Two Kinds by Amy Tan

The short story Two Kinds by Amy Tan, revolves around a teenage girl named Ni Kan and
her mom who doesnt believe in her own child. The story commences with Ni Kan and her mother
moving to the San Francisco from China due to financial and family problems. Ni Kan believed that
America was the land of hope and that she could bring out her inner talents and exhibit it to the
whole world. However, whenever she thought good about herself, her mom brought down her selfesteem by comparing her to other children. For example, her mother tested her everyday on things
like memorising pages, doing mental maths and solving problems. Every time she got something
wrong, she would see her mothers disappointed face and felt bad about herself due to the failed
expectations (2) . Her moms attitude towards her changes Ni Kans way of looking at life. As after
these incidents she started looking down at herself and tried ignoring everything her mother told
her to do. Her mom had gone so far that Ni Kan had a breakdown and said Why dont you like me
the way I am? (2). However, later in the story there is a plot twist when Ni Kan failed in front of a
large group of people, her mother realised her mistakes and felt bad about it herself. After that
incident Ni Kans mother started believing in her. One interesting place where Amy Tan used
situational irony in her writing was when she named Ni Kans first piece Pleading Child (4), in
which she fails miserably. However, after her mom started believing in her the first music piece she
learned was Perfectly Contented (4).

Stories connect to real life but in my case, the story is just not connected but they are
parallel. As I too find myself torn between two worlds. Ni Kan was torn between being an obedient
child to her mother or following her own prodigy. Likewise, in my case Im torn between my
ethnicity. Im an Singapore PR who was born and brought up in India and studies at an American
School in Singapore. I believe in all the values I learnt in India for example filial piety, however I
also believe in the modern world values like freedom of speech. Another thing that mixes my
identity are the languages. As I speak Hindi and Bengali at home, English at school and learn
French as a forth language.