Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Beijing Bicycle

Guei, a young man from the country-side, goes to work in Beijing at a courier company. The only person who is nice to him when he first arrives is his friend Mantis, while everyone else is mean and belittles him because he is from the poor countryside. Throughout the movie, the director Wang Xiaoshuai utilizes both the rich urban citizens and the poor rural folks to explain to us his view of urban life and culture as an extremely superficial and naïve outlook on society.

In the first scene that Guei appears with Mantis, we see them peering into a nearby apartment complex at a pretty young lady wearing a beautiful dress. Mantis makes a comment on how pretty the city women appear and how fancy their clothes look, as opposed to the same shirts that the countryside people always wear. Later we find out that this lady who always buys soy sauce from his store is not a city woman at all – but rather a maid from the countryside who dresses up as a city woman when the owner is not home. Their misunderstanding of the woman’s true status is solely based on the external – what she wears on her body and feet, rather than her actual personality and mannerisms. Even though she is from a peasant background just like they themselves are, she is able to hide it completely by altering her external appearance. This prevailing prejudice based on externality speaks out the rural attention towards the outward appearance of others, and their subsequent failure to recognize the true individual on the inside.

Furthermore, in the scene where Guei goes to deliver a package for Mr. Zhang, he mistakenly enters the shower on accident. When demanded to pay, he frankly responds that he isn’t able to, especially because it wasn’t his original intention to take a shower. Luckily for him, Mr. Zhang comes to verify his identity as a mail courier, and lets him off. When the assistant at the front desk reminds Mr. Zhang that Guei hadn’t paid for his shower, Mr. Zhang asks her “Do you think someone like him can pay up?” His arrogant tone and assurance that Guei had no money to pay proves the urban citizens as superficial as well, merely looking upon appearances to make judgments. This time though, this assumption is made from an upper class rich CEO, the opposite end of the spectrum as Guei and Mantis.

In both cases, we see that regardless of background and class status, everyone in Beijing seems to judge people merely by appearances. Nobody cares who the individual is on the inside – the externals are all that matter. Wang Xiaoshuai may be suggesting that the rapid development of urban cities has turned everyone away from what really matters. Instead of placing a greater emphasis on the individual inner character, people today are edging away from this traditional focus and replacing exterior impression as the sole priority. This degradation of culture and tradition is unfortunate, but nevertheless is still a reality today.

2 comments:

  1. It is true that what is the director portrayed the injustice to Guei because of his origins and his age. Usually people from the city do not look up to or respect the people from the countryside. They are mostly considered outsiders, uneducated people that are only used for manual labor. They do not end up having the same opportunities and benefits that the people from the city have. They end up being taken advantage of in all means, like it we see in the movie. Even with the treatment he is given by society in Beijing, he still fights for his own survival and goals. He does not care about what other people think.

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  2. Harry,

    I completely agree with you that “regardless of background and class status, everyone in Beijing seems to judge people merely by appearances.” The film portrays that the people judge others by looking at their clothes and belongings before they get to know about them, which is unfortunate. Guei isn’t treated well by the people in Beijing because he is obviously from countryside and has an accent. Although Guei has a good personality, many people in Beijing do not seem to listen to him. I found the people in Beijing cold and impersonal because no one seems to welcome Guei, who is new to the city. There is quite a big gap between the people from Beijing and countryside. It seems that the people from countryside have limited job opportunities in Beijing, and they are unlikely to be rich in Beijing even after they work hard for a long time. This might be because many CEOs take advantage of the people from countryside, who are known as hard-working and patient.

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