Tiger Mom And Two Kinds, By Amy Tan

Furthermore, Amy Tan writes a wonderful short story about the complicated relationship between mothers and daughters, yet one can be enriching. The theme of “Two

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.

Amy Chua suggests that it is important for the children to acknowledge their parents and respects them. Chua expands on this positions when she states “Despite [the Chinese] parents’ brutal demands, verbal abuse, and disregard for their children’s desires, Chinese kids end up adoring and respecting their parents and wanting to care for them in their old age” (Chua 211). This shows that even though it seems like Chinese parents and their children are always bickering and arguing about things, it is only out of love and respect. Although the relationship between daughter and child in this book seems bleak, it is clear that Amy loves her kids very much and would never imagine losing them. The love conveyed between Amy and Lulu is evident because after they fight, they sit down and laugh together. Amy Chua considers herself a typical Chinese mother who aspires that someday her children will grow and take care of her and her husband.

At first, the daughter was to become a Chinese version of Shirley Temple. When that didn’t work, her mother told her that she would be attending piano lessons.

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.

In the article,” Why Chinese Mothers are Superior," author Amy Chua describes how parenting is approached in Chinese culture as compared to "Western parents." She compares Western and Chinese parents on how they approach their children’s' upbringings. She gives examples from her experiences raising her own daughters. Chua's daughters were not allowed to attend sleepovers and could not score grades any lower than an "A" in school classes. Chua also forced her kids in learning a piece for the piano. In separate story, author Amy Tan discusses the mother-daughter relationship in Chinese-American culture in "Two Kinds." This story is told from the viewpoint of an American-born Chinese girl named Jing-mei. Her immigrant mother, Mrs. Woo, believes that being in America is freedom and wants her daughter to take advantage of that freedom. Her mother has her try several activities in an attempt to

In the story “Two Kinds”, author Amy Tan, who is a Chinese-American, describes the conflicts in the relationship of a mother and daughter living in California. The protagonist in this story Jing-mei Woo’s mother is born and raised in China, and immigrates to the United States to escape from the Chinese Civil War. For many years she maintained complete Chinese traditional values, and has been abided by it deliberately. This kind of traditional Chinese culture has also affected her daughter profoundly. However, Jing-mei is born and raised in the United States. Despite she has a Chinese mother; she is unfamiliar and uncomfortable with Chinese

She says, “I looked at my reflection… the girl staring back at me was angry, powerful” (601). She embraces this side of herself instead of trying to work with her mother or stand up for herself in a meaningful way. Instead, she just gives up. “I performed listlessly…I pretended to be bored” (601). She purposely practices the piano wrong, “If I hit the wrong notes…I never corrected myself” (603). While she could have made herself into a really good piano player, it was more important to her that she go against her mother. In the end, it’s her own character that suffers.

For millions of immigrants, America has been seen as the land of opportunity where anyone could become anything he or she wanted to be. A family that believes strongly in the American dream can be found in Amy Tan’s short story, “Two Kinds.” The story centers around the daughter of a Chinese immigrant who desperately wants her daughter to become successful. In the story, the author shows the difficult lives immigrants face when moving to a new culture. In this short story, the theme shows the protagonist’s conflict with her mother on the type of daughter her mother wants her to be. The author establishes the theme of how difficult mother-daughter relationships can be through characterization, setting, and symbolism.

As an adult, Jing-mei’s mother offers her the piano once more, and Jing-mei accepts the gift. Appreciating the encouragement and faith her mother bestows upon her Jing-mei decides to care for the piano. The piano piece

“America was where all my mother’s hopes lay.” (pg. 132) Though the many things they tried failed, they both still had hope. June Woo’s mother chose learning to play the piano as June’s way of becoming important in the American society, better known as a prodigy. She learned how to play but never really gave herself a sincere chance of understanding the art of the piano.

Amy Tan story, “Two Kinds”, uses character development, conflict, flashback, and symbolism to express the love of one’s mother. This story starts off with the mother (Suyuan Woo) and daughter (Jing-Mei) trying to find something that the daughter can get really good at. They find one that there interested in but after a couple of sessions they found out that it wasn’t right for her daughter. So they try to do others things like the piano, but after several sessions with Mr. Chong her mother saw that her daughter wasn’t improving on playing the piano. Her mom kept urging her to practice more and get better but Jing-Mei had just about enough of this and started to rebel against her mom.

”(Tan-page 193) Then she watches the shows and sees the Chinese girl is playing piano. She thinks Jing Mei can become famous with her hide talent, so she begins to force Jing Mei to learn piano “Two or three months went by without any mention of my being a prodigy. And then one day my mother was watching the Ed Sullivan Show on TV… a little Chinese girl, about nine years old, with a Peter Pan haircut… Our family had no piano and we couldn't afford to buy one, let alone reams of sheet music and piano lessons…"Just

The only other person that was Asian was her sister, so starting school in the United States wasn’t as fun and easy, as it was for other kids. Through the years Angela has been able to use what she knows from the past, to her job. The author states, “Almost all of the people I know who work in my field have a personal passion and stake in fighting injustice. I want to change the world so other people don’t have to experience some of what I have, both as a child and even now, as an adult.” Angela is showing a different way that she can cope with her situations.

Her mom would bragged to other about her and Amy would get upset because her mom would tell her to be practicing and to not loose. Before she was like famous for her chess playing skill her mom wouldn’t respect her because she was a no body, wouldn’t care on what she had to say and only worry about herself. For example,