I enjoyed the review - I'll admit that purely as a film review, it may not be very informative, but I think that as a specific example to discuss a collection of cultural differences, it's great. Thank you!
By the way, I just wanted to say that I've really enjoyed this blog. I'm studying, but I'm not (yet) literate in Chinese, and having access to this blog has been very useful for collecting a scattershot of information. Thank you so much for your efforts!
Aww, thank you! I'm not really sure how to go about really reviewing a movie--it's not like I ever really studied cinematography or anything. I don't watch a lot of movies in my daily life either. I guess I can say that everyone involved was a good enough actress that that was never an issue for breaking my suspension of disbelief. And if you're into raunchy sexual humour, then it's definitely full of that. But otherwise, it more or less follows the same feel-good, Hallmark movie style friends get into hilarious misadventures, they had a second act breakup, but then the protagonist reflects on her tendency to put work before family in the third act and there's a big happy ending.
I don't watch movies much, so I'm not interested in the review as a review, but it was a fascinating article because it gives insight into the differences between American and Chinese culture.
Is it really true that the Chinese are so harsh with their children? So many of your posts refer to children being beaten or parents making children cry. I thought that was exaggerated by the original writers to get attention on social media but from your comments it sounds like it reflects reality.
Is the attitude of preference for boys changing? Our media claims that the balance between males and females in China is causing problems. If that is true, it seems like females would be more highly prized because of scarcity.
I love this Substack, by the way. I've told lots of people about it and encouraged them to read it.
I'm sure there exist families in China that love their kids. Like I said, I'm willing to buy that Lolo was lucky enough to have parents who are willing to put up with her despite her career as a penis artist. But they're exceedingly rare. At least growing up myself, whether in my hometown, or in Shenzhen where I briefly went to school for a year or two, I don't know any single kid who doesn't regularly get beaten.
The preference for boys isn't changing at all, because laws are set up to screw women out of career opportunities. Given that most Chinese people are explicitly having kids in order to have someone to take care of them when they're old and sick, a daughter who has no career prospects and thus no money is useless to that purpose. They're a bad return on investment. Now that the government is cracking down on bride prices, they're not even useful as a way to get a large pay out to buy your son a marital house anymore. The scarcity of women has honestly only made sexism worse, I feel like, because the more men there are, the louder their voices compared to women.
Like, it was a controversial issue a couple of months before I started this substack, that a lady got her period while on the train, and couldn't find any way to get a menstrual pad on the train, so she wrote a little suggestion about how they should probably sell menstrual pads on the same carts that sell bento boxes and poker cards and tissue packs. And you wouldn't believe how many voices immediately drowned her out like, "why should other people be responsible for you being a forgetful idiot who can't take care of herself?" "If women get to buy menstrual pads on the train, why can't men buy pocket vaginas on the train?" "If we agree to this, then soon enough, they'll be demanding that lipstick gets sold on trains too!" It was totally insane.
Yeah, there is. There's lot of ways to get points added to your exam score, like winning certain competitions, being an accomplished student athlete, being an ethnic minority, or having (or being) enlisted military or police with certain ranks of honours or who died executing a mission.
The getting points added just for being an ethnic minority has been increasingly controversial in the past years, but nobody questions adding points for the family of people who theoretically risk their lives for their country.
I was raised by a kindly Chinese grandma, and mine would've 100% be like, "Wow! So are you gonna go to Korea next? My niece's ex-boyfriend's next door neighbour's middle school classmate has been to Korea once--" [Insert 200,000 word novel here]
I'll admit I didn't think I was going to find a film review interesting, but this was fascinating, thank you! I'd be interested in hearing your take on other films like this that draw (in theory at least!) on Chinese culture, and also in the other direction, on Chinese media that's become popular in the West.
What Chinese media has become popular in the west? I admit, that's not really an area I pay attention to--I have no idea what shows/movies have reached the popular conscious in the west
Oh wow! I had no idea that was popular over in the West. In that case, I definitely want to write an article delving into all the weird ways Chinese censorship affected that show.
I enjoyed the review - I'll admit that purely as a film review, it may not be very informative, but I think that as a specific example to discuss a collection of cultural differences, it's great. Thank you!
By the way, I just wanted to say that I've really enjoyed this blog. I'm studying, but I'm not (yet) literate in Chinese, and having access to this blog has been very useful for collecting a scattershot of information. Thank you so much for your efforts!
Aww, thank you! I'm not really sure how to go about really reviewing a movie--it's not like I ever really studied cinematography or anything. I don't watch a lot of movies in my daily life either. I guess I can say that everyone involved was a good enough actress that that was never an issue for breaking my suspension of disbelief. And if you're into raunchy sexual humour, then it's definitely full of that. But otherwise, it more or less follows the same feel-good, Hallmark movie style friends get into hilarious misadventures, they had a second act breakup, but then the protagonist reflects on her tendency to put work before family in the third act and there's a big happy ending.
With Asians.
I don't watch movies much, so I'm not interested in the review as a review, but it was a fascinating article because it gives insight into the differences between American and Chinese culture.
Is it really true that the Chinese are so harsh with their children? So many of your posts refer to children being beaten or parents making children cry. I thought that was exaggerated by the original writers to get attention on social media but from your comments it sounds like it reflects reality.
Is the attitude of preference for boys changing? Our media claims that the balance between males and females in China is causing problems. If that is true, it seems like females would be more highly prized because of scarcity.
I love this Substack, by the way. I've told lots of people about it and encouraged them to read it.
I'm sure there exist families in China that love their kids. Like I said, I'm willing to buy that Lolo was lucky enough to have parents who are willing to put up with her despite her career as a penis artist. But they're exceedingly rare. At least growing up myself, whether in my hometown, or in Shenzhen where I briefly went to school for a year or two, I don't know any single kid who doesn't regularly get beaten.
The preference for boys isn't changing at all, because laws are set up to screw women out of career opportunities. Given that most Chinese people are explicitly having kids in order to have someone to take care of them when they're old and sick, a daughter who has no career prospects and thus no money is useless to that purpose. They're a bad return on investment. Now that the government is cracking down on bride prices, they're not even useful as a way to get a large pay out to buy your son a marital house anymore. The scarcity of women has honestly only made sexism worse, I feel like, because the more men there are, the louder their voices compared to women.
Like, it was a controversial issue a couple of months before I started this substack, that a lady got her period while on the train, and couldn't find any way to get a menstrual pad on the train, so she wrote a little suggestion about how they should probably sell menstrual pads on the same carts that sell bento boxes and poker cards and tissue packs. And you wouldn't believe how many voices immediately drowned her out like, "why should other people be responsible for you being a forgetful idiot who can't take care of herself?" "If women get to buy menstrual pads on the train, why can't men buy pocket vaginas on the train?" "If we agree to this, then soon enough, they'll be demanding that lipstick gets sold on trains too!" It was totally insane.
"Your children will get to add a straight up 10 points to their high school exam."
Do you mean there's an actual, official policy of doing this?
Yeah, there is. There's lot of ways to get points added to your exam score, like winning certain competitions, being an accomplished student athlete, being an ethnic minority, or having (or being) enlisted military or police with certain ranks of honours or who died executing a mission.
The getting points added just for being an ethnic minority has been increasingly controversial in the past years, but nobody questions adding points for the family of people who theoretically risk their lives for their country.
"I don’t think the kindly Chinese grandma would demand her qipao back just because she found out Audrey was of Korean-descent instead."
Yeah, this, seemed the most incredulous thing about the movie, and there were several imo!
I was raised by a kindly Chinese grandma, and mine would've 100% be like, "Wow! So are you gonna go to Korea next? My niece's ex-boyfriend's next door neighbour's middle school classmate has been to Korea once--" [Insert 200,000 word novel here]
Pretty much this lol
This was AMAZING. Thank you so much for writing it. This was exactly the kind of interpretation I was hoping you would write, full of unusual insight.
You are an excellent writer, please keep it up!
I'll admit I didn't think I was going to find a film review interesting, but this was fascinating, thank you! I'd be interested in hearing your take on other films like this that draw (in theory at least!) on Chinese culture, and also in the other direction, on Chinese media that's become popular in the West.
What Chinese media has become popular in the west? I admit, that's not really an area I pay attention to--I have no idea what shows/movies have reached the popular conscious in the west
The Untamed is the one that comes to mind straight away.
Oh wow! I had no idea that was popular over in the West. In that case, I definitely want to write an article delving into all the weird ways Chinese censorship affected that show.
It's certainly popular enough to have this kind of article written about it: https://www.vox.com/2020/3/27/21192718/the-untamed-netflix-review-rec-mdzs-cql and it was all over tumblr for a good while.