The Bonesetter's Life And Tickets, By Amy Tan

Amy Tan is a Chinese American novelist, whose short stories portray the theme that it is not always easy to find the balance between culture, identity and heritage. This is seen through Amy Tan’s own life experiences and through The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Life and The Bonesetter’s Daughter. Many of the conflicts her characters experience transcend cultural differences and speak to the universal struggles of a wide and diverse audience (“Amy Tan”)

The second of three children, Amy Ruth Tan, whose Chinese name is Anmei (Blessing from America), was born in Oakland, California, on February 19, 1952. Her father, John Yuehhan Tan, an electrical engineer and Baptist minister; her mother, Daisy Tu Ching Tan, a vocational nurse, immigrated to the United States . Although her parents were Chinese immigrants, Tan grew up as an assimilated Asian American. When she was fifteen, both her father and older brother Peter died of malignant brain

In addition, visiting China helps her better understand and appreciate being Chinese. However, this visit also shows the reader how June May have been influenced by American culture and beliefs. For example, June May could not believe that China of all places has a magnificent hotel with all the necessities of modern day items. She keeps on saying, “This is communist China?” (Tan 269). In addition to her misplaced ethnocentrism, while she happened to understand the Chinese language she could not speak it very well due to American influence. “In returning to the significant geographic place of her mother and finding the twin half-sister who share her mother’s foundational stories of loss and survival, June May understands how both loss and hope inform her own unique identity” (Wood