Ming Lee is one of the two overarching protagonists (alongside Sun Yee) and the (former) main antagonist of Pixar’s 25th full-length animated feature film Turning Red. She is Mei’s overprotective mother, and while she is aware of her daughter’s panda form, she is unaware of Mei’s plots to go to the concert of a boy band she dislikes.

Background

Personality

Ming is described to be a proud, devoted mother and wife. She is a hard worker who can come off as crazy or intense, but it all comes from a place of love. Ming is also overbearing towards other people, even strangers, and is not afraid to hurt them.

Ming has a complex relationship with her daughter, Mei. She is an overbearing mother who relies on Mei to be her perfect, dutiful daughter. The two of them do nearly everything together, such as maintain the family temple, and get along like friends. However, as Mei transitions into a teenager and begins to develop new interests, such as a crush or the boy band 4★Town, Ming fiercely disapproves of these changes. Ming is also not a fan of Miriam, Mei’s friend, as she believes her to be a bad influence on her daughter.^[1]

After Mei’s red panda powers activate, Ming becomes very observant of Mei’s life, like a helicopter parent, as she begins openly watching her at school. Ming is adamant that Mei find a way keep her emotions, and therefore her panda form, in check. However, she only does so out of a legitimate concern that her daughter’s powers may get out of control and cause her or others to get hurt.

Ming’s anxieties and flaws stem from when she went through the Red Panda transformation herself, along with the overbearing demands from her own mother, Wu, that she be the perfect daughter. It reached a boiling point when Ming and Wu got into an argument regarding Jin, whom Wu did not approve of. Ming reached her breaking point and unleashed her panda, causing her to hurt her mother (and presumably leave the scar on Wu’s brow), which left an emotional scar in Ming that she never truly got over, and the incident caused a divide between them ever since.

Not wanting the same thing to happen to her own daughter, Mei, Ming unintentionally made the same mistakes in raising Mei to be perfect, just as she had been, and kept Mei close, watching her like a hawk for any signs of when Mei would go through the Red Panda transformation as well (but didn’t say or do anything to actually prepare Mei for the eventuality). Ming had a problem in assuming the worst in certain situations and not listening to Mei, such as when she saw Mei’s drawings regarding her crush on Devon and confronted him with accusations and publicly humiliated her daughter, all the while ignoring Mei’s protests and pleas. Furthermore, Ming continued to view Mei as the “perfect daughter” she had loved and raised, but unintentionally disregarded the fact that Mei is growing up and would become her own person and would not remain “perfect little Mei Mei” (which caused Mei anxieties and insecurities around her mother that she couldn’t be herself around Ming or even express her personal interests because she knew Ming would not approve of them).

When Ming discovered that Mei and her friends were using the Panda blessing to make money, Ming immediately assumed Mei’s friends had pushed her into it (when really it was Mei’s idea) and seeing Mei almost hurt Tyler in a fit of rage was the final straw, as she pressured Mei to go through the ritual to bind her panda spirit. However, when Mei refused, deciding she wanted to keep her Panda, and ran off to the concert, Ming was pushed to her breaking point yet again (along with her talisman) as her mother and relatives blamed and berated her for Mei’s behavior and decision to keep the Panda. Ming, still unable to see her faults, blamed Mei rather than herself as she unleashed her panda and sought her out. Filled with another rage after Mei confessed she lied, that she was sick and tired of being “perfect little Mei Mei”, Ming angrily scolded Mei, accusing her of betraying her family’s wishes and traditions while she (Ming) had only ever tried to be a good daughter (to her own mother, Wu).

In the celestial plane, Mei comes across a teenaged, distraught Ming, showing Mei that Ming had carried the guilt and pain of hurting her mother and the frustration and self-deprecation that she (Ming) would never be good enough for her mother or anyone else. Mei consoled Ming, assuring her that though it may feel that way a lot of times it wasn’t true. After finding their relatives in the celestial plane, Ming apologized to her mother while Wu assured her daughter that she did not have to apologize because she (Wu) is Ming’s mother (and loves her unconditionally), and while she and their relatives chose to seal their panda spirits again, Mei stood by her decision to keep hers and Ming accepted that, as she finally understood that her daughter is growing up and on the journey of becoming her own person. Though they both feared of how that might divide them they found mutual assurance that their love and bond as mother and daughter would keep them connected, and indeed their bond only grew stronger afterwards.

Ming found peace, within herself, with her daughter, and even with Mei’s friends that she warmed up to them and began inviting them over to their home for dinner, much to their appreciation for Jin’s cooking. Ming is also shown to have taken full responsibility for her behavior and humbly accepted the consequences like the good, honorable woman she is. It is shown when she and the family are helping to raise money to repair the SkyDome she nearly destroyed while it’s also helping her pay her debt to society. Ming also began trusting Mei more and letting her be herself rather than the perfect daughter she originally saw her as, and though they missed how things used to be they were happier and closer than they were before.

Ming seemed to make peace with her own Panda spirit (and herself by extension) when her Panda spirit was sealed into Mei’s tamagotchi, and Ming enjoyed feeding her Panda spirit and treating it like a beloved pet through the device.

Physical Appearance

Ming is an average height, adult, Chinese-Canadian woman with light skin, brown eyes with green eyeshadow and black eyeliner, a mole under her left eye, and long black hair that is tied into a bun at the lower back. She wears a blue and green, wrapped dress with a green blazer, tights, and green heels. She also has other accessories like green orb earrings, a red moon talisman (which is later replaced by a tamagotchi), an auburn handbag, and sunglasses she wears whenever it’s appropriate.

As a red panda, Ming resembles her daughter with a few key differences. She is way much larger than Mei, along with having longer, shaggier fur, having fur in a fire like motif on her chest area, and a thick curl of “hair” on her head between her ears. Her facial features remain mostly the same, retaining her eyeliner and mole, and having purely red eyes.

As a teenager, Ming is shorter, only slightly taller than Mei, she also wears her hair loose, which is shown to be shoulder-length She wears silver square glasses, a light blue polo shirt with two buttons on it, a knee-length blue chess skirt, gray leggings and black Mary Jane shoes.

As a young adult, Ming’s appearance is almost the same as a teenager, except that she wears her hair in ponytail, has discarded her glasses and wears a green coat tied to the collar on the blue polo shirt.

Relationships

Wu

Ming’s relationship with her mother, Wu, was strained due to the latter’s strictness and the former’s understanding that she would never be good enough for her. Their relationship deteriorated further when Ming, in a fit of rage, transformed into a red panda, inadvertently scarring her mother and eventually destroying part of the temple. Later in the film, in the ancestral plane, Ming apologizes for what happened, but Wu assures her she does not need to apologize, implying that she has long forgiven Ming.

Mei

Her relationship with her daughter is good. But when she finds out about Mei changing into a red panda, she tells her the story of Sun Yee. She also disapproves of her daughter Mei’s activities, such as her favorite boy band 4★Town and her friends. When Ming finds out that Mei had hid all the panda stuff under her bed to keep her mom from finding out, Ming was in total shock when she found all the panda stuff, including a flyer to Tyler’s party and blamed her friends for influencing her. When Mei decided to keep the panda, Ming along with her husband Jin, her mother and aunts try to stop Mei from going to the concert, but Mei shoves them off and runs to the concert. Ming enraged by this, transforms into a giant red panda and leaves to go find Mei. Ming is also shocked and angry when Mei tells her mom the truth about how she lied about everything. In the ancestral plane, Mei finds a young Ming who explains to Mei that she hurt her mother. Mei and Ming walk through the ancestral plane and find the rest of the family. Ming and her mother Wu apologize for what happened. Mei tells her mom that she is changing and she is finally figuring out who she is. Ming accepts Mei for who she is and she lets her keep the red panda and things are back to normal.

Miriam, Priya, Abby

Ming’s relationship with Mei’s friends Miriam, Priya, and Abby was complicated at first . When Mei had mentioned Miriam, Ming had called her odd, believing that Miriam was a bad influence on Mei. But what Ming didn’t know is that her daughter’s friends had supported her and had her back all the time. When Ming gets called to Tyler’s house after Mei attacks him in her red panda form, Ming furiously goes over to Mei’s friends and accuses them of badly influencing Mei and letting her attack Tyler. Miriam tries to reason with Ming by saying they only wanted to see 4★Town. Before Miriam can say anything, Ming cuts her off and tells her that she has badly taken advantage of Mei. Miriam is shocked by this and tells Mei to tell her mom the truth, but Mei falls silent and this leaves her friends heartbroken by her betrayal. Ming glares one last time at the girls before leaving with Mei. At the end of the movie, It can be assumed that Ming did apologize to Mei’s friends after the whole panda fight between Mei and Ming.

Trivia

• Her and Mei’s relationship is sort of similar to another Pixar mother-daughter duo, Merida and Queen Elinor in Brave (which was released almost a decade prior to Turning Red) as like Elinor, despite wanting what’s best for her daughter, she oversteps her bounds and it results in her relationship with her daughter becoming toxic.
  • They also have similar hair colors at the end of their respective films, with Elinor and Ming having dark hair, and Merida and Mei having red hair.
• Ming is represented by the color green. Being Mei’s mother, this makes sense as Green is considered a positive and nurturing color, however it also actively contrasts the color red; representing the imbalance in her relationship with her daughter. Ming wears blue as well. Blue signifies harmony and tranquility but also coldness and depression, representing how Ming shows coldness on Mei’s friends and depression due to the expectations her mother puts on her.
  • Incidentally, Miriam is mostly adorned in green as well. This represents how both Ming and Miriam have their own nurturing take on Mei in her most difficult time of need.
• Ming’s giant red panda form is a reference to Nancy Fowler Archer from Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and Giganta from DC Comics.
• Her panda spirit is contained in a red necklace at the beginning of the film. At the end of the film, her panda spirit is contained in Mei’s tamagotchi.
• Ming doesn’t like 4★Town because she says they are tacky and glittery delinquents and when Mei asked to go to the concert, Ming’s answer was no.
  • This is also culturally justified since the number “4” is considered an unlucky number in East Asia.
• Ming finds out that Mei had hid all her panda stuff under her bed and when she tries to wake her up so she can explain it, Ming finds out she’s not in bed and instead she is at Tyler’s party with her friends.
• Ming loses her breaking point when Mei escapes from the temple in her red panda form, deciding to keep the panda, and runs away to the concert to be with her friends, she turns into an angry giant red panda.
  • The reason why her panda form is so gargantuan was due to all the emotions she had stored for years and refused to let out due to fear of her own strength. Her anger at her daughter leaving the ritual early, combined with her mother, aunts, and cousins berating her for not keeping Mei under her control, became the final nail in the coffin.
• She was unaware of Mei and her friends are making money to see 4★Town. But later, she discovers, to her horror, that Mei had kept her red panda merchandise including red panda t-shirts, red panda keychains, and a flyer of Tyler’s party under her bed. While searching, she sees a 75 percent on a paper and doesn’t get upset.
• Whenever Mei’s friend Miriam was brought up, Ming called Miriam odd. This shows that Ming strongly dislikes Miriam because she thinks she’s a bad influence on Mei.
  • Meanwhile, Ming does not appear to dislike Abby or Priya, which is likely due to their Asian heritage and upbringing.