I can think of three ways that I believe Jing-mei's mother pressures her.
The first type of pressure is the parental pressure that children in families all around the world experience. Jing-mei's mother wants her to do something and do it well. Most kids love to make their parents happy, and Jing-mei feels pressure to try to do so. At first, Jing-mei is excited about it, too.
The second type of pressure is a comparison pressure. Jing-mei's mother sees other child prodigies in the world, and she believes her daughter should be similar. Jing-mei feels this belief essentially says, "You're not good enough the way you are." Jing-mei feels like she needs to do something really well to earn her mother's approval.
The third type of pressure applied by Jing-mei's mother is the pressure of audience and potential public humiliation. This occurs when Jing-mei's mother has several of her friends over to listen to Jing-mei play the piano. She does this with the hope that Jing-mei will be pressured into better practice and better performance out of fear of humiliating herself in front of people.
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