The short story Two Kinds by Amy Tan shows the competitive and complicated relationship between a Chinese mother and daughter. In the story there are themes as expectations, hope, acceptance, rebellion, the American Dream and finding your own identity. When reading the short story, you find out that the title Two Kinds refers to the mothers view on the perfect child: “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!”
The short story takes place in America, where the mother moved to in 1949, after losing her entire family in China. The mother believes that you can be anything you want to be in America, and that you can come from nothing and then become very successful. Therefore, she has very high hopes for her daughter, Jing-Mei Woo. More than everything in the world she wants Jing-Mei to become famous or at least a child prodigy. The mother is not precisely sure where her daughters talents lie, therefore she tests Jing-Mei in things like acting and intelligence hoping to find her hidden talent, but without any success. Afterwards she forces Jing-Mei to take piano lessons, but when the time comes for her performance, she fails. Afterwards the relationship between mother and daughter gets more tense, and their conflict goes unresolved for years.
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