TWO KINDS --- AMY TAN

Two or three months went by without any mention of my being a prodigy. And then one day my mother was
watching the Ed Sullivan Show on TV. The TV was old and the sound kept shorting out. Every time my mother
got halfway up from the sofa to adjust the set, the sound would come back on and Sullivan would be talking. As
soon as she sat down, Sullivan would go silent again. She got up - the TV broke into loud piano music. She sat
down - silence. Up and down, back and forth, quiet and loud. It was like a stiff, embraceless dance between her
and the TV set. Finally, she stood by the set with her hand on the sound dial. She seemed entranced by the
music, a frenzied little piano piece with a mesmerizing quality, which alternated between quick, playful passages
and teasing, lilting ones. "Ni kan," my mother said, calling me over with hurried hand gestures. "Look here." I
could see why my mother was fascinated by the music. It was being pounded out by a little Chinese girl, about
nine years old, with a Peter Pan haircut. The girl had the sauciness of a Shirley Temple. She was proudly modest,
like a proper Chinese Child. And she also did a fancy sweep of a curtsy, so that the fluffy skirt of her white dress
cascaded to the floor like petals of a large carnation. In spite of these warning signs, I wasn't worried. Our family
had no piano and we couldn't afford to buy one, let alone reams of sheet music and piano lessons. So I could be
generous in my comments when my mother badmouthed the little girl on TV. "Play note right, but doesn't
sound good!" my mother complained "No singing sound." "What are you picking on her for?" I said carelessly.
“She’s pretty good. Maybe she's not the best, but she's trying hard." I knew almost immediately that I would be
sorry I had said that. "Just like you," she said. "Not the best. Because you not trying." She gave a little huff as she
let go of the sound dial and sat down on the sofa. The little Chinese girl sat down also, to play an encore of
"Anitra's Tanz," by Grieg. I remember the song, because later on I had to learn how to play it. Three days after
watching the Ed Sullivan Show my mother told me what my schedule would be for piano lessons and piano
practice. She had talked to Mr. Chong, who lived on the first floor of our apartment building. Mr. Chong was a
retired piano teacher, and my mother had traded housecleaning services for weekly lessons and a piano for me
to practice on every day, two hours a day, from four until six. When my mother told me this, I felt as though I
had been sent to hell. I whined, and then kicked my foot a little when I couldn't stand it anymore. "Why don't
you like me the way I am?" I cried. "I'm not a genius! I can't play the piano. And even if I could, I wouldn't go
on TV if you paid me a million dollars!" My mother slapped me. "Who ask you to be genius?" she shouted.
"Only ask you be your best. For you sake. You think I want you to be genius? Hnnh! What for! Who ask you!”?
"So ungrateful," I heard her mutter in Chinese, "If she had as much talent as she has temper, she'd be famous
now." Mr. Chong, whom I secretly nicknamed Old Chong, was very strange, always tapping his fingers to the
silent music of an invisible orchestra. He looked ancient in my eyes. He had lost most of the h air on the top of
his head, and he wore thick glasses and had eyes that always looked tired. But he must have been younger that I
though, since he lived with his mother and was not yet married. I met Old Lady Chong once, and that was
enough. She had a peculiar smell, like a baby that had done something in its pants, and her fingers felt like a
dead person's, like an old peach I once found in the back of the refrigerator: its skin just slid off the flesh when I
picked it up. I soon found out why Old Chong had retired from teaching piano. He was deaf. "Like Beethoven!"
he shouted to me: We're both listening only in our head!" And he would start to conduct his frantic silent
sonatas. Our lessons went like this. He would open the book and point to different things, explaining, their
purpose: "Key! Treble! Bass! No sharps or flats! So this is C major! Listen now and play after me!" And then he
would play the C scale a few times, a simple cord, and then, as if inspired by an old unreachable itch, he would
gradually add more notes and running trills and a pounding bass until the music was really something quite
grand. I would play after him, the simple scale, the simple chord, and then just play some nonsense that
sounded like a cat running up and down on top of garbage cans. Old Chong would smile and applaud and say
Very good! Bt now you must learn to keep time!" So that's how I discovered that Old Chong's eyes were too
slow to keep up with the wrong notes I was playing. He went through the motions in half time. To help me keep
rhythm, he stood behind me and pushed down on my right shoulder for every beat. He balanced pennies on
top of my wrists so that I would keep them still as I slowly played scales and arpeggios. He had me curve my
hand around an apple and keep that shame when playing chords. He marched stiffly to show me how to make
each finger dance up and down, staccato, like an obedient little soldier. He taught me all these things and that
was how I also learned I could be lazy and get away with mistakes, lots of mistakes. If I hit the wrong notes
because I hadn't practiced enough, I never corrected myself; I just kept playing in rhythm. And Old Chong kept
conducting his own private reverie. So maybe I never really gave myself a fair chance. I did pick up the basics
pretty quickly, and I might have become a good pianist at the young age. But I was so determined not to try,
not to be anybody different, and I learned to play only the most ear-splitting preludes, the most discordant
hymns. Over the next year I practiced like this, dutifully in my own way. And then one day I heard my mother
and her friend Lindo Jong both after church, and I was leaning against a brick wall, wearing a dress with stiff
white petticoats. Auntie Lindo’s daughter, Waverly, who was my age, was standing farther down the wall, about
five feet away. We had grown up together and shared all the closeness of two sisters, squabbling over crayons
and dolls. In other words, for the most part, we hated each other. I thought she was snotty. Waverly Jong had
gained a certain amount of fame as "Chinatown's Littlest Chinese Chess Champion." "She bring home too many
trophy." Auntie Lindo lamented that Sunday. "All day she play chess. All day I have no time do nothing but
dust off her winnings." She threw a scolding look at Waverly, who pretended not to see her. "You lucky you
don't have this problem," Auntie Lindo said with a sigh to my mother. And my mother squared her shoulders
and bragged: "our problem worser than yours. If we ask Jing-mei wash dish, she hear nothing but music. It's like
you can't stop this natural talent." And right then I was determined to put a stop to her foolish pride. A few
weeks later Old Chong and my mother conspired to have me play in a talent show that was to be held in the
church hall. But then my parents had saved up enough to buy me a secondhand piano, a black Wurlitzer spinet
with a scarred bench. It was the showpiece of our living room. For the talent show I was to play a piece called
"Pleading Child," from Schumann's Scenes from Childhood. It was a simple, moody piece that sounded more
difficult than it was. I was supposed to memorize the whole thing. But i dawdled over it, playing a few bars and
then cheating, looking up to see what notes followed. I never really listed to what I was playing. I daydreamed
about being somewhere else, about being someone else
The part I liked to practice best was the fancy curtsy: right foot out, touch the rose on the carpet with a
pointed foot, sweep to the side, bend left leg, look up, and smile. My parents invited all the couples from their
social club to witness my debut. Auntie Lindo and Uncle Tin were there. Waverly and her two older brothers
had also come. The first two rows were filled with children either younger or older than I was. The littlest ones
got to go first. They recited simple nursery rhymes, squawked out tunes on miniature violins, and twirled hula
hoops in pink ballet tutus, and when they bowed or curtsied, the audience would sigh in unison, "Awww, and
then clap enthusiastically. When my turn came, I was very confident. I remember my childish excitement. It was
as if I knew, without a doubt, that the prodigy side of me really did exist. I had no fear whatsoever, no
nervousness. I remember thinking, This is it! This is it! I looked out over the audience, at my mother's blank
face, my father's yawn, Auntie Lindo's stiff-lipped smile, Waverly's sulky expression. I had on a white dress,
layered with sheets of lace, and a pink bow in my Peter Pan haircut. As I sat down, I envisioned people jumping
to their feet and Ed Sullivan rushing up to introduce me to everyone on TV. And I started to play. Everything
was so beautiful. I was so caught up in how lovely I looked that I wasn't worried about how I would sound. So I
was surprised when I hit the first wrong note. And then I hit another and another. A chill started at the top of
my head and began to trickle down. Yet I couldn't stop playing, as though my hands were bewitched. I kept
thinking my fingers would adjust themselves back, like a train switching to the right track. I played this strange
jumble through to the end, the sour notes staying with me all the way. When I stood up, I discovered my legs
were shaking. Maybe I had just been nervous, and the audience, like Old Chong had seen me go through the
right motions and had not heard anything wrong at all. I swept my right foot out, went down on my knee,
looked up, and smiled. The room was quiet, except for Old Chong, who was beaming and shouting "Bravo!
Bravo! Well done!" By then I saw my mother's face, her stricken face. The audience clapped weakly, and I
walked back to my chair, with my whole face quivering as I tried not to cry, I heard a little boy whisper loudly
to his mother. "That was awful," and mother whispered "Well, she certainly tried." And now I realized how
many people were in the audience - the whole world, it seemed. I was aware of eyes burning into my back. I felt
the shame of my mother and father as they sat stiffly through the rest of the show. We could have escaped
during intermission. Pride and some strange sense of honor must have anchored my parents to their chairs. And
so we watched it all. The eighteen-year-old boy with a fake moustache who did a magic show and juggled
flaming hoops while riding a unicycle. The breasted girl with white make up who sang an aria from Madame
Butterfly and got an honorable mention And the eleven-year-old boy who was first prize playing a tricky violin
song that sounded like a busy bee. After the show the Hsus, the Jongs, and the St. Clairs, from the Joy Luck
Club, came up to my mother and father. "Lots of talented kids," Auntie Lindo said vaguely, smiling broadly.
"That was somethin' else," my father said, and I wondered if he was referring to me in a humorous way, or
whether he even remembered what I had done. Waverly looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. "You aren't
a genius like me," she said matter-of-factly. And if I hadn't felt so bad, I would have pulled her braids and
punched her stomach.But my mother's expression was what devastated me: a quiet, blank look that said she had
lost everything. I felt the same way, and everybody seemed now to be coming up, like gawkers at the scene of
an accident to see what parts were actually missing. When we got on the bus to go home, my father was
humming the busy-bee tune and my mother kept silent. I kept thinking she wanted to wait until we got home
before shouting at me. But when my father unlocked the door to our apartment, my mother walked in and
went straight to the back, into the bedroom. No accusations, No blame. And in a way, I felt disappointed. I had
been waiting for her to start shouting, so that I could shout back and cry and blame her for all my misery. I had
assumed that my talent-show fiasco meant that I would never have to play the piano again. But two days later,
after school, my mother came out of the kitchen and saw me watching TV. "Four clock," she reminded me, as if
it were any other day. I was stunned, as though she were asking me to go through the talent-show torture again.
I planted myself more squarely in front of the TV. "Turn off TV," she called from the kitchen five minutes later.
I didn't budge. And then I decided, I didn't have to do what mother said anymore. I wasn't her slave. This
wasn't China. I had listened to her before, and look what happened she was the stupid one. She came out of the
kitchen and stood in the arched entryway of the living room. "Four clock," she said once again, louder. "I'm not
going to play anymore," I said nonchalantly. "Why should I? I'm not a genius." She stood in front of the TV. I
saw that her chest was heaving up and down in an angry way. "No!" I said, and I now felt stronger, as if my true
self had finally emerged. So this was what had been inside me all along. "No! I won't!" I screamed. She snapped
off the TV, yanked me by the arm and pulled me off the floor. She was frighteningly strong, half pulling, half
carrying me towards the piano as I kicked the throw rugs under my feet. She lifted me up onto the hard bench.
I was sobbing by now, looking at her bitterly. Her chest was heaving even more and her mouth was open,
smiling crazily as if she were pleased that I was crying. "You want me to be something that I'm not!" I sobbed. "
I'll never be the kind of daughter you want me to be!" "Only two kinds of daughters," she shouted in Chinese.
"Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind! Only one kind of daughter can live in this
house. Obedient daughter!" "Then I wish I weren't your daughter, I wish you weren't my mother," I shouted. As
I said these things I got scared.It felt like worms and toads and slimy things crawling out of my chest, but it also
felt good, that this awful side of me had surfaced, at last. "Too late to change this," my mother said shrilly. And
I could sense her anger rising to its breaking point.I wanted see it spill over. And that's when I remembered the
babies she had lost in China, the ones we never talked about. "Then I wish I'd never been born!" I shouted. “I
wish I were dead! Like them." It was as if I had said magic words. Alakazam!-her face went blank, her mouth
closed, her arms went slack, and she backed out of the room, stunned, as if she were blowing away like a small
brown leaf,thin,brittle,lifeless. It was not the only disappointment my mother felt in me. In the years that
followed, I failed her many times, each time asserting my will, my right to fall short of expectations . I didn't get
straight As. I didn't become class president. I didn't get into Stanford. I dropped out of college. Unlike my
mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be, I could only be me. And for all those years we
never talked about the disaster at the recital or my terrible declarations afterward at the piano bench. Neither of
us talked about it again, as if it were a betrayal that was now unspeakable. So I never found a way to ask her
why she had hoped for something so large that failure was inevitable. And even worse, I never asked her about
what frightened me the most: Why had she given up hope? For after our struggle at the piano, she never
mentioned my playing again. The lessons stopped. The lid to the piano was closed shutting out the dust, my
misery, and her dreams. So she surprised me. A few years ago she offered to give me the piano, for my thirtieth
birthday. I had not played in all those years. I saw the offer as a sign of forgiveness, a tremendous burden
removed. "Are you sure?" I asked shyly. "I mean, won't you and Dad miss it?" "No, this your piano," she said
firmly. "Always your piano. You only one can play." "Well, I probably can't play anymore," I said. "It's been
years." "You pick up fast," my mother said, as if she knew this was certain. “You have natural talent. You could
be a genius if you want to." "No, I couldn't." "You just not trying," my mother said. And she was neither angry
nor sad. She said it as if announcing a fact that could never be disproved. "Take it," she said. But I didn't at first.
It was enough that she had offered it to me. And after that, every time I saw it in my parents' living room,
standing in front of the bay window, it made me feel proud, as if it were a shiny trophy that I had won back.
Last week I sent a tuner over to my parent's apartment and had the piano reconditioned, for purely sentimental
reasons. My mother had died a few months before and I had been getting things in order for my father a little
bit at a time. I put the jewelry in special silk pouches. The sweaters I put in mothproof boxes. I found some old
Chinese silk dresses, the kind with little slits up the sides. I rubbed the old silk against my skin, and then wrapped
them in tissue and decided to take them hoe with me.