In A Pair of Tickets by Amy Tan, the use of setting and sense of place helps address the main issues of the story. Woo’s mother Suyuan has passed away and her long lost daughter’s have finally reached out for her seemingly too late. This emotional time causes Jing-Mei Woo and her father Canning Woo to travel to China and finally tie up loose ends. Jing-Mei Woo’s journey causes her to finally embrace her heritage and seek answers she has been longing for throughout the majority of her life. There is a strong sense of place, or setting in this story. The author’s description before the story addresses that Tan did not feel as though she was chinese until she traveled to China and said “‘As soon as my feet touched China, I became Chinese (179).’” That being said, the main character in A Pair of Tickets finds herself feeling the same way. The opening two paragraphs discuss Jing-Mei Woo’s late realization of her culture in opposition to a time when felt as though she was “just as chinese as they [caucasian friends] were (179).” Woo’s self realization based on her journey to China ties her fictional emotions to the real feelings of Tan. …show more content…
Woo’s journey involves a reunion with her distant family and results in her finding out what happened to her long lost sisters; she wakes up and hears her father talking to his Aunt about the incident in which her sisters were abandoned (189-191). After hearing this story, Woo understands the importance of her family ties and feels a stronger sense of place with her sisters. Following, Woo anticipates meeting her sisters, but dreads telling them the news of their mother’s death. However, when she arrives, there is an immediate love and connection between the three as they all say “‘mama, mama,’” and share a series of emotions (195). This connection makes it easier for Woo to discuss their mother and as a result, she finds her sense of place through her
Although Mrs. Spring Fragrance has only lived in America for a short amount of time, her husband states “There are no more American words for her learning” (865). It is obvious through reading this statement that Mrs. Spring Fragrance has become quickly acquainted with not only the English language, but also with American customs and traditions. However, not every character in Mrs. Spring Fragrance adjusts to American culture as easily as Mrs. Spring Fragrance; some characters have a difficult time leaving their Chinese traditions of marriage and accepting that in America, love comes before marriage. Throughout Mrs. Spring Fragrance, Sui Sin Far describes the process that the Chinese characters experience as they slowly begin to alienate traditional Chinese culture and becoming Americanized through accepting American culture as their own.
Judy Fong-Bates’ “The Gold Mountain Coat” discusses the childhood of the narrator who is a Chinese immigrant living in Canada. The narrator, even at a young age, possesses such admirable keen observation as she is able to notice the environment and even the situation of people around her. Living in a small town that is “typical of many small towns in Ontario” with only one Chinese family neighbor, the narrator is the only Chinese child. With the nearing day of arrival of John’s family, the narrator feels uneasy of her new responsibilities.
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
A Pair of Tickets”, by Amy Tan, is a brief narrative about the conscience and reminiscence of a young Chinese American woman, Jing-Mei, who is on a trip to China to meet her two half-sisters for the first time in her life. Amy Tan is an author who uses the theme of Chinese-American life, converging primarily on mother-daughter relationships, where the mother is an emigrant from China and the daughter is fully Americanized --yellow on the surface and white underneath. In this story, the mother tries to communicate rich Chinese history and legacy to her daughter, but she is completely ignorant of their heritage. At the opening of the story "A Pair of Tickets" Jandale Woo and her father are on a train, the are destined for China. Their first stop will be Guangzhou, China where father will reunite with his long lost aunt. After visiting with her for a day they plan to take a plane to Shanghai, China where Jandale meets her two half-sisters for the first time. It is both a joyful time and yet a time of contrition, Jandale has come to China to find her Chinese roots that her mother told ...
I enjoy reading Fae Myenne Ng’s Bone. I find her novel easy to read and understand. Although she included some phrases the Chinese use, I find no difficulty in understanding them, as I’m Chinese myself. The novel Bone is written in a circular narrative form, in which the story doesn’t follow the linear format where the suspense slowly builds up and finally reaches a climax stage. Rather the story’s time sequence is thrown back and forth. I find this format of writing brings greater suspense and mystery to the reader. When I read the book, my mind was always wondering what reasons or causes made Ona commit suicide, and this made me want to continue reading the book to know the outcome. The happenings in the story do portray reality of the lives of Chinese immigrants in America, their hardship and difficulty in adapting American lifestyle and culture. For the younger generations, adapting the American culture and lifestyle is much easier than for the older generations. This is shown in the book and it also happens in reality, which is another reason why I like this book. This is a fiction novel, but the story told is like a non-fiction book; giving readers a sense of realism. As a Chinese reading Bone, I understand the narrator’s feelings and predicaments. Although she is an Asian, her thinking lies more on the American side. Leila wants to move out to stay with Mason but yet she fears leaving her mother alone and also of what her mother might say in r...
“The minute our train leaves the Hong Kong border and enters Shenzhen, China, I feel different. I can feel the skin on my forehead tingling, my blood rushing through a new course, my bones aching with a familiar old pain. And I think, my mother was right. I am becoming Chinese. (179). In the story A Pair of Tickets by Amy Tan, the protagonist character, Jing-mei, finds herself in several difficult situations due to how her social and cultural upbringing has shaped her. She finds herself pulled between her Chinese DNA and her American background. While she was raised being told that she was Chinese and “it’s in her blood”, she does not identify as such, because she grew up in America and only sees herself as an American. After her mother’s passing,
June-May receives a letter from her twin sisters shortly after her mother’s death. However, her sisters do not know their mother is dead and have been searching for her for years. June-May takes the letter to Auntie Lindo who writes back pretending to be their mother and says that they are coming to visit. June-May protests saying “They’ll think I’m responsible, that she died because I didn’t appreciate her,” (Tan 149). She believes that her sisters will hate her when she shows up without their mother and has to announce her death. As a result, Auntie Lindo writes back announcing the passing of the mother and announces that instead their sister, June-May, will be coming. It is during this trip that June-May fulfills her mother’s dream, “carrying with me her dreams of coming home. I am going to China,” (Tan 147). By doing this she gains another part of her mother. However, it is when June-May reunites with her sisters that she fully becomes one wi...
The film Up the Yangtze is a very powerful film that explores the changes in China with the coming of change for the sake of progress. The film focuses on a girl and a boy from very different backgrounds. Yu Shui is fresh out of school with aspirations of a higher education who is instead sent to go work on a cruise ship for tourists. The other focus is on Chen Bo Yu, a teen boy who grew up with a much more luxurious style than Yu. Although we never see Chen’s home we can infer this form the fact that we first find him buying his friends drinks in a karaoke bar. In comparison to Yu’s families shack on the side of the river he is living a luxurious life. Two teens with two different backgrounds were chosen to represent the changes in China within this documentary and we are going to explore why.
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...
The setting of the story creates a better grasp on the intelligence of each character. The narrator of the story goes from her belief that there is no way she is Chinese to understanding her heritage and that she is really Chinese. The narrator states that she doesn’t really know what it means to be Chinese (Tan 133). She progressively learns throughout the story what it means to be Chinese. She mentions of Aiyi and her father knowing Mandarin only while the rest of Aiyi’s family only knows Cantonese (Tan 137). This relates to setting due to the time and areas that Mandarin was spoken compared to where Cantonese is spoken now. The narrator was shocked to see the elegance of the hotel they were scheduled to stay in and the pricing (Tan 138). This can be interpreted as her being inexperienced while the rest of her family were either used to this kind of service or had no outstanding opinions upon it. The narrator starts to see her father in a different manner once he and Aiyi start conversing and onc...
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
In the beginning of the story, the author describes the Chin Yuen's as American in appearance yet Chinese in customs. Throughout the story she continues to describe the deterioration of the Chinese customs by American ideal. This is pinpointed when Mr. Chin Yuen decides to let his daughter marry the boy that she loves. The conversation that Mr. Spring Fragrance has with Young Carman explains that only in American culture is it customary to find love before marriage; in the Chinese tradition, all marriages are arranged. This clearly exemplifies the manner in which the Chinese characters are more and more disregarding their Chinese culture and taking on this new American standard of living. Ironically, Sui Sin Far conveys the notion that the American tradition is not necessarily better than the Chinese tradition. More so she demonstrates the struggle of identity between two worlds that both make sense. Though Laura and Kai Tzu have found their happiness in the American tradition of marriage, the reader discovers that Mr. and Mrs. Spring Fragrance are equally as happy even through the Chinese tradition of marriage.
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.
“Two Kinds” takes place in San Francisco during the 1950’s when a large immigration movement was taking place. Tan begins the story by taking the role of the innocent child that all readers can relate with. You can see a mental picture of Tan’s mother poking and repeating the Chinese words “Ni-Kan, You Watch!” We immediately feel attached and sorry for Tan, being the daughter of an unruly mother. Tan wrote what many of us felt growing up with overbearing parents who expected the world out of us, when we just wanted to go outside and play with the other kids. In a sense we were mentally attached with Tan as she is compared to child actors who she cannot possible compete with. Tan feels as though her mother doesn’t take her own opinions and worries to heart, rather she feels her mother is only concerned about Tan becoming famous so that her mother will be better off. These strong emotions that we feel from Tan also spark something inside most readers to immediately jump on the side of Tan rather than see past these disguised attempts of motivation. Later on in “Two Kinds” Tan’s mother comments on her rugged hair, saying that she “look like Negro-Chinese.” Tan’s emotions come out as she says to herself “as if I did this on purpose.” This small line in the story makes a large impact as we can see in our minds a mother dragging her child into the bathroom washing her hair out and yelling at her for something that the child could not control. In a sense, Tan is almost pulling out our se...
June began her journey with her father to China with the purpose of meeting her half-sisters for the first time. The “A Pair of Tickets” has two main settings: San Francisco, USA and Guangzhou, China. In this story, the setting plays an important role in highlighting the essence of the story, which is about journey. June May’s change in setting, from USA to China, assists the readers to feel the transition in lifestyle that the protagonist experiences throughout the story. The author portrays June’s character as an American-Chinese who holds various stereotypic notions about China.