Saturday, May 29, 2010
A Pair of Tickets
I really enjoyed "A Pair of Tickets". There is so much packed into this short story it is hard to know where to start. The theme of the story is that you can not run from who you are and your heritage. In the story, the main character desperately wants to NOT be Chinese but the story opens with her realization that her mother was right, " My mother was right. I am becoming Chinese"(157). The tone and the symbols that are used when the mother is talking during the story; the words are written to read as if someone of Chinese decent would be saying them. As the story continues we follow Jing-Mei travel back to China to meet her 2 sisters that she never knew she had. As much as Jing-Mei started off thinking she did not want to be anything resembling Chinese....the closer she gets to China the more "right" she feels. However everything in the story seems to clinic which Jing-Mies new found interest. When Jing-Mei and her father get to Guangzhou and meet up with her father's sister, she wants to enjoy "Chinese" things; the family, however, wants to stay at the hotel to eat hamburgers. Everything about their meal is American, "sharing hamburgers, french fries, and apple pie a' la mode". There is also the contrast in the descriptions of the train station at Guangzhou as seen here, "the landscape has become gray...." (160) and at the end of the story after the meeting of her two sisters in Shanghai it is describes as, "The gray-green surface changes to the bright colors of our three images..."(171). The importance of this is the transformation and acceptance that Jing-Mei goes through.
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Like Michelle I also really enjoyed this short story. The character realization of the importance of her background and heritage and the acceptance of who she was made her appreciate her mother insight in what was best for her. She never lost her American way to be and being in China with her father and describing her surrounds while traveling and meeting her relatives gave her a sense that she also belong there. Meeting her two sisters that her mother never lost hope to find was a dream come true. And the surrounds once gray and lifeless became colorful and full of hope. After she meet her sisters she realizes how much that moment meant in her mother's dreams and the greater transformation of her own life.
ReplyDeleteI also really enjoyed this story, "A Pair of Tickets" by Amy Tan. It was sad in the beginning of how the two sisters would never get the chance to meet their biological mother. But, as the story progressed it was a happy ending. June May was able to bond with these girls as if they were a true family. It was interesting that as she got to China she finally felt her true chinese culture instilled in her. The irony of her loving American food and then finding out her chinese family also loved American hamburgers and french friies was very catching. The ending of the story was perfect. I loved how they all embraced eachother and had the true sister connection and knew instantly that they belonged together as a family. It was very touching.
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