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Jing Mei Identity

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The protagonist of Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds” is Jing- Mei, a matured Chinese American woman who looks back at her unsteady relationship with her mother. The story revolves around their path to a broken relationship and their long journey to mend their broken bond. Jing- Mei is an interesting character because the audience gets to see her transition from a child with hope to a lost little girl with a great amount of self-doubt. Throughout the short story “Two Kinds” Jing- Mei is presented as a child who is struggling with finding her identity, someone who is having a difficult time settling between two cultures, and as a child who matures to find out that her persistent mother only wanted what was best for her. Jing- Mei is a defiant young girl who is struggling to find her …show more content…

The Chinese culture, that is exhibited in the high expectations of the mother, and the American culture, where anyone can be a star, form together to create a harsh childhood for Jing- Mei. The difficult upbringing of Jing- Mei can be contributed to the mother's actions. The mother has a blurry image of the American Dream, and believes that anyone can be a prodigy as long as they try. While this may be true, she is forgetting that prodigies are geniuses born loving what they do, something not seen in Jing- Mei’s piano skills. For example, Jing- Mei states that “[Old Wong] taught me all these things, and that was how I also learned I could be lazy and get away with mistakes, lots of mistakes” (197). She deliberately sets herself up for failure, but this is justified in her own way since she is being forced to play the piano against her will, something she does not appreciate. Jing- Mei could have lived up to her mother's expectations of being decent pianist, but she never wanted to. This is what will create massive tension in the near future between the mother and Jing-

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