Reading report: Two Kinds by Amy Tan

When Jing Mei recognizes the similarities between her mother and herself she begins to understand not only her mother but herself as well. There are subtle connections and likenesses from the beginning between Jing Mei and her mother that Jing Mei does not see. The book commences with Jing Mei taking her mother's place at the mah jong table, creating a similarity between them from the beginning. Suyuan dies two months before the start of the book, and therefore is not able to tell the stories. Jing Mei has learned and must tell her stories in her place, forming another parallelism between mother and daughter. Because Suyuan is dead, Jing Mei must act in place of her mother when she goes to meet her Chinese sisters in China. Throughout the book Jing Mei takes the place of Suyuan, showing she and her mother

Amy Tan had many personal experiences in her story. For example, when Amy Tan was living in Northern California, her mother had very high expectations on her. Her mother wanted her to be with the American society and be the best she could be. Amy Tan had to get a haircut very short to the way other famous children were acting in the United States. Amy’s mother was the one who encouraged this. With that, in the story “Two Kinds,” the young girl named Jing-mei live in a part of California and she had to get a very short haircut. Jing-mei’s mother wanted her daughter to look and act the same way Shirley Temple did. Within both of the girls lives, they each had to act like an already famous person exactly to please their mothers.

However years later, she was grown up enough to understand and realize her mother's love for her. In the last sentence of story, she wrote ,“[a]nd after I played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song” (105) Jing-Mei understood and rediscovered why her mother gave pressure on her.

Another conflict that arises from Confucianism is when Jing-mei was told to go back to China and tell her half-sisters about their mother. She said “‘what will I say? What can I tell them about my mother? I don’t know anything.’” (Tan 31). In Confucianism, very little of tradition is explicitly told from mothers to daughters in the form of text. Ritual actions are supposed to be observed, absorbed and understood in order to be preserved and handed down for posterity. But Jing-mei, who grew up in America, did not have a sense of following the tradition her mother brought to America, or rather considered the Chinese tradition to be eccentric.

Also, their relationship is shaped by the pressure Suyuan puts on her daughter. When Jing-Mei was growing up, her mother had the need for her daughter to be smart, talented, and a respectful Chinese daughter. This pressure put on Jing-Mei resulted in misunderstanding between mother and daughter. Jing-Mei constantly believed, “that she was disappointing her mother,” because she felt as if she failed at everything her mother wanted her to do. She believed she could never be as perfect as her mother was. Therefore she doesn’t think she is worthy enough to take her mother’s place at the Joy Luck Club “They must wonder now how someone like me can take my mother’s place” (Tan, 27). Jing-Mei does not understand that her mother wanted the best for her; Suyuan wanted Jing-Mei to challenge herself because that is how one builds up character. Suyuan thinks her daughter could do anything she proposed to do but never put enough effort into anything “Lazy to rise to expectations” (Tan 31). Furthermore, Suyuan forced Jing-Mei to learn how to play the piano and then perform at a recital. Jing-Mei rebelled against her mother and refused to learn how to play the piano well. So, at the recital she ends up forgetting the music notes. Jing-Mei blames her embarrassment on her mother and states,

In the short story, "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan, a Chinese mother and daughter are at odds with each other. The mother pushes her daughter to become a prodigy, while the daughter (like most children with immigrant parents) seeks to find herself in a world that demands her Americanization. This is the theme of the story, conflicting values. In a society that values individuality, the daughter sought to be an individual, while her mother demanded she do what was suggested. This is a conflict within itself. The daughter must deal with an internal and external conflict. Internally, she struggles to find herself. Externally, she struggles with the burden of failing to meet her mother’s expectations. Being a first-generation Asian American,

Have you ever wondered how powerful culture can be and how can it affect you?

The story “Two kinds” introduces the protagonist 's as young Jing-Mei, and antagonist as her mother. The story’s physical setting takes place in San Francisco, the city Jing-Mei’s parents resided after immigrating from china.

The biographical connection that the author “Amy Tan” draws in her short story “Two Kinds” with her main character Jing-mei, crosses in more than one side. First of all, they both are Chinese American whose struggle in their identities with their Chinese immigrant mothers. “Due to a cultural conflict and lack of proper understanding of each other’s perceptions” (Priya 1), and as a big gap developed between the two daughters and their two mothers, in which resulted a complex relationship between them.

A mother and a daughter can have an unimaginable bond or they can act like they barely like one another. A mother should always love, comfort, and support their child. A daughter should obey, listen, and respect their parent. “Two Kinds” was written by Amy Tan which is a short story focusing on the negative relationship of a mother and daughter. Suyan Woo wanted her daughter to be able to excel in America. The mother wanted to turn her daughter Jing Mei into a child prodigy. According to Tan, “My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America” (543). Jing Mei starts to refuse doing what her mother tells her. This causes conflict in their relationship and neither of them wants to admit that they have done anything wrong. Suyan Woo and Jing Mei have a negative relationship based on the mother’s actions; this unhealthy connection can be seen through failed communication, excessive control, and lack of respect.

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

Jing-mei is the protagonist in the short story “Two Kinds”. We are confronted with a young girl who herself does not believe she has the talent or the looks to become a start. Initially she is beyond eager to please her mother, make her mothers wishes for her come true. She wants nothing more then to make her parents proud. She knows her parent’s approval lies in her becoming a prodigy. Yet as time passes we are confronted with a Jing-mei that slowly looses hope, the hope of ever fulfilling her mother’s dreams, for no matter how much effort Mrs. Woo puts in to molding her in to a child prodigy, Jing-mei simply does not have the needed talent, or drive. Up until now she is a very consistent character, we expect her to always follow her mother’s lead, without rebellion, yet her character changes towards the second half.

"Two Kinds" by Amy Tan explored the strained relationship between "Jing-mei" and her mother during formative childhood years. Through a cultural lens, the two could not be more different. The mother expected her daughter to be obedient, diligent, and talented. She wanted to her daughter to compete with her peers, and to pursue fame and the American dream. While her displays of disappointment at every failure were a psychological burden on her daughter, Jing-mei's resulting behavior was less willful than it was purely cruel. Jing-mei and her mother are "Two Kinds" of people, and yet are still part of the same whole. While Jing-mei prefers to entertain a leisurely Americanized attitude, her mother carried with her

As Jing Mei grew older, she then realized all of the pain she caused her mother about mentioning her mother’s babies back in China and matured to realize how childish and unnecessary her comment was. Jing Mei could have done anything with her knowledge, she just did not use her comprehension to her advantage.

Every idea about the essence of Jing-Mei’s future to become this “prodigy” is caused by what her mother watches on television and what she reads about in women’s magazines and other publications such as Ripley’s Believe-it-or-not and Good Housekeeping. Her mother’s first attempt to transform Jing-Mei into this “prodigy” comes from television movies. She explains, "My mother thought I could be a Chinese Shirley Temple. We'd watch Shirley's old movies on TV as though they were training films” (Roberts). While Jim-Mei continues to struggle to find who she really is, her mother on the other hand becomes determined to turn her into this prodigy. We begin to see that Jing-Mei mother demands her to try on multiple identities, such as being this Shirley Temple, but the Chinese version of course, a genius child, or even an expert at playing the piano. However, this determination that Jing-Mei becomes a prodigy threatens to suffocate the whole meaning of her being who she wants to