Previous Next

At the onset of the story, Jing-mei is a young child eager to please her mother and match her unattainable hopes and dreams, but she quickly becomes disillusioned. When Jing-mei is first introduced, her mother compares her to her friend’s daughter, Waverly, who is a chess prodigy. Immediately, Jing-mei is defined by her mother’s expectations. However, Jing-mei is thrilled that her mother believes she can be a prodigy, and she becomes caught up in the fun of watching Shirley Temple on TV and believing that she will share the young star’s fame. She is too young to understand that achieving such fame is unrealistic. Jing-mei believes that if she looks like Temple, she will be transformed into a prodigy. When her hair makeover fails, Jing-mei feels like her mother blames her for the mistake, and this first failure signals the beginning of her lifelong resentment. Jing-mei understands that she cannot be this blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl, symbolic of the American cultural ideal, and when her mother critiques her appearance, Jing-mei feels shame for all the things she cannot control. With her new haircut that resembles Peter Pan, a character who never grew up, she feels pride in her appearance once again.  

As Jing-mei’s mother finds new examples from American culture to guide Jing-mei’s assimilation, Jing-mei becomes defined by feelings of shame and anger in order to maintain her individuality. She feels that she is not good enough, not pretty enough, and not smart enough. She hates herself for feeling this way, and these feelings are directly tied to her mother’s aspirations of fulfilling the American Dream. Jing-mei understands she will never be like the wunderkind examples her mother chooses for her to emulate, and in order to regain control of herself the only way she knows how, she decides to become the opposite of what her mother wants. It is harder to see her mother’s disappointment in her repeated failures knowing she tried her best than it is to fail knowing her failure is a choice. As a result, Jing-mei defines herself through anger and disobedience, and she punishes her mother with a lifetime of disappointments.

Previous section Character List Next section Jing-mei's Mother

Take a Study Break