Jean Know – „Where the Gods Fly“
“Being the new one”, haven’t we all tried that before? Being the new kid in school, or being the new employee at work. Then, imagine being new in a completely different country, where you have to start from zero. Making new friends, creating a network, learning a new language and also a whole new culture, is all very challenging and overwhelming factors, when moving to a new place.
This is actually the situation in Jean Know’s short story “Where the Gods Fly”, where a little family of three people emigrates from China to the USA, to create a new life by working and raising their daughter in school. In this short story, we hear about a mothers concern about, seeing her daughter being encapsulated in the
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This is resulting in a scholarship for Pearl, so she doesn’t have to stay home alone all day, but is this really what Pearls mom want her daughter to do? Actually not, the only reason she does this is to avoid, that her daughter will visit her American friends, because her mom doesn’t understand the Americans. This is a huge problem for her, because on the one side she wants to raise her daughter well and create a good life for her, but on the other side she is not willing to adapt the American culture, and this is what creates her problem.
A huge contrast in this story is the contrast between the two cultures of China and America, where Pearl is trying to adapt the Western culture to make a new life and get accepted by her American friends, her mother tries to maintain her roots from growing up in China, and she is not willing to adapt the Western culture. In the story she talks about Pearls audition to the ballet school or scholarship, and here appears an obvious contrast of the two cultures, when Pearls mom says “We don’t belong here, I wanted to say, what do we simple Chinese know of these inhuman people with their impassive faces and elegant shoulders?”.
Another contrast in the story is between the old
The piece describes what she envisioned her time in China would be like; visions of small talk and drinking tea danced in her head (Schmitt 125). This is a bit admirable to a more reserved person because it shows how outgoing she is when diving into a new culture. However, the reality of a language barrier and day to day behavior settled in. A series of uncomfortable exchanges illustrate the challenge of being accepted into a new culture. Described in the essay are people standing around in bath robes and under garments and popping in and out of rooms like some sort of clown
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.
The Thomas Lay After-School program is a program that has been established since Spring of 2006 to serve the elementary and middle school students of the local community. In cooperation with the University of Georgia, UGA students and other interested volunteers provide assistance for the local students in the form of individual academic tutoring and as a mentor. The program offers a safe environment for the students to thrive academically and recreationally play. It is operated by an executive board of UGA students that works intimately with the local staff at the Lay Park Community Center to facilitate the program for the benefit of the local students. The mission of the program “dedicated
The pressures of your peers Peer pressure influences teens by making them feel like they don’t fit in with their own environment. Laurie Halse Anderson the author of “Speak” is saying peer pressure is dangerous and harmful to the person that is being pressured like Melinda she was pressured into going to the party and she ended up getting raped. Melinda was pressured to go to the party and to drink.(Halse). I have experienced peer pressure because i’ve had some of my friends try to get me to do drugs before.
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.
The short story, “Two Kinds”, written by Amy Tan, is written from the point of view of the character named Jing-Mei. There are three experiences which demonstrate her viewpoint. In the first experience, Jing-Mei is being told by her mom about the “American dream”. At first, she strives to pursue this prodigy. Her mom would test her every night after dinner. Through Jing-Mei’s eyes, she starts to realize that it was not the life she wanted to live. Lines in the story illustrate this when he says “I won’t let her change me, I promised myself. I won’t be what I’m not.” (p.406). In the second experience, Jing-Mei performs in a talent show. Her mother forced her to learn how to play the piano. After seeing a little girl playing the piano
In the “Two Kinds” story the author illustrates the struggle between her American cultural identity, and her mother’s Chinese culture, as like the characters in the story. The author shows what is the struggle and the conflict that cultural differences creates. The author also uses symbolism, to address the conflicts between the characters in the story.
Chinese women who chose to remain in China traded freedom for their culture. They were afraid to leave the familiarity of their lives thee for an uncertain future in America Had they gone to America, they would have lost the opportunity to experience Chinese culture firsthand. They lose the freedom that the next generation would have and gained the experience of living in their native culture ane accepting it as a way of life. These women were admirable because of their strength to choose their culture and family over anything else. Their dedication is at a level close to monks and saints. They were able to find harmony in their lives because it was all they ever knew.
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
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.
“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.
Because this is a retelling of a mother-daughter relationship, Jing-mei is the protagonist and main character of this short story while her mother is the antagonist. Jing-mei is a dynamic character. At the beginning all she wanted to do was please her mother and accomplish her mother's version of the American Dream, but then her epiphany happened: she realized that this is not her dream, thus she rebelled and began to follow her own dream. On the other hand, Jing-mei’s mother is a static character. All her emotions, thoughts, and feelings surround one motive: for Jing-mei to become a prodigy. Although at the end she stops asking Jing-mei to do multiple hobbies, she still believed that Jing-mei had “natural talent [and that Jing-mei] could [still] be a genius if [she] wanted to” (Tan 48). In the end, Jing-mei’s mother realized that she no longer could control her daughter, yet that still did not stop her from hinting that her daughter still had the ability to become a
Jack’s predicament with finding himself being stuck between his original lifestyle and new desire to fit in was cleverly established in the story, drawing my sympathy, as I have also personally experienced this struggle. In the middle of the story when Jack began to realize that his Chinese life was different from others’, he narrated, “Mom learned to cook American style. I played video games and studied French” (4). These succinct sentences stood out, as the surrounding
The difficulty of moving to a new culture is that a lot of people would feel fear because they are so use to their own culture, so now they leave what they are used to a new way and it will be hard for them to adapt. Some may like the new food and the pace of life, then later on in the month’s people may feel like the new life and culture is unpleasant life for instance: public hygiene, the language barriers, traffic safety, and food accessibility. Still the most part in relocating to a different culture is the communication because they might not understand the language or might say the wrong word thinking it means the same in the other countries. People adjusting to a new culture often feel lonely and homesick because they are not yet
Living far from home, even for a short period of time, can be really hard at the beginning. We have to remember that all changes are difficult, but they are