“A Pair of Tickets”
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
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When she arrives, she feels somehow proud to be Chinese. But her main reason why she went back home is to reflect her mother past life on her present life. Through the setting and her relatives, Jing Mei learns the nature of Chinese American culture. The main setting takes place in China, effects of the main character’s point of view through changing her sense of culture and identity. The time period plays a large role on the story, there is disconnect between the mother and daughter who came from different culture. In “A Pair of Tickets”, we learn it’s a first person narrator, we also learn detail of what the narrator is thinking about, detail of her past and how life compared to China and the US are very different. The theme is associated with the motherland and also has to deal with her mother’s death and half sisters. Her imagination of her sister transforming into adult, she also expected them to dresses and talk different. She also saw herself transforming, the DNA of Chinese running through her blood. In her own mind, from a distance she thinks Shanghai, the city of China looks like a major American city. Amy Tan used positive imagery of consumerism to drive home her themes of culture and identity, discovering her ancestral …show more content…
Sense “A Pair of Ticket” is a story of self discovery, as she goes on a figurative journey to self discovery to China. The birthplace of her parent, she believes she found a part of herself that she had denied many years. In general Jing Mei came to an understanding of her identity, how her attitude towards her Chinese heritage change during her journey into China. She learns the main reason why she went back home, not only to share the memories with her half sister about their mother, but also identify with her own Chinese culture, her own
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.
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 ...
“It was not easy to live in Shanghai” (Anyi 137). This line, echoed throughout Wang Anyi 's short piece “The Destination” is the glowing heartbeat of the story. A refrain filled with both longing and sadness, it hints at the many struggles faced by thousands upon thousands trying to get by in the city of Shanghai. One of these lost souls, the protagonist, Chen Xin, was one of the many youths taken from his family and sent to live the in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. Ten years after the fact, Chen Xin views the repercussions of the Cultural Revolution internally and externally as he processes the changes that both he, and his hometown have over-gone in the past ten years. Devastatingly, he comes to the conclusion that there is no going back to the time of his childhood, and his fond memories of Shanghai exist solely in memory. This is in large part is due to the changes brought on by the Cultural Revolution. These effects of the Cultural Revolution are a central theme to the story; with repercussions seen on a cultural level, as well as a personal one.
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 ...
Gish Jen’s “Who’s Irish” tells the story of a sixty-eight-year-old Chinese immigrant and her struggle to accept other cultures different from her own. The protagonist has been living in the United States for a while but she is still critical of other cultures and ethnicities, such as her son-in-law’s Irish family and the American values in which her daughter insists on applying while raising the protagonist’s granddaughter. The main character finds it very hard to accept the American way of disciplining and decides to implement her own measures when babysitting her granddaughter Sophie. When the main character’s daughter finds out that she has been spanking Sophie she asks her mother to move out of the house and breaks any further contact between them by not taking Sophie to visit her grandmother in her new place. The central idea of the story is that being an outsider depends on one’s perspective and that perspective determines how one’s life will be.
Chang portrays the complexity of Henry’s character by showing the conflict that he faces both in his personal and professional life. His confusion towards his own Cultural identity is noticed in his relationships with his co-workers as well as with his family. His personal relationship with his family, especially with his father and his wife exemplifies the clash between the two cultures which seems to tear Henry apart. Leila, Henry’s wife, seems to epitomize the traditional American Culture which Henry tries very hard to be a part of. Her forthright nature along with the independence and individuality contradicts the stereotypical qualities of an Asian wife. However, Henry’s desperation is seen in his forgiving attitude towards Leila’s action and behavior. His deter...
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
"Two Kinds" is truly an amazing work; it captivates readers with by telling a story of a young girl trying to find herself. Amy Tan does a phenomenal job, not only by portraying a very real mother-daughter relationship, but at showing how much a young girl can change. Jing-Mei evolves throughout the story in a way that many people can relate to; crushed hopes, obeying your parents even if it means doing something you don't want to do, and finally standing up for what you believe in.
In “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan the setting takes place between the 1950’s and 1960’s in Chinatown, San Francisco. The narrator uses the first person point of view. The exposition explains when Jing-Mei came to America when se was a baby in 19...
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 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.
The story is told in the first-person narrative, or subjective point of view. This is important as it leads the reader to sympathize with the narrator as well as setting up the protagonist/antagonist relationship of daughter and mother. In this case, Jing Mei narrates as an adult but through the eyes of a child, allowing the reader to draw upon his/her ow...