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A comparison between American and Chinese cultures
A comparative analysis of culture between China and the USA
Conflicts that exist in Amy Tan's two kinds
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There are very many ways that Chinese and American cultures, cultural values, etc, contribute to the conflicts in "Two Kinds". The two cultures contribute to this by making the narrator do something because her mom wants her to do it. The mom values having straight A's and being a prodigy overall. She won't let her daughter be anything less than the best. Also, Her mother wants her to be better than what she was and to be able to do better in life than how she is doing currently. Their cultural values make it difficult for the narrator to do what she wants and have fun because her mother is always trying to get her to do things that she doesn't want to do. The more things that the mother forces upon her the more grief that the narrator has.
“Two Kinds” by Amy Tan is about an immigrant family from China. The two main characters consist of a chinese mother named, Suyuan, and her American-born daughter, Jing Mei. For Suyuan, moving to America meant opportunities. She pushes her daughter, Jing Mei, into trying new activities in hopes of turning her into a child prodigy. Jing Mei becomes stubborn and resentful. Her attitude towards her mother becomes a protective wall against her struggle to change her. Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds”, depicts the cultural conflict that can arise between first-generation American children and their Chinese immigrant parents today.
One type of effect the Chinese mothers’ expectations has in their relationship with their “Americanized” daughter is negative since the mothers are unable to achieve anything. An-Mei Hsu expects her daughter to listen and obey as the young ones do in Chinese culture, but instead receives a rebellious and stubborn daughter, “‘You only have to listen to me.’ And I cried, ‘But Old Mr. Chou listens to you too.’ More than thirty years later, my mother was still trying to make me listen’” (186-187). Instead of the circumstances improving, the mother is never able to achieve anything; her forcing and pushing her daughter to the Chinese culture goes to a waste. They are both similar in this sense because both are stubborn; the daughter learns to be stubborn through American culture and wants to keep herself the way she is, whereas the mother wants to remove this teaching from American culture and does not give u...
The narrator in Two Kinds is the daughter of a Chinese immigrant. Her mother believed that anybody in America could be a star. She believed that her
The story "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan is about a mother and daughter who have strong conflicting ideas about what it means to have a sense of self. This may be partly due to the mother growing up in China, which is a very different culture than the American culture where endless opportunities are available to anyone who wants to pursue them. Jing-mei's mother wants her daughter to be the best, a prodigy of sorts, and to have the kind of life, full of hopes and dreams that she did not have. In the beginning of the story Jing-mei liked the idea of becoming a prodigy however, the prodigy in her became impatient. "If you don't hurry up and get me out of here, I'm disappearing for good." It warned. "And then you'll always be nothing" (500). After disappointing her mother several times Jing-mei started to detest the idea of becoming a prodigy. The idea Jing-mei's mother had for her to become a prodigy was too much pressure for a small child and was something that Jing-mei was clearly not ready to be. As a result the pressure that her mother laid upon her only made Jing-mei rebel against her mother and she resisted in giving her best. Jing-mei did this because she only wanted her mother's love and acceptance for who she was not only what she could become. Furthermore, Jing-mei's point of view of being the kind of person that one can be proud of was very different from her mother's point of view.
The second and third sections are about the daughters' lives, and the vignettes in each section trace their personality growth and development. Through the eyes of the daughters, we can also see the continuation of the mothers' stories, how they learned to cope in America. In these sections, Amy Tan explores the difficulties in growing up as a Chinese-American and the problems assimilating into modern society. The Chinese-American daughters try their best to become "Americanized," at the same time casting off their heritage while their mothers watch on, dismayed. Social pressures to become like everyone else, and not to be different are what motivate the daughters to resent their nationality. This was a greater problem for Chinese-American daughters that grew up in the 50's, when it was not well accepted to be of an "ethnic" background.
Our mothers have played very valuable roles in making us who we are and what we have become of ourselves. They have been the shoulder we can lean on when there is no one else to turn to. They have been the ones we can count on when there is no one else. They have been the ones who love us for who we are and forgive us when no one else wouldn’t. In Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds,” the character Jing-mei experiences being raised by a mother who has overwhelming expectations for her daughter, which causes Jing-mei to struggle with who she wants to be.
The struggle with the conflict between parents and children is something that almost occurs to several teens, especially those who drift into a culture outside of their parents’. In “Two kinds,” by Amy Tan excerpt from The Joy Luck Club, is an example of the constant conflict between a strict and overbearing parent, and their child. The main character is a young Chinese- American daughter, who childhood was affected by her overbearing Chinese mother. Throughout the whole story, Jing Mei and her mother had a numerous amount of conflict, which escorted to the central conflict. Jing Mei and her mother are like an apple and oranges, her mother is an imperious and an overbearing Chinese mother. While Jing Mei was an apathetic American upbringing.
From the beginning of time, mothers and daughters have had their conflicts, tested each other’s patience, and eventually resolved their conflicts. In the story “Two Kinds,” written by Amy Tan, Jing-Mei and her mother are the typical mother-daughter duo that have their fair share of trials. Jing-Mei is an American Chinese Girl who struggles to please her mother by trying to be the “Prodigy” that her mother wishes for. Her mother has great ideas to make her daughter famous with hopes that she would become the best at everything she did. Throughout the story, the mother and daughter display distinct characteristics giving the reader insight of who they are, how they each handle conflict, and helps define how their relationship changes over time.
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.
In the short story, "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan, a Chinese mother and daughter are at odds with each other. The mother pushes her daughter to become a prodigy, while the daughter (like most children with immigrant parents) seeks to find herself in a world that demands her Americanization. This is the theme of the story, conflicting values. In a society that values individuality, the daughter sought to be an individual, while her mother demanded she do what was suggested. This is a conflict within itself. The daughter must deal with an internal and external conflict. Internally, she struggles to find herself. Externally, she struggles with the burden of failing to meet her mother’s expectations. Being a first-generation Asian American, I have faced the same issues that the daughter has been through in the story.
For many of us growing up, our mothers have been a part of who we are. They have been there when our world was falling apart, when we fell ill to the flu, and most importantly, the one to love us when we needed it the most. In “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, it begins with a brief introduction to one mother’s interpretation of the American Dream. Losing her family in China, she now hopes to recapture part of her loss through her daughter. However, the young girl, Ni Kan, mimics her mother’s dreams and ultimately rebels against them.
Conflict undoubtedly occurs in our lives and is inevitable. From arguing with your siblings about whose turn it is to use the computer to having issues over financial matters, conflict comes in many different forms. Scholars believe that conflict can cannot always be resolved and refer to conflict management, which is the way we address disagreements with our relational partners. There are three main strategies I’d like to focus on towards managing conflict: escapist strategies, challenging strategies, and cooperative strategies. An escapist strategy avoids direct conflict because of reasons such as personal safety and practicality. Challenging strategies uses more skills such as assertiveness to get what they want and essentially cause a winner and a loser to manage the conflict. Using a cooperative strategy focuses on the issues instead of using verbal aggressiveness and to consider options and other alternatives. These three concepts of conflict management is important to me because it relates to my relationship with my girlfriend Nancy and gives me a chance to see the positive and negative sides of the strategies to determine which strategy would work for me. An example of a scenario in which these strategies can be applied to is about having a game console. I recently bought a Playstation 4 and Nancy is not pleased about how I use all my time to play games. Hypothetically, Let’s look at how these strategies could be used to manage this conflict.
Structured conflict is a positive kind of conflict that can lead to much better group cohesion and decision making. There are two types of conflict that may occur in a group decision process. These are c-type conflict or cognitive and a-type conflict, affective conflict (McWilliams & Williams 2014).
I have had very little conflicts in my life. If there was a conflict I would try to resolve the issue calmly or take myself out of the situation and move on. This particular conflict is something that I worry about every single day and wears my patience down. My mother and I have had minor conflicts as I grew up because she was a very strict parent. Recently my mother and siblings moved to Mesa, Arizona in January of this year. My mother’s credit is very bad so it was almost impossible for them to find a cheap apartment to live. She was also staying with our cousin until she got on her feet again. Our cousin is a theft, a liar, and she was very hateful to my family. She charged my mother for anything that she could and made sure my mom would pay. So my mother
battle of wills between the narrator, a young Chinese-American girl, and her mother, a Chinese immigrant. "Two Kinds'' is a coming-of-age story,