Life is a puzzle

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Life is a puzzle
Two kinds is set in Chinatown San Francisco as the narrator and protagonist of the story gives background information on her family’s life. The setting of the story helps to give glimpses on the cultural aspect of the two main characters. By stating that the mother believed one could be anything they wanted to be, points to belief in the American Dream. Additionally, there is evidence that there is a conflict between the narrator and the mother. Having being born in America, Jing Mei cannot understand the cultural differences with China her mother’s homeland. The interaction between the mother and the daughter, results in a conflict because of cultural differences and perceptions on America soil. There is a conflict between the new and the old far away from the land of there ancestors represented by the intergenerational relationship. This paper delves into the mother daughter relationship, conflict, the American Dream and use of symbolism as captured in the short story.
The title of the story Two Kinds rightly illustrates the mother daughter relationship. The narrator’s mother envisions the daughter being famous through constant practice in her piano lessons. On the contrary, the daughter simply wants to make her own decisions without the mother’s input. The slow tempo song “perfectly contented” is applicable to Jing Mei while “pleading child” represents Jing Mei’s mother. “For the talent show I was to play a piece called "Pleading Child," from Schumann's Scenes from Childhood. It was a simple, moody piece that sounded more difficult than it was. I was supposed to memorize the whole thing,” (Tan 364). “And after I had played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song” (Tan 367). Two kinds also connotes that there are two types of daughters, those who choose to follow what there mothers tell them and those who decide otherwise. Thus, the type of daughter mother relationship determines whether conflicts arise out of there differences in perceptions. In addition, for immigrant communities there are Two Kinds of cultures, whereby the embrace there new experience, but do not wholly abandon their culture.
In Two kinds, the relevance of culture transmission through parents to children is seen to be less certain because of the geographical distance form there homeland. The tension between the narrator and her mother illustrate the level of loneliness that immigrants go through, the narrator was born in America but the mother was born in China. “We didn't immediately pick the right kind of prodigy. At first my mother thought I could be a Chinese Shirley Temple. We'd watch Shirley's old movies on TV as though they were training films,” (Tan 362). Therefore, cultural continuity is hard to achieve between China and America and the two have to integrate ideals form both sides in order to understand e...