"Two Kinds" is a short story from the book The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. It was first published in 1989. The short story presents the main character Jing-mai Woo’s infancy and the effects of her mother’s high expectations for her life. It is evident that some of the events in the short story reflect events that happened in the author’s life. For example, the main character's mother left China, leaving behind her family and children.
"Two Kinds" tells the story of a woman and daughter expecting a great life in America. The daughter, Jing-mei, wants badly to become a "Chinese Shirley Temple" by making a career in singing and dancing. Her mother is obsessive in the belief that Jing-mei is a genius, thus making her do pointless tests that she sees other prodigy children doing in magazines such as standing on her head and reciting world capitals. All of this proves to be useless and the idea begins to fade away until Jing-mei's mother resolves to make Jing-mei take piano lessons with their neighbor, Mr. Chong.
Mr Chong, a former pianist is, however, deaf and has poor eyesight. Having a teacher with disabilities gives her the ability to play as she wants to and ultimately not learn. A talent show arises and her mother signs her up out of pride toward her friend Lindo Jong, whose daughter is a prodigy chess player. She plays a song called “Pleading Child” and does absolutely terrible.
She thought her mother would be angry because the whole town was there watching. Amazingly to Jing-Mei, her mother says nothing to her about the recital. Later, her mother asks if she is going to the piano lessons. Thinking that the recital was bad enough for her mother to have a notion that she wanted to quit, she declined.
Her mother made her go contrary to her desire of quitting, Jing-Mei exclaims:
"I wish I had never been born; I wish I were dead! Like them [her babies in China]." This left a blank face on her mother, horrified by what her daughter had remarked. The piano lessons had stopped and she didn't have to do any of the trivial tests her mother had forced her to do before. Her mother dies and as an adult and Jing-mei is asked to take the old piano and her notes. She takes the piano into her home and begins playing through her old music. She finds that the song "Pleading Child" was only half of the song she had been playing. The other half was called "Perfectly Contented."
Jing-mei is still unhappy because she said something terrible to her mother and also recognizes the fact that she will never reach her mother's expectations.
Her greatest worry is that she will never become the object of recognition and admiration for her mother neither will she be happy by following her own path in life due to the lack of support by her mother.
This situation reveals that even though she wants to stand up for her life and rights, her character is still weak because at the end of the story she starts revising her old music sheets and start playing her old songs.
Chinese people are very traditional, and they consider disrespecting their parents as a sin which is hard to be pardoned even by themselves.
