Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Summary of Two Kinds by Amy Tam

     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.