The Wedding Banquet is actually my favorite movie among the Father trilogy. Comparing to the other two, it is more structurally rigorous and effortless in discussing complicated topics. Weitong, a Chinese immigrant and son of veteran KMT division commander, lives with his gay partner in Manhattan. Under the pressure from his parents for marriage, he agree with his partner Simon’s plan to marry a Chinese illegal immigrant, Gu Weiwei, which can give Weiwei a green card at the same time. Weitong’s parents decided to fly to United States to meet up with their daughter-in-law and prepared a wedding banquet for Weitong. Well, I am not going to be the spoiler to release the whole story. After all the dramas, Weitong’s parents figured out the truth. But to maintain the conservative decent of the family, all of them decide to play the I-know-you-know-and-you-know-I-know-but-we-are-not-going-to-release game and no one put the cards on the table. Wei-tong pretended to be a happy newly married man and his parents satisfied parents for the son’s marriage, just like the happy wedding album at the end of the movie.

I will still list this movie as a Chinese movie rather than a movie that I can share with every friends. Although the movie follows a strict plotting structure that student can learned from western movie schools (you can clearly tell how the conflict is ignited, pushed forward and breaks out and is solved), most of the jokes can’t be understood unless you grew up from a Chinese ethnic background. The movie is made a bit academism (Very green hand. Like a student’s splendid homework to teacher). But Ang Lee’s talent and deep thought is not attained.

Ang Lee is actually one of my favorite Chinese director in China (The other one is Jiang Wen. I don’t care about over praised Zhang Yimou or Chen Kaige at all). Ang Lee is special because he is trying out different topics of the movie (but the core theme of all his movies are representing the common barriers and conflicts all the human beings are facing) rather than staying only in his comfort zone. He can be very diversified.

Right now I almost have nothing good happens in my life and I become very pessimistic to every bad thing happens in my life…I know I became a bit over sensitive. I can’t stop to think my situation now will keep in the same trend and leads to a miserable future.

Crap, I need a trip out of the town for couple of days to get rid of all the worry…

Thank you Charlie! Thank you Xiaoxiao! I really love the gifts…as much as I’ve eaten half of my gifts. Lol~

I like it when it claims on the bottle that: it’s a Togolese community cooperative, and 10% of all proceeds go back into the coop.  Community-owned and run, part of Alaffia Sustainable Skin Care, part of its goal is to use indigenous African resources (in this case, shea butter) to enrich the economic lives of the local people rather than big corporations and such.

Apparently, it’s a social enterprise product. I used to considering setting up a social enterprise myself sometime in the future. But as a person have common business knowledge, I realize such a business requiring for clients with high moral standard and economic strength to support them giving up a cheap products for someone else’s (they don’t even know) good. For the business itself, the cost is too high to profit. Better for a owner with good economic situation (or even who has gain financial freedom) or who obtain high and strong moral standard.

Well…but the product actually works good on me and simple (only 5 ingredients). And my hair loose is eliminated. The product is non-scent which makes me feel it’s less industrial. As a client, I will stick to it. Maybe the business will profit for its good quality. Let see what will happen.

I read article about how Asian are hostile toward each other and the western world except for Thailand regarding the long history of the West’s war over Asia. Since Thai are never colonized (the king protected their citizens away by conceding and avoiding the wars). Even among all Asians, wars never stopped. It’s not difficult to see how wars can cultivate the hatred and distrust among people. And the distrust is not eliminated by any kind of Union or connection within the region (like EU. The establishment of EU actually build up a bridge of multinational communication in Europe). The communications between Asian countries and Asian-West are still under-developed. I believe it’s a region needed more efforts.

Also, the so called “racism” is developed from patriotism. Well, this is understandable. The criticizing of other countries with friends going with beers always lead a tighter bond among people. It’s nothing to do with a real “racism”–which may lead to a more sever consequence like exclusiveness and unequal opportunities. After all, we even sometimes blames our friends in front of some other friends aren’t we?

First of all, Michel Foucault’s theory about knowledge/power is very useful in this circumstance. As I have known, people seldom praise the Chinese (loosely defined as in the article) way of parenting in the western context because it’s said to make the kids timid and immature which are highly valued in the western culture. But actually, making kids timid and immature is not necessarily the consequent of Chinese parenting. In the Chinese context, timid or immature is never a fatal shortcoming. So the parents didn’t pay much attentions on cultivating their representing/communication skills or life skills while the western parents do. For many of the parents who immigrant to US, they pay closer attention to their kids presentation/communication and life skills. So the second generation of Chinese immigrants are usually more mature and outgoing.

Secondly, scolding the Chinese parenting by what it’s missing for training the kids skills dooms to be a failure.   The Chinese parenting is a training process. The parents are like coaches. The quality of the training depends heavily on the design of the classes. Some parents may miss some important classes but the methodology of the parenting has no faults on preparing the kids for the future.

The only problem I’ve seen about the Chinese parenting is it stresses to much on the responsibilities between parents and kids while lack of the love connection and it impedes the development of right attitudes of self-esteem. I am raised in the typical Chinese way of parenting. I started to play Pipa (regretfully not piano or violin) since I am five. I have to spent 3 hours on practicing everyday and i played in the municipal’s annual concerts pretty frequently.  I was not allowed to watch TV except for the weekend and no play after school. My parents set a very high standard for me and allow no mercy. I have to say, I am supper strong and confident of conquering any difficulties for my life journey because of that. My parents can be angry when I am getting full scores and ranking the first in the class or I didn’t take good care of myself.  But they can also be super happy if I get good score, practice well in my Pipa or some  other stuff related to perfect. For me, the loves from parents are only developed from me being perfect. This is actually a long-term barrier about relationship I had to overcome with other people. I didn’t believe people would love me if I am not excellent and I have difficulties of believing my parents love me because I am myself not I am not what I have achieved.

Still, I have a feeling that I can work better. Maybe I should talk to people who are peer job hunters to exchange information and be motivated.

And then was Yanyan. Yanyan cried and told me she’s going to married and she’s not quite prepared for it. I’ve seen what Yanyan and Chien-Hung experienced during the years. I don’t think there’s a better time or better person make a couple for them. So I comforted her and borrowed a camera to be her photographer. I also signed the paper for her marriage.  I don’t know about relationship and marriage. But the truth is, it’s beyond any definitions.

My best work for Yanyan and Chien-Hung’s marriage day.

Me, signing the paper.

A bit delay from their real marriage though, coz I am not sure whether I should release it to the world. But now it goes to the public.

All the classic stories become very absurd and silly when explained and expressed in a modernized way. Such as when Arthur is trying to explain why he’s a king to the democratic believer or the police’s investigation on knights for murdering the historian. The intersection between classic and modern are hilarious, but I can’t help to think, aren’t we accepting anything without questioning while our offspring may consider us as silly?

The second kind of the humor comes from “Shallow”. People are too stupid and shallow in the movie as innocent as you can’t even seen in a 5 years kids. The king forced his son to married a girl who’s father has a parcel of swamp while the son are unwilling to. The king clarify for 5-6 times to the guards to guard his son til he’s back. And while the knight unsuccessfully killed the swamp owner, the king instigated his confidants to give the owner a fatal stabling in front of everyone. Don’t even mention the other silly scene to lead every villager to believe a witch can’t float on the water.

My favorite line of the movie? the outrageous accent, “k-niggit”. But if it were me, I would pronounce it as “kite”.

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Regretfully, I didn’t read any books ever since two years ago I moved to US, except for the academic publications. Not until recently, I started to find the joy to explore the movies, books and arts within the English world.

Well, I guess art is a common language around the world.

Anyway, Yanyan picked up the cat. At the very beginning, I am not quite into the cat. Quite disturbed by him yawning on my laps or looking into me eagerly for strokes. But gradually, I found this little fat thing very adorable while writing he simply lets me to use him as a mouse pad.

I guess I am missing the “pur” he made when I got up every morning.

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The good new is, Yanyan sent my the loose leaves rose tea from Mom. The rose floating above the water. Tasty!