29 pages • 58 minutes read
Amy TanA Pair of Tickets
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Amy Tan
Amy Ruth Tan (born 1952) is a first-generation Chinese American writer. Her parents immigrated to the United States in the 1940s; her mother was a refugee of war, and her father worked as an engineer. Tan, who was born in Oakland, California, grew up multi-lingual, speaking both English and Cantonese. After the deaths of her father and older brother, Tan’s mother moved Tan and her younger brother to Europe for a period. Tan returned to California where she attended various universities and earned her BA in English and Linguistics, followed by an MA in Linguistics from San Jose State University.
Tan’s best-known work is her 1989 novel, The Joy Luck Club, a collection of 16 linked chapters about two generations of Chinese American women. “A Pair of Tickets” is based, in part, on real-life experiences. Tan’s mother, Daisy, had left her children behind in Shanghai when she fled as a refugee. After Daisy experienced a period of illness, Tan resolved to bring her mother back to China to meet the long-lost children. This experience inspired The Joy Luck Club and many of the events in “A Pair of Tickets.” The Joy Luck Club became a New York Times bestseller and was both nominated for a National Book Award and made into a major motion picture.
Tan subsequently published many highly-acclaimed novels, nonfiction books, children’s literature, and various essays and short stories. Her writing explores questions of personal and familial identity, mother-daughter relationships, and the immigrant experience. Tan has earned international acclaim, lectured at various universities around the world, and appeared on syndicated television shows such as The Simpsons and Sesame Street. She was also invited to speak at the White House. Tan also trained in various musical genres, and she has been involved in operatic productions and the “literary garage band” The Rock Bottom Remainders. This band performs to raise money for literacy funding.
Historical Context: The Second Sino-Japanese War / War of Resistance
The Second Sino-Japanese War, or the War of Resistance (the term used by the Chinese for this conflict), spanned the years 1937 to 1945, though some historians trace the conflict back to 1931 when the Japanese invaded Manchuria. Most scholars see the Second Sino-Japanese War as the culmination of long-standing Japanese imperial aggression in this region. That is, Japanese foreign policy used military force to expand the nation’s access to resources such as raw materials, food, and human labor.
After invading Manchuria, the Japanese military took over Beijing, Shanghai, and Nanjing in the mid-to-late 1930s. In response to these invasions, the Chinese government relocated its capital to Chungking, the city where Suyuan’s first husband, Wang Fuchi, was stationed in the Chinese military. The United States became involved in this conflict by offering military aid to the Chinese. Partly in response to this aid, the Japanese military bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. Many historians trace the root causes of the Pacific War in World War II to the Second Sino-Japanese War.
Following Japan’s unconditional surrender in 1945, its troops gradually withdrew from China. A long-simmering civil conflict then erupted between Chinese Nationalist forces led by Chiang Kai-shek and Communists led by Mao Zedong. Many hundreds of thousands of civilians died during this conflict, which ended in victory for the Communists and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Suyuan fled China for the United States during this conflict.
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