The story took place in San Francisco in 1969 in China town. The
characters were Amy Tan, Amy’s mother, Mr. Chong, Auntie Lindo, and uncle Tie.
The main character was Amy Tam; she was a Chinese American girl whose doesn't
speak Chinese. The main idea of this story is about how Amy and her mom had
different personality. Amy’s mother was from China, she came to the America in
1949 and she worked as housekeeper. Amy’s mother was an ambitious person who
had dreams and always thought that in America anything could be possible, like
becoming rich or becoming an artist. She always wanted Amy to be good at
everything not caring if Amy was happy for what she was making her do. She
would look for ways like reading books or watching shows to find ways to
encourage Amy to learn new things because she wanted Amy to be some kind of
prodigy kid like the ones on TV show or magazines. First, Amy’s mother became
obsessed with the Shirley temple show and though maybe one day her daughter
could be like that. She thought it would be a good idea that Amy would look
like Shirley and took her to the training Beauty shop where a new person would
try to make Amy’s hair look like Shirley, but because she was just learning
Amy’s hair looked ugly and nappy so to fix it the instructor had to cut her
hair like a boy. Next, after watching the Ed Sullivan Show Amy’s mother though
learning how to play the piano was something Amy would be able to do. Amy’s
mother worked cleaning houses and one of her customers was an old music
teacher, his name was Mr. Chong, but the only problem was he was deaf. Amy’s
mother asked the Mr. Chong to give piano lessons to Amy and she would clean his
house for free. Mr. Chong started giving piano lessons to Amy, he always tell
her she was doing good , because he couldn't really hear how bad Amy was
playing the piano. After a few weeks later Mr. Chong and Amy’s mother believe
that Amy play the piano good enough to go to a talent show, so Amy’s mother
took her to the talent show. Amy did not liked to play the piano, but the day of
the talent show she was happy about how beautiful was everything and how lovely
she looked, that she wasn't worried about playing the piano. The day of the
talent show Amy felt confident, because Mr. Chong would always tell her that
she would play the piano perfectly. When Amy finished playing the piano
everyone was quiet, except for Mr. Chong who was the only one applauding and
Amy knew that she didn't do good, she was really scared of her mother. Amy’s
mother did not said anything to Amy about how bad she did on the talent show,
so Amy though because of how bad she did on the Talent show she would never
have to play the piano again. After two days later Amy and her mother had a big
fight because Amy did not wanted to go again to the piano lessons. Amy told her
mom that she was not a genius child and that she would never be the kind of
daughter she want her to be, but because Amy’s mother only wanted the obedient
kind of daughter to live in her house Amy wished she wasn't her daughter and
also she wish she was never born like that other babies that her mother had
lost in China. This fight it was not the only time that Amy disappointed her
mother, she also dropped out of college, she never became class president and
never got into Stanford. Amy’s mother always though Amy could be anything if
she really wanted too, but Amy just wanted to be herself. Years later after
Amy’s mother died, Amy restored the piano because she thought it was a nice
thing to do since her mom gave it to her as a gift when she turned thirty.
After the piano was restored she tried to play the same notes she tried to play
at the talent show and found out these were not as hard as they seemed to be
back then.
