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    A Pair of Ticket

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    Indah Sulistiawati
    1) Jing-mei travels to China with her father to meet her two half-sisters for the first time. Their mother, Suyuan, had been forced to abandon the two girls during a war in China over 70 years ago. 2) Upon arriving in China, they are greeted by relatives and stay in a fancy hotel. However, the family prefers to eat American food in their hotel room. 3) Her father explains the meaning behind Jing-mei and her mother Suyuan's names. He then shares the story of how Suyuan was forced to abandon the two baby girls during the war due to extreme hardship. 4) The two baby girls were

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    A Pair of Ticket

    Uploaded by

    Indah Sulistiawati
    2K views4 pages
    1) Jing-mei travels to China with her father to meet her two half-sisters for the first time. Their mother, Suyuan, had been forced to abandon the two girls during a war in China over 70 years ago. 2) Upon arriving in China, they are greeted by relatives and stay in a fancy hotel. However, the family prefers to eat American food in their hotel room. 3) Her father explains the meaning behind Jing-mei and her mother Suyuan's names. He then shares the story of how Suyuan was forced to abandon the two baby girls during the war due to extreme hardship. 4) The two baby girls were

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    A PAIR OF TICKET

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    1) Jing-mei travels to China with her father to meet her two half-sisters for the first time. Their mother, Suyuan, had been forced to abandon the two girls during a war in China over 70 years ago. 2) Upon arriving in China, they are greeted by relatives and stay in a fancy hotel. However, the family prefers to eat American food in their hotel room. 3) Her father explains the meaning behind Jing-mei and her mother Suyuan's names. He then shares the story of how Suyuan was forced to abandon the two baby girls during the war due to extreme hardship. 4) The two baby girls were

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    2K views4 pages

    A Pair of Ticket

    Uploaded by

    Indah Sulistiawati
    1) Jing-mei travels to China with her father to meet her two half-sisters for the first time. Their mother, Suyuan, had been forced to abandon the two girls during a war in China over 70 years ago. 2) Upon arriving in China, they are greeted by relatives and stay in a fancy hotel. However, the family prefers to eat American food in their hotel room. 3) Her father explains the meaning behind Jing-mei and her mother Suyuan's names. He then shares the story of how Suyuan was forced to abandon the two baby girls during the war due to extreme hardship. 4) The two baby girls were

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    A PAIR OF TICKET

    by Amy Tan

    Jing-mei is on a train to China, traveling with her seventy-


    two-year-old father, Canning Woo. As the train enters
    Shenzhen, China, Jing-mei begins to "feel Chinese." Their
    first stop will be Guangzhou. Like her father, Jing-mei is
    weeping for joy. After her mother's death, a letter arrived
    from China from her mother's twin daughters from her
    first marriage. These were the two children whom she
    was forced to abandon on the side of the road in 1944.
    Jing-mei's father asked Auntie Lindo to write back to the
    girls and tell them that their mother was dead. Instead,
    Auntie Lindo took the letter to the Joy Luck Club.
    Together, the women answered the letter, signing
    Suyuan Woo's name to it. Jing-mei agrees that she
    should be the one to tell her half-sisters about their
    mother's death. But after dreaming about the scene
    many times, she begs Auntie Lindo to write a letter to the
    sisters explaining that their mother is dead. Auntie Lindo
    does so.
    The train pulls into the station, and the visitors are met
    by Canning's great-aunt. The reunion is emotional. Other
    relatives join them. Jing-mei wins her young cousin Lili
    over with instant photographs from her Polaroid camera.
    They soon arrive at a magnificent hotel, much grander
    than Jing-mei had expected. Jing-mei is anxious to have
    her first real Chinese feast; however, the native-born
    Chinese family decides that they want to eat American —
    hamburgers, French fries, and apple pie à la mode in the
    hotel room.
    Late that night, Canning explains that his wife's name,
    "Suyuan," has two different meanings, depending on
    how it is written. Written one way, it means "Long-
    Cherished Wish"; written another way, it means "Long-
    Held Grudge." He further explains that Jing-mei's name
    means that she is, first, a pure essence, and second, that
    she is a younger sister. Her name makes her the essence
    of her two sisters. He then tells her the story of how her
    mother, Suyuan, abandoned Jing-mei's half-sisters.

    Suyuan walked for three days, hoping to escape the


    Japanese invasion. Her hands began to bleed from the
    weight of her heavy possessions and that of her
    daughters. She dropped her possessions one by one,
    continuing to trudge on until she was delirious with pain
    and fever. She finally fell by the side of the road. Despite
    her entreaties, no one would take the babies.

    Having no other choice, she stuffed jewelry under the


    shirt of one baby, money under the shirt of the other.
    Then she put in family pictures and a note and left her
    daughters to see if she could find food. Soon she fainted
    and awoke in the back of a truck filled with sick people
    who were being tended by American missionaries. When
    she arrived in Chungking, she learned that her husband
    was dead. She met Canning Woo in the hospital.

    The abandoned babies were found by a kindly peasant


    couple, who raised the girls as their own. When the girls
    were eight years old, their foster parents tried to find
    their parents. They located the address of the children's
    home, but now it was a factory. Meanwhile, Suyuan and
    Canning had returned to try to find the girls, but their
    attempts proved fruitless. In 1949, they left for America,
    but Suyuan never abandoned hope. After she died, a
    schoolmate saw the twins in a department store and
    tried to contact Suyuan in America.
    Jing-mei sees her sisters as she enters the terminal. At
    first, they look just like her mother. Later, she sees no
    trace of her mother — yet the women still look familiar.
    She sees in them the part of her that is Chinese. Her
    father takes a picture of the three girls; they look at the
    Polaroid photograph, and they see that together, they all
    look like their mother.

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