Jing-Mei Woo-->Two Kinds: Chapter 8-term: rhetorical question

The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates

This chapter is about Jing-Mei's mother wanting her to be a prodigy.  It starts out where her mother is throwing out a bunch of ideas for her to become famous.  She wants Jing-Mei to try out to be a Chinese Shirley Temple.  After that doesn't work out, she drives her to learn the piano.  Her mother was always in competition with Waverly's mother.  They competed over whose child is the best.  Jing-Mei takes piano lessons from Mr. Chong.  Mr. Chong is deaf so Jing-Mei can get away with many mistakes on the piano.  Her mother signs her up for a recital, and it becomes a disaster.  After this, Jing-Mei finally tells her mother how she really feels.  They exchange some hurtful words.  The author uses a rhetorical question to give the heated situation emphasis.  Jing Mei's mother says, "' For you sake. You think I want you be genius?"' (136).  Her mother believes that she is ungrateful, but in reality she just wants to be nothing but herself.  The quote I picked was towards the end.  Jing-Mei says, "The lessons stopped. The lid to the piano was closed, shutting out the dust, my misery, and her dreams" (143).  I felt that this was very important because it says her dreams, meaning her mothers, not hers.  It is so important to know what your child wants to make them happy.  This chapter reminded me of the very good gymnast that could have possibly went into the Olympics.  Before she got the chance, she stopped doing gymnastics totally because of the huge amount of pressure coming from her dad.  It was her dad's dream and not hers anymore.  The chapter ends with Jing-Mei getting out the old piano and playing.