Answer:
Conflicts can be divided into two categories: internal and external.
An internal conflict is a conflict a character has with his or her self. In this case, the young girl Jing-mei has internal conflicts because she fears she will never be special, and she worries about how her mother feels about her.
An external conflict is a conflict a character has with an outside force. The most common external conflict is character vs. character. Jing-mei’s main conflict is with her mother, who wants her to be some kind of child prodigy so she can brag about her to her friends. Other external conflicts in the story include character vs. society, as Jing-mei struggles to find her place in both the Chinese and American cultures. You could even argue that there is a character vs. technology conflict, because Jing-mei struggles to learn the piano.