Returning Home: The Effects on Cultural Hybridity In “ A Pair of Tickets” by Amy Tan, Tan tells the story of a young Asian American woman, Jing-mei, who journeys to her mother’s homeland, China. Jing-mei goes to China to meet her deceased mother’s twins from her first marriage, who her mother had to abandon on a road as she was fleeing Kweilin. Jing-mei not only takes a journey through China. She also takes journey to find her own self. She begins her journey to find herself starting at her true roots in her parent’s native country, China. Jing-mei learns more about her self and her mother through the setting. Being in the actual birth place of her mother and father helps her find out who she truly is by coming back to her roots, which she …show more content…
Jing-mei wants to fit in as most teenagers do so she pushes away from her ethnicity because it is not viewed as normal in the American society she grew up in. Victoria Chen states in her academic journal “The American Dream eventually eludes the immigrant woman beyond her best intentions” (3). This causes Jing-mei to never truly learn about her Chinese heritage. Jing-mei is now thrill six with no real knowledge of what is means to be Chinese. Jing-mei starts out in the story as being on a train with her father, Chang Woo, on the way to visit his aunt in Guangzhou. Jing-mei as she enters China with her father at the beginning of the story begins to feel the true meaning of being Chinese. She describes this feeling as “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.”(365). The setting plays an important role here because just entering China triggers a role development in Jing-mei. In this moment on the train one sees Jing-mei begin to open up to her Chinese ethnicity. Jing-mei until she
Jing-mei Woo has to become a member of the Joy Luck Club in place of her mother, Suyuan Woo, who passed away. Before Suyuan's passing Jing-mei does not know much about her mother, as the story continues to develop Jing-mei realizes how much she did not know about her mother and learns more and more new things about her on her journey of finding her sisters. “Your father is not my first husband. You are not those babies” (26), this quote is from Suyuan Woo and shows Jing- mei that her mother has a lot of secrets that she does not know about. “Over the years, she told me the same story, except for the ending, which grew darker, casting long shadows into her life, and eventually into mine” (21). This quote shows how Jing-mei did not know much
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... ... middle of paper ... ... to take it anymore.
Once the train leaves the border of Hong Kong and enters Shenzhen, Jing-mei says, “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” (263). Jing-mei’s thoughts are in constant turmoil as she bounces back and forth on what being Chinese is and what her heritage is. The way Jing-mei describes her seven-two year old father as a young boy shows how emotional he is about coming home, that he has a long history in China. Even Jing-mei, who is coming to China for the first time, is feeling emotional about arriving. For example, Jing-mei says, “All he is seeing out the train window is a sectioned field of yellow, green, and brown, a narrow canal flanking the tracks, low rising hills, and three other people in blue jackets riding an ox-driven cart on this early October morning. And I can’t help myself, I also have misty eyes, as if I had seen this a long, long time ago, and I also almost forgotten” (264). The description of colors such as yellow, green, and brown are earthy and related to season of fall. In a way, the setting is showing that Jing-mei is getting in touch with her roots just like her father is. It would also explain why Jing-mei is suddenly overcome with emotions. A big part her that she has always assumed
When her mother dies, Jing-Mei really shows how much of a dynamic character she is. She realizes that, just like the songs in the piano book, her mother and she "were they were two halves of the same song" (Tan 357).
The protagonist of the story is Jing-mei. She is a flat character who turns out to be dynamic. Throughout her life, she has been very stubborn about accepting her identity. An example of this is when she explains, "I was 15 and had a vigorously denied that I had any Chinese whatsoever under my skin" (857). She shows her dynamic characteristic at the end of the story when she finally does accept her heritage.
Just as Jing-Mei found what made her Chinese, Lindo discovered what made her American. "I was so much like my mother. She did not see how my face changed over the years. How my eyes began following the American way"(293). She is a mixture, no longer one hundred percent Chinese, yet she has held her culture with her throughout her life in America. "Not only traditional and not only modern, not just Chinese and not just American, but Chinese-American"(Reece). This is the same discovery that Waverly and Jing-Mei come to, they finally understand were their mother's have come from and the history brought with them from far away. And the mother's best intentions are no longer like the illusive mountains covered in fog, left in China.
“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,
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.
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 ...
Jing-mei and her mother have conflicting values of how Jing-mei should live her life. She tries to see what becoming a prodigy would be like from her mother's point of view and the perks that it would bring her as she states in the story "In all my imaginings, I was filled with a sense that I would soon become perfect. My mother and f...
In the beginning, Jing-mei, is “just as excited as my mother,”(469). Jing-mei was eagerly hoping to make her mother proud. However, her mother’s obsession with becoming a prodigy discouraged Jing-mei. The daily test began to aggravated Jing-mei because they made her feel less sma...
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
...ith Jing Mei and her mother, it is compounded by the fact that there are dual nationalities involved as well. Not only did the mother’s good intentions bring about failure and disappointment from Jing Mei, but rooted in her mother’s culture was the belief that children are to be obedient and give respect to their elders. "Only two kinds of daughters.....those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!" (Tan1) is the comment made by her mother when Jing Mei refuses to continue with piano lessons. In the end, this story shows that not only is the mother-daughter relationship intricately complex but is made even more so with cultural and generational differences added to the mix.
June-May fulfills her mother’s name and life goal, her long-cherished wish. She finally meets her twin sisters and in an essence fulfills and reunites her mother with her daughter through her. For when they are all together they are one; they are their mother. It is here that June-May fulfills the family portion of her Chinese culture of family. In addition, she fully embraces herself as Chinese. She realizes that family is made out of love and that family is the key to being Chinese. “And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood.” (Tan 159). Finally, her mother’s life burden is lifted and June-May’s doubts of being Chinese are set aside or as she says “After all these years, it can finally be let go,” (Tan 159).
Jing-mei’s mother mixes the Chinese and American culture by taking advantage of the opportunities presented in America, that could grant her daughter a lifetime of happiness without a worry, that possible she has suffered or gone through. “America was where all my mother’s hopes lay. She had come here in 1949 after losing everything in China: her mother and father, her family home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin baby girls. But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better.”