Post by HeavyMetalQueen on Oct 6, 2005 16:37:18 GMT -5
A Pair of Tickets[/b]
(***)
This excerpt from Amy Tan's "The Joy Luck Club" is an interesting story. It basically tells of Jing Mei and her father visiting relatives and Jing Mei getting to meet her long-lost older twin sisters. This story describes a person's struggle for identity, how one should not be afraid to embrace their heritage and their family. This is first revealed in the beginning when Jing Mei recalls back to when she was fifteen and adamantly denies that she has any Chinese blood in her and her mother tells her otherwise. Jing Mei seems to accept this when she steps off the train and feels like she is becoming Chinese.
It is not really known why Auntie Lindo and the others agreed that it was best that they write a letter to Suyuan's older daughters as their mother and then having Jing Mei go over to China and tell them about Suyuan's death. Perhaps they knew that if the three daughters were to finally meet face to face, then Suyuan's long-cherished wish of finding her daughters would be granted. See, Suyuan left her daughters from a previous marriage on a roadside after she found out that the Japanese were coming and was too sick and tired to care for her babies any longer. She left with the babies her home address, pictures with the babies' names on the back, and valuable jewelry in hopes that someone would find her daughters, care for them, and return them home after the war was over. This was not so. Since she found out her husband and family were dead, Suyuan had been searching for her daughters.
Now that her mother has passed on, Jing Mei feels responsible for her mother's death and believes that it is her duty to inform her sisters what happened to Suyuan. But, I wonder, does Jing Mei feel ashamed? Ashamed of the fact that she has shunned her Chinese heritage for so long? This seems to be the case because of how Jing Mei wants almost everything to be traditionally Chinese in some way, from the cost of the hotel to wanting her father to tell her the story of Suyuan abandoning her babies in Chinese. This is her way of accepting her heritage and, in the long run, her family. When she first arrives in China with her father, Jing Mei feels comfortable instead of awkward like she must have thought she would and starts to push along with the crowd.
Jing Mei grows as a person and may have realized that family is one of the most important things a person could have. She enjoys spending time with her relatives from China, spending time with them and talking to them. Now that she knows her mother more intimately because of what happened, Jing Mei grows to appreciate her mother and begins to see more of her in herself and her sisters, Wang Chwun Yu and Wang Chwun Hwa, and is proud of that. In the end, Jing Mei embraces her Chinese heritage and acknowledges the fact that it is a part of her, something that is in her blood, something that will never go away.
Got high marks on this one, too. ;D
(***)
This excerpt from Amy Tan's "The Joy Luck Club" is an interesting story. It basically tells of Jing Mei and her father visiting relatives and Jing Mei getting to meet her long-lost older twin sisters. This story describes a person's struggle for identity, how one should not be afraid to embrace their heritage and their family. This is first revealed in the beginning when Jing Mei recalls back to when she was fifteen and adamantly denies that she has any Chinese blood in her and her mother tells her otherwise. Jing Mei seems to accept this when she steps off the train and feels like she is becoming Chinese.
It is not really known why Auntie Lindo and the others agreed that it was best that they write a letter to Suyuan's older daughters as their mother and then having Jing Mei go over to China and tell them about Suyuan's death. Perhaps they knew that if the three daughters were to finally meet face to face, then Suyuan's long-cherished wish of finding her daughters would be granted. See, Suyuan left her daughters from a previous marriage on a roadside after she found out that the Japanese were coming and was too sick and tired to care for her babies any longer. She left with the babies her home address, pictures with the babies' names on the back, and valuable jewelry in hopes that someone would find her daughters, care for them, and return them home after the war was over. This was not so. Since she found out her husband and family were dead, Suyuan had been searching for her daughters.
Now that her mother has passed on, Jing Mei feels responsible for her mother's death and believes that it is her duty to inform her sisters what happened to Suyuan. But, I wonder, does Jing Mei feel ashamed? Ashamed of the fact that she has shunned her Chinese heritage for so long? This seems to be the case because of how Jing Mei wants almost everything to be traditionally Chinese in some way, from the cost of the hotel to wanting her father to tell her the story of Suyuan abandoning her babies in Chinese. This is her way of accepting her heritage and, in the long run, her family. When she first arrives in China with her father, Jing Mei feels comfortable instead of awkward like she must have thought she would and starts to push along with the crowd.
Jing Mei grows as a person and may have realized that family is one of the most important things a person could have. She enjoys spending time with her relatives from China, spending time with them and talking to them. Now that she knows her mother more intimately because of what happened, Jing Mei grows to appreciate her mother and begins to see more of her in herself and her sisters, Wang Chwun Yu and Wang Chwun Hwa, and is proud of that. In the end, Jing Mei embraces her Chinese heritage and acknowledges the fact that it is a part of her, something that is in her blood, something that will never go away.
Got high marks on this one, too. ;D
