These are the ‘Two Kinds’ of person she has been: she had to struggle slowly through the years as a pleading child longing for independence and the right to choose what she pursued, but now she has reached adulthood, she is indeed perfectly contented, in a way that her mother never could be. Yet Tan’s title ‘Two Kinds’ does itself have two kinds of meaning: it can also refer to the final section of the story, in which Jing-mei discovers the other piece of music from the talent show, and realises – in a moment laden (perhaps too conveniently) with symbolism – that ‘Pleading Child’ is complemented by ‘Perfectly Contented’.
Ironically, her mother has fled a totalitarian state only to set up a petty tyrannical regime in her own home (you can take the girl out of Communism, but …). The story’s title, ‘Two Kinds’, is ostensibly explained by the mother’s comment to her daughter that there are two kinds of daughter: obedient and free-thinking. She wants an opportunity to confront her mother and air her frustration at having to live out her mother’s own fantasies by becoming a child prodigy. It is significant that, after the talent show, Jing-mei is disappointed that her mother doesn’t shout angrily at her when they get home. This becomes obvious when Jing-mei overhears her mother boasting to a friend, Lindo Jong, about her daughter’s natural talent for music, and she realises that her mother is only making her learn the piano so she can brag to other mothers about how talented her daughter is.
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