And after seeing, once again, my mother’s disappointed face, something inside me began to die. I hated the tests, the raised hopes and failed expectations.
When an individual is forced to conform to the expectations set by their guardians, it causes the individual to become miserable, and therefore rebel against these expectations, forming their true identity.
“Two Kinds” is a coming-of-age story, in which the narrator, Jing-mei, struggles to forge her own sense of identity in the face of her strong-willed mother’s dream that she become a “prodigy.” Jing-mei is caught between her Chinese mother’s traditional ideas about how to raise a daughter and her own development as a Chinese American girl straddling two cultures. Like many immigrants to the United States, Jing-mei’s mother has created idealized visions of her adopted country as a land of opportunity where all dreams may be realized. The first line of the story introduces this central idea: “My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America.” Having absorbed idealized visions of the “American Dream” from television and other forms of mass media, Jing-mei’s mother manages to fabricate a seemingly endless supply of success fantasies for her daughter. Each new inspiration about the nature of her daughter’s destiny to become a “prodigy” is sparked by what she sees on television, reads in women’s magazines, or reads about in such mass-market publications as Ripley’s Believe-it-or-Not. Jing-mei soon finds that her mother’s determination that she becomes a prodigy threatens to stifle her own sense of who she is. Ironically, it is out of defiance against her mother that she ultimately does forge her own sense of personal identity. Jing-mei’s sense of failure to embody her mother’s hopes and dreams is at first distressful to her: I hated the tests, the raised hopes and failed expectations. When she looks in the mirror one night, she sees only her mother’s vision of her as a failure and a disappointment:
I looked in the mirror above the bathroom sink and when I saw only my face staring back—and that it would always be this ordinary face—I began to cry. Such a sad, ugly girl!
The face Jing-mei first sees in the mirror is the face of who she is in her mother’s eyes. “Trying to scratch out the face in the mirror” symbolizes her attempt to erase or obliterate her mother’s image of her as a failure. Through this acknowledgment to herself that she is not the person her mother wants her to be, she begins to glimpse an image of her own definition of herself emerging from the mirror.
And then I saw what seemed to be the prodigy side of me—because I had never seen that face before. I looked at my reflection, blinking so I could see more clearly. The girl staring back at me was angry, powerful. This girl and I were the same. I had new thoughts, willful thoughts, or rather thoughts filled with lots of won’ts. I won’t let her change me, I promised myself. I won’t be what I’m not.
Through this insight, Jing-mei for the first time articulates her determination to live by her own self-definition, rather than those ill-fitting “selves” her mother continues to impose upon her. As the story progresses, Jing-mei becomes more and more openly defiant against her mother’s wishes. Later, when her mother insists that she continue to attend piano lessons after she has made it clear that the piano is not her calling, Jing-mei further strengthens her resolve not to conform to her mother’s wishes. This is also an important moment in the development of Jing-mei’s cultural identity. For the first time, she articulates her resistance to her mother in terms of the cultural gap between her mother’s traditional Chinese ideas about daughters being obedient and her own perspective as a strong-willed Chinese American girl. When her mother continues to insist that she attend her piano lesson, Jing-mei becomes openly defiant. Through this assertion of her own will against her mother, Jing-mei strengthens her sense of personal identity in opposition to her mother. Jing-mei begins to sense the emergence of her true, inner self.
Citations:
Image 1 – https://walifromthebx.medium.com/anxiety-can-make-you-feel-like-a-goddamn-pressure-cooker-c8b9ecf01e36
Image 2 – https://www.dreamstime.com/cartoon-sad-depressed-man-looking-himself-mirror-cartoon-stick-drawing-conceptual-illustration-sad-depressed-man-image129384624
Image 3 – https://www.wrschool.net/cms/lib/AZ02214740/Centricity/Domain/1613/TWO%20KINDS%20Text.pdf
Over the last five years, I have lived this thesis statement, but only within the last two years have I been aware of it. In my early years, I was very comfortable in my own skin. Like many other children, I never felt pressured about who I was going to be, and never felt confused about who I was at that time. But as middle school began, I slowly became increasingly self conscious. Throughout sixth grade, I found myself focusing on my reflection in the mirror rather than brushing my teeth when I woke up. Throughout seventh grade, I reflected on my academic achievements. In eighth grade, I took time to think about my spirituality and how I was connected to my religious beliefs. By the end of those four years, I was a completely different person because I naturally grew. But I also reflected on the person I was(in different aspects of life), and put that person in the past. Fast forward to the second semester of ninth grade. I realized I had been, and still was, going through an identity crisis. At that time, I didn’t know who I was because I no longer was the little kid in elementary school, but I also wasn’t the same middle school teen. I wasn’t fond of my bad study habits I formed in high school, and I definitely wasn’t sure of who I was going to be. In response to this identity crisis, I consciously took strides to become a better person by creating goals and committing to them. There was a difference between my reaction to an identity crisis in high school. Instead of solely putting away my former self, I focused on improving myself. I am incredibly proud to say that I’ve left my identity crisis and am satisfied with the person I am today. However, I’m still doing my best to grow in all aspects of my life.