, had a daughter named Jing Mei June Woo. Suyuan had two daughters which she expected both to succeed to her standards.

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One allusion in “Two kinds” and modern day society is Shirley Temple. She gives the mom the idea of making Jing-Mei a prodigy. She was known for singing and dancing. Jing-Mei says,” At first my mother thought I could be a Chinese Shirley Temple” (Tan 70). Her mother thinks she can be just like Shirley Temple except a chines version.

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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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You could open a restaurant. You could work for the government and get good retirement. You could buy a house with almost no money down. You could become rich You could

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Her mother eventually forgives her for what she said in their argument and offers to send her the piano as a birthday gift. After her mother's death, Jing-mei accepts the piano. While looking through her mother's things, Jing-mei finds sheet music of the song she practiced for a talent show when she was a child. She sits down at the piano and plays the song, realizing that it wasn't as difficult as she perceived it to be when she was young. She then realizes that the two sheets of music, titled "Pleading Child" and "Perfectly Contented," are two halves of the same song.

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