Beginning Of This Passage Ni-Kannn

At the beginning of the story, Jing Mei is a little girl buying into her mothers views of the american dream. Jing Mei expressed her excitement by stating “ In fact, in the beginning I was just as excited as my mother, maybe even more so.” She goes through a series of ambitions in a short period of time. First her mother told her that she could become an actress and be like an asian Shirley Temple. A butchered perm and a horrifying haircut later, and her mom proclaimed that she could become the next Peter Pan. Jing Mei expresses that she loved the idea of becoming a star. Though these view were merely being projected upon her by her mother. She was tested on multiple tasks. Some of these tests included multiplication, predicting temperatures, and memorizing pages out of the Bible and reciting them back to her mother.

The members of The Joy Luck Club are four elderly ‘aunties’ who gather once a week in San Francisco to play Mah-jong and eat Chinese food. When one of the women dies, her daughter Jing-mei (June) is invited to take her place. “What will I say? What can I tell them about my mother? I don’t know anything. She was my mother.’’ (Tan 1998, 30) When she realizes that she knows very little about her own mother she asks the ‘aunties’ to tell her more about her. That is when they start telling each other stories.

Some may see the mother trying to live her life through her daughter. She invests time trying to make her daughter a prodigy because she was her last hope. The mother lost two children in China and moves to a new country. Coming to America, she felt that immigrants have to prove that they are as talented as or more talented than Americans. This belief is supposed to be the basis for the determination, that the mother has, for Jing-mei to become a prodigy.

Under the influence of different cultures, different identities are formed. Jing-Mei Woo (June), similar to Waverly, also lives in between two worlds. June, since young, is accustomed to two sets of culture and beliefs. Jing-Mei’s mother has lost everything when she comes to the United States, and she has all her hopes on her daughter, therefore she wants to train her daughter to be a genius. As the mother presses all the homeworks on June, June loses heart and cries “I won’t let her change me, I promised myself. I won’t be what I’m not” . By crying and shouting out loud, June wants to declare her self identity, which ultimately reflects on the American individualism, which is one of the most integral parts of the U.S. value. Being raised in

Mostly, Jing-mei 's fears echo those of her peers, the other daughters of the Joy Luck Club members. They have always identified with Americans (Jing-mei also goes by the English name"June") but are beginning to regret having not paid attention to their Chinese history. Her fears also speak to a two-way fear shared by the mothers, who wonder whether, by giving their daughters American opportunities and (the ability to survive with no outside help), they have abandoned them from their Chinese history.

All of the woman who migrated from China all have a curtain pride for their own mothers and cultures cultures respectively. Major acts of pride go into what these woman do while raising their daughters, as they want to push their daughters for success. “What will I say? What can I tell them about my mother? I don’t know anything. . . .” The aunties are looking at me as if I had become crazy right before their eyes. . . . And then it occurs to me. They are frightened. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant. . . . They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese . . . who will bear grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from generation to generation.” The other mothers are flabbergasted that June does not know that much about her mother. The mothers also have their own pride in their daughters, and all the daughters have been together, so this phrase from June scares the other mothers of what their own daughters might think about them. In Chinese tradition, respecting your mother is very important, due to June being raised in America, she does not realise what she has just proclaimed as bad until the other mothers react to it.

Early in childhood Jing Mei dreamed of finding her prodigy and being a famous Chinese American, mostly because of the views and actions her mother placed on her. Her mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. (pg 405) Her mother was always pushing new tests and talents on Jing Mei. She even went as far as having her daughter Jing Mei models her physical appearance and actions after a child-star Shirley Temple. Her other was always testing her with many different things trying to discover Jing Mei’s talent. Later Jing Mei started to feel like her mother was just trying to make her into someone she was not and started to just fail and not try to do anything right hoping her mother would give up. When her mother died she had realized what her mother had been trying to do. Her mother had only wanted her to do her best. She had then to realize what her mother had

Jing-Mei characterizes her mother as an ideal parental figure by showing how much hope she has in her daughter. Her mother’s only wishes are to give her daughter more opportunities than she had growing up in China. And by doing this she shows that no matter how many conflicts there is between a mother and daughter, a mother will never give up hope on her daughter. She will cherish her for who she is in the end.

As she recalls back on this time by telling her daughter what she calls her Kweilin story, Suyuan describes her feeling during this horrible time as “And inside I was no longer hungry for the cabbage or the turnips of the hanging rock garden. I could only see the dripping bowels of an ancient hill that might collapse on top of me. Can you imagine how it is, to want to be neither inside nor outside, to want to be nowhere and disappear?” (22) At this point in her life Suyuan was separated from her husband who is in the military and eventually is forced to abandon her two young daughters. This aspect of Suyuan’s life parallels the life of Amy Tan’s mother. Daisy tan was also married to a military man during the Chinese Civil War and like Suyuan was forced to abandon her two daughters in Shanghai. This was an experience that would affect her mother for the rest of her life and a story she would continue to tell and never forget. The life of Amy Tan is also a parallel to the life of Jing-Mei Woo of “June”. As a young girl June was forced to play the piano and practice constantly to become the best like Amy Tan was as a child. Along with playing the piano Suyuan also had high expectations for June as far as her future. She wanted her daughter to be the best in her class and go off to medical school to become a well educated doctor, the same expectation’s Amy Tan’s mother had for her. Both daughters decided to follow their dreams and

Jing-mei realized that she was an ordinary individual and that she would not let her mother’s expectations change that. She no longer believed that she “could be anything [she] wanted to be, [rather she] could only be [herself]” (Tan 44). In using a limited, first-person point of view, Tan is able to show Jing-mei’s emotional progress of following her mother’s dreams to finally realizing her own dream.

She was my mother,” (31).  Jing-Mei says this to her aunts after her mother had died, and she had to take your position in joy luck.  She felt like she never really knew her mother because of their miscommunication.  Suyuan Woo, Jing-Mei’s mother, had many hopes and good intentions for her daughter. While Jing-Mei wanted to be herself and still please her mother, Suyuan wanted her daughter to be a child prodigy. Always wanting the best for her daughter, Suyuan hoped Jing-Mei would one day become an extraordinary pianist.  Although Jing-Mei played the piano, she never put forth much effort into the music because her best was not good enough for her mother.  Nonetheless, she stopped playing the piano.  “I could only be me,” (154).  She could not be something that she was not; she could not live up to her mother’s expectations.  This symbolized one of Jing-Mei’s songs, “Pleading Child.”  Suyuan continues to put all the pressure on Jing-Mei so that she will not become like her mother for all the reasons she had come to America; hopes for a better life.

“Two kinds” is a story, a Chinese girl whose life is influenced by her mother. Her mother came to America after losing everything in China. Jing-Mei’s mother was immigrated early to America from China who has “American dream”. Her mother had high expectations on her daughter and did not care how it could affect her. It made Jing-Mei become a stubborn and rebellious person. “In the years that followed, I failed her so many times, each time asserting my own will, … for unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be, I could only be me. (104) She expressed her anger by going against her mother's expectations in ‘who I am’, it inferred that such tendency come from her childhood experiences. Jing-Mei was frustrated because she could not satisfy her mother.

This education, seen from the other side of the cultural gap, is what makes Lena see her mother as a weak person. Lena has a job, an American husband, she lives an American life, unlike her mother, who is attached to weird old disused Chinese traditions. But she herself is not happy, as her mother can see. Her husband is not as good as he might be: he exploits her, paying her a too low wage, never recognizes her contribution to their success as architects,... On the other hand, Ying- Ying marriage, although imperfect, is based on firmer grounds of respect and goodness towards each other than that of Lena.

Four Chinese mothers have migrated to America. Each hope for their daughter’s success and pray that they will not experience the hardships faced in China. One mother, Suyuan, imparts her knowledge on her daughter through stories. The American culture influences her daughter, Jing Mei, to such a degree that it is hard for Jing Mei to understand her mother's culture and life lessons. Yet it is not until Jing Mei realizes that the key to understanding who her

The parallel of being successful and famous is symbolized in the character Shirley Temple, a 1960’s white television child that became popular from her acting and cute appearance (ENG 114). The pianist to Mrs. Woo becomes the perfect representation of her American dream and assurance that it is possible for immigrants to become prosperous. Jing-mei is seen in the story rebelling against her mother by invoking her “own will, [and] right to fall short of expectations” (240). This characterization is equivalent to American individualism that employs the principle of favoring freedom of action for the individual over the collective, or in this case for Mrs. Woo. These opposing values continuously clash and create distance within the mother and daughter relationship. The immigrant expectations of success for a better life in America coupled with American values of freedom and individuality provokes and sustains the rift in the family’s bond.