I've started watching Chinese movies to brush up on my listening skills
before I go study abroad in Beijing. Right now, I'm working my way
through Eat Drink Man Woman, a '90s Taiwanese classic about a retired chef
and his three daughters. I'm about halfway through, and it's already
left me with some frustrating impressions.
First of all, the
characters have started to bug me: why don't they communicate, instead
of just talking? The second daughter, an airline executive, is about to
be promoted and sent to Amsterdam. That evening, she goes to her
somewhat-boyfriend's apartment, makes him a huge fancy dinner, and
reminisces about learning to cook and how her father was so much nicer
of a person when she was younger. The boyfriend tries to cheer her up by
being silly, but she gets irritable. At that point, in the second
daughter's place, I would have told him what was behind all this
emotion. (Edit: She did tell him at some point, and then she tries to
tell her family and gets cut off, and doesn't try again.)
The father
doesn't communicate either. When the second daughter sees him in the
hospital, in the cardio department, she's shocked and scared. He didn't
tell anyone he was going in for a checkup, and she thinks something is
seriously wrong.
My second impression is that the movie is about a conflict between
tradition and modernity. The second
daughter, especially, is torn between career advancement and making her
own way on the one hand, and filial piety and keeping her father happy
on the other. Then in the next scene, she complains to Lao Wen (a family
friend) about how her father "exiled" her from the kitchen, where she
could have become a master chef, and forced her to continue studying.
Lao Wen tells her that her father did the right thing, to which she
responds "Why did no one ever ask what I wanted?"
Simple answer:
because that's not how things work. Even in 1990s Taiwan, the traditions
of the mainland prevail at home. She should be glad women are allowed
to be airline executives, and get the promotion she's likely to get! But
again, the modern role her father wanted for her twenty years ago
is conflicting with the traditional role he wants/needs now, and she's afraid of what he'll think of her moving away.
The
pressures of modernity are also felt by the other two daughters, whose stories I've seen before in separate movies: the first daughter is a teacher receiving anonymous notes as a prank by her students, and the third is caught up in negotiations between her friend and the friend's
ex, in a typical teenage romantic comedy of communication errors. However,
they don't seem to be feeling the pressures of tradition as much, so the
second daughter is the one with the most interesting story, and the one
of the three that I'm most frustrated with.
The third impression I'm getting of this
movie is not, in fact, a frustrating one: I'm understanding a lot more
than I thought I would. They speak fast, and I rely heavily on the
subtitles, but there are places I can tell what they're saying, and that
it differs from the subtitles. Like they don't use the formal speech
patterns I've been learning (though again, this is Taiwan, not the
mainland), and like the scenes where the little girl (another family
friend) calls the chef "Mr. Chu" in the subtitles. She's really saying
"Zhu yeye" (Grandpa Chu). And that's linguistically neat, and she's
cute, and her interactions with Grandpa Chu are a fun spot in a movie
that has so far otherwise been quite emotionally heavy.
Perhaps I'll post more of my impressions after I finish the movie.
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