It is evident that Tan’s mother is considered by the society as inferior because of her broken English. Even her daughter was first ashamed of her due to the fact that she cannot speak good English that is understood by many people in the society. However, the significance of “Mother Tongue” in our lives is the overriding theme in the article. From the beginning, Tan struggles with her two different worlds. Being born in China but living in America, she seems ashamed of her roots and that is why she is embarrassed when her mother speaks broken English (Tan 142-146).
When she travels to China, she discovers the Chinese essence within herself, thus realizing a deep connection to her mother that she had always ignored. She also brings Suyuan’s story to her long-lost twin daughters, and, once reunited with her half-sisters, gains an even more profound understanding of who her mother was.For the most part, Jing-mei’s fears echo those of her peers, the other daughters of the Joy Luck Club members. They have always identified with Americans but are beginning to regret having neglected their Chinese heritage. Her fears also speak to a reciprocal fear shared by the mothers, who wonder whether, by giving their daughters American opportunities and self-sufficiency, they have alienated them from their Chinese heritage.Jing-mei is representative in other ways as well. She believes that her mother’s constant criticism bespeaks a lack of affection, when in fact her mother’s severity and high expectations are expressions of love and faith in her daughter.
She then starts testing her daughter in a lot of weird ways. This is when the daughter starts having difficulties with her mother’s ways. She cries every night and tells herself that she won’t let her mom change her. Her mother then forces her to take piano lessons from an old, deaf, retired piano teacher who lives in their apartment building. After a few weeks the mother and the old, deaf, retired piano teacher, Old Chong arrange for the daughter to go to a talent show in a church hall.
Her rumination of the past reminds her of her youth in China and how her life had changed from then to now living in Wilding, Canada. Gum-May is left feeling empty and alone while remembering only to cast these emotions aside with bitterness and anger feeling that “they’re useless”. The announcement of marriage “demolished” her when she was sixteen, Gum-May couldn’t see herself “surrendering” her body to her husband. But, the pride of filial accomplishment only made her remember the shame she brought from being a daughter in a son-less family. She describes her wedding to Gordon.
Suyuan’s most cherished wish was that she could be reunited with her long-lost twin daughters. The friends urge her to go to China and tell her sisters about their mother. Jing-mei doesn’t think that she’s capable of telling her twin sisters about their mother because Jing-mei isn’t sure she knew their mom herself. She travels to China and realizes that she’s more Chinese than she thought. She learns about her own identity while also learning about her mother.
This causes Jing-mei to do less than her best throughout her life as she grows into a Chinese woman of America. “Two Kinds” represents the difficulties o two distinguished views and how they should or should not coexist with each other. In the story, Jing-mei’s mother has set unrealistic goals for her daughter to reach and achieve. Her mother came to America to start over and create something that is great in her eyes. America was seen as a clean slate and Jing-mei’s expectation level is set lower than her mother’s because she sees herself from a different perspective.
Velez2 Jennifer Velez Comp107 Miss Atzeni 3/22/2012 The Struggle to Be an All-American Girl By Elizabeth Wong In Elizabeth Wong’s writing on how she struggled to be an “All-American” girl, she expresses the strict religion and culture brought on by her single-parent raising mother, when all she only wanted was to fit in with American culture. While Elizabeth and her brother wanted to play childhood games, such as ghost hunt, with their friends their mother was stern on the importance of learning the language of their heritage. She would walk them seven long blocks to Chinese school, no matter how often they pleaded with her to not attend. Elizabeth wasn’t fond of the smell of the school or that the learning was restricted. She felt that American school would be a better fit for her.
In most cases this is true, for when they grow up they eventually figure out that they can reflect (retrace) their problems to that of their parents, and later understand what they had to go through. In the story The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Jing-mei is (acts like) an ignorant girl to her mother. Whatever tactic her mother tries on her to make her a better person she rejects. Jing-mei is constantly trying to hide her Chinese heritage and even changes her name to “June” to conform to American ways. But as she moves on in life, she begins to regret her past actions and finds out that her mother’s difficulties and problems, are (now) put on her shoulders and (now) for her to solve.
By that she means that Chinese parents raise much more successful kids. As a warrants for her claim, Amy Chua uses her own experience as a mother where she was to teach her 7 years old daughter to play a piano piece called “The little white donkey”. It was incredibly difficult for her daughter to learn, and she announced several times that she was giving up. Even though she didn’t want to play anymore, Amy didn’t let her child quit, and finally she manage to play it. With this example Amy wants to tell that parents have to be much more strict and that the worst thing they can do for their children’s self-esteem is to let them give up.
Her parents emigrated to America from China in the 1940’s with her older brothers (Adams NP). Tan’s mother was very set in her ways as a Chinese woman, attempting to inflict into Amy the same strict customs she had grown up with. Tan was raised in a strict Christian house and was “expected to become a neurosurgeon by trade and a concert pianist by hobby” (Adams NP). Brought up with very high expectations, Shriver 2 Tan was never content with her Chinese heritage and the life her parents had planned out for her. Amy Tan grew up with the persistent desire to become more “Americanized”.