NAME : MOHAMAD ZAHID FAHMI BIN ZAKARIA

CLASS : PPISMP-1 MT 1

TWO KINDS (BY AMY TAN)
At the beginning of the story, the author tells us about how the Jing Meis mother
background and where she came from. The author describes the life of the Jing Meis
mother in detail. Jing Meis mother lost everything in China. She lost her mother, her
father, her family home, her first husband and two daughters, twin baby girls. But, she
never looked back with regret. Now, she lays all her hopes in America. And her hopes
are towards her daughter, Jing Mei, the only daughter that she has. She wanted Jing
Mei to be prodigy. She really wanted Jing Mei to be prodigy because she did not wanted
Jing Mei to be like her, a poor life. It is all about Americans dream.
Then, the exposition of the Two Kinds story started when Jing Meis mother
thinks her daughter could be a Chinese Shirley Temple. After that, to fulfill her
pretension, mothers Jing Mei sends Jing Mei to a beauty training school. At that school,
Jing Mei had cut her hair like Peter Pan haircut. Moreover, in the beginning, the author
told us that Jing Mei pleasant as her mother to be prodigy. She felt like that because
she imagine when she become perfect, her parents will homage her and will fulfill what
ever her willing. Then, her mother usually present her new test, taking examples in
Ripleys Believe It or Not or Good Housekeeping, Readers Digest and other
magazines. Furthermore, Jing Meis mother also tests Jing Mei with to guess what
capital of the other country. As the result, Jing Mei always mistaken to get the precisely
answer. The test became harder and more challenging for Jing Mei and she started
became oppressed. Jing Mei started felt bored and irritate on her mother test for her.
Because of that, she did not wanted tried to be prodigy again, she only wanted to be her
herself. Started from there, she fights her unsatisfied with her mothers order in deep.
After that moment passed by about two or three months, Jing Meis mother
seemed entranced by the music after she watching Ed Sullivan Show. At this moment,
Jing Mei realized that her mother was fascinated by the music. Three days after
watching Ed Sullivan Show, Jing Meis mother told the schedule of piano lessons and
piano practice that she must attend. Jing Mei was very angry about that because her
mother doing that without told her anything and scolded her mother. Because of that,
her mother slapped her. Then, her mother force her to attend the piano lessons and she
obey it at first although she really hate this lessons. Jing Mei learn played piano with her
neighbours, Mr. Chong. The author told us that Jing Mei describes her pianos teacher
Mr. Chong as nicknamed Old Chong was very strange. That is because he always
tapping his fingers to the silent music but in fact he was deaf. During the lessons, Jing
Mei usually did fault but she just ignored it without doing anything to resolve it. She
never listened to what she was playing. Jing Mei daydreamed about being somewhere
else, about being someone else.
On the next year, Jing Mei is giving an opportunity to perform a talent show which
would be held in the church hall. Her mother showed her desire that wanted Jing Mei to
be pianist very clearly by buying her a secondhand piano, a black Wurlitzer spinet with a
scarred bench for her. Although, she was very confident to perform a talent show by
playing piano, but she did not played well and perform very bad. Jing Mei felt so sad
about that incident while her parents felt very disappointed of her. In addition, Jing Mei
assume that her will never had to play piano again after this embarrassed incident but
unexpectedly two days later, her mother reminded her to go to the piano lessons. And
the climax started to begin, when Jing Mei express her unsatisfied feeling about her
mother. Jing Mei was very angry and started shouted to her mother. She became so
rude, when she blamed her mother for everything. She told to her mother that all
happen because of her mother misery. And she did not be a obey daughter like her
mother wanted. Her mother was disappointed, devastated and gave up hope of her
after Jing Mei said she wish she dead and being like her mothers daughters in China.
Besides that, after Jing Mei and her mother fight and quarrel, her mother never
mentioned Jing Mei to play piano again. The lessons of playing piano stopped and they
never talked with each other again. And a few years later, mothers Jing Mei surprised
Jing Mei by offering to give her a piano for her thirtieth birthday. Jing Mei mentioned that
the gift is the offer as a sign of forgiveness. Otherwise, her mother did not force Jing Mei
anymore to play piano again but she had given Jing Mei a motivated for her played
piano again.
After her mother died, Jing Mei came back to her parents apartment. And she
tuned the piano and started touched the keys and she conscious that is very good
piano. And she opened up the Schuman book to the dark little piece Jing Mei had
played at the recital. Jing Mei tried to play a song that had a lighter melody but the same
flowing rhythm and turned out to be quite easy. The song was called Perfectly
Contented that was longer, but faster melody. In addition, Jing Mei tried to play
Pleading Child that was shorter but slower. At this moment, after Jing Mei played them
both a few times, she realized that they were two halves of the same song.