A fren who "balik kampung" to her Penang hometown tells me the mall there was packed during CNY. Expected I guess. Personally I avoid shopping malls just before and during festive periods. I have long stopped buying new clothes for myself since years ago. I am still wearing stuff that's been in my wardrobe for more than 15 years. I count that as a compliment to myself, still being able to fit into them. So come every CNY, I just take out some "oldie" that still looks fine, fits fine and will do me fine. No, I am not superstitious about wearing old clothes, and no, I don't buy into the "must get new things for new year" tradition. As I don't fancy collecting more clothes which are just gonna pile up in the wardrobe anyway. Nor do I fancy "pusing-ing" round in the car, trying to find a parking spot in the mall. Not to mention the Q's for (expensive) food, and lots of people everywhere I walk. That's not my idea of a good time.
I had thought the mall wouldn't be so crowded after the official CNY holidays ended. So I decided to catch a movie on the 4th (working) day, to escape the heat of the house for a couple of hours . Well, I assumed wrong. Who would have
It's a Chinese language movie featuring a Chinese family living in Taiping, well-known as the town with the highest rainfall in Msia. There was lots of Cantonese spoken, but there's the typical Msian "rojak" mix of English, Malay, and Tamil thrown in. Actually, with translated subtitles, the original language of a film doesn't really matter much to me. I remember my younger days I used to sit enraptured for hours by those handsome and beautiful Bollywood actors/actresses dancing around coconut trees and wat-not, to songs in Hindi. What caught my attention about Rain Town was that it's a Malaysian film, featuring Msian actors of all races, is written by Malays, produced and directed by Malays, and a woman at that. What do Malays know about Chinese stuff like feng shui, lanterns, rain-betting, bad luck, or mooncakes? Apparently quite a fair bit. I am suitably impressed.
And it's not just films. On CNY eve I got a really nice clip of Sudirman's old-time fave Balik Kampung song sung in Mandarin, by a ....Malay guy. Add to that on CNY day itself, I got another clip of yet another Malay (this time lady) singing the very Chinese-y Gong Xi Gong Xi Nee song in perfect Mandarin. Woww, it's so koool... put me to shame, me Chinese dunno Chinese, and they Malay, so fluent. Like I told my Malay frens, I should be taking Chinese lessons from these folks..
Anyway back to the movie... the blip on Rain Town said to bring tissues. I did, and I did use them. The plot may be a bit simplistic and quite predictable. You just know what's gonna happen as it plays up the tense relationship between a very controlling father, his long-suffering Eurasian wife and 3 grown children. There's the (outwardly) obedient eldest son, the rebellious middle one and the insecure youngest girl. I think every family has one or other or all of the above, irrespective of racial or social background.
And that's where the strength of the movie lies. The actors, both main and peripheral as well as the young and old , drew out the pathos of family and societal relationships intertwined within tradition and culture of a "then" generation that carries over into the "now." The cinematography captured so well the way of life in a small town - the scenes of a typical kopi-tiam, of men bringing out small stools to sit, gathering around to bet on when the rain would fall, apparently a fave past-time for those, like old man Choo, who has nothing better to do in Taiping.
I dare say many parents have a way of imposing their expectations on their kids..all for their own good of course, as the patriarchal head of the Choo family keeps repeating the mantra to his brood. Like all oldies, he demands respect and obedience which are hall-marks of filial piety - a big thing in every culture I am sure.
It's so typical that the father wants and insists the eldest son Isaac be "the best doctor in Taiping", refusing to give rein to the young man's own desire to make music. I really liked the theme song revealing his inner turmoil; "..waiting for the skies to clear, but they never do...I'm just a droplet in an ocean full of expectations, here I'll drown in this rain town...." Indeed the poor soul was drowning in the stress of housemanship in a govt hospital. (Which is a real fact as reported in recent news media.) The scene where Isaac bursts out all his pent-up frustration in the car was so evocative, as he screams "I don't want to be a doctor", even as the younger brother confronts him about his lethal drug addiction.
I like the handsome rebel Alex the most out of the 3 young characters. His portrayal of the black sheep of the family is complete with long hair, lounging in the house as an unemployed "good-for-nothing" who rudely calls his father the old man. Rebellious to the extreme, he leaves home even in the face of his mom's and brother's crises. Yet it's his voice that speaks truth as he rails at his father, "You only care about your betting, your trophy family." As he tells his elder brother off.. "our life is ours, we have the power to make choices." Rightly, or wrongly, as turns out in his own case.
Likewise Ruby ,the youngest only daughter bottles up all her resentment and anger against a father who derails her marriage plans, considering it his guardian duty to "vet" the prospective groom and finding him lacking, because he "has no money in his bank account...has no plans for the future." O, how typically Chinese, tho I dare say it's not confined to just Chinese.
So many underlying currents of tension in a family that actually started out fine. As the mom says, "Life was so good then," evident from the old family photos on the wall. She a beauty queen settled for a lantern-maker, because she was attracted to and wanted to be part of a family built on good solid culture and tradition which she lacked in her own. But it was that very culture/tradition that caused her husband to give up lanterns for a steady bank job. It's another of those very "Chinese" thinking of my days - if you can't be a doctor, engineer or accountant, get a bank job. Don't ever be a.... musician, (much less) a baker or whatever else you dream about. It's to Mrs Aileen Choo's credit that she tries to talk sense into her "degil" husband to stop imposing his dreams onto their children, and be more accommodating to the family.
But even the most patient saint has limits; so it is she explodes when he refuses to accompany her to hospital, on the grounds that such places bring bad luck. Ya, that's really what some people actually think. She explodes again when he calls in a feng-shui master, beautifully dressed in high heels and cheongsam, who straightaway suggests building this/that thing in this/that corner to balance out the negative energy. Well, at least the "expert" got that part spot on - who can't sense all that anger oozing out in every member of the family must be dumb. I almost wanted to clap when dear old wifey literally shouted out the intruder. But I also wanted to cry when the old man tried to explain he was just trying to help by warding off the bad luck of her cancer since he didn't know what else to do. For I too remember the shock and helplessness that overwhelmed me when I was informed of my husband's cancer. Fear makes people do (usually stupid) things. So much for following (usually useless??) culture and tradition.
Yet I felt sorry for old man Choo; it wasn't that he didn't love his family. But he had allowed himself to become so shaped by traditional ways that he no longer knew how to think or respond with love. How tragic that we can become so blinded. I guess that's why crises happen in life. We all don't want "bad things" to happen, but it could be those very bad things that push us to be open to change what needs to be changed in our lives. So it is we see a broken husband at his wit's end entering the very hospital he is so superstitious to avoid, and just kneeling at a very sick wife's bedside, head bent low. A position of love and surrender. We see a broken father as he faces a double-whammy of horrible consequences - his eldest son, the pride of the family, being wheeled into the same hospital, unconscious from a drug overdose.
But there is always redemption, there's always hope. The one word that spoke volumes to me was Aileen's whisper "Forgive" to her husband from the hospital bed. That was all she could manage. Isn't it so true...Many things we need to forgive and be forgiven of. Many things we think we do right, we do good, but end up wrong, hurting and offending instead. And others also behave the same way towards us.
But that 1 simple word opens up a different path. So we see old man Choo return to tinkering with his old lanterns. We see the reconciliation and healing of a dysfunctional family, coming back to love and be loved by each other. How fitting the finale song; which as I recall, went something like this ... "I am far from perfect, how could you love me... "
Indeed, how could God Himself, the Most Holy and Perfect One, love such as us humans, full of imperfections... yet He does ..
" but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8) "... in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins" (Colossians 1:14)
No comments:
Post a Comment