twokinds英语读物

Two Kinds

Amy Tan

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.

you can be a prodigy, too,

told me when I was nine.

Her daughter, she is only best tricky.

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. Things could get better in so many ways.

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,

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

mother said, as Shirley's eyes flooded with tears.

talent for crying!

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.

she lamented, as if I had done this on purpose. The instructor of the beauty training

school had to lop off these soggy clumps to make my hair even again.

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.

1

/

11

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. 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. But sometimes the prodigy in me became impatient.

and get me out of here, I'm disappearing for good,

be nothing.

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. 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.

Finland?

”

my mother asked me, looking at

the story.

All

I knew was the capital

of

California, because Sacramento was the name of the street we lived on in Chinatown.

see if that might be one way to pronounce Helsinki before showing me the answer.

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. One night I had to look at

a page from the Bible for three minutes and then report everything I could remember.

2

/

11

Jehoshaphat

had

riches

and

honor

in

abundance

and...that's

all

I

remember,

Ma,

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. 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.

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. Two

or three months went by without any mention of my being a prodigy. And then one

day my mother was watching the Ed Sullivan Show on TV

. The TV was old and the

sound kept shorting out. Every time my mother got halfway up from the sofa to adjust

the set, the sound would come back on and Sullivan would be talking. As soon as she

sat down, Sullivan would go silent again. She got up - the TV broke into loud piano

music. She sat down - silence. Up and down, back and forth, quiet and loud. It was

like a stiff, embraceless dance between her and the TV set. Finally, she stood by the

set with her hand on the sound dial. She seemed entranced by the music, a frenzied

little piano piece with a mesmerizing quality, which alternated between quick, playful

passages

and

teasing,

lilting

ones.

kan,

my

mother

said,

calling

me

over

with

hurried hand gestures.

music. It was being pounded out by a little Chinese girl, about nine years old, with a

3

/

11

Peter Pan haircut. The girl had the sauciness of a Shirley Temple. She was proudly

modest, like a proper Chinese Child. And she also did a fancy sweep of a curtsy, so

that

the

fluffy

skirt

of

her

white

dress

cascaded

to

the

floor

like

petals

of

a

large

carnation. In spite of these warning signs, I wasn't worried. Our family had no piano

and we couldn't afford to buy one, let alone reams of sheet music and piano lessons.

So I could be generous in my comments when my mother badmouthed the little girl

on TV

.

sound.

are

you

picking

on

her

for?

I

said

carelessly.

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.

not trying.

sofa. The little Chinese girl sat down also, to play an

encore of

Grieg. I remember the song, because later on I had to learn how to play it.

Three

days

after

watching

the

Ed

Sullivan

Show

my

mother

told

me

what

my

schedule would be for piano lessons and piano practice. She had talked to Mr. Chong,

who lived on the first floor of our apartment building. Mr. Chong was a retired piano

teacher, and my mother had traded housecleaning services for weekly lessons and a

piano for me to practice on every day, two hours a day, from four until six.

When my mother told me this, I felt as though I had been sent to hell. I whined,

and then kicked my foot a little when I couldn't stand it anymore.

me the way

I am?

I cried.

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!

You think I want you to be genius? Hnnh! What for! Who ask you!

heard her mutter in Chinese,

famous now.

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

4

/

11

that I though, since he lived with his mother and was not yet married. I met Old Lady

Chong once, and that was enough. She had a peculiar smell, like a baby that had done

something in its pants, and her fingers felt like a dead person's, like an old peach I

once found in the back of the refrigerator: its skin just slid off the flesh when I picked

it up. I soon found out why Old Chong had retired from teaching piano. He was deaf.

would start to conduct his frantic silent sonatas. Our lessons went like this. He would

open the book and point to different things, explaining, their purpose:

Bass! No sharps or flats! So this is C major! Listen now and play after me!

he would play the C scale a few times, a simple cord, and then, as if inspired by an old

unreachable

itch,

he

would

gradually

add

more

notes

and

running

trills

and

a

pounding bass

until

the music was

really something quite grand.

I would play

after

him,

the

simple

scale,

the

simple

chord,

and

then

just

play

some

nonsense

that

sounded

like

a

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!

how

I

discovered

that

Old

Chong's

eyes

were

too

slow

to

keep

up

with

the

wrong

notes

I

was

playing.

He

went

through

the

motions

in

half

time.

To

help

me

keep

rhythm, he stood behind me and pushed down on my right shoulder for every beat. He

balanced

pennies

on

top

of

my

wrists

so

that

I

would

keep

them

still

as

I

slowly

played scales and arpeggios. He had me curve my hand around an apple and keep that

shame when playing chords. He marched stiffly to show me how to make each finger

dance

up

and

down,

staccato,

like

an

obedient

little

soldier.

He

taught

me

all

these

things, and that was how I also learned I could be lazy and get away with mistakes,

lots of mistakes. If I hit the wrong notes because I hadn't practiced enough, I never

corrected myself, I just kept playing in rhythm. And Old Chong kept conducting his

own private reverie. So maybe I never really gave myself a fair chance. I did pick up

the basics pretty quickly, and I might have become a good pianist at the young age.

But I was so determined not to try, not to be anybody different, and I learned to play

only the most ear-splitting preludes, the most discordant hymns. Over the next year I

practiced like this, dutifully in my own way. And then one day I heard my mother and

5

/

11