for his/her child. All they want is for them to be the best they possibly can be, so they can grow up and have a successful career; one in which they can live a happy and comfortable life. Live the American lifestyle. But sometimes, many parents go to great extremes and force their children to do things they do not want, all in an effort to turn them into someone they are not.This is a great deal of pressure to put on a nine year-old. Parents have to know when enough is enough. I know all they want is the best for their child, but sometimes their best comes out when it is least expected. Most times when you force something to happen, you get the complete opposite, which we see happen later in the story:" ...And that was how I 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 .... 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 the most ear-splitting preludes, the most discordant hymns."The daughter just ends up resenting her mom for all the pressure, and does everything in her power not to be the best. Jing-Mei after all the years was always a disappointment in her mothers eyes. Jing-Meis mother came to America in hope of turning her daughter into a prodigy and failed miserably. In the end the pressure was too much and Jing-Mei and she ends up failing in other thingsIt 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 didnt get straight As. I didnt become class president. I didnt get into Stanford. I dropped out of college.The pressure of the American dream was too much for h...
