Tan Two Kinds

Have you ever wondered how powerful culture can be and how can it affect you?

   The story of America is an exciting one, filled with swift evolution and an amazing energy unprecedented in world history. In America's short existence, it has progressed from a small collection of European rebels to the economically dominant nation that it is today. Mixed up in the provocative reputation of America is the celebrated ideal of the American Dream, the fantasy of complete independence and self-reliance mixed with the opportunity to attain wealth through one's labors. On the surface, this reverie seems almost enchanted, offering people the unprecedented prospect of achieving success regardless of one's race, religion, or family history. The American Dream is exactly what it appears to

In the story “ Two Kinds” Amy Tan presents the theme ¨Be grateful for what you have when you have it because nothing is forever¨ through the main characters Ni kan and her mother and also through foreshadowing. Tan takes you through a story of a girl and her mother as they both individually learn a good life lesson.

In the short story Two Kinds by Amy Tan, she writes about a child named Jing-mei and her experiences with her mother pushing her to become a prodigy, all while her mother deals with being a Chinese immigrant that just moved to the United States. The two countries obviously share very different cultures and this plays a part in the story as she pushes Jing-mei to live ‘The American Dream’. Her mother strongly believes that in America you can be whatever you want to be. This, to some, may not be true, however this idea is strongly pushed in the Chinese culture. This is shown when Jing-mei fails to do any prodigious task that her mother puts in front of her which leads to her mother being ultimately disappointed in Jing-mei. Her failures ends up causing a huge argument between Jing-mei and her mother. The argument could be called the climax of the story. This confrontation wouldn’t have happened if Jing-mei’s mother didn’t have the huge idea that The American Dream is a legitimate thing, and Jing-mei’s mother wouldn’t have that perception of America if the Chinese culture didn’t present the United States as such a place. Based on Chinese culture and perspectives, there are numerous fallacies concerning the American Dream, and these are displayed in Amy Tan’s short story “Two Kinds”.

“ ‘I’m not a genius! I can’t play the piano. And even if I could, I wouldn’t go on TV if you paid me a million dollars!’ My mother slapped me. ‘Who ask you to be genius?’ she shouted. ‘Only ask you be your best. For you sake. You think I want you to be genius? Hnnh! Wat for! Who ask you!?’ ‘So ungrateful,’ I heard her mutter in Chinese, ‘If she had as much talent as she has temper, she’d be famous now.’ “ (2-3)

For millions of immigrants, America has been seen as the land of opportunity where anyone could become anything he or she wanted to be. A family that believes strongly in the American dream can be found in Amy Tan’s short story, “Two Kinds.” The story centers around the daughter of a Chinese immigrant who desperately wants her daughter to become successful. In the story, the author shows the difficult lives immigrants face when moving to a new culture. In this short story, the theme shows the protagonist’s conflict with her mother on the type of daughter her mother wants her to be. The author establishes the theme of how difficult mother-daughter relationships can be through characterization, setting, and symbolism.

Furthermore, Jing-mei discovers, “Old Chong’s eyes were too slow to keep up with wrong notes [she] was playing,”(472). As a result, Jing-mei performs “Pleading Child” miserably at the talent show her parents and all of the members of the Joy Luck Club attended. Jing-mei saw the disapproval and shame on her mother’s face, and decided to stop practicing piano. If Jing-mei’s mother wouldn’t have looked so disappointed and been proud of her daughter Jing-mei wouldn’t have been so discouraged. Jing-mei would’ve still had faith in herself like she did before her performance. “When my turn came, I was very confident. I remember my childish excitement. It was as if I knew, without a doubt, that the prodigy side of me really did exist. I had no fear whatsoever, no nervousness. This is it!” (474). After seeing the dismay in her parents eyes Jing-mei changed her whole outlook on the situation, which weakened Jing-mei’s pride, causing her to fully rebel from being a prodigy. Furthermore, encouraging her to be who she wanted to be.

The short story “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan is about the main character that has many conflicts with her mother because she struggles with her identity. Her family moved to America after losing everything in China, just as Tan’s mother. The struggle of identity and conflicts with her mother that Tan had when she was young influence this work. This work also talks about Americans as if they were extremely superior to everyone else and that American’s can do whatever they want in America, starting by the first sentences of the story. “My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. You could open a restaurant. You could work for the government and get a good retirement. You could buy a house with almost no money down. You could become rich. You could become instantly famous” (Tan). This story has a small portion of the Chinese American dream, where the mother shows her daughter Shirley Temple and wants her daughter to be like her and takes her to a

When people think of the American Dream, most think of the good that arises with it. They don’t consider the hardships and obstacles one must overcome. Many immigrants come to America in hopes of accomplishing their dreams and aspirations, and if they can’t, maybe their children can. Haspel debates how “The U.S. has changed drastically in the last several decades. The middle class, which was the heart of the American Dream, is dwindling, and the disparity of wealth among social classes continues to grow.” (41) This defends the popular phrase “The rich get richer while the poorer get poorer.” In essence, the American Dream can be viewed as the aim to climb the economic ladder. As the economic gap between the different social classes grow, it becomes harder for certain groups to see the American Dream as an attainable goal. The American Dream entails a variety of opportunities, and it is hard for minorities to grasp such opportunities with limited resources. Haspel also debates that “Another issue contributing to the decay of the American Dream is the country’s changing family

Amy Tan had many personal experiences in her story. For example, when Amy Tan was living in Northern California, her mother had very high expectations on her. Her mother wanted her to be with the American society and be the best she could be. Amy Tan had to get a haircut very short to the way other famous children were acting in the United States. Amy’s mother was the one who encouraged this. With that, in the story “Two Kinds,” the young girl named Jing-mei live in a part of California and she had to get a very short haircut. Jing-mei’s mother wanted her daughter to look and act the same way Shirley Temple did. Within both of the girls lives, they each had to act like an already famous person exactly to please their mothers.

The mother, truly wants what is best for her daughter, but refuses to acknowledge that her daughter does not want to be a prodigy or play the piano. Her daughter only wants to live her own life and does not understand the success her mother is trying to push on her. Every mother and daughter relationship is different, but the most classic type is the “mother knows best trope.” Of course, if the story was presented in China, rather than America, the daughter may have fallen into her mother’s life path, “"Only two kinds of daughters," she shouted in Chinese. "Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind! Only one kind of daughter can live in this house. Obedient daughter!" (Tan pg #). However, since her daughter was born in America, she was given an opportunity to be who she wanted to be, because of America’s new dream of independence and

To America, the American dream was not living in a huge, fancy house, but to have a “house, a yard, maybe a TV and a car too – nothing fancy, no palaces like the gringos built – just four walls and a roof” (Boyle 29). The typical immigrant does not come to American with the intentions of becoming wealthy. They come to American to have a better opportunity in life. To be able to own a home, work and have a family. According to The New York Times, “The phrase “American dream” was invented during the Great Depression. It comes from a popular 1931 book by the historian James Truslow Adama, who defines it as, “that dream of a land in while life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone.” “In the decades that followed, the dream became a reality. Thanks to rapid, widely shared economic growth, nearly all children grew up to achieve the most basic definition of a better life — earning more money and enjoying higher living standards than their parents had.” Learning that us Americans are likely to achieve the American dream shows that it is all that much more difficult for immigrants and even more so for illegal immigrants. T.C Boyle, in Tortilla Curtain, attempts to show the separation between the American dream of the community of immigrants and the American dream of the whites.

“In 2009, 33 million people in the United States were second generation immigrants, representing 11% of the national population. The children of such immigrants in the U.S., also known as "second generation immigrants," experience a cultural conflict between that of their parents and that of mainstream U.S. society” (Wikipedia 1). Amy Tan the author of “Two Kinds”, and the young character in the story both are a second generation immigrants, who have struggled in their life with parents, about the culture they assimilating and their real culture.

Some may see the mother trying to live her life through her daughter. She invests time trying to make her daughter a prodigy because she was her last hope. The mother lost two children in China and moves to a new country. Coming to America, she felt that immigrants have to prove that they are as talented as or more talented than Americans. This belief is supposed to be the basis for the determination, that the mother has, for Jing-mei to become a prodigy.

Like many immigrants think, America is the land of opportunity. People from all over the world,