This story is begun by Jing Mei journey to China. She and her father
take a journey to China to fulfill her mother’s wishes of finding her twin
daughter “My mother is dead and I am on a train, carrying with me her dreams of
coming home. I am going to China.”
Conflict seems to be the core of a literary works. It
makes the story flooding to a meaningful action and interesting to be read.
Some conflict makes the character dramatized and created as what happens in
human life. It shows the reader how the character approaching the problem in
one or two way. (Perrine, op.cit, 87)
From the beginning of the story, the self-conflict about
her ethnic identity has appeared. Ethnic identity refers to one’s sense of
belonging to an ethnic group and the part of one’s thinking, perceptions,
feelings, and behavior that is due to ethnic group membership. The ethnic group tends to be one in which the
individual claims heritage (Phinney, 1996). As human live and social creature,
a sense of belonging is important. It makes they can actualize their existence
in a group or community. The conflict appear when she in the journey to China. The
first time she entered Shenzhen, she felt something changing inside her body. She
makes a dialogue with her self. She feel that she is Americanized,
yellow on the surface and white underneath. She always feels she is an American since at a young age. “I was fifteen and had vigorously denied that I had any Chinese
whatsoever below my skin. I was a sophomore at Galileo High in San Francisco,
and all my Caucasian friends agreed: I was about as Chinese as they were”. In
other hand, she always memorize about what her mother have told to her that once
you are born Chinese, you cannot help but feel and think as a Chinese.
When she was in the airport in the Hong Kong, she doubt
again with her identity. It looks like in the text…”Even without makeup, I
could never pass for true Chinese “. It shows that she is in unstable feeling,
to decide and consider as a “pure” Chinese cordiality.
She has a bad perspective about China. Since China is
run by communist, Jing- Mei thought of China as a dirty, poor, and slummy country. Arriving
to Guangzhou China, she realized China was not what she had thought. Indirectly, it
shows that she is denied that she is Chinese, because she has a bad perspective
about China.
After make a dinner with her father friend’s family, in
a “warm” situation. She begins aware about her identity as a Chinese. She feels sad too which shown in the text
“I feel forlorn. I think about what my mother said, about activating my genes
and becoming Chinese”.
In Shanghai when she meets for the first time with her
twin daughter, it is so sorrowful. All of Jing- Mei’s perspective of China
change; Jing- Mei becomes more interested and curious of her culture and
heritage. According to a text, we can find it “and now I also see what part of
me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood. After all
it can finally let go”. Finally, Jing Mei is aware about her ethnic identity as
a Chinese. Now, after Jing Mei has met her sisters, she can now make peace in
her life knowing that she has fulfilled her dreams and the dreams of her
mother.
Learning about family heritage is something people do
not always understand, seems like what the conflict that happen in Jing Mei. People
do not always want to believe their past and the past of their families.