Comparing Xia Shu 's Bow Hung On Two Metal Hooks At The Head Of Jingyan 's Bed

About a year later, Mr. Chong and Jing-mei's mother wanted her to play in a talent show that was going to be held at the church. Jing-mei was going to play a piece called "Pleading Child." Her parents invited just about everyone they knew to come and watch their daughter in her moment of glory. When Jing-mei's time came to play her piece, she was so proud of the way she looked that she wasn't even worried about how she was going to sound. She walked up to the bench, sat down, and just started playing away. Then it hit her. She didn't know the piece, and just about every note she hit was wrong.

“At about the same time, I was comforting the man who had been hit… He wanted to hold my hand because it was hurting him so bad.”

Suyuan rejects the women-repressive Chinese traditions when she tells her daughter that she "believed you could be anything you want to be in America" (Tan 141). Suyuan continually tells Jing Mei her "Kweilin story" as a child, the story of the origins of the Joy Luck Club as well as her mother's past hardships. Yet despite the importance of the story and the events constituting the story to Suyuan, Jing Mei "never thought [her] mother's Kweilin story was anything but a Chinese fairy tale" (Tan 12). The story would have the same meaning to Jing Mei as if she were being told the story of Sleeping Beauty, or some other American bedtime story.

As Jing-Mei grows older, her mother decides to give her daughter a gift, the piano.  Suyuan says, “You pick up fast.  You have natural talent.  You could be a genius if you want to,” (154).  This represents forgiveness, both forgetting what happened in the past.  Suyuan goes on to tell her daughter that she was not trying when she was younger.  Part of the Chinese culture was to always keep trying,

Before Qin became emperor, the government system was not fair. He improved it by ranking officials according to their achievements and abilities. Instead of having status because of family, soldiers would be promoted

The Qianlong Emperor is one of the most notable emperors in Chinese history due to the complexity of his reign. Qianlong was the fourth emperor of the Qing Dynasty from 1735 to 1796. This is one of the longest in Chinese History. The first 40 years were some of his greatest achievements, however the last 20 years were met with fraud, corruption, and a declining popularity. In this essay, I will argue that despite having a major blemish to his reign, the Qianlong Emperor was a successful emperor. I am defining and measuring successfulness based on 1) the ability to grow the empire 2) whether or not they have good intentions for empire and 3) control and security over the empire. The Qianlong Emperor’s greatest successes shine through his militaristic campaigns, foreign relations, and his protection and his advocating for art. However, it is also stained by corruption and bad management.

“I’m sorry.” She brushed away the gravel embedded in her now bloodied elbows. “It won’t happen again.”

At the end of the story, Jing Mei switches her narration from that of a child to that of the adult allowing the reader to see the "adult" perspective on her life. No longer is the relationship between Jing Mei and her mother antagonistic. With the offering of the piano, the mother tells her, "You have natural talent. You could have been genius if you want to" (Tan 1). Jing Mei states that she couldn’t. Then her mother states, "You just not trying" (Tan 1). Her mother bore her no anger or sadness when she made these statements and Jing Mei gave no argument in return.

The body had been so well preserved because of the depth that the Iceman was actually lying in the ground, which was near the watershed (watershed meaning a line of high land where

He stood up for what felt like the first time ever. He turned around, rocked from heels to toes, heels to toes, leaned his head back and shouted for joy. The bright diamond beamed down at him from a height that looked insurmountable. His joy ceased instantly, destroyed by the cruel hammer of reality, and he dropped, hollow, to the ground.

Jing-Mei feels differently though, “Unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to. I could only be me,” (359/80) and she was correct for she had no natural musical talent. Jing-Mei has a desire to please her mother, but an even stronger one to choose her own life. She pacifies her mother by going to piano lessons but puts in no effort. Jing-Mei is “…determined to put a stop to her blind foolishness,” (356/48) but her mother’s desire to create a prodigy to compete with Aunt Lindo’s daughter, keeps her focused on the impossible. That is, until Jing-Mei escalates this conflict to its breaking point in rebellion. Stunning her mother, she shouts “Then I wish I’d never been born! I wish I were dead! Like them,” (359/77) referring to the twin daughters her mother lost in China. Sadly, the mother’s desire to have Jing-Mei conform to her expectations creates a constant battle between mother and daughter, and, in rejecting those expectations, seeing disappointment in her mother’s face all too often causes Jing-Mei to feel, “something inside me began to die” (353/18).

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.

Furthermore, Jing-mei discovers, “Old Chong’s eyes were too slow to keep up with wrong notes [she] was playing,”(472). As a result, Jing-mei performs “Pleading Child” miserably at the talent show her parents and all of the members of the Joy Luck Club attended. Jing-mei saw the disapproval and shame on her mother’s face, and decided to stop practicing piano. If Jing-mei’s mother wouldn’t have looked so disappointed and been proud of her daughter Jing-mei wouldn’t have been so discouraged. Jing-mei would’ve still had faith in herself like she did before her performance. “When my turn came, I was very confident. I remember my childish excitement. It was as if I knew, without a doubt, that the prodigy side of me really did exist. I had no fear whatsoever, no nervousness. This is it!” (474). After seeing the dismay in her parents eyes Jing-mei changed her whole outlook on the situation, which weakened Jing-mei’s pride, causing her to fully rebel from being a prodigy. Furthermore, encouraging her to be who she wanted to be.

Furthermore, in this story Jing-Mei’s mother had her mind fixed into thinking that she needed to

It is hard to let our children to choose their own dreams. When parents show constant disappointment in their children, children can eventually become disappointed in themselves. Seeing her mothers disappointment over and over again starts killing something inside of her. Jing Mei breaks down, “I looked at my reflection, blinking so I could see more clearly. The girls staring back at me was angry, powerful. This girl and I were the same. I had thoughts, willful thoughts, or rather thoughts filled with wont’s. I won’t let her change me, I promised myself. I won’t be what I’m not“ (19). Hopes for making your parents proud can shatter after so much pressure as did Jing Mei’s.