Jing-Mei Woo learns to try her best

“Try and fail, but don’t fail to try” (Stephen Kaggwa) In the chapter “Two Kinds” (The Joy

Luck Club), Jing-Mei Woo’s mother wants her daughter to be a prodigy but Jing-Mei

does not want to be something she is not, much to her mother’s disappointment. Jing-

Mei continues to disappoint her mother by failing at various things, and her mother finally

loses hope in her. When Jing-Mei Woo grows up to be an adult, she understands that

her mother was doing this all for her own welfare. In Two Kinds, Jing-Mei Woo realizes

that if she wants to succeed at anything, she must try her best.

In the beginning of the chapter, Jing-Mei Woo does not realize that if she doesn’t try

her best, she will not succeed. When Jing-Mei’s mother signed Jing-Mei for piano

lessons, she was determined not to try. Jing-Mei Woo shows that she doesn’t want to try

by saying “I could have been a good pianist at the young age but I was determined not

to try, not to be anybody different that I learned to play only the most ear-splitting

preludes” according to Jing-Mei (Tam 138) Jing-Mei Woo statement reveals that she

does not want to try hard, because she states that she was “determined not to try”. She

understands that she isn’t trying when she says that she could have been a good young

pianist at that age, but she only didn’t want to try. In another example, Jing-Mei Woo

failed her mom several times including dropping out of college, not getting excellent

grades, and not being class president. Jing-Wei shows that she doesn’t want to try hard

by saying “unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anybody I wanted to be, I could

only be myself.” (Tam, 142) The quote shows that Jing-Mei Woo did not believe that if

she tried, she would of succeeded. She didn’t think that she could be anything she

wanted to be, so she did not bother trying to become something she thinks she is not. At

the beginning of the story, Jing-Mei Woo didn’t really get that if she doesn’t try her best,

she will not get the results she want to get.

At the end of the story, Jing-Mei Woo learns that if she wants to succeed in life, she

must try her best. When Jing-Mei try’s to make her mother humiliated, she succeeds

Jing-Mei Woo learns to try her best

because she tries her best. Jing-Mei Woo shows that she wants to try her best when she

says “(She) was determined too put a stop to (Mothers) foolish pride…but then I saw my

mother’s face, her stricken face.” (Tam 138) The statement shows that Jing-Mei Woo

try’s extremely hard to make her mom humiliated. She was determined, and succeeds in

making her mother humiliated. Furthermore, she even sacrifices her own public image to

humiliate her mom, showing that she does all she does. The result of her hard work pays

off as her mom has a “stricken face”, and is clearly embarrassed her friends for Jing-

Mei’s horrible piano playing. Next, Jing-Mei Woo again tried he best and puts in a

tremendous amount of hard work trying to make her mom angry. Jing-Mei shows that

she wants to make her mother angry when she says “I could sense her anger rising to a

breaking point…I wanted to see it spill over…I then I remembered…and her face went

blank, her mouth closed” (Tam, 138) The quote shows that Jing-Mei wants too see her

mom’s anger spill over, and she succeeded because she tried hard. She tried her best

thinking of a comment that would shut her mom up. Her comment made her mom’s face

“go blank, and her mouth closed” showing that she was in shock, much to Jing-Mei’s

content. During the course of the chapter, Jing-Mei learns that if she wants to succeed

at anything, she must try her best.

In the chapter “Two Kinds” by Amy Tam, Jing-Mei Woo learns that if she wants to

succeed at something, she must try her best. If everybody in the world tries their best,

our world would be a whole lot more advanced. We would have more inventions thus

enriching our life, and poverty would come to a cease because needy people will try their

best studying when they are young.