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a pair of tickets
"A Pair of Tickets" A message I think the author Amy Tan is trying to give in "A Pair of Tickets" is the importance of knowing your heritage. The beginning starts off with a young lady named Jing Mei and her father on a train in China to visit their estranged family for the first time in years, but it'll be Jei Ming first time ever. Jing Mei never felt like she had Chinese in her at all, because she did not understand what her mother was implying when she said "Chinese is in your blood and is waiting to be let go of." Jing Mei felt this when she constantly thought about what she was gonna say to her twin sisters she had never met. This was her deceased mothers long lost wish to find her twins that she was forced to abandon back in China during a war. Jing Mei never knew much about her mother and her mother never knew much about her even though they lived in the same house together. The most she knew of her mother was from old stories her father and aunts would tell her. Another example of the importance of knowing your heritage is Jing Mei couldn't understand what her mother meant by repeatedly saying "Once you are born Chinese, you cannot help but feel and think Chinese." Jing Mei was raised here in the United States, but is 100% Chinese. She has all Caucasian friends and knows absolutely nothing about her heritage. Jing Mei even stated "All my Caucasian friends agreed that I am just as white as they are." (pg 147) Jing Mei and her sisters all had different types of memories of their mother. Jing Mei wasn't aware of the struggling her mother did in China and her twin sisters had no idea of their

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