Two Kinds: Quotes by Theme

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.

After failing her mother’s numerous impossible tests, Jing-mei looks in the mirror and searches for the prodigy within her. She is trying to figure out who she is, but she has no room for self-discovery as everything about her is driven by her mother’s expectations. When she cannot meet these expectations, Jing-mei defines herself only by her failures. She feels that in order to maintain her individuality, she must rebel. The strongest emotion she feels in this moment is anger, and because she is a child who does not yet understand herself, she believes her anger and disobedience are the characteristics that make her special.

‘Only two kinds of daughters,’ she shouted in Chinese. ‘Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind! Only one kind of daughter can live in this house. Obedient daughter!’

In the emotional climax of the story, Jing-mei’s mother reaches her breaking point with her daughter’s disobedience. She speaks these words in Chinese perhaps because she is so overcome with emotion that she must speak in her native tongue in order to express herself. The American ideology of individualism represented by Jing-mei clashes with the value of obedience that stems from her mother’s Chinese culture. Jing-mei’s resistance to her mother’s demand for obedience shows the clashing of two cultures and ideals. This statement also places Jing-mei’s mother’s history and all she lost in China at the forefront prior to Jing-mei’s stinging blow.

Miscommunication and Misunderstanding

My mother slapped me. ‘Who ask you be genius?’ she shouted. ‘Only ask you be your best. For you sake. You think I want you be genius? Hnnh! What for! Who ask you!’

Jing-mei’s mother speaks this quote after Jing-mei protests the arrangement for her to take piano lessons. Jing-mei had previously hoped her lack of interest in her mother’s tests might have squashed the expectation that she could become be a prodigy, and that her individuality has won. Her mother’s hopes appear to reignite when she sees the Chinese girl playing piano on TV and decides that Jing-mei must take piano lessons. In her pursuit to encourage her daughter to try, Jing-mei’s mother uses the word prodigy, but she misunderstands the word’s meaning and therefore sets unattainable expectations for Jing-mei. In her anger and frustration, she also sets a communication barrier for her daughter in suggesting that her opinions on the subject hold no value. This interaction demonstrates how the two characters struggle to communicate and often misunderstand the others’ intentions.

And for all those years, we never talked about the disaster at the recital or my terrible accusations afterward at the piano bench. All that remained unchecked, like a betrayal that was now unspeakable. So I never found a way to ask her why she had hoped for something so large that failure was inevitable.

And even worse, I never asked her what frightened me the most: Why had she given up hope?

Jing-mei has transitioned to adulthood and has finally come to an understanding of herself that is separate from her mother’s influence. With this separation and the perspective of time, she reconsiders the defining moment in her relationship with her mother in which she tried to thwart her mother’s dreams. Because Jing-mei’s mother does not open up to her daughter, Jing-mei never figured out how to communicate and resolve their underlying tension. Furthermore, she spent much of her formative years ensuring that her mother gave up hope, yet her adult self now fears the repercussions of her childhood behavior. In this moment of adulthood, Jing-mei is unsure how her mother feels, and she doesn’t know how to talk to her about her own feelings.

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