When I Grow Up In Two Kinds By Amy Tan

Jing-Mei was a young Chinese girl who was being forced by her mother to learn the piano. Her

After Jing- mei finishes telling this story she goes into how she is nervous to take her mother’s place in the club. She also shares that while she was in the club meeting the other members received a letter from her half-sisters because her mother was trying to locate them before she passed away. The group gives Jing-mei money to travel to china and tell her sisters their mother’s story.

We also learn about the new SAT and its essay component, which some college completely ignore. Some college and universities are eliminating their requirement for the SAT or ACT in an effort to minimize their importance and stress that surrounds them.

In the trial of making her daughter an American prodigy the mother repeatedly pressures Jing Mei to become something into she is not. The mother is so ambitious about her daughter. She wants to secure Jing Mei’s future and by trying to do so she does not realize how much jeopardize she put her daughter’s life into. But, Jing Mei responds very negatively to this tyranny. She does not want to become something she is not. “ I won’t let her change me, I promised myself. I won’t be what I’m not.”(Pg.- 194). So she used the piano to deceive her teacher, her mother pretending she is practicing the lessons, but in the end she finds that she actually deceives herself. Throughout her life she struggled with schooling and finally quit. All these she sees as the result to her mother’s pressure, but who is the sufferer at the very end. The mother is highly ambitious and the daughter is super stubborn. These two things together make Jing Mei nobody in her life and stop her mother to expect anything from her ever in her life, which she started with the piano. Both of them were just struggling over the piano. One was struggling to push other up, and the other was struggling to push her down to become her true self, not her mother’s made

Jing-Mei's mother became a crucial influence towards Jing-Mei's development and culture. Jing-Mei's mother believes her daughter has a musical prodigy, but Jing-Mei refuses to think so. However, Jing-Mei becomes obedient and tries to please her mother's dreams of raising a childhood prodigy. Jing-Mei states, "I was filled with a sense that I would soon become perfect. My Mother and Father would adore me" (Tan, 1997, p.19).

Jing Mei is a complicated character who is battling with many conflicts throughout the story on what she really wants to so. She can’t decide whether to please her mother or herself... The mother seems to be a bit controlling. But after researching on the Asian society, i have discovered that is the norm.

However, her mother sees it as a way for her daughter to be the best. Meanwhile, Jing-mei decides to rebel against her mother’s wishes. During piano lessons with Mr. Chong she realizes easy ways to get out of practicing.

Although, she is still a conformist, she wants to do it her own way making her both. Jing-Mei’s mother is a conformist who just wants her daughter to be a prodigy so she can have a name for herself. Amy Tan gives her mother a dialogue that manifestly shows that she is trying to gloat about her daughter “If we ask Jing-Mei to wash dishes she hear nothing but music.” (104). Jing-Mei realizes she is being used and didn't like what she was force upon doing.

The story ends with Jing-mei finding pleasure in the recognition of “Two halves of the same song,” (Tan 391) or the song of herself. In playing the song, Jing-mei is embracing the two sides of herself. She finally leaves behind that selfish dread of losing her mother’s love, which had kept her from being content. The theme is only explained in the story’s conclusion when Jing-Mei is able to recognize that there are “only two kinds of [people]. Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind.”

This is what happened with her mother at the start of the book, but changed drastically throughout the book near the end. I know this because in the text is says, “I know my mother probably told her I was going back to school to finish my degree, because somewhere back, maybe six months ago, we were again having this argument about my being a failure, a ‘college drop-off,’ about my going back to finish. My mother and I never really understood one another. We translated each other’s meaning and I seemed to hear less than what she said, while my mother heard more.”(Tan 27) The significance of this is how it was difficult to understand each other and how their relationship was at the beginning, but this did not stay the same by the end of the novel. Her mother had a big purpose that she wanted to fulfill, but was never able to complete it because of her death. Jing-mei didn’t understand the feelings her mother was going through, or even that she had a big wish. In the text it is stated, “My sisters and I stand arms, around each other, laughing wiping tears from each other's eye. The flash of the Polaroid goes off and my father hands me the snapshot. My sisters and I watch quietly together, eager to see what develops. The gray-green screen changes to the bright color of our three images, sharpening and deepening all at once. And although

“Only two kinds of daughters. Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind.” The story goes on to show that we will never be what our parents want us to be. Jing-Mei does not want to be the person that her mom thinks she should be. It goes to show that some parents are trying to take over there kids. The mother watches Shirley Temple, and tries to imagine her daughter like that, being the star child. If the daughter does not want to do something do not make her do it. The mother is just pushing the daughter further away from her.

Jing-mei doesn’t do well in the test, her mother changes her mind and send Jing-mei to

Judging by the dialogue between Jing-Mei and her mother, the reader gets a sense that Jing-Mei does not understand the importance of her success, not just to her mother, but to herself as well. "I'm not a genius!"(Tan  493) Jing-Mei cried.  To which her mother replied "Who ask you to be genius?  Only ask you be your best for you sake.  You think I want you to be genius?"(Tan  494). Jing-Mei did not understand why her mother wanted her to be a prodigy.  If there were times she did, she just didn't care.  This leads us to the struggle between mother and daughter.

The conflict between Jing-Mei and her mother has calmed down as Jing-Mei started taking the piano lessons; however, Jing-Mei was still determined not to become the person her mother wants her to be as she “was so determined not to try, not to be anybody different”. Even more, Jing-Mei describes the talent show as a conspiracy planned by her mother and Mr. Chong to have her play in the church hall. Through the use of the word “conspiracy”, Jing-Mei portrays her mistrust in her mother and displeasure with the talent show even before it begins. After attending the show and performing badly, Jing-Mei describes her mother’s look after the show’s fiasco as “a quiet, blank look that said she had lost everything”. Therefore, Jing-Mei’s lack of commitment to learning the piano led to her embarrassment in front of her parents’ social club but at the same time, Jing-Mei’s mother showed the first signs of defeat as her daughter has failed her once again and her dreams of being the mother of a prodigy were

In the short story “Two Kinds” written by Amy Tan the author offers a chance for readers to interpret the underlying message of the plot themselves. Amy Tan writes a narrative diary of a grown women describing her point of view during the struggles of her childhood with her mother. By having the story in the child’s perspective that offers the reader an insight to the narrator’s frustration from failing to meet her mother’s high expectations due to her immigration experience. A large conflict between the narrator and the mother arises throughout the story although they both feel that they are correct. Amy Tan clearly illustrates the power and difficulty that immigration can place on the average Chinese American family struggling to adapt and