Amy Tan's A Pair Of Tickets

655 Words3 Pages
According to Scaliger, humans have should and hearts and seek meaning beyond material things, unlike the citizens in 1984 whom are portrayed as mindless machines. We seek this meaning from things, for example, independence, growth and a God, which can be delayed or prevented. However, there are things like spirituality, love, and independent action and thought that cannot be eliminated completely. A person is most influenced by what they are constantly around. For Jing Mei in “A Pair of Tickets”, growing up in America kept her from experiencing and truly accepting her Chinese culture. It is not until her mother dies that she and her father travel to China to reconnect with family. “A Pair of Tickets” tell of a woman who travels to China to experience her mom’s long cherished wish, and…show more content…
When Jing Mei departs from Hong Kong, she says she is “becoming Chinese” (Tan 147). With this sentence, the reader knows that she will, in fact, succumb to her roots and reclaim her heritage. However, she struggles throughout the entire story to discover her true feelings right until the very last paragraph. A key reason that Jing Mei struggles to embrace her Chinese roots is that she is scared that her sisters will not accept her. She is afraid that when they see her they will “hate her” (Tan 149). Also, when she arrives to meet her sisters, she “awakes with her heart pounding in her throat” (Tan 159). Along the way Jing Mei makes efforts to connect with her Chinese family. For example, when she tries to talk Chinese to Lili and fails to think of the right words, she takes pictures (Tan 152). Also, when her father and aunt are talking about her mother and their past in China, she becomes very interested and asks questions like “What does Ma’s name mean” and “What does Jing-mei’ mean” (Tan 155). In the last paragraph, Jing Mei rediscovers her Chinese heritage knowing all along it never left, it was “in her blood” (Tan

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