1. My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. You could open a restaurant. You could work for the government and get good retirement. You could buy a house with almost no money down. You could become rich. You could become instantly famous.

2. "Of course, you can be a prodigy, too," my mother told me when I was nine. "You can be best anything. What does Auntie Lindo know? Her daughter, she is only best tricky."

3. America was where all my mother's hopes lay. She had come to San Francisco in 1949 after losing everything in China: her mother and father, her home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin baby girls. But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better.

4. We didn't immediately pick the right kind of prodigy. At first my mother thought I could be a Chinese Shirley Temple. We'd watch Shirley's old movies on TV as though they were training films. My mother would poke my arm and say, "Ni kan. You watch." And I would see Shirley tapping her feet, or singing a sailor song, or pursing her lips into a very round O while saying "Oh, my goodness."

5. Ni kan," my mother said, as Shirley's eyes flooded with tears. "You already know how. Don't need talent for crying!"

6. Soon after my mother got this idea about Shirley Temple, she took me to the beauty training school in the Mission District and put me in the hands of a student who could barely hold the scissors without shaking. Instead of getting big fat curls, I emerged with an uneven mass of crinkly black fuzz. My mother dragged me off to the bathroom and tried to wet down my hair.

7. "You look like a Negro Chinese," she lamented, as if I had done this on purpose.

8. The instructor of the beauty training school had to lop off these soggy clumps to make my hair even again. "Peter Pan is very popular these days" the instructor assured my mother. I now had bad hair the length of a boy’s; with curly bangs that hung at a slant two inches above my eyebrows. I liked the haircut, and it made me actually look forward to my future fame.

9. In fact, in the beginning I was just as excited as my mother, maybe even more so. I pictured this prodigy part of me as many different images, and I tried each one on for size. I was a dainty ballerina girl standing by the curtain, waiting to hear the music that would send me floating on my tiptoes. I was like the Christ child lifted out of the straw manger, crying with holy indignity. I was Cinderella stepping from her pumpkin carriage with sparkly cartoon music filling the air.

10. In all of my imaginings I was filled with a sense that I would soon become perfect: My mother and father would adore me. I would be beyond reproach. I would never feel the need to sulk, or to clamor for anything.

11. But sometimes the prodigy in me became impatient. "If you don't hurry up and get me out of here, I'm disappearing for good," it warned. "And then you'll always be nothing."

12. Every night after dinner my mother and I would sit at the Formica topped kitchen table. She would present new tests, taking her examples from stories of amazing children that she read in Ripley's Believe It or Not or Good Housekeeping, Reader's digest, or any of a dozen other magazines she kept in a pile in our bathroom. My mother got these magazines from people whose houses she cleaned. And since she cleaned many houses each week, we had a great assortment. She would look through them all, searching for stories about remarkable children.

13. The first night she brought out a story about a three-year-old boy who knew the capitals of all the states and even the most of the European countries. A teacher was quoted as saying that the little boy could also pronounce the names of the foreign cities correctly.

14. "What's the capital of Finland?” my mother asked me, looking at the story.

15. All I knew was the capital of California, because Sacramento was the name of the street we lived on in Chinatown. "Nairobi!" I guessed, saying the most foreign word I could think of. She checked to see if that might be one way to pronounce Helsinki before showing me the answer.

16. The tests got harder - multiplying numbers in my head, finding the queen of hearts in a deck of cards, trying to stand on my head without using my hands, predicting the daily temperatures in Los Angeles, New York, and London.

17. One night I had to look at a page from the Bible for three minutes and then report everything I could remember. "Now Jehoshaphat had riches and honor in abundance and...that's all I remember, Ma," I said.

18. And after seeing, once again, my mother's disappointed face, something inside me began to die. I hated the tests, the raised hopes and failed expectations. Before going to bed that night I looked in the mirror above the bathroom sink, and I saw only my face staring back - and understood that it would always be this ordinary face - I began to cry. Such a sad, ugly girl! I made high - pitched noises like a crazed animal, trying to scratch out the face in the mirror.

19. And then I saw what seemed to be the prodigy side of me - a face I had never seen before. I looked at my reflection, blinking so that I could see more clearly. The girl staring back at me was angry, powerful. She and I were the same. I had new thoughts, willful thoughts - or rather, thoughts filled with lots of won'ts. I won't let her change me, I promised myself. I won't be what I'm not.

20. So now when my mother presented her tests, I performed listlessly, my head propped on one arm. I pretended to be bored. And I was. I got so bored that I started counting the bellows of the foghorns out on the bay while my mother drilled me in other areas. The sound was comforting and reminded me of the cow jumping over the moon. And the next day I played a game with myself, seeing if my mother would give up on me before eight bellows. After a while I usually counted only one bellow, maybe two at most. At last she was beginning to give up hope.

21. 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.

22. She seemed entranced by the music, a frenzied little piano piece with a mesmerizing quality, sort of quick passages and then teasing lilting ones before it returned to the quick playful parts.

23. "Ni kan," my mother said, calling me over with hurried hand gestures. "Look here."

24. 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.

25. 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."

26. "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.

27. "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.

28. 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.

29. 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.

30. 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.

31. "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!" I cried.

32. 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!"

33. "So ungrateful," I heard her mutter in Chinese, "If she had as much talent as she has temper, she'd be famous now."

34. 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.

35. 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.

36. 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!"

37. 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.

38. I would play after him, the simple scale, the simple chord, and then just play some nonsense that sounded like a rat running up and down on top of garage cans. Old Chong would smile and applaud and say Very good! Bt now you must learn to keep time!"

39. 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.

40. 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.

41. 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.

42. 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."

43. "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.

44. "You lucky you don't have this problem," Auntie Lindo said with a sigh to my mother.

45. 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."

46. And right then I was determined to put a stop to her foolish pride.

47. 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.

48. 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.

49. 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.

50. 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.

51. 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.

52. 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.

53. 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."

54. 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.

55. 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.

56. After the show the Hsus, the Jongs, and the St. Clairs, from the Joy Luck Club, came up to my mother and father.

57. "Lots of talented kids," Auntie Lindo said vaguely, smiling broadly.

58. "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.

59. 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.

60. 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.

61. I 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.

62. "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.

63. "Turn off TV," she called from the kitchen five minutes later.

64. 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.

65. She came out of the kitchen and stood in the arched entryway of the living room. "Four clock," she said once again, louder.

66. "I'm not going to play anymore," I said nonchalantly. "Why should I? I'm not a genius."

67. She walked over and stood in front of the TV. I saw that her chest was heaving up and down in an angry way.

68. "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.

69. "No! I won't!" I screamed.

70. She 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.

71. "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!"

72. "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!"

73. "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.

75. 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."

76. 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.

77. 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.

78. For unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be, I could only be me.

79. 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.

80. And even worse, I never asked her about what frightened me the most: Why had she given up hope?

81. 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.

82. 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.

83. "Are you sure?" I asked shyly. "I mean, won't you and Dad miss it?"

84. "No, this your piano," she said firmly. "Always your piano. You only one can play."

85. "Well, I probably can't play anymore," I said. "It's been years."

86. "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."

87. "No, I couldn't."

88. "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.

89. 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.

90. 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 begetting 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.

91. After I had the piano tuned, I opened the lid and touched the keys. It sounded even richer that I remembered. Really, it was a very good piano. Inside the bench were the same exercise notes with handwritten scales, the same secondhand music books with their covers held together with yellow tape.

92. I opened up the Schumann book to the dark little piece I had played at the recital. It was on the left-hand page, "Pleading Child." It looked more difficult than I remembered. I played a few bars, surprised at how easily the notes came back to me.

93. And for the first time, or so it seemed, I noticed the piece on the right-hand side, It was called "Perfectly Contented." I tried to play this one as well. It had a lighter melody but with the same flowing rhythm and turned out to be quite easy. "Pleading Child" was shorter but slower; "Perfectly Contented" was longer but faster. And after I had played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song.

Words and Expressions from the Text

1. manger: a long open container that horse, cattle, etc. eat from

2. Formica: trademark for a laminated, heat-resistant thermosetting plastic used for table andsink tops, etc.

3. sauciness: the quality of being rude, impudent:; pert, sprightly; smart, stylish

4. sheet music: music that is printed on single sheets and not fastened together inside a cover

5. encore: an additional or repeated part of a performance, especially a musical one

6. sonata: a composition for one or two instruments, usually consisting of several movement,sonata form: a type of musical composition in three sections(exposition, development,and recapitulation)(奏鸣曲)

7. treble: the higher part in musical harmony (here meaning paying attention to your right

8. bass: a part for the lower register of an instrument (left hand)

9. C major: On a piano where no black keys are played, that is, no sharps(++i)or flats(降半音) appear,, the piece is said to be written in the key of C Mayor.(C大调)

10. scale: a series of tones arranged in a sequence of rising or falling pitches in accordancewith any of various systems of intervals(音阶)

11. chord: a combination of three or more tones sounded together in harmony(和弦,和音)

12. trill: a musical sound made by quickly going up and down several times between two notes(颤音)

13. arpeggio:琶音,琶音和弦

14. staccato:断奏,断奏的乐曲段

15. prelude:前奏曲

16. discordant: not in harmony

17. hymn: a song in praise or honor of God, a god, or gods, any song of praise orglorification

18. spinet:小型立式钢琴

19. tutu: a very short, full, projecting skirt worn by ballerinas

20. nonchalantly: without warmth or enthusiasm; not showing interest

Notes on the Background

1. Amy Tan is one of the prominent Chinese American writers that have emerged since the1980s. She was born in Oakland, California, in 1952, two and a half years after her parents immigrated to the United States from China. She received her master's degree in linguistics from San Jose State University. Though her parents anticipated she would become a neurosurgeon by trade and a concert pianist by hobby, she instead became a consultant to programs for disabled children, and later a free-lance writer. She published her first novel：The Joy Luck Club in 1989, which was an instant success. It was followed by other novels:The Kitchen Gods Wife (1991), The Hundred Secret Senses (1995), and The bonesenter's Daughter (2001).

2. Shirley Temple: an American actress, the most beloved child film star. Propelled by an ambitious mother, Temple made her film debut at the age of three. Known for her blond ringlets and recognized for her ability to sing and tap-dance, Temple became a celebrity930s, and she appeared in a great number of movies. In the late 1940s Temple departed Hollywood. From the 1960s Temple began a long and successful career with the Nations and the U. S. State Department.

3. Peter Pan: Peter Pan or the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up (1902) is a dramatic fantasy by J M. Barrie. The boy-hero, Peter Pan, has run away to Never- never-land to escape growing up. Here he lives as the leader of a group of lost children. While in search of his lost shadow, he encounters Wendy, Michael, and John. He instantly befriends and teaches them to fly. They have many adventures. This extremely popular book was made into a play, and Peter Pan became a well-known figure in Disneyland. Everybody was familiar with Peter pan's looks with his short hair and a few straight-across bangs above his eye brows.

4. The Christ child lifted out of the straw manger: This is a biblical allusion about the birth of Jesus Christ. His mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they were married, she found out that she was going to have a baby by the Holy Spirit. An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him not to be afraid to take Mary to be his wife. For it was by the Holy Spirit that she had conceived. At the time when Jesus was about to be bom, the Emperorof the Roman Empire ordered a census to be taken throughout the Empire. Everyone had to register himself, each in his own town. So Joseph went from the town of Nazareth to the town of Bethlehem for this registration. While they were in Bethlehem, the time came for Mary to have her baby. She gave birth to her son, wrapped him in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger-there was no room for them to stay in the inn. This scene is often dramatized by Christians as part of Christmas celebrations.

5. Ed Sullivan: Ed Sullivan, a newspaper columnist, ran a popular variety series on CBS television from 1948 to 1971. Every Sunday night for more than two decades Ed Sullivan brought an incredible variety of entertainment into American homes, including grand operas the latest rock music, ballets, and comedies.

6. Grieg: Edward Hagerup Grieg (1843-1907), Norwegian composer. He combined a natural romanticism with strong feeling for Norwegian folk music in his instrumental music and his songs.

7. Schumann: Robert Alexander Schumann (1810-1856), German composer. His most characteristic music is for the piano. It is spontaneous, lyrical and in the main exquisitely brief: most often melancholy, nostalgic and tender.

8. Madame Butterfly: an opera composed in 1904 by Italian operatic composer Giacomo Puccini(1858—1924)

Notes on the Text

1. “Two kinds” is fiction. Although this passage is taken from a novel, it can be read as a complete short story. By this we mean that it has a complete plot of its own. As you may know, a plot is the deliberately arranged sequence of interrelated events that constitute the basic narrative structure of a novel or a short story. Very often a plot starts from a significant conflict. This conflict sets the plot of a story in motion. It retains the reader's attention, builds the suspense of the work and arouses expectation for the events that are to follow. The plot of the traditional short story contains three parts: beginning, middle and end. It often moves through five stages: exposition, rising action, crisis (climax), falling action and resolution. The exposition is the beginning section in which the author provides necessary background information. In the second stage, the conflict is developed gradually and intensified. The crisis, also referred to as the climax, is that moment at which the plot reaches its point of greatest emotional intensity. Once the climax or crisis is reached, the tension subsides and the plot moves toward its conclusion. The final section of the plot is its resolution; it records the outcome of the conflict and establishes some new stability. As we read "Two Kinds" we will find that this story is carefully constructed, containing all the five stages of the plot. We will discuss them as we read along. When we read a story, one of the first things that draw our attention is the plot. However, a finely worked out plot is more than just a sequence of happenings. Often it tells of an epiphany, some moment of insight discovery, or revelation by which a character's life, or view of life, is greatly altered. As we read "Two Kinds" we should try to see if there is a moment in the story that tells of an epiphany.

2. After reading a story we often ask ourselves questions like "What is the story about?""What does the story mean? "Or "What is the author trying to say? Then we are considering the theme of the story. The theme of a story is different from the plot. While the plot tells what happens in the story, the theme shows what the story is about. The theme of a story is the general meaning, the central and dominating idea that unifies and controls the total work. Usually it is easier to summarize the events than to state the theme in one's own words. Take the story we are reading here. Based on our first reading of the story we may retell the story in our words without much difficulty, but to state the theme we have to read the story closely and think carefully. After reading and analyzing the whole story, we will find that the meaning of the title "Two Kinds" is spelled out in Paragraph 72: 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! "This is important for us in order to identify the central idea of the story, the theme of the story. We may try to formulate in our own words a statement about human experience that the author is trying to share with us readers through this work. Different readers may come up with differently formulated statements, but they should express more or less the same general meaning. Here is an example of a statement of the theme of "Two Kinds". The mother’s attempts to change her daughter into a prodigy and the daughter’s resistance to such change represent a bittersweet relationship between mother and daughter and a sharp conflict between two generations and two cultures.

3. The story "Two Kinds" employs the first-person narration. A story can be told from the first or the third person. When the first-person narrative is used, the story is told by "I. In this story, the narrator, the daughter, is one of the main characters of the story. The whole story is narrated by the daughter. Though the narrator remains the same, the point of view may change. Most of the story is narrated from the point of view of the daughter as a little girl and the last part is from the point of view of the same daughter when she has grown up. We readers should distinguish between the first-person narrator "I" and the author who wrote the story. In other words, the fictional "I" and the real-life author are not the same person, though in an autobiographical or semi-autobiographical novel or story, many events that "I" experience are based on the authors own life experiences. Amy tan's The Joy Luck Club has autobiographical elements in it, and for such a novel the first-person narrative is more effective than the third-person narrative, As the first-person narrator is part of the story, she/he can move freely within the fictional world and approach other fictional characters. The first-person narrator addresses the reader directly. The immediate and compelling quality of the first-person narration enables the author to capture the moment as if it were taking place this very instant and right here. The first-person is either a participant or an eyewitness of the events. So there is authority in the first-person narration. The first person narration can also allow the reader to enter the mind of the narrator. The narrator tells us what happens in the physical world as well as in his/her mental world. When we read the following passage, we not only follow the events, the external occurrences, but we are also able to perceive what is going on in the mind of the narrator, the internal progress of the girl as a character. However, the first-person narration has its restrictions. It is tightly controlled and limited in its access to information. It can only tell us what the narrator sees and knows. It cannot let the readers enter the minds of other characters. So the first-person narration is inevitably limited and may even be biased in terms of perspectives and observations

4. The main characters in this story are the daughter by the name of Jing-mei (her English name is June) and her mother(Suyuan, its meaning in Chinese is 18 There are some minor characters including the girl’s father, suyuan's friend, Lindo, the latter's daughter, Waverly and the piano teacher, Old Chong. The characters, especially the main ones, are important element of a story. Every story has a plot and characters. As events inevitably involve people, it is impossible to discuss plot in isolation from character. Character and plot are intimately related. In "The Art of Fiction" Henry James asks, "What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character? The major, or central, character of the plot is the protagonist; his opponent, the character against whom the protagonist struggles or contends, is the antagonist. The protagonist is the essential character without whom there would be no plot in the first place. It is the protagonist's fate on which the attention of the reader is focused. The terms protagonist and antagonist do not imply a judgment about either's moral worth. Many protagonists and antagonists embody a complex mixture of both positive and negative qualities, In our story, if the daughter is the protagonist then the mother is the antagonist, and our job is to try to understand both of them rather than judge them and say who is right or who is wrong. There are several methods of revealing character-characterization: characterization through the use of names; characterization through action. A well-portrayed character should be what we call dynamic or round, not static or flat. A dynamic or round character, with richness in personality grows or develops in the progress of the story while a static, or flat, one stays unchanged, more or less the same throughout the story. It is useful to bear this point in mind when we examine our main characters as we read along.

5. Now let's have a close reading of "Two Kinds". The author divides the story into parts: Part One containing Paragraphs 1 to 3 is the beginning of the story: Part Two three containing Paragraphs 4 to 76 is the middle: Part Three with Paragraphs 77 to 93 is the end of the story. Part Two can be further divided into several subsections.

6. Part I(Paras. 1-3)

The beginning part of the story, Paragraphs 1 to 3, provides the reader with some background information. It tells about the mother and her hopes for her daughter. This paves the way for the development of the conflict between the daughter and the mother. These paragraphs show that the mother was very optimistic about the future, and in fact she was rather ambitious for her daughter. From these paragraphs we can deduce the reasons why the mother placed extraordinarily high hopes on the daughter. First, she believed one could be anything one wanted to be in America. Whether she was aware of it or not, she was influenced by and believed in the "American Dream". Secondly, she was competing with her best friend Lindo, who had a smart daughter. Thirdly, she had lost everything in China and had come to America with the determination to make things better. She was transferring her own hopes to her daughter.

7. You could buy a house with almost no money down.

(1) Explain the meaning of the sentence: You could buy a house without any down payment(首付), that is, completely on loan.

(2) prodigy: a young person who is extremely clever or good at doing something, e.g. Mozart was a prodigy.

9. “You can be best anything": To be grammatically correct, one should say: "You can be the best in anything.

10. Auntie Lindo: One of the four women of the Joy Luck Club.

11. She is only best tricky: She is only good at being tricky.

12. her family home: Why family home? Is the word "family" redundant? No. In China, a family home is one where a big, extended family with three or more generations lives together.

Part II (Paras. 4-76)

Subsection 1 (Paras. 4-11)

13. Paragraphs 4 to 11 form the first subsection of the body of the story. This part is about the mother's unsuccessful attempt to change her daughter into a Chinese Shirley Temple. In the beginning the child was as excited as the mother about becoming a prodigy. At this point the conflict between mother and daughter was not visible.

14. Shirley Temple: See Note 2 to the text.

15. tapping her feet: Here she was doing a tap dance, a dance performed with sharp, loud taps of the foot, toe, or heel at each step.

16. "You already know how. don't need talent for crying":This is a remark of reproach said intone of sarcasm. The mother indicated that the daughter cried too much.

17. a beauty training school:美容培训班

18. the Mission district: A district in San Francisco, it has been primarily a His panic neighborhood for decades, where interesting restaurants, bars and specialty shops are often frequented by tourists.

19. Instead of getting big fat curls.. an uneven mass of crinkly black fuzz.

(1) Shirley Temple had blond hair in big fat curls. But after the hair was done, the narrator looked very different from what they had hoped.

(2) an uneven mass of crinkly black fuzz:一团乱蓬蓬的黑色小卷毛

(3)crinkle: full of wrinkles, twists and ripples

(4) fuzz: thin, soft hair

20. "You look like Negro Chinese": She was thinking of stereotypes: White girls have blond curly hair, Chinese girls have black straight hair, and black girls have crinkly fuzzy hair. To the mother, the new hairstyle was even worse because the daughter now looked like a Negro girl.

21. she lamented, as if I had done this on purpose.

(1) lamented: To lament is to express annoyance or disappointment about something you think is unsatisfactory. The use of the word shows that the mother was dissatisfied and disappointed with the daughter. The word appears again later.

(2) as if I had done this on purpose: The girl felt that her mother blamed her for this initial failure. Later on we find that the mother and daughter often blamed each other in their intense relationship.

22. The instructor of the beauty school had to lop off these soggy clumps.

(1) lop off: to cut a part of something off, especially a branch of a tree

(2) soggy: unpleasantly wet and soft, e. g. The ground is soggy from the rain.

clump: a group of trees, bushes or other plants growing very close together. Here “lop off” and “clumps” are used figuratively

23. "Peter Pan is very popular these days": In making her hair smooth again, the girl looked like a boy, and so the instructor was comforting the mother and the girl by mentioning Peter Pan, whose hair was short, with a few straight-across bangs above his eyebrows.

24. In fact, in the beginning, I was just as excited as my mother: Her mother's attempt to change her into a prodigy roused in her many fanciful ideas and made her quite excited.

25. I pictured this prodigy part of me as many different images, trying each one on for size.

(1) Explain the meaning of the sentence: I imagined myself as different types of prodigy trying to find out which one suited me the best.

(2) trying each one for size, to try something, especially clothing, to see if it is the right size

26. a dainty ballerina girl: a small, pretty and delicate girl who dances in ballets. ballerina: a woman who dances in ballets.

27. I was like the Christ child lifted out of the straw manger, crying with holy indignity.

(1) For Christ child, see Note 4 to the text.

(2) holy indignity: it's difficult to explain exactly what the author means here by "holy indignity". These words can be interpreted in different ways. In outdated English, the word “indignity” means“ indignation”. So the sentence may mean that Christ child cried with holy indignation when he was lifted from the straw manger. Another way of explaining the sentence shows that the author is being humorous here. Jesus Christ did everything with holy dignity, such as preaching and healing the sick. But when he was a newborn baby, and when he was lifted out of the straw manger, he cried just like other babies, without holy dignity, but with indignity. Yet, because he was the holy Son of God, his indignity was holy, too.

28. I was Cinderella stepping from her pumpkin carriage: In the fairy tale Cinderella was left alone in the kitchen while her stepmother and the two stepsisters had gone off to attend the dancing party given by the king. She felt very sad. At this moment her fairy god mother appeared. She asked Cinderella to go into the garden and bring the largest pumpkin she could find. By magic the fairy godmother changed the pumpkin into a golden coach lined with white satin. Cinderella went to the party in the carriage, and she was the prettiest girl at the party. The kings young son danced with her the whole night. In the end, the Prince and Cinderella were happily married.

29. beyond reproach:无可指摘,完美无缺

reproach: blame, shame, disgrace, or a source, cause, or occasion of this

Section 2 (Paras. 12-20)

30. Paragraphs 12 to 20 form the second subsection of Part Two of the story. In this part we learn that the mother was trying very hard to train her daughter to be a genius. As the tests got more and more difficult, the daughter lost heart. She said". Something inside of me began to die. I hate the tests, the raised hopes and failed expectations. "She decided that she would not let her mother change her. This change of attitudes would lead to the gradual development of the conflict.

30. Paragraphs 12 to 20 form the second subsection of Part Two of the story. In this part we learn that the mother was trying very hard to train her daughter to be a genius. As the tests got more and more difficult, the daughter lost heart. She said". Something inside of me began to die. I hate the tests, the raised hopes and failed expectations. "She decided that she would not let her mother change her. This change of attitudes would lead to the gradual development of the conflict.

32. Good Housekeeping: The magazine first appeared on May 2, 1885, offering reader’s tips for running a home as well as stories and articles. It became extraordinarily popular. In 1966 its readers numbered 5.5 million. Today Good Housekeeping contains articles about home food, fitness, beauty, health and family.

33. Reader’s Digest: A best-selling general interest magazine with a large circulation published in a dozen of languages, it contains articles, short stories and sections from books with a variety of topics that appeal to the great masses of ordinary readers.

34. My mother got these magazines from people whose houses she cleaned…assortment: From this we can see that the family was not well off. The mother had to clean many houses each week to help support the family.

35. Nairobi: capital of Kenya, Africa, far away from Finland

36. Helsinki: capital of Finland

37. multiplying numbers in my head:心算乘法

38. finding the queen of hearts in a deck of cards:

(1) Put this into Chinese:在一副纸牌中找出红桃皇后来

(2) hearts: suit of playing cards marked with heart figures in red. A deck of cards is a set of playing cards: pack. Playing cards are arranged in decks of four suits: spades, hearts diamonds, and clubs, with a total number of 52.

39. to stand on my head without using my hands:不用手扶地的倒立

40. Now Jehoshaphat had riches and honor in abundance: This line is taken from 2 Chronicles of the Old Testament. Second Chronicles recount the reign of King Solomon, the revolt of the northern tribes, the kings of Judah and the fall of Jerusalem. The original passage is quite complicated with difficult names. No wonder that the girl couldn’t remember much from her reading. Chapter 17 of 2 Chronicles says: "And Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his stead, and strengthened himself against Israel. And he placed forces in all the fenced cities of Judah and set garrisons in the land of Judah, and in the cities of E’phrim, which Asa his father had taken. And the Lord was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of his father David, and sought not unto Ba'alim: But sought to the Lord God of his father, and walked in his commandments, and not after the doings of Israel. Therefore the Lord established the kingdom in his hand; and all Judah brought to Jehoshaphat presents; and he had riches and honour in abundance

41. something inside of me began to die: Compare what the girl said in Paragraph 9, "In fact, in the beginning, I was just as excited as my mother, maybe even more so. "It was natural for a child to become excited when he or she is told he/she can be a prodigy. As the tests got harder and harder, the girl lost interest and confidence. Seeing how disappointed her mother was with her performances, she knew that she was not a genius, not a prodigy. This indicates an important change in the girl.

42. I hate the tests, the raised hopes and failed expectations.

(1) Why did the girl hate the tests? The girl hated the tests because they represented hopes that had been raised so high that failure to meet the expectations was inevitable

(2) Put this part into Chinese:我恨那些测试,那些过高的希望和达不到的期盼。

43. I looked in the mirror above the bathroom sink and when I saw only my face…I began to cry: When she only saw her face in the mirror and realized that face would not change, she was so sad and disappointed that she was trying to scratch out the face in the mirror. We are not sure whether the author is alluding to the fairytale "Snow White", but we are reminded of that fairytale. Once, the Queen, Snow white's stepmother, looked in the mirror, asking: "Mirror, mirror upon the wall, who is the fairest of all?" The mirror answered, "You, O Queen, are the fairest of all." When Snow White grew up she became a beautiful girl. When the Queen asked the same question the answer was somewhat different: "You, Lady Queen, though fair you are, Snow White is fairer far to see.

44. like a crazed animal: crazed: (adj. ) behaving in a wild and uncontrolled way

45. Paragraph 19:

(1) What did the girl see in the mirror?

She looked at her reflection and saw an angry and powerful girl She felt that the true prodigy side of her was a strong character and an independent mind.

(2)What new thoughts did she have now? What did she decide to do? She had new thoughts which were filled with a strong spirit of disobedience, rebellion. She decided not to cooperate with her mother's plans

(3)willful; continuing to do what you want, even after you have been told to stop

(4) lots of won’ts: When you disobey an order, you say, “I won’t do it. "So lots of won'ts represent disobedience and rebellion.

46. I won't let her change me, I promised myself. I won't be what I'm not: The girl was asserting her self-identity. This idea of "I'm what I’m. I'll always be myself" reflects an aspect of American individualism which is the most important part of American value Growing up in America, the girl was inevitably influenced by this value. Obviously the notion of individualism is not in conformity with the traditional Chinese family education which emphasizes the principle that the children should listen to their parents. After the girl made up her mind to resist change, the conflict between mother and daughter escalated.

47. I got so bored I started counting the bellows of the foghorns out on the bay…other areas.

(1) bellow: a deep hollow sound

(2) foghorn: a horn on a ship or a lighthouse sounded as a warning during a fog.

(3) on the bay: on the San Francisco Bay

(4) drill, to teach someone by making them repeat something many times, e. g. She was drilling the class in the forms of the past tense.

(5) other areas: The word "areas" is used because the bay was an area the girl's was focused on.

48. The sound was comforting and reminded me of the cow jumping over the moon: The bellows of the foghorns on the bay had a quality that could rouse the childs imagination, The sound reminded her of the nursery rhyme about the cow jumping over the moon. The complete rhyme goes like this:

“Hey, diddle, diddle,

The cat and the fiddle,

The cow jumped over the moon.

The little dog laughed,

To see such sport,

And the dish ran away with the spoon.”

49. give up on me: to stop hoping that someone will change, do something, etc. e. g. She has been in a coma for six weeks, but doctors have not given up on her.

Subsection 3 (Paras. 21-28)

50. Paragraphs 21 to 28 form the third subsection of Part Two. While watching a Chinese girl playing the piano on an Ed Sullivan Show, a new idea flashed into the mother's head. With the new plan introduced, the conflict would develop further.

51. The Ed Sullivan Show: See Note 5 to the text.

52. shorting out:短路

53. Paragraph 21 is one of the fine examples showing how the author uses simple but vivid expressive language in her depiction. When the sound of the TV set shorted out, the mother would get up from her seat to adjust the set. This action was repeated so many times that in the eyes of the child it was like a dance between her mother and the TV set. In her depiction the author uses simple and small words like" up and down, back and forth, quiet and loud.”

54. It was like a stiff embrace less dance between her and the TV set:她和电视机好像上演了一段舞蹈,二者不相拥抱,动作僵硬。

55. sound dial: a piece of equipment of an old-fashioned radio or TV set that you turn to adjust the volume of the sound

56. She seemed entranced by the music. playful parts.

(1) Translate the sentence into Chinese:她似乎被这音乐吸引住了。这钢琴曲不长,但有点狂乱,有着迷人的特点,乐曲一开始是快节奏的,接着是欢快跳动的节拍,然后又回到嬉戏的部分

(2)entranced, very interested in and pleased with something so that you pay a lot of attention to it, e. g. He was entranced by the sweetness of her voice.

(3)mesmerizing: to mesmerize means to make someone feel that they must watch or listen to something or someone, because they are so interested in it or attracted by it, e. g. He was mesmerized by her charm and beauty.

(4) lilting: with a pleasant pattern of rising and falling sound in music or voice

57. The girl had the sauciness of a Shirley Temple.

(1) Explain the meaning of the sentence: The girl was Shirley temple-like, slightly rude but in an amusing way.

(2) sauciness: impertinence, rudeness in an amusing way

(3)a Shirley Temple: of the Shirley Temple type

58. She was proudly modest like a proper Chinese girl.: A proper Chinese girl was supposed to be modest. Knowing this, the girl tried to look modest, but actually she was proud.

59. And she also did this fancy sweep of a curtsy: Like Shirley Temple, she did her curtsy with a fancy sweep(花哨潇洒的屈膝礼)

60. the fluffy shirt of her white dress cascaded slowly . a large carnation.

Put this into Chinese:她那白色蓬松的裙子慢慢地垂落到地上,好似一大朵康乃馨。

61. In spite of these warning signs, I wasn't worried.

What were the warning signs?

The girl had so many similarities with the narrator that she should have known what her mother was thinking about: If that Chinese girl could be a Shirley temple-like prodigy, why not her own daughter? Watching that girls performance, the mother had a new idea-to make her daughter learn the piano. The narrator saw those warning signs, but she was not worried. The reason is explained in the following sentences.

62. reams of sheet music: a large amount of music printed on single sheets and not fastened together inside a cover. reams: (pl )(informal) a large amount of writing on paper, e.g. He showed me reams of notes he had taken.

63. So I could be generous in my comments when my mother bad-mouthed the little girl.

(1) Why could the girl be generous in her comments?

As she knew she would not be competing with this girl, she was not jealous of her and so she could say nice things about the girl's performance when her mother criticized the girl.

(2) bad-mouth: (informal, especially in American English) to find fault with, to criticize or disparage, e. g. His former colleagues accused him of bad-mouthing them in public.

64. "Play note right, but doesn't sound good! No singing sound": We can see that although the mother did not speak grammatically correct English, she was able to express herself sufficiently. It’s clear what she meant is that the girl played the notes right but failed to bring out the melody of that piece.

65. picking on her: To pick on someone means to blame someone for something, especially unfairly, e. g. Why does the boss always pick on me?

66. I knew almost immediately I would be sorry I said that: I knew immediately I had invited criticism by saying that7.Grieg: See Note 6 to the text.

67. Greig: see Note 6 to the text

Subsection 4 (Paras. 29-46)

68. Paragraphs 29 to 46 form the fourth subsection of Part Two. It tells about how the girl was made to learn the piano under the instructions of Old Chong. The girl hated the piano lessons because she didn't want to be somebody she was not. The relationship between mother and daughter was getting more and more tense. When her mother was using her in competing with Auntie Lindo, she could not put up with her mother any more, and she decided to put top to "her foolish pride". What was she going to do? That naturally arouses our expectation. With this anticipation, we continue our reading into the next part.

69. my mother had traded housecleaning services for weekly lessons.. until six: My mother would do housecleaning for Mr. Chong. As a form of payment for her services, she got free weekly piano lessons and a piano for her daughter to practice on everyday, two hours a day from four until six. At this stage, the little girl was too young to appreciate the efforts and sacrifice her mother made for her.

70. whined: I complained in a sad, annoying voice.

71. My mother slapped me: This tells us two things. First, the mother was rather quick-tempered. Secondly, we are reminded that she was a Chinese mother. American parents would have hesitated to use physical punishment in dealing with children.

72. "Who ask you be genius? Only ask you be your best. For your sake. You think I want you be a genius?: If we put this part into more accurate English, it should be: Who asks you to be a genius? I only ask you to be at your best. For your sake. You think I want you to be a genius?

73. "So ungrateful": This reflects an important Chinese value concerning the relationship between parents and children. The parents do everything they can for their children and the children are supposed to feel grateful to their parents. The typical American idea is that since the parents have brought their children into this world, they have obligations for their children, and so the children do not have to feel that they owe anything to their parents.

74. I heard her mutter in Chinese: Note that when the mother communicated with her daughter sometimes she spoke English and sometimes Chinese. She switched to Chinese perhaps when the notions were so typically Chinese that it was easier for her to express them in her mother tongue or when she found that what she wanted to say was too difficult for her to put across in English.

75. “ If she had as much talent as she has temper, she would be famous now”:如果她的才气和脾气一样大的话,她早就出名了

76. tapping his fingers to the silent music of an invisible orchestra:用手指随着一支无形乐团的无声音乐打着拍子

77. "Like Beethoven…we're both listening in our head": The world famous German composer Ludwig van Beethoven(1770--1827) began to lose his hearing when he was only 28 and his2nd symphony was not yet finished. This was a terrible disaster for the young musician. Public performance eventually became impossible, but he never stopped composing. At first he could not bear to let anyone, even his best friends, know of his tragedy. In a letter he wrote to his brother about his deafness in 1802, he said, "What humiliation when anyone standing beside me could hear a distant flute that I could not hear, or a shepherd singing and I could not distinguish a sound! Such circumstances brought me to the brink of despair and almost made me put an end to my life: nothing but my art held my hand. "The disease worsened, and he became completely deaf in 1807. In spite of his deafness, Beethoven went on working with all his strength, though he was never able to hear most of his own finest music.

78. "Key! Treble! Bass! No sharps or flats", Please refer to Words and Expressions 7, 8 and 9.

79. an old, unreachable itch: The word "itch" has two meanings. An itch is an uncomfortable feeling on your skin that makes you want to rub it with your nails. Informally it means figuratively a strong desire to do or have something

80. keep time: to play a piece of music using the right rhythm and speed保持(正确的)节奏

There are other phrases about music with the word "time" in them. Let’s have a few examples:

Waltzes are usually in three-four time.

>

He went through the motions in half-time.

She began moving her body in time to the music.

While his friends were singing, he beat time for them.

The girl was playing the piano for him, but he was always out of time with her.

81. He balanced pennies on top of my wrists: This is a common method piano teachers use to train their students. The players' fingers dance on the keyboard but their wrists should not move up and down but be kept still.

82. He marched stiffly to show me how to make each finger dance.

(1) Here Old Chong was demonstrating to the girl how to play staccato

(2)staccato: (adv. When music is played staccato, the notes are cut short and do not flow smoothly. He was comparing playing staccato to marching stiffly like an obedient little soldier

83. conducting his own private reverie: He was conducting the invisible orchestra created by his reverie: dreamy thinking, imagining of especially agreeable things; fanciful musing daydreaming

84. I learned to play only the most ear-splitting preludes, the most discordant hymns: This is a metaphor, comparing her non-cooperative attitude to learning to play discordant music. “Ear-splitting” and "discordant" are used figuratively, meaning that she tried her best to be as disagreeable as possible in dealing with her mother.

85. Over the next year, I practiced like this, dutifully in my own way: If you say that you do something dutifully, you do what you are expected and behave in a loyal and an obedient way, with a sense of duty. Here by adding "in my own way", the girl meant that she practiced like that not according to her mothers expectation but to her own plans.

86. after church: After church service on Sunday. At the very beginning of the novel, Jing-mei told the story about how her mother and the other three Chinese ladies met in the First Chinese Baptist Church.

My mother started the San Francisco version of the Joy Luck Club in 1949, two years before I was born. This was the year my mother and father left China with one stiff leather trunk filled only with fancy silk dresses. There was no time to pack anything else, my mother had explained to my father after they boarded the boat. Still his hands swam frantically between the slippery silks, looking for his cotton shirts and wool pants.

When they arrived in San Francisco, my father made her hide those shiny clothes. She wore the same brown-checked Chinese dress until the Refugee Welcome Society gave her two hand dresses, all too large in sizes for American women. The society was composed of a group of white-haired American missionary ladies from the First Chinese Baptist Church. And because of their gifts my parents could not refuse their invitation to join the church, Nor could they ignore the old ladies’ practical advice to improve their English through Bible study class on Wednesday nights and, later, through choir practice on Saturday mornings. This was how my parents met the Hsus, the Jongs, and the St. Clairs. My mother could sense that the women of these families also had unspeakable tragedies they had left behind in China and hopes they couldn't begin to express in their fragile English. Or at least, my mother recognized the numbness in these women’s faces. And she saw how A quickly their eyes moved when she told them her idea for the Joy Luck Club.

87. We had grown up together and shared all the closeness…and dolls.

(1)The two girls had grown up together. Like sisters they often quarreled over crayons and dolls.

(2)squabble(over/ about): to quarrel continuously about something unimportant: The kids are still squabbling about whose turn it is to wash the dishes.

88. In other words, for the most part, we hated each other: In other words, we hated each other most of the time. Their behavior is similar to sibling rivalry. Sibling rivalry is competition between brothers and sisters for their parents' attention or love. Although there is rivalry in all cultures, it may be more common in American families than in Chinese because of different family education and family values. In American families, every child is led to think he/she is the best. They are encouraged to compete for everything from an early age on. If we compare the relationships among sisters and brothers in Chinese and American families, we can find some differences. In Chinese families, elder sisters and brothers are told to look after their younger sisters and brothers. In return, younger sisters and brothers are supposed to show respect for the older ones. In American families, more stress is put on individual rights and equality than on relations in which the older and the younger siblings have different roles to play.

89. “chinatown's Littlest Chinese Chess Champion”: A headline in a newspaper or magazine. Note the alliteration used here. Alliteration and puns are often used in newspaper headlines in order to catch readers' attention. In the novel there is a part told by Waverly. She learns to play chess at an early age. By her ninth birthday, she was a national chess champion. Although she was still some 429 points away from grand-master status, she was touted the Great American Hope, a child prodigy. A photo of hers appeared in Life magazine.

90. “She bring home too many trophy, "lamented Auntie Lindo…"All day I…dust off her winnings.”

(1) Like Jing-mei's mother, Auntie Lindo also spoke inaccurate English. In more accurate English it should be: she brings home too many trophies. All day she plays chess. All day I have no time to do anything else but clean and dust off her trophies.

(2)Note the use of words and expressions like "lamented" and " threw a scolding look Auntie Lindo was very pleased with and proud of her daughter and wanted to brag about her to her best friend. But she knew that was against Chinese modesty. So, like a proper Chinese mother, she had to hide her pride and pretend to be modest and complaining about her daughter. She was praising her daughter in an indirect way.

(3)winnings: (pl. )something won, especially money

91. " You lucky you don't have this problem": You are lucky that you don't have so many trophies to dust off. The tone was ironic, implying that your daughter didn't bring home any trophy.

92. And my mother squared her shoulders and bragged…this natural talent.

(1)Jing-mei's mother knew her friend too well to miss the ironic tone in her remark. She was determined to respond to her friend's challenge.

(2) What she meant to say is our problem is worse than yours. If we ask Jing-mei to wash dishes, she hears nothing but music. it's like you can't stop this natural talent.

(3) squared her shoulders: to push back shoulders with back straight, usually to show determination

(4) From the above conversation we can see the two mothers' behavior was typically Chinese. Under the same circumstances, an American parent would simply say daughter is great! I'm proud of her

93. Jing-mei hated being compared to Waverly. She knew what her mother said was not true and that it was nothing but foolish pride that made her say so. Therefore, she was determined to put a stop to this.

Subsection 5(Paras. 47-60)

94. Paragraphs 47 to 60 form the fifth subsection of the middle of the story. Jing-mei was to perform in a talent show held in the church. This was a good opportunity for parents to show off their talented children to their friends. Jing-mei started all right and soon made a mess of her performance. Undoubtedly this was a heavy blow to her mother. The girl expected angry accusations from her mother. To her surprise as well as disappointment, nothing happened when they got home. As readers we can't help wondering what this silence means. We feel that a storm is imminent. If we think of the story in terms of the five stages mentioned in Note I of the detailed study, then our guess is that the crisis, or the climax, of the story is about to come.

95. Old Chong and my mother conspired to have me play… in the church hall

(1)The word "conspired" reveals the narrator's relationship with her mother: They were opponents of the sharp conflict. conspire: to plan something harmful or illegal together secretly, e. g. He had conspired with an accomplice to rob the bank.

(2)a talent show: A talent show/contest is a competition in which people show how well they can sing, dance, tell jokes, etc.才艺表演

96. Wurlitzer spinet: Rudolph Wurlitzer was a German immigrant and the founder of a company in Ohio, the USA, which makes and sells musical instruments. In 1880 the first Wurlitz piano was built in the USA.

97. It was the showpiece of our living room:这是我家起居室的惟一摆设(陈列品)

98. I was to play a piece called "Pleading Child" from schumann's Scenes from childhood

(1) For Robert Schumann, see Note 7 to the text. Here is more information about the composer and his work. Schumann was a German composer, pianist, and music critic, representative and leader of the romantic school. Among Schumann's works are highly imaginative song cycles based on poems by Heine, Goethe, and others, four symphonies, one piano concerto, and many sets of piano pieces with titles such as Papillons(Butterflies), Carnaval, Kinderszenen(Scenes from Childhood), and Nachtstucke (Nightpieces). His best works exemplify his infusion of classical forms with intense, personal emotion. His wife was a fine pianist and a masterly interpreter of her husbands works. Schumann's last years were darkened by mental illness. After a nervous breakdown he entered a sanitarium, where he died two years later. His essays include“ On Music and Musicians”

(2) Scenes from Childhood is a collection of 13 little pieces for piano published in 1839They are written in the simple form of episodes, and each of them is provided with a sharply distinguished melodic core. Each piece has a suggestive title. The introductory piece is entitled "Of Foreign Countries and People", and the last piece "The Poet Speaks”. The others include“ Suppliant Child"( also translated as“ Pleading Child”),“ Funny Story",“ Child Fallen Asleep”,"“ Reverie”,“ Perfect Happiness”( also translated as "Perfectly Contented"). This collection is one of Schumann's best-known short pieces, loved by many and suitable for students of all levels. The author chooses Pleading Child "for the girl to play in the talent show because the title suits the situation the girl was in at that time.

(3) plead: to ask for something you want very much in a sincere and emotional way

99. repeat part:复奏(复唱)部分

100. I dawdled over it: To dawdle (over) means to take a long time to do something, e.g. don't dawdle we are late already!

101. The part I liked to practice best was the fancy curtsy.. and smile.

(1) Translate the sentence into Chinese.: 我最喜欢练习的部分是花哨的谢幕行礼动作：先出右脚,脚尖点在地毯上的玫瑰图案上,身子侧摆,左腿弯曲,抬头,微笑。

(2)curtsy: a gesture of greeting, respect, etc, formerly made by girls and women and characterized by a bending of the knees and a slight lowering of the body

102. My parents invited all the couples from the Joy Luck Club…to witness my debut.

(1) debut: a first appearance in public as of an actor

(2) We can hardly call the girls performance in the talent show making her debut. Furthermore, the word "witness" is used, instead of a common word like "watch" Then we realize that the narrator used these formal words with a note of irony to imply that her parents, to be more exact, her mother, attached too much importance to this occasion out of their high hopes for their daughter. They expected their daughter to give a successful performance to impress their friends; A talent show held by the church was mainly for entertainment, an opportunity for church members together, not meant for serious competition. However, jing-mei's mother was using this chance to show off her daughter and compete with her friend Lindo.

103. They recited simple nursery rhymes, squawked out tunes ... enthusiastically

(1) Translate the sentence into Chinese:他们背诵简单的童谣,用微型小提琴拉出又响又粗的调子,跳呼拉圈舞,穿着粉色的芭蕾舞短裙蹦蹦跳跳。当他们鞠躬行礼时观众同声发出“啊,啊”的赞叹,然后热烈地鼓掌

(2) squawk: to utter a loud, harsh cry, as a parrot or chicken

(3)prance: to rise up on the hind legs in a lively way, while moving along: said of a horse; to move about in a way suggestive of a prancing horse.

104. This is it: This is the chance for my prodigy side to come out.

105. I looked out over the audience, at my mother's blank face. waverly's sulky expression.

(1) Here the narrator saw four people with four different facial expressions. The mother had a blank face because her feelings at this moment were mixed. She had high hope sand expectations and she was nervous, too. Whatever she felt she must hide her feelings. The father yawned, showing he didn't care so much as the mother and he was bored by this children's activity. Auntie Lindo's stiff-lipped smile revealed that she tried to put on a polite smile but only succeeded in an awkward, unnatural Obviously she was afraid that Suyuan's daughter's success might overshadow her own daughter. Waverly, being a child, failed to hide her unhappy feeling very well.

(2) stiff-lipped smile: awkward, unnatural smile尴尬、不自然的笑容

(3)sulky: showing annoyance, resentment, dissatisfaction

106. As I sat down I envisioned people jumping to their feet…on TV

(1) Explain the meaning of the sentence: As I sat down at the piano, I imagined that my performance would be such a great success that everybody would jump to their feet in excitement and even Ed Sullivan would be so impressed that he would rush up to introduce me on his TV program.

(2) envision, to imagine something not yet in existence, to picture in the mind

107. A chill started at the top of my head. switching to the right track.

(1) Translate this part into Chinese:一股凉气从头顶开始,然后一点点传到全身。但我却不能停止演奏,双手好像着了魔似的。我不停地想,我的手指会调整好,就像火车会被扳到正确的轨道上

(2) bewitch: to get control over someone by putting a magic spell on them

108. I played this strange jumble.. all the way to the end.

(1) jumble: an untidy mixture of things, e.g. These notes recorded a jumble of thoughts and feeling.

(2) sour notes, notes that are gratingly wrong or off pitch

109. Maybe I had just been nervous and the audience. anything wrong at all: When after all.: Maybe she was just imagining that she had played terribly owing to nervousness and that the audience had not noticed any mistakes.

110. But then I saw my mother's stricken face.

(1)When I saw my mother's stricken face, I knew that was not mere illusion: I really gave an awful performance. Otherwise my mother's face would not be looking so painful and distressed.

(2) stricken: (formal) afflicted or affected by something painful or distressing: very badly affected by trouble, illness, etc.

He had to live with a stricken conscience for the rest of his life.

Supplies of medicine were rushed to the flood-stricken areas.

panic-stricken crowds swarmed into the square.

A grief-stricken mother wrote this letter to the editor of the newspaper about the tragedy.

111.The audience clapped weakly: Compare this with the audience's response in Paragraph 50After each performance given by the little children, the audience would sigh in unison “Awww”, and then clap enthusiastically. This shows that not only her mother but also everybody else, except the deaf Old Chong, noticed what a poor job she had done.

112.We could have escaped during intermission…to their chairs.

(1) Express the meaning in your own words: We had a chance to leave the show during intermission, but we didn’t. My parents remained firm in their seats throughout the show, probably out of pride and some strange sense of honor.

(2)intermission: an interval of time between periods of activity; pause, as between acts of play

(3)anchor: An anchor is a heavy object, usually a shaped iron weight, lowered by cable or chain to the bottom of a body of water to keep a vessel from drifting. To anchor something means to keep something from drifting or giving away, etc. by or as by anchor: to fasten something firmly so that it cannot move.

113. juggled flaming hoops while riding a unicycle

(1) juggle: to keep three or more objects moving through the air by throwing and catching them very quickly

(2) unicycle: a one-wheeled vehicle straddled by the rider who pushes its pedals uni-:(prefix) one: having or consisting of one only (e.g. unicellular, unisex)

Compare: bicycle, tricycle

114.The breasted girl with white makeup who sang from Madama Butter fly…mention.

(1) breasted: Here are some phrases with the word "breast": bare-breasted, small-breasted, large-breasted, etc.

(2)white makeup: The girl was singing an aria sung by the Japanese geisha Cio-Cio-San in Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly. Cio-Cio-San falls in love with the American naval officer Pinkerton and is married to him against her family's strong opposition. Pinkerton returns to the USA with the fleet. When Cio-Cio-San comes to know that her husband has betrayed her and is married again to an American woman, she takes her own life. In the opera, as a Japanese geisha, Cio-Cio-San wears heavy white makeup.

(3)honorable mention: a special honor in a competition for work that was of high quality but did not get a prize(没有进名次的)优秀奖

115. a tricky violin song:技巧性很强的小提琴曲

tricky: requiring great skill or care

116. Auntie Lindo said vaguely, smiling broadly: When the family friends came up to Jingmei's parents after the show, they were supposed to say something nice about Jingmei's Performance. However, the poor job Jingmei had done made it hard for them to make comments. What Auntie Lindo said was a general, ambiguous comment, thus "vaguely" But her smile was broad and genuine, unlike the stiff-lipped smile on her face before Jingmei played, for now she felt relieved because her friend's daughter had notable to out shine her own daughter

Subsection 6 (Paras. 61-76)

117. Paragraphs 61 to 76 form the last subsection of the middle part of the story. The girl assumed that her failure at the show meant she would never have to play the piano. Yet two days later her mother urged her to practice as usual. She refused and the mother insisted. They had the most fierce quarrel they had ever had. This is the crisis or climax of the story when the plot reaches a point of the greatest emotional intensity.

118. I assumed my talent-show fiasco. play the piano again: Since my talent show ended in a ridiculous failure, I took it for granted that my mother had given up on me and would not make me play the piano again.

119. I wedged myself more tightly in front of the TV

(1) I pushed myself more tightly in front of the TV (to show her reluctance to go away for the piano practice

(2)A wedge is a piece of wood, mental, etc. that has one thick edge and one pointed edge and is used especially for keeping a door open or for splitting wood. To wedge is to force something firmly into a narrow space.

120. I wasn't her slave. This wasn't China: In her mind, a daughter was as obedient as a slave in China. She regarded herself as an American and was determined not to be a Chinese daughter. This shows that this mother-daughter conflict was not only between two generations but also between two cultures.

121. She was the stupid one: She was to blame for what happened at the talent show. She was the one who caused the ridiculous failure

122. I saw her chest heaving up and down in an angry way.

(1) I saw her breathing hard in great anger.

(2) To heave means to swell up, bulge out, to rise and fall rhythmically; to make strenuous spasmodic movements of the throat, chest, or stomach in order to pant, breathe hard or gasp.

123. " No!"I said, and I now felt stronger, as if my true self had finally emerged: This "No" signifies disobedience and rebellion. Her true self had finally emerged and she found strength in her true identity.

124. She was frighteningly strong;她的力气大得吓人。

125. throw rug: American English for a scatter rug, a rug for covering only a limited area

126. Only two kinds of daughters. Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind... obedient daughter

(1) Put this part into Chinese:只有两种女儿:顺从听话的和自行其事的。这个家里只能有顺从听话的女儿

(2) These words clearly reveal the mother's firm belief in parental authority. Her traditional Chinese views convinced her that daughters should listen to and obey their mothers' commands. She was aware that American daughters were not obedient. She wanted her daughter to have a Chinese character in the American circumstances

127. As I said these things I got scared: She got scared because she knew those were terrible things for a child to say to his/her parent. It means declaring that you have decided to disown your family.

128. It felt like worms and toads and slimy things crawling.. had surfaced, at last.

(1) Explain the meaning of the sentence and tell why the narrator felt this way: When I said those words, I felt that some very nasty thoughts had got out of my chest, and so I felt scared. But at the same time I felt good and relieved, because those nasty things had been suppressed in my heart for a long time and now they had got out at last.

(2) Here the author uses a simile to describe her feeling vividly. Worms and toads are among things that a child is likely to associate with nasty feelings. This is one of the examples that show how the author uses a child's point of view successfully. Other examples are found in her earlier references to Peter Pan, Cinderella, and the nursery rhyme of the cow jumping over the moon.

(3) slimy: covered with a thick slippery substance that looks or smells unpleasant

129."Too late change this": it's too late to change this. I will always be your mother and you will always be my daughter

130. And I could sense her anger rising to its breaking point.. it spill over.

(1) This means: I could feel that her anger had reached the point where her self-control collapsed, and I wanted to see what my mother would do when she lost complete control of herself.

(2) breaking point: the point at which one's endurance, self-control, etc, collapses under

131. Alakazam: Alakazam is part of the series of names, A magician says abra, kadabra, alakazam, and a miracle will happen.

132. And her face went blank, her mouth closed. a small brown leaf, thin, brittle, lifeless.

(1) Put this part into Chinese:她的脸部失去了表情,嘴巴紧闭,双臂无力地垂下。房间,神色惊异,好像一小片枯黄的树叶被风吹走,那样单薄、脆弱、毫无生气。

(2) What would one expect the mother to do when her daughter said those terrible words? She would fly into a great rage and probably she would punish the daughter for being so ungrateful. Maybe she would scold her and slap her. After all she was a quick-tempered woman and she had scolded and slapped her daughter before for less sufficient reasons. Yet nothing of the sort happened. She said nothing and did nothing.

(3) What magical effect did those words produce? Those words were like magic words, transforming the mother, in a flash of a second, from a frighteningly strong woman into a silent, stunned and helpless woman like a small thin leaf blown away. She looked as if she had been defeated by an invisible enemy.

133. At this critical point, a careful reader must have many questions. What brought this sudden change in the mother? Why could these words work like magic words and produce such a dramatic effect? The complete answer cannot be found in this part of the story. One has to read the whole novel. But at least some clue can be inferred, the loss of the babies was an unspeakable secret of the mother for "we never talked about "them. By saying "I wish I were dead! Like them, “the girl must have hurt the mother so deeply that she was powerless to react. If we read the whole novel we will find that this secret had stuck with the mother all her life. When the girl was told that her mother had lost her first husband and her baby daughters back in China, she naturally thought they were dead. Yes, the husband died in the war. But what about the babies? Why did her mother never talk them? Was there a secret? The reader is held in suspense until the very end of the novel baby girls were not dead; they were abandoned by their mother! The mother felt guilty all her life but had never given up efforts to find the lost daughters. At the same time she gave all her love to and placed all her hopes on her American-born daughter. So when Jingmei said she wished she were dead like them, the words were so cruel and hurtful to her mother. The two daughters were finally found, but only after the mother's death. At the end of the novel, Jingmei was going to China to see them for her mother. Only then did her father tell the whole secret to her. He told her how her mother was fleeing from the gun fire in the anti-Japanese War with her two baby daughters, what she suffered and why she had to abandon them. The following part is what the father told to the daughter :

“After fleeing Kweilin, your mother walked for several days trying to find a main road. Her thought was to catch a ride on a truck or wagon, to catch enough rides until she reached Chungking, where her husband was stationed.

…The roads were filled with people, everybody running and begging for rides from passing trucks. The trucks rushed by, afraid to stop. So your mother found no rides, only the start of dysentery pains in her stomach.

Her shoulders ached from the two babies swinging from scarf slings. Blisters grew on he palms from holding two leather suitcases. And then the blisters burst and began to bleed. After awhile, she left the suitcases behind, keeping only the food and a few clothes. And later she also dropped the bags of wheat flour and rice and kept walking like this for many miles, singing songs to her little girls, until she was delirious with pain and fever.

Finally, there was not one more step left in her body. She didn't have the strength to carry those babies any farther. She slumped to the ground. She knew she would die of her sickness, or perhaps from thirst, from starvation, or from the Japanese, who she was sure were marching right

She took the babies out of the slings and sat them on the side of the road, then lay down next to them. You babies are so good, she said, so quiet. They smiled back, reaching their chubby hands for her, wanting to be picked up again. And then she knew she could not bear to watch her babies die with her.

When the road grew quiet, she tore open the lining of her dress, and stuffed jewelry under their t of one baby and money under the other. She reached into her pocket and drew out the photos of her family, the picture of her father and mother, the picture of herself and her husband on their wedding day. And she wrote on the back of each the names of the babies and this same message: Please care for these babies with the money and valuables provided. When it is safe to come, if you bring them to Shanghai, 9 Weichang Lu, the Li family will be glad to give you a generous reward. Li Suyuan and Wang Fuchi.

And then she touched each baby's cheek and told her not to cry. She would go down the road to find them some food and would be back. And without looking back, she walked down the road stumbling and crying, thinking only of this one last hope that her daughters would be found by a kindhearted person who would care for them. She would not allow herself to imagine anything else.

She did not remember how far she walked, which direction she went, when she fainted or how she was found…”

Part III(Paras. 77-93)

134. Paragraphs 77 to 93 form Part Three, the end of the story. This concluding part is narrated from a different point of view. Now the daughter had grown up from a little girl to a mature woman. This part is divided into two subsections. Paragraphs 77 to 89 form the first subsection in which the clash between mother and daughter subsided. They stopped quarreling and made peace with each other.

Subsection 1(Paras. 77-89)

135. In the years that followed, I failed her so many times ... I dropped out of college.

(1) These sentences sum up what happened in the many years that passed between the time when the daughter was a small child and when she was thirty. Although this part is still narrated by the daughter, now she had grown up to be a mature woman. While the narrator remains the same, the point of view has shifted.

(2) I failed her so many times: This is explained by the next sentences: I didn't get straight As. I didn’t become class president. I didn’t get into Stanford. I dropped out ofcollege.3) fall short of expectations: to fail to meet the expectations.

136. The lid to the piano was closed, shutting out the dust, my misery, and her dreams: When the lid to the piano was closed, it shut out the dust and also put an end to my misery and her dreams.

137."No, this your piano. Always your piano. You only can play": No, this is your piano. It has always been your piano. You are the only one who can play

138. "You could been genius if you want to": You could have been a genius if you had wanted to. After so many years, this is the first time that the mother said such encouraging words to the daughter. These words show that the mother knew her own daughter very well. She fully recognized her natural talent and clearly knew that she did not want to try her best.

139.And she was neither angry nor sad: This calm tone shows that she had completely reconciled herself to the reality.

140. And after that, every time I saw it. I had won back.

(1)the bay window: a window or set of windows jutting out from the wall of a building and forming an alcove within, usually with glass on three sides

(2)Why did the daughter feel proud and see the piano as a trophy she had won back? The piano had become a symbol. When she was forced to learn to play it, it was a symbol of her misery and her mother's dreams. When her mother offered it to her for her thirtieth birthday, the offer meant forgiveness and reconciliation. Now she heard her mother praising her. Her mother's appreciation was like a trophy that she had won at long last.

Subsection 2 (Paras. 90-93)

141. Paragraphs 90 to 93 are the second half of the concluding part of the whole story. It is narrated a few years later after the previous scene. Now her mother had died. This part not only brings the story to its end but also contains an epiphany, a moment of discovery, insight, and revelation, by which the narrator's view is altered.

142. tuner: a person who tunes musical instrument( a piano tune)调音师

143. recondition: to put back in good condition by cleaning, or repairing

144. all the colors I hated: The colors were too bright, loud for a refined, sophisticated taste.

145. moth-proof: treated chemically so as to repel the clothes moths proof:(combining form) treated or made so as not to be harmed by something, or to be protected from or against, resistant to, unaffected by, e. g. a fireproof wall, water proof boots, a bulletproof car

146. I rubbed the old silk against my skin ... take them home with me: What the daughter did has symbolic meanings. It tells us that she loved and missed her mother and she decided to keep those typical Chinese dresses as part of her Chinese heritage.

147. And for the first time, or so it seemed, I noticed the piece. longer, but faster.

(1) Translate these sentences into Chinese:第一次,或好像感觉是第一次,我注意到右边的乐曲。它的名称是“心满意足”。我也试着弹这首曲子。它的曲调比较轻松,但节奏同样流畅,不是很难。“祈求的孩子”较短、较慢,而“心满意足”更长、更快一些

(2)or so it seemed: Since she practiced "Pleading Child" so often she must have seen the other piece on the right-hand side, but at that time with all her attention concentrated on "Pleading Child", she simply didn't notice it.

148. And after I played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song.

(1) Translate the sentence into Chinese::在我弹了几首后,我意识到,原来这两个曲子是同一首歌的两个组成部分。

(2)What did the narrator mean when she said they were two halves of the same song? Why does the author end the story this way? The last sentence is very meaningful. At this stage, the narrator was able to see that her childhood was made up of two sides. Although there were unhappy moments, on the whole it was filled with perfect happiness. The titles of the two different piano pieces are clearly suggestive. When she was a little girl, she only saw one side of her childhood. She couldn't understand her mother, regarding her mother's hopes and expectations as tormenting pressure that only brought misery to her. So she saw herself as a pleading child. Now as she realized how her mother loved and appreciated her, she felt perfectly contented. This last sentence is significant because it contains the narrator's epiphany, of insight discovery or revelation, by which the character's view is greatly altered.

149. In the novel, after the mother's death, Jing-mei goes to China to be united with her sisters the two girls the mother lost in the War. The following moving scene is described in the last passage of the novel:

The plane takes off I close my eyes. How can I describe to them in my broken Chinese about our mother’s life? Where should t begin?

…

And now I’m walking down the steps of the plane, onto the tarmac and toward the building. If only, I think my mother had lived long enough to be the one walking toward them…

Somebody shouts, "She is arrived!" And then I see her. Her small body. And that same look on her face. She is crying as though she had gone through a terrible ordeal and were happy it is over.

And I know it's not my mother, yet it is the same look she had when I was five and had disappeared all afternoon, for such a long time, that she was convinced I was dead. And when miraculously appeared, sleepy-eyed, crawling from underneath my bed, she wept and laughed, biting the back of her hand to make sure it was true.

And now I see her again. two of her, waving, and in one hand there is a photo, the Polaroid I sent them. As soon as I set beyond the gate, we run toward each other. all three of us e-mall hesitations and expectations forgotten.

“Mama, Mama,” we all murmur, as if she is among us…

My sisters and I stand, arms around each other, laughing and wiping the tears from each other's eyes. The flash of the Polaroid goes off and my father hands me the snapshot My sisters and I watch quietly together, eager to see what develops.

The gray-green surface changes to the bright colors of our three images, sharpening and deepening all at once and although we don't speak. I know we all see it: Together we look like our mother. Her same eyes. her same mouth, open in surprise to see, at last, her long-cherished wish.

ranslation of the Text

另类

谭恩美

1. 妈相信，在美国，任何梦想都能成为事实。你可以做一切你想做的：开家餐馆，或者在政府部门工作，以期得到很高的退休待遇。你可以不用付一个子儿的现金，就可以买到一幢房子。你有可能发财，也有可能出人头地，反正，到处是机会。

2. 在我九岁时，妈就对我说：“你也能成为天才。你会样样事都应付得很出色的。琳达姨算什么？她那女儿，只不过心眼多一点而已。 ”

3. 妈将一切未遂的心愿、希望，都寄托在美国这片土地上。她是1949年来到美国的。在中国，她丧失了一切：双亲，家园，她的前夫和一对孪生女儿。但她对过去的一切，从不用悲恸的目光去回顾，眼前，她有太多的打算，以便将生活安排得更好。

4. 至于我将成为哪方面的天才，妈并不急于立时拍板定案。起初，她认为我完全可以成为个中国的秀兰·邓波儿。我们不放过电视里的秀兰?邓波儿的旧片子，每每这时，妈便会抬起我的手臂往屏幕频频挥动：“你——看，”这用的是汉语。而我，也确实看见秀兰摆出轻盈的舞姿，或演唱一支水手歌，有时，则将嘴唇撅成个圆圆的“０”字，说一声“哦，我的上帝”。

5. 当屏幕上的秀兰双目满噙着晶莹的泪珠时，妈又说了：“你看，你早就会哭了。哭不需要什么天才！”

6. 立时，妈有了培养目标了。她把我带去我们附近一家美容培训班开办的理发店，把我交到一个学员手里。这个学生，甚至连剪刀都拿不像，经她一番折腾，我的头发，成了一堆稀浓不均的鬈曲的乱草堆。

7. 妈伤心地说：“你看着，像个中国黑人了。”美容培训班的指导老师不得不亲自出马，再操起剪刀来修理我头上那湿漉漉的一团。

8. “彼得潘的式样，近日是非常时行的。”那位指导老师向妈吹嘘着。我的头发，已剪成个男孩子样，前面留着浓密的、直至眉毛的刘海。我挺喜欢这次理发，它令我确信，我将前途无量。

9. 确实刚开始，我跟妈一样兴奋，或许要更兴奋。我憧憬着自己种种各不相同的天才形象，犹如一位已在天幕侧摆好优美姿势的芭蕾舞演员，只等着音乐的腾起，即踮起足尖翩然起舞。我就像降生在马槽里的圣婴，是从南瓜马车上下来的灰姑娘……

10. 反正我觉得，我立时会变得十分完美：父母会称赞我，我再不会挨骂，我会应有尽有，不用为着没有能得到某样心想的东西而赌气不快。

11. 然而看来，天才本身对我，颇有点不耐烦了：“你再不成才，我就走了，再也不来光顾你了，”它警告着，“这一来，你就什么也没有了。”

12. 每天晚饭后，我和妈就坐在厨房桌边，她每天给我作一些智力测试，这些测试题目，是她从《信不信由你》《好管家》《读者文摘》等杂志里收罗来的。在家里洗澡间里，我们有一大堆这样的旧杂志，那是妈从她做清洁工的那些住户家里要来的。每周，她为好几户住户做清洁工。因此这里有各式各样的旧杂志，她从中搜寻着各种有关天才孩子的智力培养和他们成才的过程。

13. 开始这种测试的当晚，她就给我讲了一个三岁神童的故事，他能诸熟地背出各州的首府，甚至大部分欧洲国家的名字。另一位教师证明，这小男孩能正确无误地拼出外国城市的名字。

14. “芬兰的首都是哪？”于是，母亲当场对我开始测试了。

15. 天呀，我只知道加州的首府！因为我们在唐人街上住的街名，就叫萨克拉曼多。“乃洛比！”我冒出一个莫名其妙的，所能想象得出的最奇特的外国字。

16. 测试的题目越来越复杂了：心算乘法，在一叠扑克牌里抽出红心皇后，做倒立动作，预测洛杉矶、纽约和伦敦的气温。

17. 还有一次，妈让我读三分钟《圣经》，然后说出我所读过的内容。“现在，耶和华非有丰富的财富和荣誉……妈，我只记得这一句。”

18. 再次看到妈失望的眼神之后，我内心对成才的激动和向往，也消遁了。我开始憎恨这样的测试，每一次都是以满怀希望开始，以失望而告终。那晚上床之前，我站在浴室的洗脸盆镜子前，看到一张普普通通，毫无出众之处的哭丧着的脸——我哭了。我尖叫着，跺脚，就像一只发怒的小兽，拼命去抓镜中那个丑女孩的脸。

19. 随后，忽然我似乎这才发现了真正的天才的自己，镜中的女孩，闪眨着聪明强硬的目光看着我，一个新的念头从我心里升起：我就是我，我不愿让她来任意改变我。我向自己起誓，我要永远保持原来的我。

20. 所以后来，每当妈再要我做什么测试时，我便做出一副无精打采的样子，将手肘撑在桌上，头懒懒地倚在上面，装出一副心不在焉的样子。事实上，我也实在无法专心。当妈又开始她的测试课时，我便开始专心倾听迷雾茫茫的海湾处的浪涛声，那沉闷的声响，颇似一条在气喘吁吁奔跑的母牛。几次下来，妈放弃了对我的测试。

21. 两三个月安然无事地过去了，其间，再没提一个有关“天才”的字眼了。一天，妈在看电视，那是艾德?索利凡的专题节目，一个小女孩正在表演钢琴独奏。这是台很旧的电视机，发出的声音时响时轻，有时甚至还会停顿。每每当它哑巴的时候，妈就要起身去调整它，待她还没走到电视机前，电视机又讲话了，于是就像故意要作弄她一番似的，反正她一离沙发，电视就出声了，她一坐下，艾德就变哑巴。最后，妈索性守在电视机边，将手按在键盘上。

22. 电视里的琴声似令她着迷了，只见演奏者既有力，又柔和地敲着琴键，突地，一阵密切铿锵的琵琶音倾泻而下，犹如决堤的洪水，翻江倒海地奔腾起来，只见她手腕一抬，那激动急骤的旋律顿时烟消云散了，那含有诗意、温存的音符，从她手指尖下飘逸出来。

23. “你——看！”我妈说着，急促地把我叫到电视机前。

24. 我马上领会了，妈为什么这样深深地被琴声迷住。原来，那个正在向观众行屈膝礼的演奏者，不过只八九岁的光景。而且同样是一个留着彼得潘发式的中国女孩子。她穿着蓬松的白色短裙，就像一朵含苞欲放的康乃馨。在她优雅地行礼时，既有秀兰·邓波儿的活泼，又持典型的中国式的谦和。

25. 我们家反正没有钢琴，也没有钱买钢琴，所以，当妈一再将这个小钢琴家作话题时，我竟失却了警惕，大咧咧地说起大话了。“弹倒弹得不错，就是怎么她自己不跟着唱。”我妈对我批评着那个女孩子。

26. “你要求太高了，”我一不小心说溜了嘴！ “她弹得蛮不错了。虽然说不上最好，但至少，她已很下过一番苦功了。”话一出口我就后悔了。

27. 果然，妈妈抓住我小辫子了。“所以呀，”她说，“可你，连一点苦功都不肯下。” 她有点愠怒地拉长着脸，又回到沙发上去。

28. 电视里的那个中国女孩子，也重新坐下再弹了一曲《安尼托拉的舞蹈》，是由格林卡作曲的。我之所以印象这么深，是因为后来，我花了很大功夫去学习弹奏它。

29. 三天后，妈给我制定了一张钢琴课和练琴的课程表。原来，她已跟我们公寓里一楼的一位退休钢琴教师商量妥，妈免费为他做清洁工，作为互惠，他则免费为我教授钢琴，而且每天下午的四点到六点，将他的琴供我练习。

30. 当妈把她的计划告诉我时，我即感头皮发麻，有一种被送进炼狱的感觉。

31. “我现在这样不是很好嘛！我本来就不是神童，我永远也成不了天才！我不会弹钢琴，学也学不会。哪怕你给我一百万元，我也永远上不了电视！”我哭着嚷着，跺着脚。

32. 妈当即给了我一个巴掌。“谁要你做什么天才，”她厉声叱责着我，“只要你尽力就行了。还不都是为了要你好！难道是我要你做什么天才的？你成了天才，我有什么好处！哼，我这样操心，到底是为的什么呀！”

33. “没有良心！”我听见她用汉语狠狠地嘟哝了一句，“要是她的天分有她脾气这般大就好了，她早就可以出人头地了！ ”

34. 那个钟先生，我私下称他为老钟，是个很古怪的老头。他似乎已经很老很老了，头顶秃得光光的，戴着副啤酒瓶底一样厚的眼镜，在层层叠叠的圈圈里，一双眼睛整日像昏昏欲睡的样子。他常常会悠然地对着一支看不见的乐队，指挥着听不见的音乐。但我想，他一定没我想象的那般老朽，因为他还有个妈妈。而且，他还没有结婚吧。那钟老太，可真让我够受了。她身上带有一股怪味，那种……尿骚味。她的手指看着就像是烂桃子的感觉。一次我在冰箱后边摸到过一只这样的烂桃子，当我捡起它时，那层皮，就滑漉漉地脱落了下来。

35. 我很快就明白了，老钟为什么只好退休。原来他是个聋子。“像贝多芬一样，” 他常常喜欢扯着大嗓门说话，“我们俩都是只用心来倾听！”他如此自诩着，说毕， 依旧陶醉在对无人无声乐队的指挥中，如痴如醉地挥动着他的手臂。

36. 我们的课程是这样进行的。他先打开琴谱，指着各种不同的标记，向我解释着 它们各自代表的意义：“这是高音谱号！低音谱号！没有升号和降号的，就是 C 调。 喏，跟着我。”

37. 随后他弹了几个 C调音阶，一组简单的和弦，然后似受一种无法抑制的渴望所激动，他的手指在琴键上按了更多的和弦，仿佛是感情的迸发和泛滥，他弹出了令人神魂震荡、形销骨立的颤音，接着又加进了低音，整个气氛，颇有一种豪迈的，雷霆万钧的浑厚气概。

38. 我就跟着他，先是简单的音阶和和弦，接着，就有点胡闹了，只是些杂乱的噪声，那声音，活像一只猫在垃圾筒顶上窜蹦不停。老钟却大声叫好: “好！非常好， 但要学会掌握弹奏的速度。”

39. 他这一说，倒让我发现了，他的目力也不行了，来不及对照谱子来核准我有无 按出正确的音符。他的目光要比我弹奏的速度慢半拍。他在教我弹奏琶音时，便在我手腕处放上几个硬币，以此训练我的手腕保持平衡。在弹奏和弦时，则要求我的 手握成个空圆弧状，有如手心里握着一只苹果。然后，他又示范给我看，如何令每一个手指，都像一个独立的小兵似的，服从大脑的指挥。

40. 在他教会我这一整套技巧时，我也学会了如何偷懒，并掩盖自己的失误。如果我按错了一个琴键，我从来不去纠正，只是坦然地接着往下弹。而老钟，则自顾往下指挥着他自己的无声的音乐。

41. 或许，我确实没有好好地下过功夫，否则，我想我极有可能在这方面有所作为的；或许我真的会成为一个少年钢琴家。就我这样学钢琴，也很快地掌握了基本的要领和技巧。可我实在太执拗，那么顽固地拒绝与众不同，所以我只学会弹震耳欲聋的前奏曲和最最不和谐的赞美诗。

42. 我就这样我行我素地学了一年。一天礼拜结束后，听到妈和琳达姨正在互相用一种炫耀的口气吹嘘着各自的女儿。“ 薇弗莱与我同年。我俩从小一起玩耍，就像姐妹一样，我们也吵架，也争夺过彩色蜡笔和洋娃娃。换句话说，我们并不太友好。我认为她太傲慢了。薇弗莱的名气很大，有“唐人街最小的棋圣”之称。

43. 哎，薇弗莱捧回来的奖品实在太多了，”琳达姨以一种似是抱怨，实在是夸耀的口吻说，“她自己整天只顾着下棋，我可忙坏了。每天，就光擦拭她捧回的那 些奖品，就够我忙的了。”

44. 琳达姨得意地抱怨了一番后，长长地嘘了一口气，对妈说：“你真福气，你可没这种烦心事。”

45. 44.“谁说呀，”妈妈高高地耸起了双肩，以一种得意的无奈说，“我可比你还要烦心呢。我们的精美，满耳只有音乐，叫她洗盆子，你叫哑了嗓子她也听不见。有啥办法，她天生这样一副对音乐失魂落魄的模样！ ”

46. 就是这时，我萌生出个报复的念头，以制止她这种令人可笑的攀比。

47. 几星期后，老钟和我妈试图要我在一次联谊会上登一次台，这次联谊会将在教堂大厅里举行。那阵，父母已储足钱为我买了架旧钢琴，那是一架黑色的乌立兹牌， 连带一张有疤痕的琴凳。它也是我们起居室的摆设。

48. 在那次联谊会上，我将演奏舒曼的《请愿的孩童》 。这是一首忧郁的弹奏技巧简单的曲子，但听起来还是像有点难度的。我得把它背出来，然后在重复部分连弹两次，以令它听起来可以显得长一点。可我在弹的时候，经常偷工减料，跳过好几节。我从不仔细听一听自己弹出的那些音符，弹琴时，我总有点心不在焉。

49. 我最愿意练习的，要算那个屈膝礼，我已可以把它行得十分漂亮了。

50. 爸妈兴致勃勃地将喜福会的朋友全部请来为我捧场，连薇弗莱和她两个哥哥也来了。表演者以年龄为序，由小至大上台表演。有朗诵诗歌的，跳芭蕾舞的，还有，在儿童小提琴上奏出鸭叫一样的声音。每一个表演的结束，都得到热烈的掌声。

51. 待轮到我上阵时，我很兴奋。那纯粹是一种孩子气的自信，我还不懂得害怕和紧张。记得当时，我心里一个劲这样想：就这么回事，就这么回事！我往观众席瞥了一眼，看到妈那张茫然的脸，爸在打呵欠，琳达姨的有如刻上去的微笑，薇弗莱的拉长的脸。我穿着一条缀着层层花边的白短裙，在彼得潘式的头发上，扎着一 只粉色的大蝴蝶结。当我在钢琴边坐下时，我想象着，艾德索利凡正把我介绍给电视机屏幕前的每一位观众，而台下的听众，都激动得连连跺脚。

52. 我的手触到了琴键。多好呀，我看上去那么可爱！对于我手下按出的音阶将是怎样，我却毫不担心。因此，当我按错了第一个音阶时，我自己都有点吃惊，我以为我会弹得十分出色。不对了，又是一个错的，怎么搞的？我头顶开始冒凉气了，然后慢慢弥散开来。但我不能停下不弹呀。我的手指似着了魔，有点自说自话，尽管我一心想将它们重新调整一番，好比将火车重新拨回到正确的轨道上，可手指就是不听指挥。反正从头到尾，就是这么杂乱刺耳的一堆！

53. 待我终于从凳子上站起身时，我发现自己两腿直打哆嗦，大概是太紧张了。四周一片默然，唯有老钟笑着大声叫好。在人群中，我看到妈一张铁青的脸。观众们稀稀拉拉地拍了几下手。回到自己座位上，我整个脸抽搐了，我尽力克制自己不哭 出声。这时，一个小男孩轻声对他妈说： “她弹得糟透了！ ”他母亲忙轻声阻止他：“嘘！可她已经尽最大努力了。”

54. 一下子我觉得，似乎全世界的人都坐在观众席上。我只觉得千万双眼睛在后边盯着我，热辣辣的。我甚至感觉到那直挺挺地硬支撑着看节目的父母，他们那份难堪和丢脸。

55. 其实我们可以趁幕间休息时溜走，但出于虚荣和自尊，爸妈硬是坐到节目全部结束。

56. 表演结束后，喜福会的许家、龚家和圣克莱尔家的人都来到父母跟前：

57. “不错呀，多有本事的小朋友！”琳达姨只是含糊地敷衍着，显出一抹刻上去般的微笑。

58. “当然。文章是自己的好，孩子是人家的好。”父亲苦笑着说。

59. 薇弗莱则看着我，耸耸肩，干脆地说：“你不行呀，还不及我呢！”要不是 我有自知之明，确实觉得自己表演得实在不怎样，我准会上去扯她辫子的。

60. 但最令我惊讶的是妈妈。她满脸的冷漠和晦败，那就是说，她已灰心丧气了。 我也觉得灰心丧气了。现在大家都这么团团地围着我们，似车祸中看热闹的人一样， 一心要看看那倒霉的压在车轮底下的家伙，到底压成个什么样子！直到我们乘上公共汽车回家时，妈一路上还是一言不发。我心想妈只须一踏进家门，就会冲着我大大发作一场。然而当爸打开家门时，妈便径自走进卧室，还是没有一声叱责，一声埋怨。我很失望。否则，我正好可以借机大哭一场，以宣泄郁积的那份窝囊气。

61. 我原以为，这次的惨败，从此可以让我从钢琴边解脱出来，我不用再练琴了。 岂料两天后，当妈从厨房里出来，见我已在笃悠悠地看电视时，便又催我去练琴：

62. “四点啦。”她如往常一样提醒我。我一震，好像她这是在叫我再去经历一番 那场联谊会上的出丑似的。我牢牢地把住椅子背。

63. “关掉电视！”五分钟后，她从厨房里伸出头警告我。

64. 我不吭声。但我打定主意，我再也不听她摆布了。我不是她的奴隶，这里不是中国。我以前一味由她摆布着，结果呢？她这样做太笨了！

65. 她从厨房走出来，站在起居室门口的过道上。“四点啦！ ”她再一次重复了一遍，音量提高了几度。

66. “我再也不弹琴了，”我平静地说， “为什么我非要弹琴呢？我又没这天分。”

67. 她移步到电视机前站住，气得胸部一起一伏，像台抽水机似的。

68. “不。”我觉得更坚决了，觉得终于敢表示自己真正的意愿。

69. “不！”我尖声叫着。

70. 妈拎着我双臂，啪一声关了电视，把我悬空拎到钢琴前，她的力气大得吓人， 我拼命踢着脚下的地毯，挣扎着、呜咽着、痛苦地望着她。她的胸部起伏得更剧烈了，咧着嘴，失却理智般地痴笑着，仿佛我的嚎哭令她很高兴。

71. “我成不了你希望的那样， ”我呜咽着说，“我成不了你希望的那样的女儿。 ”

72. “世上从来只有两种女儿，”她用中国话高声说，“听话的和不听话的。在我 家里，只允许听话的女儿住进来！ ”

73. “那末，我希望不做你的女儿，你也不是我的母亲！”我哭着，当这些话从我嘴里吐出来时，我只觉得，癞蛤蟆、蜥蜴和蝎子这种令人作恶的东西，也从我胸里吐了出来。这样也好，令我看到了自己那可怕的一面。

74. “可是，要改变既成的事实，你来不及了！”妈激怒地喊着。

75. 我感觉到，她的怒火已升至极限了，我要看着它爆炸。我一下子想到了她的失散在中国的那对双胞胎。关于她们，我们谈话中从来不提及的。这次，我却大声地对着她嚷嚷着：“那么，我希望我没有出世，希望我已经死了，就跟桂林的那对 双胞胎一样！”

76. 好像我念了什么咒似的，顿时，她呆住了，她放开了手，一言不发地，蹒跚着回到自己房里，就像秋天一片落叶，又薄又脆弱，没有一点生命的活力。

77. 这并不是唯一的一次使母亲对我失望。多年来，我让她失望了好多次。为着我的执拗，我对自己权利的维护，我的分数达不A 级，我当不上班长，我进不了斯坦福大学，我后来的辍学……

78. 跟妈相反，我从不相信，我能成为任何我想成为的人。我只可能是我自己。

79. 以后的那么些年，我们再也不谈及那场倒霉的联谊会上的灾难，及后来在钢琴前我那番可怕的抗争。所有这一切，我们都再也不提及，就像对一件已作了结论的谋反案一样。因此，我也老找不到话题问她，为什么，她会对我怀有这么大的希望。

80. 还有，我也从未问过她，那令我最最百思不得其解的，为什么，她终于又放弃了那份希望？

81. 自那次为了练琴争执后，她就此再也不叫我练琴了。再也没有钢琴课。琴盖上了锁，紧紧地合闭着，唉，我的灾难，她的梦想！

82. 几年前，她又做了一件让我吃惊的事。在我三十岁生日时，她将这架钢琴送给 了我。多年来，我碰都没碰过那架钢琴。现在，她却把它作为我的生日礼物。我想，这是一种原谅的表示，那长年压着我的负疚感，终于释然。

83. “噢，你真把它送给我了？”我讪讪地说，“你和爸舍得吗？”

84. “不，这本来就是你的钢琴，”她毫不含糊地说，“从来就是你的。只有你会 弹琴。”

85. “哦，我怕我大概已不会弹了，”我说，“那么多年了！”

86. “你会很快又记起来的，”妈说，非常肯定地，“你在这方面很有天分，其实 如果你肯下点功夫，本来你真可以在这方面有所作为的。”

87. “不，不可能。”

88. “你就是不肯试一下。”妈继续说着，既不生气，也不懊丧，那口气，似只是在讲述一件永远无法得到核准的事实。“拿去吧！”她说。

89. 但是，起先我并没马上把琴拉走。它依旧静静地置在妈妈家起居室里，那个回窗框前。打这以后每次看到它，总使我有一种自豪感，好像它是我曾经赢得的一个 荣誉的奖品。

90. 上星期，我请了个调音师到我父母公寓去，那纯粹是出于一种感情寄托。数月前，妈去世了。爸交给我一些她的遗物，我每去一次，便带回去一点。我把首饰放在一只缎锦荷包里，还有，她自己编织的毛衣：有黄的、粉红的、橘黄的，恰恰都是我最不喜欢的颜色。我一直把它们置放在防蛀的箱子里。我还发现几件旧的绸 旗袍,那种边上镶滚条两边开高叉的。我把它们挨到脸颊上轻轻摩挲着，心中有一阵温暖的触动，然后用软纸把它们小心包起来带回家去。

91. 钢琴调校好，那音色比我记忆中的，还要圆润清丽，这实在是一架上乘的钢琴。琴凳里，我的练习记录本和手写的音阶还在。一本封皮已脱落的旧琴谱，被小心地用黄缎带扎捆着。

92. 我将琴谱翻到舒曼的那曲《请愿的孩童》，就是那次联谊会上让我丢丑的。它似比我记忆中更有难度。我摸索着琴键弹了几小节，很惊讶自己竟这么快就记起了乐谱，应付自如。

93. 似乎是第一次，我刚刚发现这首曲子的右边是一曲《臻美》，它的旋律更活泼轻快，但风格和《请愿的孩童》很相近，这首曲子里，美好的意境得到更广阔无垠的展现充满慰藉与信心，流畅谐美，很容易弹上手。《请愿的孩童》比它要短一点，但节奏要缓慢一点。《臻美》要长一点，节奏轻快一点。在我分别将这两首曲子弹了多次后，忽然悟出，这两首曲子，其实是出于同一主题的两个变奏。