Mothers and Daughters

In the short story "A Pair of Tickets," by judging from the title one might think that this is a simple story more about adventure than anything else. In “A Pair of Tickets” The author Amy Tan uses a symbols to help us understand the theme the story. Family and Culture are the most important topic in this story therefore; it gives us a better understanding of the story. As stated in the context of the story “Jing-mei is on a train to China, traveling with her seventy-two-year-old father, Canning Woo. As the train enters Shenzhen, China, Jing-mei begins to "feel Chinese." Their first stop will be Guangzhou. After her mother's death, a letter arrived from China from her mother's twin daughters from her

"Hanging Fire" features a fourteen year old girl who discusses her thoughts and concerns directly with the audience. She talks about various things as she moves from one topic to another randomly. For instance, the fourteen year old girl is concerned about her visual identity such as braces and ashy knees. Suddenly, she is contemplating about serious concerns like death. In the first stanza, she states that she is in love with an immature boy who still sucks his thumb in private,worried about her skin condition as her skin has “betrayed her,” and worried about dying when she says, “what if I die/before morning” (Line 8-9). In the second stanza, she goes on to tell us that she feels inadequate from a social perspective. She says that she wants to learn to dance in order to fit in. However, she also indicates that she doesn’t want to learn. Those things along with “too much/that has to be done,” imply that she is overwhelmed and she needs guidance (Line 20-21). However, that much needed- guidance isn’t there as her “mamma is in the bedroom/ with the door closed” (Line 10-11). The third stanza starts off with “Nobody even stops to think/about my side of it” (Line 24-25). Through those lines,

Jing Mei Woo is the daughter of Suyuan and Mrs Woo who has just lost her mother and is looking for her twin half sisters lost in China and who buys two tickets to go after them. In this search for her sisters, Jing Mei Woo discovers many parts of her family, especially things about her mother that she did not know but that she had listened to. The stories of Mom take her to remember things that her mom had already told her but she did not take it very seriously. The closeness with her father's family, the feeling of a family's happiness, the affection and that you can count on them makes her doubt if she really wants to feel that emotion. Therefore, a pair of tickets are related to Jing Meig Woo is an insecure woman who hides her fears in the death of her mother, but also the feeling of abandonment and guilt of her missing sisters who can no longer spend time with her mother as she did and how she can find herself as a chinese for what her mother told her “Once you are born Chinese, you cannot help but feel and think Chinese.”(Tan,3)

Jing-mei is representative in other ways also. She believes that her mother 's constant criticism clearly shows a lack of feeling of love, when in fact her mother 's seriousness and high expectations are expressions of love and faith in her daughter. All of the other mother-daughter pairs experience the same mistake in understanding, which in

This connection begins with the comprehension of her name and her sisters’ names. “Jing” means pure and “Mei” means little sister. Instantly Jing-mei feels more Chinese because she sees the connection she as to the language through her name. “Suyuan” means long cherished wish. With the understanding of her mother’s name, her feeling of connection to her Chinese heritage dramatically expands (Norton 190). She begins to piece the puzzle of her heritage together. By understanding the meaning of their names she begins to understand and accept her Chinese heritage. Her connection to her mother’s Chinese past is now much stronger than she had once realized.

Every mother and their daughters have special relationship. The relationship could be a close one or one that is distant. Amy Chua writes an excerpt called “The Violin” in her memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom about raising her daughters the way she thinks is best. Amy Tan writes an excerpt called “Jing-Mei Woo: Two Kinds” in her novel The Joy Luck Club which is about her mother and hers relationship when she was a child. The excerpts both tell of two different mother-daughter relationships using tone from different point of views, a mother and a daughter. Chua’s excerpts tone is frustrated but caring and the tone of Tan’s excerpt is more bitter and strict.

Even the hotel she stays in looks like "a grander version of the Hyatt Regency" and the Chinese feast she had envisioned was replaced by "hamburgers, french fries, and apple a la mode." It is not until she finally meets her twin sisters, in modern Shanghai, that she realizes that she is Chinese because of "blood" and not face or place. Within this story, however, is her mother's story, set in another time and place. Fleeing from the Japanese invasion, during World War Two in 1944, Jing-Mei's mother is forced to abandon her twin daughters on the road between Kweilin and Chungking. Upon hearing her mother's story Jing-Mei Woo is able to understand a great deal more about her mother and their relationship, as well as her own past.

This causes Jing-mei to think that she doesn’t know her mother that well, which is the question depicted for all the mother-daughter pairs. The books then describes each immigrant mothers’ and American daughters’ perspectives on their lives in America, which are often different. However, the mother-daughter pairs still love each other. In the end, Jing-mei meets her sisters in China and fulfills her mother’s wish. Jing-mei ends up feeling closer to her mother and the stories of all the other mother-daughter pairs are told.

Jing-Mei’s mother is an immigrant who moved to America in 1949 after losing everything she had in China. Her mother works as a cleaning lady. Jing Mei is an American –Chinese; she lives with both her parents. Jing Mei’s mom fervently believes in the American dream. Jing Mei says “America was where all my mother’s hopes lay…”

In the story "A Pair of Tickets" by Amy Tan tells a story of a girl Jing-Mei and how she battles with not feeling Chinese and lacks Chinese culture because she is an American. In the story Jing –mei tells her mother that she does not feel Chinese in which she responds by saying "one day you will see it is in your blood waiting to be let go."Furthermore when Jing-Mei mother dies she begins to hear stories of her mother and how she suffered so much when escaping from Japan and how she had to leave her to twin sisters behind. When they begin telling these stories about her mother is when I feel Jing-Mei starts to feel a connection with her family and begins to feel Chinese.Additionally Jing-mei starts to feel more connected to her family once

However, Jing does not get the reunion she expects. When Jing sees her sisters for the first time, the three of them run and hug each other without questions. Jing says “As soon as I get beyond the gate, we run toward each other, all three of us embracing, all hesitations and expectations forgotten” (Tan 135). This meeting and feeling of unconditional love, is what brings about Jing’s biggest change: acceptance of her heritage. After the sisters met and cried a bit, Jing accepted who she is.

The conflicts of character and setting in the story depicts she struggled about comprehend her parents’ culture and acceptance of her culture identity. Jing-Mei didn't understand when her mother said: “Once you are born Chinese, you cannot help but feel and think Chinese.” (Tan, 133) She has never really identified with her family’s culture. Notwithstanding

“Two kinds” is a story, a Chinese girl whose life is influenced by her mother. Her mother came to America after losing everything in China. Jing-Mei’s mother was immigrated early to America from China who has “American dream”. Her mother had high expectations on her daughter and did not care how it could affect her. It made Jing-Mei become a stubborn and rebellious person. “In the years that followed, I failed her so many times, each time asserting my own will, … for unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be, I could only be me. (104) She expressed her anger by going against her mother's expectations in ‘who I am’, it inferred that such tendency come from her childhood experiences. Jing-Mei was frustrated because she could not satisfy her mother.

Jing-Mei can't deny who she is because it's in her DNA. Suyuan, her mother, told her "Once you are born Chinese, you cannot help but feel and think Chinese" (Tan 139). Her mother said that to her because Jing-Mei is Americanize and knows little about her heritage. Tan is pretty much describing herself that she was born in American and knows little about her background. Jing-Mei tells her mother about her and her friends "I was about as Chinese as they were" (Tan 139). Jing-Mei means that she knows as much about Chinese as her white friends in America would know. But her mother claims that she knows more because she is a nurse and keeps telling her that no matter what, she is Chinese and it's in her.

Although they were financially equipped and at a some point submissive to their Chinese traditional culture--their perception was “lopsided”, just as An-Mei’s mother mentioned in the film. The Pair of Tickets carries in the experienced breakthrough of the protagonist, as she encapsulated her strengths after meeting the twins, who wholly apart of Jing-Mai’s Chinese heritage. In the end, gaining a breakthrough from the strength of the women as a