Courtney Carson Dr. Barker English 1302-21101 25 September 2011 Discovering The Dual Identity Many people struggle with accepting who they really are. For example, June May in Amy Tan’s “A Pair of Tickets” struggles with accepting the fact that she is Chinese. In this short story June May takes a trip to China with her father, Canning Woo, to see her father’s aunt and to meet her two half sisters for the first time. However, what she doesn’t know is that she will discover something about herself along the way. In “A Pair of Tickets” Tan’s use of the setting is important to the development of June May’s character.
ENGL 110 Essay 1 Final Draft Yi Zhang Cultural and Generation Conflict “Two kinds” is a story about the conflict between a Chinese-American girl Jing Mei and her mother. They immigrated from China to the United State and when Jing Mei was a little girl, her mother tried to discover Jing Mei’s prodigy. At first Jing Mei is also curious about being a prodigy but finally she lose interest in it. The author Amy Tan develops her theme of cultural and generation conflict through the choice of an appropriate setting, the use of strong character development, and strong plot development including exposition, conflict, climax, and resolution. The setting of the story establishes an appropriate background for the characters’ traits and leads to the exposition between two characters.
Each mother and daughter tell her own story. The book is divided into four main sections; the stories are told from the viewpoints of four Chinese mothers and their Chinese American daughters. The only exception is Suyuan Woo, who, having recently died, speaks not for herself but through her daughter, Jing-mei. The daughter tells her mother’s stories as she takes her mother’s place at the mahjong table and on the fateful trip to China. The novel traces the psychological development of the American daughter and her final acceptance of the Chinese mother and what the Chinese mother stands for.
While she is there, people are very surprised that she can speak English. She learns that she isn’t accepted in many things in school and after school, but she happily makes a new friend named Radine. However, everything seems to change between them when they reach high school. Jeanne see’s that Radine can do so many more things than her and Jeanne wishes to be accepted as not only a foreigner, but also a normal person like everyone else. Later papa decides to move to a new place and a new school.
Part 1 At one point in high school my grades were below par which didn’t really make my parents happy. They decided to enroll me into a tuition center where may other kids take tuitions during the school holiday. One week in, I didn’t have a single friend, probably because I’ve always been a really shy person. I sat outside reading before my morning class. I looked up and noticed this girl was moving towards me, she engaged into conversation with me and then told me she thought I was real good looking and that definitely was an ego booster, she then suddenly left and I never saw her again because that was my last summer school class.
The values of heritage seem to have been lost with the gain of knowledge when Dee has gone to college. Her actions she displays when she comes home for a visit are shocking to her family. It is almost as if Dee is using them for a show, rather than a visit that has been well overdue. It’s one thing to know what heritage is but another to understand what your heritage is. Mama was always one who could not say “no” to her daughter and she always tried to please her regardless if her daughter appreciated it or not.
12 Memories Narative Essay Brandi Smith 12 Memories Narative Essay Brandi Smith It was May 27th 2003 and my sister just graduating from high school. Some very amazing friends of the family didn’t get to make it to her graduation, so they showed up at our parents’ house afterwards. Now these people weren’t just any people they were some of my most favorite people, the lady, Lavern in her late fifties drove a white Suzuki Samurai and delivered the paper. I loved this woman more than anything in the world. She was so laid back and such a hoot to be around she always had some kind of new plant to give or remedy to tell us about.
Math is NOT a Waste of Time Susan Jacoby, a former columnist for the New York Times, raises awareness of scientific and mathematic depravity in the female community in her article “When Bright Girls Decide That Math is ‘a Waste of Time.’” Jacoby believes adolescent girls avoid advanced science and math courses because of stereotypes and “cultural expectations” that society places on women (282). Throughout the article, Jacoby tries to educate parents and women of the lost opportunities girls inflict on themselves so that parents and teachers can decrease the learning gap between boys and girls in the math and science fields. Jacoby believes that parents need to push their daughters to break the barriers and add more science and math classes to their school schedules so that they do not become as “intellectually handicap” as earlier generations. I agree that girls need to continue their education in the math and science fields and that society acts as an influential factor in what classes females take. However, I think the lack of females in advanced science and math classes has no definitive reason.
In the beginning of “The struggle to be an All American girl”, Elizabeth Wong started out with describing Chinese school in her living town and wrote about her and her brother’s experience of changing their culture from Chinese to American since they were children. They went to the Chinese school because her mother pretention to keep their cultural estate even though they hated it. At the school, they learned not only Chinese but politeness as well. The school in her memory smelled like “mothballs or dirty closet”, and the principal was look like a “maniacal child killer”. She also described her learning Chinese like the most boring thing in the word by using some words as: “kowtow”, “chant”, “sing-san-ho” and ideographs letters.
As time passed Jeing-Mei became rebellious over being pushed into a mold. Her mother was determined she was going to be a prodigy like Shirley Temple or other girls she saw on television. Finally, her mother decided she would become a pianist. Jeing-Mei started talking back to her mother and acting out disrespectfully, when her mother took her freedom and made her practice the piano every day. Jeing-Mei liked to practice best the fancier parts of songs that she could use her foot and leg to play.