Preview

Character Essay- Mai From "Goodbye Vietnam"

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
619 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Character Essay- Mai From "Goodbye Vietnam"
Character Essay- Mai from "Goodbye, Vietnam" Mai is the main character in the story "Goodbye, Vietnam". She has a nice personality. She works hard in the rice paddies as well as in her school. She obeys her parents and gets along with her sibling, Anh and Thant. Mai never whines and is always there to help. As the story progresses, she becomes stronger as a person does.

Her strengths are being able to get along with easy, working hard, and being a very mature person. Her largest strength is being mature about everything. When Mai and her family have to leave Vietnam because the government is going to arrest her Grandmother, she is very mature about it because she does what her father tells her to do without whining. Her second greatest strength is being able to get along with people well. She shows this strength very well on the boat when she becomes good friends with several of the desperate refugees. Her last strength is working hard. The only time she shows this is when she is working in the rice paddies and in her school. Even though she doesn't show this strength very much, it is still one of her good strengths.

Mai's only weakness is being shy around people that she doesn't know. Even though she can get along with other people, she is still very shy. She demonstrates this when she first meets a girl her age named Kim. She wants to ask Kim a lot of questions because she is wearing American blue jeans, but she does not have the courage to. She also demonstrates this when they are in Hong Kong in the refugee camp and one of their friends is getting taken away. She does not have any courage to say anything to him except but to grab his arm.

The changes that occurred within Mai are excellent changes. As the story progresses, she becomes stronger as a person in the mind and in the body. She proves this many ways. One of the ways is when they are in Hong Kong in the refugee camp. During dinner when everyone is getting food served to them, some of the families

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Saigon Hale's Case Study

    • 335 Words
    • 2 Pages

    We have some very exciting news! As you know, we at Saigon Pete’s have been looking into ways to ensure we are able to feed all of the hungry mouths around Tidewater but have not quite been able to accomplish that goal. Well, we can no longer say that! We are proud to announce that Saigon Pete’s will be adding two new food trucks to our existing fleet so we can be sure to be wherever hungry mouths need us. The trucks will be hitting the streets in a few short weeks, and we can hardly contain ourselves; however, we still need to figure out where we can send these new trucks. If you are a fan of Saigon Pete’s, comment below and let us know where you want to see us show up. Parks, businesses, malls, and everything in between is fair game. We simply…

    • 335 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Rocky made him look at the corpse and said ‘Tayo, this a Jap! This is a Jap uniform!’ and then he rolled the body over with his boot and said, ‘ look , Tayo, look at the face,’ and that was when Tayo started screaming because it wasn’t a Jap, it was Josiah, eyes shrinking back into the skull and all their shrinking black light glazed over by death” (Silko 7).…

    • 320 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Unlike the princess Kathi Maio describes in her essay, Tiana is presented counter stereotypically independent. Tiana who is hardworking and persevering she doesn’t see the need of waiting for a handsome prince to come sweep her off her feet. She works two jobs, one at Cal’s and the other at Dukes just to save enough to put a down payment for a building in order to open a restaurant. “Well miss Tiana rough night for tips but every little penny counts.” Contrary to the princess described in Maio’s essay Tiana understands the meaning of struggling and hard work to achieve success, she doesn’t wait for a prince to marry so that she could use his money to fund her restaurant she does it all on her own. In addition, Tiana’s character exemplifies…

    • 240 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Three years have past since I found my sisters, and I still wish my mother could see how much, us being together has affected me. I have become a new person, I do not cower in fear about tomorrow or let anyone belittle me. I am strong, confident, successful, and it is all because of her. If it weren’t for my mom I probably wouldn’t be married to my wonderful husband of 5 years.…

    • 280 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Cracker is a German shepherd that helps out in the Vietnam. Dogs have very strong senses this dog is very smart and that is what they want him for. They use him to sniff out bombs, traps, and enemies or anything else they might have set up. All the platoons depend on this dog without Cracker they would not make it as far as they has more less be able to go home and see their family once again. Cracker alerts the platoons and his partner when there is a bomb or enemy’s so they have a heads up on what they are about to run into. Rick Hanski is coming to Vietnam and is about to take over Cracker and become his new owner but, he is not all that sure on how it will be he is very confused about what to do. He will be paired with Cracker, the German shepherd. They are not sure how well they will work together, Rich is not that big of a dog person but in order to make it they need to get to know each other and learn how to get along if they want to make it home to see their family one more time again.…

    • 370 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Gayle Forman's If I Stay

    • 471 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Mia is the only one in the family that lives after the accident. Through this out of body experience she can see all the action going on around and what they are doing to her. Mai is faced with the decision of whether she wants to live or die with the rest of her family. In the book it shows flashbacks of some stuff that has happened in her past. One the it flashes back is the first date that her and her boyfriend Adam went on. Adam got tickets to go see yoyo mama play which is a cello concert. Mia Hall loved classical music which was odd for her family because they all like rock bands. Adam loved Mia so much and would do anything to keep her.…

    • 471 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    How is Vietnamese culture any different from American culture? Some people wonder how Vietnamese and Americans are different besides their race. Well, Vietnamese culture is different by their ways of showing affection/greeting, celebrating different holidays, clothing, food, and housing.…

    • 487 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    There are many strengths that you could look when viewing a coming and how they would be able to move forward. There are three major strengths in which you should look at in which would include if the…

    • 818 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Amy Tan Two Kinds Essay

    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the short story, “Two Kinds”, written by Amy Tan, she reflects on her experiences during her childhood. Like most adolescents, the pressure to be equal (or perhaps greater) than your peers is something that most have undergone, whether that be in sports or academics. Similarly, Amy Tan, or Jing-Mei, reluctantly followed her mother’s prying through the course of her elementary years; and, as a result, the unrealistic expectations of Jing-Mei’s mother ultimately change her perspective of who she is as an individual.…

    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Joy Luck Club Culture

    • 1035 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Jing-Mei’s mother demands absolute obedience from her daughter. When Jing-Mei objects to practise her piano, her mother chides her daughter that there are “only 2 kinds of daughter [and] only obedient daughter can live in [her] house” (Tan 142). The varying family values are that the mother wants her daughter to obey her with absolute obedience while the daughter believes in freedom and individuality. Thus, the daughters and mothers are in constant disagreement, which ultimately puts a strain on their relationship. To further understand the cause of their tensions as a result of the family values, Li Rui of ChildResearch.net concludes that “a Chinese parent greatly values his solitary child because of the "major investment" and "national resource" the child represents. Consequently, significant amounts of money and high expectations are focused upon the child in hopes that the child will excel in academics and other areas” (Jenkins). The mothers believe that because they have invested so much time and effort to develop their daughters’ potential, they expect their daughters to do their utmost to produce. However, the daughters value more on choice and individuality. Her identity is undermined because she is forced to abide by the Chinese culture. Eventually, constant feuding contributes to hostility and intolerance. Secondly, in the Chinese culture, sacrifice is necessary and expected. Chinese families tend to sacrifice everything for their love ones. Lindo Jong “once sacrificed [her] life to keep [her] parents’ promise [but] to [Waverly], promises mean nothing”. A daughter can be late for dinner “if she has a headache, [or] if she has a traffic jam, [or] if she wants to watch a favorite movie on TV” (Tan 49). The mother believes that promises and family time is the top priority over everything. However living in America…

    • 1035 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Childhood Geisha

    • 364 Words
    • 2 Pages

    becomes the most important figure in a young geisha's life. She does a great deal more than…

    • 364 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tan often uses metaphors to introduce character and inner conflict within Jing-Mei “June” Woo. In the following quote Tan shows the aspirations of Jing-Mei. “I was Cinderella stepping from her pumpkin carriage with sparkly cartoon music filling the air” (Tan 133). This characterizes June because it shows dreams of becoming a fictional Disney Princess which displays her feelings of inadequacy. Tan also portrays inner conflict by using a metaphor to characterize June by comparing her choice of crab to her real-world thinking. “‘Only you pick that crab. Nobody else take it. I already know this. Everybody else want best quality. You thinking different’” (Tan 208). What June perceives as a generous deed her mother perceives as weak. June’s life choices are much like her choice of crab, she does not take care of herself and often puts the desires of others first. In the…

    • 1257 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    While she found the closure ,Jing-mei comes to a realization that her perception of Suyuan's idea of success was imprecise and started to incorporate Suyuan's idea into hers. Amy Tan signifies Jing-mei’s sudden epiphany when she wrote how Jing- mei came to realize that the Perfectly Content and the Pleading Child pieces, which was the piece that symbolized her ideas of success, were two halves of the same song. The Perfectly Content piece being symbolized as her mother idea of success which she describes as " longer , but faster" being that it took more time but eventually " turned out to be quite easy"(Tan 144). By the action of playing the two pieces together( Tan 144) , it symbolized her incorporation of Suyuan's ideas into hers. After her epiphany occurred, Jing-mei decides to follow through with meeting her half-sister even after knowing the task was going to be laborious for her. Jing-mei finds the task being strenuous due to addressing her sisters about their mothers who she claims to know nothing about ( Tan 40). The overall act of Jing-mei meeting her half-sister shows her change of perspective on success. Subsequent Jing-mei’s encounter with her half- sister , she finally claims her Chinese identity being a part of her and in her…

    • 933 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Memoirs Of A Geisha Essay

    • 1459 Words
    • 6 Pages

    “gei” meaning art and the “sha” meaning people who are skilled hostesses that are trained…

    • 1459 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    My number one strength is that I am passionately determined. I taught myself how to execute most of the skills I know now through watching YouTube videos tutorials and incorporating any critiques my drill team coach would tell me. I practiced everyday when I got home, and I still do.…

    • 259 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays