Our movies confused the Chinese
Published 1:30 pm Monday, August 11, 2008
Chinese take two movies to represent American culture, but the two confuse them because they say different things. A standard question when I visit a foreign country is which American television programs and movies form their perception of America. (Alright, not necessarily in these words, but this is the idea.) The answer I received in China is “Saving Private Ryan” and “The Bridges of Madison County.” They told me these astound them equally, but for seriously distinct reasons. We can be proud of our nation in “Saving Private Ryan,” but “The Bridges of Madison County” betray something about our culture Chinese should not envy and we should recognize.
“Saving Private Ryan” (1998) narrates the extreme efforts to which the U.S. government went to protect the life of a single army private. Three Niland brothers had been killed in World War II, and we wished to spare the fourth. So a ranger detachment was tasked to locate him in the midst of the Normandy invasion and return him to safety in this country. Not only was this a dangerous mission, it required tremendous commitments by several combat units during a precarious period of fighting.
My Chinese sources told me it is beyond their comprehension a government would so commit itself and take such risks for one man — especially an ordinary soldier. They know very well how China sent thousands of its infantrymen against American forces in Korea knowing and even intending most would be killed. You fire as many bullets as necessary to kill an enemy, because there are more where these came from. Human lives are the same — both are expendable.
Not just the military units in combat years ago, but civilian industry today thinks this way. I visited several factories and never saw any safety features. I watched laborers on rickety bamboo ramps tied with string and no railings push wheel barrels of concrete up six stories. They answered my questions about safety devices and measures with blank stares. I may as well have asked how they prevent ants from being stepped on. What happens when a worker becomes disabled by an industrial accident? “We call the family to come and take him home.”
While Americans cheer “Saving Private Ryan,” the Chinese scratch their heads.
But, then, there is “The Bridges of Madison County” (1995), and that’s another story. What impresses the Chinese is precisely what worries me.
Francesca Johnson, an Iowa farm wife, is ignored by her unromantic husband, and, in this fictional story, she finds romance wherever it can be found. It happens to be with a traveling photographer (a little more romantic than the proverbial traveling salesman), and they have sex on the kitchen floor for four days.
What surprises Chinese is she gets away with this marital unfaithfulness. What astonishes them is Americans admire her guts. This just doesn’t happen in responsible Chinese society. Chinese are inhibited, but Americans are liberated and do anything we want without consequences.
But this isn’t how I read the fiction or see real life. In addition to all that can be said about the romantic failings of this husband, there is another aspect aside from the wishes of the fiction. It is this my Chinese friends fail to think through and we ognore.
Her husband falls in love with Francesca as a destitute European war refugee. He marries her and brings her home. He provides everything she did not have in war-torn Europe nor would she come to have there — except, as the film parades, romance.
Fiction has no consequences you don’t want. Real life always does. It isn’t she needs to spend her life paying off his rescue, but that she trades a normal lifetime for four days on the kitchen floor.
I hope Chinese learn from “Saving Private Ryan” and we remember individual lives are worth saving. I hope we learn from the Chinese some of their traditional restraint and commitment.