She uses generalizations and internal conflicts to demonstrate how being ignorant and not embracing your origin makes you miss the chance of living an important part of your life, your heritage. The story's theme is related to the re-identification with the motherland China, but ironically the theme is weakened by Tan's focus on China's modernization. In the story June May discusses her trip to China to meet her half-sisters for the first time, and she finishes her mother's life story. When June May was young teenager, although she knew she has Chinese appearance, she denied that she had any essential Chinese nature inside of her. June May's mother Suyuan had insisted that once a person is born Chinese, he/she couldn't help but feel and think Chinese. Now that she is in China for the first time, June May feels that her mother was right and there is truth in her assertions, something inside of her feels like home in China. Yet, she realizes that she has never known exactly what it means to be Chinese. In A Pair of Tickets, the Chinese culture provides a different ambience about family, in particular, blood relation and where we stand in our families, which I will analyze in depth in this essay. In addition, an important element of the Chinese culture was notably given. I personally learned this essential aspect about the Chinese culture from the story that is the importance of meaning of names and its role in their lives. It is through a deeper understanding of these Chinese characters' names that opens our eyes (readers from different cultures) to see how mother and daughters in the story are strongly attached emotionally. .
A Pair of Tickets constantly talks of "blood." In the western culture, blood, which is mostly attached with red, mostly adapts a sacrifice, death and also a bloodline (Kim, 2009). Looking at the previous repeated words, the word "blood" means a lineage of family and relations.
