Two Kinds
A Chinese immigrant mother is sure her daughter can become a prodigy, and the daughter is just as sure she will not, until a piano recital forces both of them to find out.
Jing-mei’s mother believes that in America you can be anything you want, and she is determined that her daughter will be a genius at something. First it is a child star, then a quiz-show brain, then a concert pianist. Jing-mei is tired of failing her mother’s tests and decides to stop trying. The piano lessons with a deaf old teacher, a disastrous talent show, and a fight in which each says the unforgivable thing all follow. Years later, sitting at the same piano, Jing-mei notices something about two pieces of music she never saw as a child.
What happens in Two Kinds
Jing-mei Woo, the narrator, looks back on her childhood in San Francisco. Her mother emigrated from China in 1949 after losing her parents, her home, her first husband, and two baby daughters, and she believes that in America her daughter can become anything. When Jing-mei is small, her mother first tries to make her a Shirley Temple, then quizzes her nightly with facts and puzzles from magazines, hoping to discover a hidden talent. Jing-mei fails test after test and, seeing her own disappointed face in the mirror, resolves not to let her mother change her. After watching a young Chinese pianist on television, her mother arranges piano lessons with Mr. Chong, a retired teacher who lives downstairs and is deaf. Jing-mei discovers she can play sloppily without being caught and never practices properly. Her mother enters her in a talent show at their church, where she plays a short Schumann piece, Pleading Child, from memory and makes mistake after mistake in front of family friends, including Auntie Lindo, whose daughter Waverly is a chess champion. Jing-mei is humiliated, and her mother’s silence afterward is worse than anger. Two days later her mother orders her to practice as usual. Jing-mei refuses, and in the fight that follows she shouts that she wishes she were not her daughter and wishes she were dead like the babies her mother lost in China. Her mother goes silent and never mentions the piano again. As Jing-mei grows up she keeps disappointing her mother’s hopes in school and beyond. On her thirtieth birthday her mother offers her the piano, and after her mother’s death Jing-mei has it tuned. Opening the old music book, she finds Pleading Child and, on the facing page, a piece called Perfectly Contented, and realizes the two are halves of the same song.
Where and when Two Kinds happens
San Francisco’s Chinatown
The neighborhood where Jing-mei grows up among other immigrant families who compare their children’s achievements.
The family apartment
Where the tests, the practice, and the fight happen, and where the piano stands for decades.
The church hall
The site of the talent show and Jing-mei’s public failure.
The 1950s and 1960s, then decades later
A childhood in postwar America, looked back on after the mother’s death.
Timeline the story arc, beat by beat
- Hope You can be anything
Jing-mei’s mother, who lost everything in China, believes her daughter can become a prodigy in America.
- Tests Searching for talent
Her mother quizzes her nightly, and Jing-mei, tired of failing, decides she will not be changed.
- Lessons Old Mr. Chong
Jing-mei takes piano lessons from a deaf teacher and learns she can get away with not practicing.
- The recital Pleading Child
At a church talent show she plays badly in front of family friends and is humiliated.
- The fight The unforgivable words
When ordered to practice, Jing-mei says she wishes she were dead like the babies her mother lost.
- Years later The piano offered
Her mother offers her the piano on her thirtieth birthday, and the gift feels like forgiveness.
- Recognition Two halves
After her mother’s death, Jing-mei plays Pleading Child and Perfectly Contented and sees they belong together.
Characters and how they connect
Jing-mei Woo
Narrator
A daughter who resists her mother’s ambitions for her and, as an adult, begins to understand what her mother wanted.
Jing-mei’s mother
Immigrant mother
A Chinese immigrant shaped by devastating loss, whose faith in her daughter’s potential feels like pressure to the child.
Mr. Chong
Piano teacher
A deaf retired teacher whose lessons let Jing-mei avoid real effort.
Auntie Lindo
Family friend
A friend and rival who boasts about her own daughter’s success.
Waverly
Auntie Lindo’s daughter
A chess prodigy about Jing-mei’s age, the standard Jing-mei is measured against.
Uncle Tin
Waverly’s father
A family friend in the audience at the talent show, part of the watching community.
Character Relationships who connects to whom, and the themes that bind them
Family
Rivalry / conflict
Connection
Themes in Two Kinds what the story is really about
Mothers and daughters
The story centers on love expressed as pressure and received as rejection, and on how long it can take to understand a parent.
The American dream
The mother believes America offers unlimited possibility, and she places that belief on her daughter’s shoulders.
Identity and self-determination
Jing-mei insists on being herself rather than the prodigy her mother imagines, and the title names the two kinds of daughter at stake.
Cultural difference
The mother’s expectations reflect her Chinese upbringing and her losses, while Jing-mei’s resistance reflects her American childhood.
Regret and reconciliation
Only after her mother’s death does Jing-mei see the connection between the two pieces of music and, by extension, between herself and her mother.
Symbols & motifs
The piano
It represents the mother’s hopes and the daughter’s resistance, and later, offered as a gift, a gesture of forgiveness.
Pleading Child and Perfectly Contented
The two short pieces, printed on facing pages, stand for the two sides of Jing-mei and of her relationship with her mother.
The mirror
When Jing-mei sees her own face after a failed test, she recognizes a self her mother cannot shape.
The lost babies
The daughters her mother left in China represent the grief underneath her ambitions for Jing-mei.
Recurring motifs
Tests and performance. Quizzes, lessons, and the talent show make Jing-mei’s childhood a series of trials.
Silence. The mother’s silences after the recital and the fight hurt more than any argument.
Comparison. Jing-mei is constantly measured against Waverly and against an imagined perfect daughter.
Conflicts
Person vs. person
Jing-mei and her mother clash over who Jing-mei should be.
Person vs. self
Jing-mei wonders whether she failed because she lacked talent or because she refused to try.
Person vs. society
The immigrant community’s competition over children’s success adds pressure to the family conflict.
Literary devices
- First-person retrospective narration
- The adult Jing-mei tells the story, combining a child’s resentment with an adult’s understanding.
- Symbolism
- The piano and the paired pieces of music carry the story’s meaning.
- Irony
- The recital meant to prove Jing-mei’s genius exposes her lack of practice in front of everyone.
- Title as theme
- Two Kinds refers to the mother’s idea of obedient and disobedient daughters, and to the two halves of Jing-mei.
- Epiphany
- The final recognition about the two songs gives the story its resolution.
The ending of Two Kinds, explained
The ending of Two Kinds moves from a bitter fight to a quiet recognition that comes too late to share. After the recital, Jing-mei’s refusal to practice leads to the worst moment of the story, when she tells her mother she wishes she were dead like the daughters her mother lost in China. Her mother stops insisting on the piano and never raises it again, and the silence hangs over the rest of Jing-mei’s life, through the many other ways she disappoints her. Years later, on Jing-mei’s thirtieth birthday, her mother offers her the piano. Jing-mei takes the offer as a sign of forgiveness, and it lifts a weight she has carried for decades, though she does not take the piano at once. After her mother dies, Jing-mei has it tuned and sits down to play. She finds the Schumann piece she botched as a child, Pleading Child, and discovers on the facing page another short piece she never paid attention to, Perfectly Contented. Playing both, she realizes they are two halves of the same song. The discovery works on several levels. The pleading child is the girl who wanted to be accepted as she was, and the contented one is the woman who can now look back with understanding. The two pieces also mirror mother and daughter, who seemed opposed but belonged to the same piece. The ending does not say the mother was right to push so hard; it suggests that the conflict and the love were never separate, and that Jing-mei had to lose her mother to see the whole of it.
Common misreadings
MythJing-mei’s mother only wants fame and bragging rights.
ActuallyHer ambitions grow out of devastating losses in China and a belief that America offers her daughter chances she never had.
MythJing-mei has no musical ability.
ActuallyThe story leaves open whether she lacked talent or simply refused to practice. Mr. Chong’s deafness let her avoid finding out.
MythTwo Kinds is a separate book.
ActuallyIt is one of the linked stories in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club (1989).
Test yourself
1. Why does Jing-mei’s mother believe her daughter can be anything?
Her faith in America’s opportunities drives her ambitions.
2. What is unusual about Mr. Chong?
His deafness lets Jing-mei play carelessly without correction.
3. What piece does Jing-mei play at the talent show?
She performs the Schumann piece badly in front of family friends.
4. What does Jing-mei say during the fight?
Her words silence her mother on the subject of the piano.
5. What does Jing-mei discover at the end?
The two pieces become a symbol of her reconciliation with her mother.
Jing-mei’s mom moved to America after losing her family in China, and she believes her daughter can become a genius at something. She tests Jing-mei constantly and signs her up for piano lessons with a teacher who cannot hear well, so Jing-mei barely practices. At a talent show, Jing-mei plays terribly in front of everyone. When her mom tells her to keep practicing, they have a huge fight, and Jing-mei says something very hurtful. Years later, after her mom dies, Jing-mei plays the old piano and notices that the song she messed up and the song next to it are really two halves of one song, just like her and her mom.
Flashcards flip, self-grade, and the deck remembers what you know
Nice work.
Compare & connect the story universe
Everyday Use
A mother and two daughters disagree about heritage and what it means to be successful.
Girl
A mother’s instructions reveal both love and pressure in a daughter’s upbringing.
Sonny’s Blues
Music becomes the way a family member is finally understood.
The Scarlet Ibis
A family member pushes a child to become something he cannot be, with painful consequences.
Adaptation. The Joy Luck Club (1993, Film directed by Wayne Wang).
Discussion & essay prompts for class, or your next paper
💬 Discussion questions
- What does the title Two Kinds mean
- Why does Jing-mei’s mother want her to be a prodigy
- What is the significance of Pleading Child and Perfectly Contented
- How does Two Kinds explore the theme of mothers and daughters?
- How does Two Kinds explore the theme of the American dream?
- What is the central conflict in Two Kinds, and how does it shape the ending?
✎ Essay prompts
- Analyze how Amy Tan develops the theme of mothers and daughters in Two Kinds. Support your argument with specific evidence from the text.
- Examine the significance of the piano in Two Kinds. What does it represent, and how does it deepen the work’s meaning?
- How does Amy Tan use first-person retrospective narration to shape the reader’s experience of Two Kinds?
- Some readers assume that jing-mei’s mother only wants fame and bragging rights. Argue for or against this interpretation, using evidence from the text.
Key questions students ask
- What does the title Two Kinds mean
- Why does Jing-mei’s mother want her to be a prodigy
- What is the significance of Pleading Child and Perfectly Contented
- What happens at the talent show in Two Kinds
- How does the piano symbolize the relationship in Two Kinds
- What does Jing-mei realize at the end of Two Kinds
Analysis is original StoryBites commentary on Two Kinds by Amy Tan (1989). The text is under copyright and is summarized and analyzed in our own words, not reproduced.