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The Pure Essence of the Individual Essay Many stereotypes exist within the social context of today’s world that stem from old and new preconceived notions of the unfamiliar. For example, some stereotypes stress generalizations that pertain to the aspects of different cultures such as religion, behavior, and even down to the type of cuisine. These misconceptions generalize an entire group of people based off of one characteristic, not taking into account the individuality of each person. Stereotypes produced by the social world at times can lead to ignorance as well as bring light to how wrong the misconceptions are compared to the truth. Surrounded in the confusion, people than develop tainted perspectives about other cultures and even their own, often leading to struggles in self as well as cultural identity. In Amy Tan’s short story, A Pair of Tickets, the main character Jing-Mei struggles with her cultural and self-identity but ultimately learns to rethink her misconceptions leading to her understanding of what it truly means to be Chinese. In the first section of the story Tan introduces the main character Jing-Mei, accompanied by her elderly father Canning Woo on a train to Guangzhou in China where they will visit with some family that Canning has not seen since childhood. Throughout the train ride and even after the two arrived to Guangzhou and met the family, Jing-Mei possessed many stereotypical viewpoints about China and the Chinese culture. En route to Guangzhou, Jing-Mei reminisced about her mother, Suyuan who passed away three months ago, and how she would always remind her Chinese roots saying that someday the Chinese in her will finally be let out because when Jing-Mei was fifteen she would always deny that she had any Chinese in her. During these conversations, she said she felt herself transforming like a werewolf. In a way Jing-Mei felt that she would finally come to terms with her Chinese roots only by force. Tan informs the reader that aside from herself, even Jing-Mei’s Caucasian friends remarked that, â€Å"She was as Chinese as they were†, making it clear of Jing-Mei’s unawareness of and distance from her own culture. She also obtained her stereotypical point of view on the way Chinese people behave from her mother’s occasional display of personal quirks, such as haggling with store owners, picking her teeth in public and the choosing out of season colors to wear during the winter time. Along with comparing to the grotesque transformation from a human into a werewolf, she pictured herself starting to act in such a way describing it as a â€Å"syndrome† (189). Jing-Mei’s perceptions on Chinese culture get proven wrong once her and her father arrive in Guangzhou. When she disembarked the train she felt the need to remind herself that she was in China. The atmosphere to her felt like that in San Francisco; the pushing and rushing crowds within the station and the crowded lines of people waiting to go through customs (192). Once Jing-Mei and Canning Woo united with the family and arrived at the hotel, Jing-Mei grew even more shocked at the way the hotel looked referring to it as a â€Å"grandeur version of the Hyatt Regency† and once again she asked herself this was the communist China (194). The magnificent, modern and fancy atmosphere of the hotel surprised Jing-Mei because she expected to arrive to an area of lesser quality especially since she requested to the traveler agent to lodge somewhere that would only cost them forty dollars a night. She then became worried about the expense as well as being judged as a typical spoiled American not able to go one night without luxury. When dinner time rolled around, Jing-Mei expected to finally try her first authentic Chinese feast but to her surprise, her relatives chose to eat hamburgers, French fries and apple pie, a stereotypical American dinner (195). As time passed during her visit in China, Jing-Mei began to grow more interested with her family roots. One night she overheard Canning Woo and her aunt, Aiyi, having a conversation about her mother, Suyuan, and her search to find her twin daughters from her previous marriage. Engaging herself in the conversation Jing-Mei learned more about her mother’s suffering and sacrifice during the Japanese occupation in China in 1949. She was curious as to what the names of her two half-sisters were and meant as well as her mother’s name, and eventually Jing-Mei questioned her father about the meaning of her own name; learn ing the special meaning behind the names her mother gave her and her twin sisters and her beautiful poetical nature (199-200). After Canning Woo told his daughter the intimate story of Suyuan’s hardship and sacrifice in giving up her two twin daughters during the occupation, Jing-Mei grew anxious in meeting her two sisters once she and Canning Woo departed Guangzhou for Shanghai. She dreaded the arrival feeling that her sisters would somehow blame her for Suyuan’s death in that she did not appreciate her mother. When Jing-Mei finally met her sisters for the first time a beautiful moment occurred as she saw two faces that resembled her mother waving and greeting her that arrived and faded. With great joy the sisters united and held each other capturing the moment with a Polaroid camera. Once the picture came transformed the plane gray surface before their eyes, the girls saw that each of them looked like Suyuan and realized that her dream of being with her daughters had finally come true (201).The three sisters embodied their own individuality as well as their mother. In her trip to China, Jing-Mei discovered what her mother meant about experiencing what it meant to be Chinese through their family history and also gained a sense of self identity. She grew to understand the importance of her family in correlation with their culture; that the resilience and strength that ran through the veins of her relatives now run through hers discovering her heritage. Jing-Mei’s journey from America to China resembled her own personal journey in finding herself as well as understanding her roots. By learning from her family past, she was able to discover her true self and understand her own culture as well. In the beginning of the story Jing-Mei’s perceptions of being Chinese clouded her ability to understand her heritage as well as herself as an individual. She denied her Chinese roots since her teenage years and never understood what her mother meant in that someday the Chinese in her blood will be set free. In choosing to leave her comfort zone in San Francisco, Jing-Mei began her journey in discovering that her preconceived notions of her own culture were different than reality, causing her to dive deeper into her own past so that she could find and understanding of where she came from. By the end of the story the trip had caused Jin-Mei to see her heritage as well as the view of herself differently. Like Jing-Mei, many people become accustomed to stereotypes because they help explain that which we cannot clearly understand. Such stereotypes can cause misapprehension towards others but more importantly towards us. By choosing to leave the comfort of invalid certainty, Jin-Mei found that her heritage meant more than eating authentic Chinese meals and arguing with storeowners. In finding the truth about her culture, she found the importance of herself as an individual. By stripping away the generalizations and false notions that stereotypes engrain in our perspective, we then can then distinguish the pure essence of what it truly means to be an individual.