Conflict in Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds” Amy Tan’s, “Two Kinds”, is a short story of a Chinese immigrant mother’s conflict with her daughter Jing-Mei. In this story, Jing-Mei tells of how she resisted her mother’s overbearing efforts to inspire her to reach her fullest potential twenty years ago. Jing Mei’s mother only wanted her daughter to be a prodigy in some way. So she dominated and controlled her daughter’s life. When these traits did not surface, Jing-Mei began to realize she did not have these traits and started to feel internally inferior.
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.
Much of the Chinese values moved with them to America. In the movie Mulan, all the parents want for their daughter, Mulan, is to bring honor to the family. But Mulan is not your typical Chinese girl; she has her own opinions, and can’t hide who she really is. (Mulan) In the story “Two Kinds”, Jing-mei’s mother and father want her to be a prodigy in order to make a life for herself. At first Jing-mei liked the idea, but after all of her attempts and fails she wanted to live a normal American life.
No family is the same, we run our houses differently, and parents have different ways on how to treat their children. However in Chinese Cinderella told/written by Adeline Yen Mah. Niang (Adeline’s stepmother) treats her stepchildren like they do not exist. A typical American family compared to Adeline’s family has different family structures and different roles of the family matron. First of all, the American family structure compared to Adeline’s family structure have some similarities.
Kingston’s story “A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe” employs numerous fantasy elements in depicting her separation from the restrictiveness of China and further, her discovery of harmony between her ancient family’s culture and her new American one. Navigating through confusion and anger, Kingston is ultimately able to remove herself her Chinese bindings and find a sense of accord between her past and her future. Kingston’s rhetoric conveys her struggle with the complexities of her Chinese culture and her inability to come to a core truth. Furthermore, she gravitates toward American culture for its simplicity. Kingston is having difficulties sorting fact from fiction in her mother’s story about Moon Orchid’s encounter with her husband.
written by Gish Jen demonstrated a double consciousness. Through her racial lens she detects the differences between the Chinese, the Irish, and the White Americans; she is always racially conscious and suspicious. When her Shea in-laws continuously comment on her granddaughter Sophie’s skin color she makes a remark implying more racial breeding thus ceasing conversation and invoking an apology. Further in the text Chinese grandmother says, “Nothing the matter with Sophie’s outside, that’s the truth. It is inside that she is like not any Chinese girl I ever see.” Her statement gives insight on how the granddaughter may pass through the veil with her exterior as Chinese but her interior passes for American, a dual identities within one person.
Introduction: - Joan Didion’s Play it as it Lays, Junot Diaz’ Drown, and Maxine Hong Kingstons’ The Woman Warrior all demonstrate different intersections of race, class and gender. Each novel provides a unique perspective of growing up in American society. In Play it as it Lays, Didon dictates a story of Maria Wyeth, a Caucasian wealthy actress, struggling with depression. Contrastly, Diaz’ introduces Junior, a Domincan male, who spent his childhood living in a third world country, and struggles with poverty even after moving to the States. Finally, Kingston shares her hardships of adjusting into the role of a Chinese-American woman in her memoir, The Woman Warrior.
Lam uses irony through-out the story to expose the reasons that many Vietnamese children living in America will struggle with identity. Lam begins the story with a hint of irony when his Mother asked his aunt “Who will light incense to the dead when we’re gone,” and the aunt replies, “None of my children will do it, and we can forget the grandchildren. I guess when we’re gone, the ritual ends” (Lam, 2011, p. 1077). Although Lam’s Mother has brought her children to America for a better life she is disappointed that they have not kept their Vietnamese identity as she has. “Such is the price of living in America” is the only answer that the narrator has for this.
However, the tone quickly changes as Song begins to miss and need China. After describing an unfriendly run in with a landlord Song says “You find you need China: your one fragile identification, a jade link handcuffed to your wrist” (Song). Here we see Song relating to the sister across seas and knowing that she needs to be back with her family and the people that love her, like her mother. These two contrasting section of the poem are used to show that even though life may be tough and strenuous in China, the life lived in America can also be not as forgiving. Family and culture seem to always win the battle against rebellion to a new land, resulting in the speaker’s sister’s
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. It is interesting to note that when Jing-mei Woo is asked by her three “aunts” to go to China in order to fulfill her mother’s long-cherished wish to meet her lost twin babies, Jing-mei shocks and upsets