It is unquestionable that every soul in this entire world must go through change and adjustments in their lives. What the question is, do people really learn anything new from their own experiences, whether is about their own culture or a foreign one? Will they change the way they think and accept the real world around them? The short story "A Pair of Tickets" written by Amy Tan, reveals an American Chinese woman trying to reconnect with her heritage after the loss of her mother. Her name is Jing-mei or June May, her American name. She seems to struggles with the loss of her mother and feels remorse that they never had a connection with each other. For years she did not want to be Chinese or even think she could be one, but as her life continues on, she feels the need to reconnect with her roots. Throughout the story, Jing-mei changes the way she views herself in her family culture, from being the outcast of the family when she was young at San Francisco. Later on, she begins to experience new feelings at Guangzhou that make her wonder if she is really Chinese, and finally, the eye-opener of acceptance of her Chinese roots. Once she arrives in Shenzhen China, she finally realizes that being Chinese it has always been part of her past, present, and future.
Jing-mei was born in America In San Francisco. Ever since she was a teenager, she has denied having any trace of Chinese in her. To her she was an American through and through and she felt like the outcast of the family, she did not act like her mother "haggling with stores owners, picking her mouth with a tooth picking in public" (Tan 264), things that her mother used to do to embarrassed her. She also states that her Caucasian friends from High school confirmed this self-image, saying that: "I was about as Chinese as they were" (Tan 263). It seems that Jing-mei did not wish to be any different from her friends, since she does not accept her natural origin, and basically she is used to American ways.