"Cranes," revolves around Songsam, a young Korean man, whose activities and lessons of youth guide him to make important, mature decisions in his adult life. ... The main conflict between the mother and daughter is the encounter with the piano. Her mother is determined to make her into a piano prodigy in spite of Jing Mei's wants. ... From that moment, Jing Mei thinks the piano nightmare is over, but her mother continues to force her to take lessons. ... Years later, her mother gives her the old piano as a birthday present, and it is then that Jing Mei realizes that it is a sign of forgiv...

• Word Count: 860
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

Jing-Mei is forced to take piano lessons after her mother saw a Chinese girl, who resembled Jing-Mei, playing the piano on the Ed Sullivan Show. Since Jing-Mei had no interest in playing the piano, she lazily went about her lessons, and got away with it, because she had a deaf teacher. Jing-Mei did this despite the fact that her mother had traded housecleaning services for her lessons. ... By not practicing and being determined to disappoint her mother, Jing-Mei is humiliated one evening after she tried to play the piano at a talent show. ... Determined not to give up on her, Jing-Mei's m...

• Word Count: 1030
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

From then on in the story every time Jing-Mei's mother would impose a certain test on her she would try to fail it as miserably as possible, this was also true for the piano lessons that her mother made her take. The lessons were something that Jing-Mei really didn't want to do, she confessed to having regretted that because she ended up embarrassing herself and her family at the talent show that her mother signed her up for where she proved that she didn't know how to play piano. ... The daughter also didn't want to "suck" at playing the piano and the proof of that is that...

• Word Count: 845
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School