Two Kinds by Amy Tan

Chinese immigration to the USA goes back a long way. In the middle of the last century, Chinese coolies were brought over to help build the transcontinental railway linking the eastern and western states. Such vast numbers of Chinese immigrants kept coming that legislation barring Chinese from entry was passed by Congress in 1882. About sixty years later, during World War II, these laws were repealed, and the civil war in China leading to the Communist take-over in 1949 made new waves of Chinese immigrants seek refuge in the USA.

Part one


My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. You could open a restaurant. You could work for the government and get good retirement. You could buy a house with almost no money down. You could become rich. You could become instantly famous.


«Of course you can be prodigy, too» my mother told me when I was nine. «You can be best anything. »


America was where all my mother's hopes lay. She had come here in 1949 after losing everything in China: her mother and father, her family home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin baby girls. But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better.


We didn't immediately pick the right kind of prodigy. At first my mother thought I could be a Chinese Shirley Temple. We'd watch Shirley's old movies on TV as though they were training films. My mother would poke my arm and say, «Ni kan» - You watch. And I would see Shirley tapping her feet, or singing a sailor song, or pursing her lips into a very round 0 while saying, «Oh my goodness.»


«Ni kan,» said my mother as Shirley's eyes flooded with tears. «You already know how. Don't need talent for crying!»


Every night after dinner, my mother and I would sit at the Formica kitchen table. She would present new tests, taking her examples from stories of amazing children she had read in Ripley's Believe It or Not, or Good Housekeeping, Reader's Digest, and a dozen other magazines she kept in a pile in our bathroom. My mother got these magazines from people whose houses she cleaned. And since she cleaned many houses each week, we had a great assortment. She would look through them all, searching for stories about remarkable children.


The first night she brought out a story about a three-year-old boy who knew the capitals of all the states and even most of the European countries. A teacher was quoted as saying the little boy could also pronounce the names of the foreign cities correctly.


«What's the capital of Finland?» my mother asked me, looking at the magazine story.


All I knew was the capital of California, because Sacramento was the name of the street we lived on in Chinatown. «Nairobi! » I guessed, saying the most foreign word I could think of. She checked to see if that could possibly be one way to pronounce «Helsinki» before showing me the answer.


The tests got harder – multiplying numbers in my head, finding the queen of hearts in a deck of cards, trying to stand on my head without using my hands, predicting the daily temperatures in Los Angeles, New York, and London.


One night I had to look at a page from the Bible for three minutes and then remember everything I could remember: Now Jehoshaphat had riches and honor in abundance and ... that's all I remember, Ma,» I said.


And after seeing my mother's disappointed face once again, something inside of me began to die. I hated the tests, the raised hopes and failed expectations. Before going to bed that night, I looked in the mirror above the bathroom sink and when I saw only my face staring back - and that it would always be this ordinary face - I began to cry. Such a sad, ugly girl! I made high-pitched noises like a crazed animal, trying to scratch out the face in the mirror.


And then I saw what seemed to be the prodigy side of me - because I had never seen that face before. I looked at my reflection, blinking so I could see more clearly. The girl staring back at me was angry, powerful. This girl and I were the same. I had new thoughts, willful thoughts, or rather thoughts filled with lots of wont's. I won't let her change me, I promised myself.


I won't be what I'm not.


So now on nights when my mother presented her tests, I performed listlessly, my head propped on one arm. I pretended to be bored. And I was. I got so bored I started counting the bellows of the foghorns out on the bay while my mother drilled me in other areas.


And the next day, I played a game with myself, seeing if my mother would give up on me before eight bellows. After a while I usually counted only one, maybe two bellows at most.


At last she was beginning to give up hope.


Two or three months had gone by without any mention of my being a prodigy again. And then one day my mother was watching The Ed Sullivan Show on TV.


She seemed entranced by the music, a little frenzied piano piece with this mesmerizing quality, sort of quick passages and then teasing lilting ones before it returned to the quick playful parts.


«Ni kan,» my mother said, calling me over with hurried hand gestures, «Look here.» I could see why my mother was fascinated by the music. It was being pounded out by a little Chinese girl, about nine years old, with a Peter Pan haircut. The girl had the sauciness of a Shirley Temple. She was proudly modest like a proper Chinese child. And she also did this fancy sweep of a curtsy, so that the fluffy skirt of her white dress cascaded slowly to the floor like the petals of a large carnation.


In spite of these warning signs, I wasn't worried. Our family had no piano and we couldn't afford to buy one, let alone reams of sheet music and piano lessons. So I could be generous in my comments when my mother bad-mouthed the little girl on TV.


«Play note right, but doesn't sound good! No singing sound, » complained my mother. «What are you picking on her for? » I said carelessly. «She's pretty good. Maybe she's not the best, but she's trying hard. » I knew almost immediately I would be sorry I said that. «Just like you, » she said. «Nor the best. Because you not trying. » She gave a little huff as she let go of the sound dial and sat down on the sofa.


Three days after watching the Ed Sullivan Show, my mother told me what my schedule would be for piano lessons and piano practice. She had talked to Mr Chong, who lived on the first floor of our apartment building. Mr Chong was a retired piano teacher and my mother had traded house-cleaning services for weekly lessons and a piano for me to practice on every day, two hours a day, from four until six.


When my mother told me this, I felt as though I had been sent to hell. I whined and then kicked my foot a little when I couldn't stand it anymore.


«Why don't you like me the way I am? I'm not a genius! I can't play the piano. And even if I could, I wouldn't go on TV if you paid me a million dollars! » I cried.


My mother slapped me. «Who ask you be genius?» she shouted. «Only ask you be your best. For your sake. You think I want you be genius? Hnnh! What for! Who ask you! »


«So ungrateful, » I heard her mutter in Chinese. «If she had as much talent as she has temper, she would be famous now. »


I soon found out why old Chong had retired from teaching piano. He was deaf. «Like Beethoven!» he shouted to me. «We're both listening only in our head! » And he would start to conduct his frantic silent sonatas.


Our lessons went like this. He would open the book and point to different things, explaining their purpose: «Key! Treble! Bass! No sharps or flats! So this is C major! Listen now and play after me! »


And then he would play the C scale a few times, a simple chord, and then, as if inspired by an old, unreachable itch, he gradually added more notes and running trills and a pounding bass until the music was really something quite grand.


I would play after him, the simple scale, the simple chord, and then I just played some nonsense that sounded like a cat running up and down on top of garbage cans. Old Chong smiled and applauded and then said, «Very good! But now you must learn to keep time! »


So that's how I discovered that Old Chong's eyes were too slow to keep up with the wrong notes I was playing, and that was how I also learned I could be lazy and get away with mistakes, lots of mistakes. If I hit the wrong notes because I hadn't practiced enough, I never corrected myself. I just kept playing in rhythm. And Old Chong kept conducting his own private reverie.


So maybe I never really gave myself a fair chance. I did pick up the basics pretty quickly, and I might have become a good pianist at that young age. But I was so determined not to try, not to be anybody different that I learned to play only the most ear-splitting preludes, the most discordant hymns.


And then one day I heard my mother and her friend Lindo Jong both talking in a loud bragging tone of voice so others could hear. It was after church, and I was leaning against the brick wall wearing a dress with stiff white petticoats. Auntie Lindo's daughter, Waverly, who was about my age, was standing farther down the wall about five feet away. We had grown up together and shared all the closeness of two sisters squabbling over crayons and dolls. In other words, for the most part, we hated each other. I thought she was snotty. Waverly long had gained a certain amount of fame as «Chinatown's Littlest Chinese Chess Champion.»


«She bring home too many trophy, » lamented Auntie Lindo that Sunday. «All day she play chess. All day I have no time do nothing but dust off her winnings.» She threw a scolding look at Waverly, who pretended not to see her.


«You lucky you don't have this problem, » said Auntie Lindo with a sigh to my mother. And my mother squared her shoulders and bragged: «Our problem worser than yours. If we ask Jing-Mei wash dish, she hear nothing but music. It's like you can't stop this natural talent. »


And right then, I was determined to put a stop to her foolish pride. A few weeks later, Old Chong and my mother conspired to have me play in a talent show which would be held in the church hall. By then, my parents had saved up enough to buy me a secondhand piano, a black Wurlitzer spinet with a scarred bench. It was the showpiece of our living room

Part two


For the talent show, I was to play a piece called «Pleading Child» from Schumann's Scenes from Childhood. It was a simple, moody piece that sounded more difficult than it was. I was supposed to memorize the whole thing, playing the repeat parts twice to make the piece sound longer. But I dawdled over it, playing a few bars and then cheating,


looking up to see what notes followed. I never really listened to what I was playing. I daydreamed about being somewhere else, about being someone else.


The part I liked to practise best was the fancy curtsy: right foot out, touch the rose on the carpet with a pointed foot, sweep to the side, left leg bends, look up and smile.


My parents invited all the couples from the Joy Luck Club to witness my debut. Auntie Lindo and Uncle Tin were there. Waverly and her two older brothers had also come. The first two rows were filled with children both younger and older than I was. The littlest ones got to go first. They recited simple nursery rhymes, squawked out tunes on miniature violins, twirled Hula-Hoops, pranced in pink ballet tutus, and when they bowed or curtsied, the audience would sigh in unison, «Awww,» and then clap enthusiastically.


When my turn came, I was very confident. I remember my childish excitement. It was as if I knew, without a doubt, that the prodigy side of me really did exist. I had no fear whatsoever, no nervousness. I remember thinking to myself, This is it! This is it!


And I started to play. It was so beautiful. I was so caught up in how lovely I looked that at first I didn't worry how I would sound. So it was a surprise to me when I hit the first wrong note and I realized something didn't sound quite right. And then I hit another and another followed that. A chill started at the top of my head and began to trickle down. Yet I couldn't stop playing, as though my hands were bewitched. I played this strange jumble through two repeats, the sour notes staying with me all the way to the end.


When I stood up, I discovered my legs were shaking. Maybe I had just been nervous and the audience, like Old Chong, had seen me go through the right motions and had not heard anything wrong at all. I swept my right foot out, went down on my knee, looked up and smiled. The room was quiet, except for Old Chong, who was beaming and shouting, «Bravo! Bravo! Well done!» And then I saw my mother's face, her stricken face. The audience clapped weakly, and as I walked back to my chair, with my whole face quivering as I tried not to cry, I heard a little boy whisper loudly to his mother, «That was awful,» and the mother whispered back, «Well, she certainly tried.»


And now I realized how many people were in the audience, the whole world it seemed. I was aware of eyes burning into my back. I felt the shame of my mother and father as they sat stiffly throughout the rest of the show.


Afterwards, the Hsus, the Jongs, and the St. Clairs from the Joy Luck Club came up to my mother and father. «Lots of talented kids,» Auntie Lindo said vaguely, smiling broadly. «That was somethin' else,» said my father, and I wondered if he was referring to me in a humorous way, or whether he even remembered what I had done. Waverly looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. «You aren't a genius like me, » she said matter-of-factly. And if I hadn't felt so bad, I would have pulled her braids and punched her stomach.


But my mother's expression was what devastated me: a quiet, blank look that said she had lost everything. I felt the same way, and it seemed as if everybody were now coming up, like gawkers at the scene of an accident, to see what parts were actually missing. When we got on the bus to go home, my mother was silent. I kept thinking she wanted to wait until we got home before shouting at me. But when my father unlocked the door to our apartment, my mother walked in and then went to the back, into the bedroom. No accusations. No blame. And in a way, I felt disappointed. I had been waiting for her to start shouting, so I could shout back and cry and blame her for all my misery.


I assumed my talent-show fiasco meant I never had to play the piano again. But two days later, after school, my mother came out of the kitchen and saw me watching TV. «Four 0' clock, » she reminded me as if it were any other day. I was stunned, as though she were asking me to go through the talent-show torture again. I wedged myself more tightly in front of the TV.


«Tum off TV, » she called from the kitchen five minutes later. I didn't budge. And then I decided. I didn't have to do what my mother said anymore. I wasn't her slave. This wasn't China. I had listened to her before and look what happened. She was the stupid one. She came out of the kitchen and stood in the arched entryway of the living room. «Four o'clock, » she said once again, louder. «I'm not going to play anymore, » I said nonchalantly. «Why should I? I'm not a genius. » She walked over and stood in front of the TV. I saw her chest was heaving up and down in an angry way. «No! » I said, and I now felt stronger, as if my true self had finally emerged. So this was what had been inside me all along. «No! I won't! » I screamed.


She yanked me by the arm, pulled me off the floor, snapped off the TV. She was frighteningly strong, half pulling, half carrying me toward the piano as I kicked the throw rugs under my feet. She lifted me up and onto the hard bench. I was sobbing by now, looking at her bitterly. Her chest was heaving even more and her mouth was open, smiling crazily as if she were pleased I was crying.


«You want me to be someone that I'm not! » I sobbed. «I'll never be the kind of daughter you want me to be! » «Only two kinds of daughters,» she shouted in Chinese. «Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind! Only one kind of daughter can live in this house. Obedient daughter!» «Then I wish I wasn't your daughter. I wish you weren't my mother,» I shouted. As I said these things I got scared. It felt like worms and toads and slimy things crawling out of my chest, but it also felt good, as if this awful side of me had surfaced, at last. «Too late change this,» said my mother shrilly.


And I could sense her anger rising to its breaking point. I wanted to see it spill over. And that's when I remembered the babies she had lost in China, the ones we never talked about. «Then I wish I'd never been born!» I shouted. «I wish I were dead! Like them.»


It was as if I had said the magic words - Alakazam! - and her face went blank, her mouth closed, her arms went slack, and she backed out of the room, stunned, as if she were blowing away like a small brown leaf - thin, brittle, lifeless.


It was not the only disappointment my mother felt in me. In the years that followed, I failed her so many times, each time asserting my own will, my right to fall short of expectations. I didn't get straight As. I didn't become class president. I didn't get into Stanford. I dropped out of college. For unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be. I could only be me.


And for all those years, we never talked about the disaster at the recital or my terrible accusations afterward at the piano bench. All that remained unchecked, like a betrayal that was now unspeakable. So I never found a way to ask her why she had hoped for something so large that failure was inevitable. And even worse, I never asked her what frightened me the most: Why had she given up hope? For after our struggle at the piano, she never mentioned my playing again. The lessons stopped. The lid to the piano was closed, shutting out the dust, my misery, and her dreams.


So she surprised me. A few years ago, she offered to give me the piano, for my thirtieth birthday. I had not played in all those years. I saw the offer as a sign of forgiveness, a tremendous burden removed. «Are you sure? » I asked shyly. «I mean, won't you and Dad miss it? » «No, this your piano, » she said firmly. «Always your piano. You only one can play.» «Well, I probably can't play anymore, » I said. «It's been years. » «You pick up fast,» said my mother, as if she knew this was certain. «You have natural talent. You could been genius if you want to. » «No, I couldn't. » «You just not trying, » said my mother. And she was neither angry nor sad. She said it as if to announce a fact that could never be disproved. «Take it, » she said.


But I didn't at first. It was enough that she had offered it to me. And after that, every time I saw it in my parent's living room, standing in front of the bay windows, it made me feel proud, as if it were a shiny trophy I had won back.


Last week I sent a tuner over to my parent's apartment and had the piano reconditioned, for purely sentimental reasons. My mother had died a few months before and I had been getting things in order for my father, a little bit at a time.


After I had the piano tuned, I opened the lid and touched the keys. It sounded even richer than I remembered. Really, it was a very good piano. Inside the bench were the same exercise notes with handwritten scales, the same secondhand music books with their covers held together with yellow tape.


I opened up the Schumann book to the dark little piece I had played at the recital. It was on the left-hand side of the page, Pleading Child. It looked more difficult than I remembered.


I played a few bars, surprised at how easily the notes came back to me.

And for the first time, or so it seemed, I noticed the piece on the right-hand side. It was called Perfectly Contented. I tried to play this one as well. It had a lighter melody but the same flowing rhythm and turned out to be quite easy. Pleading Child was shorter but slower; Perfectly Contented was longer, but faster. And after I played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song.