“A Pair of Tickets”, a short story by Amy Tan, expresses the theme of self-development within the protagonist character, June May Woo. Along her journey, June may comes to realize that her Chinese heritage is very important to her family and that it should of equal importance in her life as well. While in China, visiting her family, June May understands that the lifestyle her Chinese family members live is not so different from the lifestyle she lives in San Francisco. It is essential for an individual to travel back to find out who he or she really is in order to cultivate future advancement. The primary character is exposed to her family origins and further relates to the people she formerly did not understand.
As the story begins, June May is introduced to us as she has already started her journey to China.
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June May has never met her mother’s first twin daughters, who try and contact their mother, not knowing she has passed away. June May must take on a dual role by telling the girls of their mother’s death as well as a sister’s introduction for the first time. This is a significant burden forced upon June May; going to her ethnic land unaware of the culture, baring bad news. The train ride into china is significant because it is a cross over between how June May feels right up until being confronted with her ethnic background. She explains the feelings she is having while on the train and says, “I am becoming Chinese” (Tan, 1989, p. 263). Her first impressions of china create the feeling that she was wrong in the past; China is reminding her of the lifestyle back home. An article discussing June May’s journey states that at this point in her story she “begins to view life through a new and evolving prism of light” (Richards, 2009). Seeing China for herself, June May can now forget the ideas she once had about china and replace them with her own
The journey from Chongqing to America was one with many obstacles and Suyuan sacrificed so much for her daughter hoping that one day June will be successful. The support and care that Suyuan provided for June ended when she suddenly passes away which forces June discerns how little she actually knows about her own mother. This seemingly ordinary life of June disappears as she discovers her mother’s past which included siblings that have been abandoned and thus attempts to find her long lost sisters. This idea was brought up by the Aunties of the Joy Luck Club that her mother founded which can be seen as the call to an adventure. The purpose of this journey was not only to find her sisters but to also discover her mother for who Suyuan truly was. In June’s eyes, Suyuan was always impossible to please and she was never on the same page as her mother who believes a person could be anything they wanted in America-the land of opportunities. But as the Joy Luck Club reminds June of how smart, dutiful, and kind her
This novel takes place in two different countries when the novel starts it take place in Asia Shanghai, but as the story goes on it take place in America. When the story shifts Shanghai to America it also impacts the character’s life and culture. Different culture has their own beliefs. Chines culture is unique from other cultures, by their clothing style, beliefs and religious. Chines culture also has Chines zodiac, which is another name for a horoscope. In western astrology is predicting destiny, while Chinese astrology is chines zodiac it also deals with earth, fire, water, metal, and wood. Lisa See starts this novel by showing the strong bond between two sister Pearl and May. Although, the goal of this novel was to explore the Chines culture and how Chinese tradition value change to western in Zodiac, female beauty stander, and
Most of these conflicts are self-imposed drama that interrupt the story often through the character conflict. She builds up these conflicts in her head and make them much worse than they really are. For example; she worries about her family judging her by obsessing about every tiny detail. Later she realizes that this was never an actual conflict because her family loves her and does not judge her. Another conflict she deals with is not knowing her culture and how she does not feel Chinese. “I ask, what does Jing-mei mean?” “Your name so special, Jing like excellent jing. Not just good, it’s something pure, essential the best quality. Jing is good leftover stuff when you take impurities out of something like gold, or rice, or salt. And ‘Mei,’ this is common mei, as in meimei, ‘younger sister.’ ” (190). All June May needed to do in order to understand her Chinese heritage was ask about it. Before the trip to China she did not even know what her name meant in Chinese. She grew up in America and never really cared about her Chinese roots when she was younger but now that her mother has died she feels ashamed not knowing her culture. She finally realizes that she doesn’t need to be ashamed and learns from her father, his aunt and other family members about her family history. Another similar conflict she deals with
On a train in China, June feels that her mother was right: she is becoming Chinese, even though she never thought there was anything Chinese about her. June is going with her father to visit his aunt, who he hasn't seen since he was ten. Then, in Shanghai, June will meet her mother's other daughters. When a letter from them had finally come, Suyuan was already dead--a blood vessel had burst in her brain. At first, Lindo and the others wrote a letter telling the other sisters that Suyuan was coming. Then June convinced Lindo that this was cruel, so Lindo wrote another letter telling them Suyuan was dead. In the crowded streets of China, June feels like a foreigner. She is tall--her mother always told her that she might have gotten this from her mother's father, but they would never know, because everyone in the family was dead. Everyone died when a bomb fell during the war. Suddenly June's father's aunt comes out of the crowd. She recognizes him from a photograph he sent. June meets the rest of the family, having trouble remembering any words in Cantonese. They all go to a hotel, which June assumes must be very expensive but turns out to be cheap. The relatives are thrilled by how fancy it all is. They want to eat hamburgers in the hotel room. In the shower, June wonders how much of her mother stayed with those other daughters. Was she always thinking about them? Did she wish June was them? Later, June listens while her father talks with his aunt. He says that he never knew Suyuan was looking for her daughters her whole life. Her father tells her that her name, Jing-mei, means, "little sister, the essence of the others." June asks for the whole story of how her mother lost her other daughters. Her father tells her that though her mother hoped to trade her valuables for a ride to Chungking to meet her husband, no one was accepting rides. After walking for a long time, Suyuan realized she could not go on carrying the babies, so she left them by the side of the road and wrote a note, saying that if they were delivered to a certain address, the deliverer would be rewarded greatly. She got very sick with dysentery, and Canning met her in a hospital. She said to him, "Look at this face.
Growing up in California, Tan continued to embrace the typical values of Americans. She had taken on American values as her own identity, completely ignoring most of her Chinese heritage. In fact, young Amy Tan would answer her mother’s Chinese questions in English (Miller 1162). Teenage Amy Tan lost both her father and sixteen-year-old brother to brain tumors. Soon after that, she learned that she had two half-sisters in China from her mother’s first marriage (“Amy Tan Biography”). In 1987, Tan made a trip to China to meet those very same ...
Jing-Mei’s story really starts before she was born because Jing-Mei’s mother came to America after she lost her parents, her first husband, and her two twin baby girls. Her mother set really high exceptions for Jing-Mei before she was ever born because she mother wanted a prodigy child. Jing-Mei starts at a young age to defy her mother on the quizzes her mother gave her because she does not want to be a prodigy child. Jing-Mei would daydream and not answer the questions right if she even knew them at all. For example her mother asks Jing-Mei “what is the capital of Finland?” Jing-Mei said “Nairobi” because she did not know any foreign cities. The only capital city she knows was the capital of California and that is because it was the name of the street Jing-Mei lived on (Page 227).
Amy Tan's "A Pair of Tickets," especially, explores the relationship of setting to place, heritage, and ethnic identity. Jing-Mei Woo, the main character, has trouble accepting that she is Chinese, despite her heritage. Jing-Mei Woo believed, at fifteen, that she had no Chinese whatsoever below her skin. If anything, she perceives herself as Caucasian; even her Caucasian friends agreed that she "was as Chinese as they were." Her mother, however, told her differently, "It's in your blood, waiting to be let go." This terrified Jing-Mei, making her believe that it would cause her to suddenly change, "I saw myself transforming like a werewolf." Jing-Mei Woo finally realizes that she has never really known what it means to be Chinese because she was born and has lived in America all her life. After her mother's death, Jing-Mei discovers that she has two twin sisters living in China who have been searching for their mother and that s...
As she gets off the train, Jing-mei starts to describe her surroundings once again. For example, she describes Guangzhou as “The landscape has become gray, filled with low flat cement buildings, old factories, and then tracks and more tracks filled with trains like ours passing by in the opposite direction. I see platforms crowded with people wearing drab Western clothes, with spots of bright colors: little children wearing pink and yellow, red and peach” (266). The colors mentioned go along with how Jing-mei described her mother wearing clothes that do not go well together. The colors are bright, much brighter than the colors she saw on the train. It could mean that she is getting closer to her mother by seeing her in other people in China. However, Jing-mei has not fully embraced her roots, which is understandable since that side of her has only just awoken. Again, Jing-mei is questioning herself when she and her father are going through customs. For example, she describes the long lines as “getting on a number 30 Stockton bus in San Francisco” (266). Immediately after making that connection, Jing-mei reminds herself “I am in China. I remind myself. And somehow the crowds don’t bother me. It feels right” (266). Jing-mei is allowing herself to drift away to what is comfortable. Reminding herself that she is in China, she begins to feel at peace and that it feels
The struggle of self identity as she realized that all this while, her mother was right. Once you are born Chinese, you cannot help but feel and think Chinese. Amy Tan’s “A Pair of Tickets” presents an incredibly interesting perspective of a woman named Jing mei who is traveling through her native country of china, embarks on this journey of self-discovery to find her true chinese roots. The opening scene of "A Pair of Tickets" is an appropriate setting for Jing mei remark of becoming Chinese, because the introduction grabs the audience attention. We are first starting out in the story as reading Jing mei turning from American to Chinese in an instant second of the moving of a train from one city to the next. The narrator
Oftentimes the children of immigrants to the United States lose the sense of cultural background in which their parents had tried so desperately to instill within them. According to Walter Shear, “It is an unseen terror that runs through both the distinct social spectrum experienced by the mothers in China and the lack of such social definition in the daughters’ lives.” This “unseen terror” is portrayed in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club as four Chinese women and their American-born daughters struggle to understand one another’s culture and values. The second-generation women in The Joy Luck Club prove to lose their sense of Chinese values, becoming Americanized.
In the story "A Pair of Tickets," by Amy Tan, a woman by the name of Jing-mei struggles with her identity as a Chinese female. Throughout her childhood, she "vigorously denied" (857) that she had any Chinese under her skin. Then her mother dies when Jing-Mei is in her 30's, and only three months after her father receives a letter from her twin daughters, Jing-Mei's half sisters. It is when Jing-mei hears her sisters are alive, that she and her dad take a trip overseas to meet her relatives and finally unites with her sisters. This story focuses on a woman's philosophical struggle to accept her true identity.
It depicts the relationship between the mothers' and their daughters and how this relationship affects the daughters lives. Emphasis is placed on historical references and the struggle of women. All of the mothers were born between the mid 1920's and the late 1940's. The political and social histories of China were important factors in the character building youth of these women. Between 1931 and 1945 China was occupied by the Japanese, which led to their immigration to the United States.
In her short story "Two Kinds," Amy Tan utilizes the daughter's point of view to share a mother's attempts to control her daughter's hopes and dreams, providing a further understanding of how their relationship sours. The daughter has grown into a young woman and is telling the story of her coming of age in a family that had emigrated from China. In particular, she tells that her mother's attempted parental guidance was dominated by foolish hopes and dreams. This double perspective allows both the naivety of a young girl trying to identify herself and the hindsight and judgment of a mature woman.
...all Chinese, and the daughters are Chinese-American. The mothers grew up in a more strict environment and followed the rules by the book. They were taught by their mothers, how to act, who they were, and what being Chinese meant. The daughters in this story grew up in a more relaxed world, where being an individual was accepted and appreciated. No one was punished for being themselves in America. For the women in this novel, finding their true identity was one of the most important things. By using their cultural background and discovering who their mothers were, they were able to find their true selves in the end as well giving them a complete sense of identity.
Her ability to balance her Chinese-American identity is completely dependent on his participation in the two spheres and through Jack’s rejection of his mother and Chinese identity, he ensures the suffering of them both. Just as Jack’s father becomes a physical manifestation of American culture for his mother, his mother becomes the embodiment of their shared Chinese-ness that is demonstrated in her letter’s line: “Why won’t you talk to me, son? The pain makes it hard to write” (192). He does not talk to his mother because he wants nothing to do with his Chinese self, preventing the balance of two heritages in both their lives and perpetuating the cyclical trauma present in their lineage. With his mother gone, the representation of his Chinese heritage shifts onto the woman who reads the letter to him, resulting in the shame he feels after the letter’s reading finishes: “The young woman handed the paper back to me. I could not bear to look into her face” (192).