Be Perfectly Contented by Being Yourself

Woods' English 2A: "Two Kinds"

3.

• I love how Jing-Mei's mom is so optimistic with "no regrets" but I absolutely despise how she forces her daughter to become something that she's not, a person that she wished she was but didn't have the chance to be. I know her mom is doing it out of love and wants the best for her but it's only forcing her to become more distant with her mom. Can't her mom see that? Maybe I'm reacting a little bit more on this issue because I have "been there" and "done that". I hate the feeling of being under parents' pressure.
• What's a Peter Pan haircut? I googled it, but I don't think the results are accurate. Did Jing-Mei's haircut make her look forward to her future because Peter Pan was somebody who flew, somebody who was independent or was it because of something else?
• I think all Asian children have been through that point in life where they have wanted their parents to love them; therefore, they change accordingly, but they truly want their parents to just love them for who they are.
• Why was her mother so disappointed in Jing-Mei? She's just a little child trying to please her mother, for goodness sakes! Her mother is driving her to rebellion and insanity!
• Jing-Mei promised herself that she wouldn't let her mom change her, but she did. She turned into a rebellious monster. That, or she's a really disrespectful brat who doesn't appreciate anything that her mother does for her and yells at her mom.
• Otay, I know that Jing-Mei's mom is a little bit forceful at times, but isn't Jing-Mei taking things for granted here? Her mom didn't have the opportunity to experience her childhood in America, and unlike her, her mom has to work hard to earn the money to keep her family alive. Yet, here's Jing-Mei, making her mom give up hope. Why not just talk to her mom about her feelings? Why does she have to act like such a little brat?
• The little girl playing the piano on The Ed Sullivan Show remarkably reminded me of Jing-Mei, n'est-ce pas?
• I don't think it's a very smart idea to have an old, deaf, distracted, past-haunted man to be a piano teacher. Jing-Mei cheated through her lessons a lot. It's true that she never did give herself a fair chance at playing the piano, but it was partly her mom's fault for pressuring her so much that she was forced to go against it.
• What is it with all the Chinese parents and their pride?
• I never realized Waverly was so stuck-up.
• Waverly did try. She tried to be the worst at the piano so that her mother would stop obsessing over her "natural talent".
• Again with the quiet responses of the mother, huh, Amy Tan?
• Waverly should have been disowned for saying such things to her mom. "I never want to be your daughter. I wish you weren't my mother. I wish I'd never been born. I wish I were dead." She hit all the wrong spots. Tsktsk.
• Hey, Amy Tan mentions "why she had hoped for something so large that failure was inevitable". I know the answer! Her nengkan (which was mentioned in Half and Half)!
• I just realized that in this section, The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates, all of the mothers lost their hope. I see a pattern!
• Why was the piano a "shiny trophy that [Jing-Mei] had won back"? Was it a trophy of winning her true self back?
• I liked this ending, too. It gave me a "perfectly contented" feeling inside.

4. Auntie Lindo is such a show off. "She bring home too many trophy. All day she play chess. All day I have no time do nothing but dust off her winnings." I wanted her to just shut her mouth. What a typical Chinese braggadocios-mother! Ugh, she's trying to "modestly" hint at her daughter's excellence but she is nowhere near that! Stop trying to make others feel bad, Lindo lady!

5. This time, I believe the main conflict is man vs. man, Jing-Mei vs. her mom, an external conflict. Jing-Mei constantly struggles to prove to her mom that she just wants to be herself and nothing more; yet, her mom wishes for her to be more than what she can be. Throughout the chapter, they constantly bicker and show disapproval towards each other. I believe the conflict is resolved after the big fight they had and Jing-Mei "went there" and it was a "Oh no, she didn't!" moment. After all, her mother died and took whatever was left of the conflict with her.

6. Seriously, I believe the theme/life lesson here is: BE YOURSELF. There's nothing more to that. If you're forced into a life that wasn't meant for you to live, you definitely won't be truly happy. Oh, and don't live life with regrets! Do everything to the fullest. (Fiona, I'm talking about you! Sort of.) Always take chances and live the way you want to. Don't change because somebody else tells you to. Make your own judgments.