"A Pair of Tickets" by Amy Tan

In the story "A Pair of Tickets," by Amy Tan, a woman by the name of Jing-mei struggles with her identity as a Chinese female. Throughout her childhood, she "vigorously denied" (857) that she had any Chinese under her skin. Then her mother dies when Jing-Mei is in her 30's, and only three months after her father receives a letter from her twin daughters, Jing-Mei's half sisters. It is when Jing-mei hears her sisters are alive, that she and her dad take a trip overseas to meet her relatives and finally unites with her sisters. This story focuses on a woman's philosophical struggle to accept her true identity.

The protagonist of the story is Jing-mei. She is a flat character who turns out to be dynamic. Throughout her life, she has been very stubborn about accepting her identity. An...