Jing-Mei constantly bickered with her mother, especially considering how insatiable her mother’s hope was. Suyuan endlessly forced Jing-Mei to attempt different hobbies, to see if Jing-Mei was withholding a hidden talent that just had to be discovered. This misunderstanding led to much tension between the pair, ultimately exploding after Jing-Mei’s mortifying piano recital. “‘Then I wish I’d never been born!’ I shouted. ‘I wish I were dead! Like them.’ It was if I had said the magic words. Alakazam!...and she backed out of the room, stunned, as if she were blowing away like a small brown leaf, thin, brittle, lifeless” (Tan 142). Even though it may have seemed that it was impossible to recover from such an insult, Suyuan decided to give the piano to Jing-Mei for her thirtieth birthday in order to make amends. Suyuan used to force Jing-Mei to take all sorts of lessons, but as Suyuan faced trial after trial, she finally began to realize that Jing-Mei simply wasn’t meant to be a child prodigy. Overall, however, Suyuan didn’t appear to be particularly good at adapting to American culture, as evidenced by her broken English and unwillingness to relinquish her tight hold on Chinese
Jing-Mei constantly bickered with her mother, especially considering how insatiable her mother’s hope was. Suyuan endlessly forced Jing-Mei to attempt different hobbies, to see if Jing-Mei was withholding a hidden talent that just had to be discovered. This misunderstanding led to much tension between the pair, ultimately exploding after Jing-Mei’s mortifying piano recital. “‘Then I wish I’d never been born!’ I shouted. ‘I wish I were dead! Like them.’ It was if I had said the magic words. Alakazam!...and she backed out of the room, stunned, as if she were blowing away like a small brown leaf, thin, brittle, lifeless” (Tan 142). Even though it may have seemed that it was impossible to recover from such an insult, Suyuan decided to give the piano to Jing-Mei for her thirtieth birthday in order to make amends. Suyuan used to force Jing-Mei to take all sorts of lessons, but as Suyuan faced trial after trial, she finally began to realize that Jing-Mei simply wasn’t meant to be a child prodigy. Overall, however, Suyuan didn’t appear to be particularly good at adapting to American culture, as evidenced by her broken English and unwillingness to relinquish her tight hold on Chinese