This short story takes place in San Francisco, California's Chinatown in 1949

The two main characters of this short story are jing-mei and her mother, a chinese immigrant with the dream of her daughter becoming a prodigy.

This short story is about a Chinese mother moving from China to The United States Of America or the land of opportunity's to give her daughter a better life. The story is mainly about a little chinese girl named jing-mei and her mother. Her mother  wanted  her to be a prodigy like shirley temple a little girl that her mother always saw on T.V. At first jing-mei didn't realy think much about her mothers dreams of her being a prodigy. Until her mother made her start playing the piano and  started pushing her to be the greatest piano player ever. After Jing-mei's mother started pressuring her more, Jing-mei finally snapped and screamed at her mother that she didn't want to try to be a prodigy anymore she just wanted to be a normal like everyone else. After Jing-mei finally told her mother that she rather be dead like her brother and sister back in china than keep trying to be a prodigy Jing-mei's mother never mentioned anything about her being a prodigy ever again.

The Internal Conflict in the story is how Jing-mei just wanted to be like everyone else, she just wanted to be normal when her mother wanted her to be a prodigy.

The External Conflict in the story is how Jing-mei's mother tried to force her to be a prodigy so much that she got her a piano and a piano teacher so she could be the best at the piano. She also forced her to practice every day for hours.

The Theme of the story was even though your parents might push you to do something for example get realy good grades in school they don't just say that to say it. They might say it so in the future you could have a better life then they probably had.