A Pair Of Tickets

4 Pages 989 Words

“A Pair of Tickets”

This particular literary work utilizes the theme of Chinese-American life, focusing mainly on a mother-daughter relationship where the mother is an immigrant from China and the daughter is thoroughly Americanized—yellow on the surface and white underneath. The mother tries to convey their rich history and legacy to Jing-Mei, who is almost completely ignorant of their heritage, while the daughter attempts to understand her hopelessly old-fashioned mother, who now seems to harbor a secret wisdom, who in the end, is right about everything all along. Although she is not born and raised in China, as her mother, Jing Mei Woo now has a better understanding of she and her mother’s life.
When her mother tells her that she would come of a realization of her Chinese blood, she does not believe it. Living in San Francisco, she had at age fifteen, “vigorously denied that I had and Chinese whatsoever below my skin”(pg. 168). When her mother speaks of Jing Mei someday understanding where she comes from, Jing Mei as a teenager has vivid imaginations of herself somehow mutating into someone of Chinese orientation. Now she is thirty-six years old. As in real life, maturity occurs from adolescence to adulthood. Jing Mei’s mother has passed away. It isn’t until then that she finally realizes that, “I have never really known what it really means to be Chinese” (pg. 169). It is at this point that the reader begins to see that Jing Mei is becoming a dynamic character. She has waited a long time to connect with her Chinese heritage. It is only after learning that she has two half-sisters, and of her mother’s wish for them to someday be united, that Jing-Mei is willing to visit China. Her demeanor transforms from not wanting to know of her Chinese heritage growing up, to possessing a profound interest in the matter as an adult.
When they arrive in China, Jing Mei starts to feel that, “Maybe it is ...