反华电影“喜福会”

反华电影“喜福会”
----我欲因之

I have heard of the movie "joy luck club" for quite a while, which, I assume, means that the movie has some pupularity in the Chinese community. I finally watched it last night and did not like it that much.

The movie attacked the Chinese culture in every which way, which made me suspect if the movie was founded by some anti-Chinese organizations: All the four mothers in the movie had a horrible life in China. All the four daughters had a horrible life because of their Chinese culture. At the end of the movie one daughter went back to China to meet with her sisters, which made me wonder if she went to "rescue" her sisters from the horrible Chinese culture.

Some of the plots were ridiculously unrealistic: A mother held a magazine with a picture of her daughter on the street to show off after her daughter won a chess competition. A hu*****and brought a prostitute home and called his wife, who was waiting for him, a whore. A married couple divided their expenses to the cents. 

That being said, I did find the movie quite moving and thought-provoking. It reminded me of a young Chinese woman I met a couple of years ago. She was then a master student in art. She had no problem expressing her strong hatred toward the Chinese culture. She was a very pretty girl. She colored her eyes blue and her hair brown, without which she would be even prettier. After knowing her more, it turned out that the root was that her parents never accepted her because she, unlike her cousins, was not able to go to medical school or law school and her parents felt embarrassed in front of their relatives. Her parents was not doing well themselves, working blue-collar jobs here and there with no retirement plans.

She actually was a good daughter in other aspects. She worked part-time to support herself and never asked for money during her college years. Her part-time job was working as a waitress and sometimes complained to me that her back hurt because of the intensive hours. She put aside some money, although it was only a few hundred dollars at that time, for her parents' retirement and felt guilty to use it when she absolutely had to. Her parents, however, never accepted her just because she was not able to go to medical school or law school while her cousins were.

I would recommend the movie "saving face", which is equally thought-provoking but more realistic. 

01/13/09