Thursday, July 1, 2010

Yellow Earth

The 2000 Chinese film directed by Chen Kaige, Yellow Earth, enables us to get to know about the hardships of the people’s lives who lived in countryside of China in 1939. Men had limited job opportunities and when it came to women, they had no choice but to get married to the men their parents chose. The film uses realistic depiction and great use of folk songs that convey the rural people’s thoughts and traditional Chinese culture. I agree with Helen Hok-Sze Leung that the main character, Cui Qiao’s songs always “juxtapose a natural imagery such as the frozen yellow river in June with a social situation like being forced by her own father to get married.” The yellow river that is uncontrollable parallels Cui Qiao’s difficult situation. In the folk song, it says that “girls marry with nothing.” The lyrics here imply that young girls in countryside had to give up everything no matter how young they were just like Cui Qiao, who got engaged when she was only 13 and got married when she was 14. She does all the housework without complaining.
According to Helen Hok-Sze Leung, “folk songs are, according to the peasant’s understanding, affective responses to one’s lived-experience.” it is pretty hard for the people to change the situation going on and their surroundings. Instead of complaining about those difficulties in life and arguing with others, the people might have tried to express their feelings and share their feelings with others by the folk songs to appreciate what they already had.
Brother Gu, who is the Communist Party soldier who stays with Cui Qiao’s family, showed off that he knew how to sew to Cui Qiao and surprised her. Leung argues that this is because Brother Gu wanted to “demonstrate that men in the Communist Party share responsibilities that are traditionally designed to be women’s concerns.” However, I suppose that men had no choice but to learn how to do all this work only women used to do just like in military, men have to cook, clean, and sometimes sew by themselves because the most people who were involved in the Communist Party were men instead of women. Since Cui Qiao seemed to be astonished by knowing that Brother Gu could sew, it seems that she had never seen any men who helped women’s housework.
Cui Qiao could hardly learn about anything going on in the other places in China but her own small town because there was no TV or radio. Therefore, she seems to take everything happening in her town for granted. In the film, someone said that the women in Southern parts of China didn’t get married when they were as young as Cui Qiao, but no one seemed to be sure if that was true or not. In the folk song used in the film, it is also stated that “opposing marriage, I get beaten. No one to whom thoughts I can spills.” In Chinese traditional philosophy, people are supposed to appreciate their ancestors and inspired to live for their posterity by continuing family lineage. This might be one of the reasons that almost no one remains single back then in China unlike today. At the beginning of this film, some people talked about a man who remained single after becoming 30 years old. They seemed to consider the man to be abnormal. This came as a big surprise to me because the vast majority of people in China will not consider being single after becoming 30 years old to be abnormal today. In addition, many women in big cities in China today have higher status, stable jobs, so they don’t always have to get married. But then again, marriage was considered to be a part of their fate instead of their choice back then. Marriage is often portrayed as a happy ending and the beginning of a brand new life with someone who you truly love in most of today’s Chinese movies. But then again, in the film, Yellow Earth, an old man said that once you get married, you must share hardships with your partner. I feel sorry for Cui Qiao that she had to get married to her husband who was much older than her and she didn’t even love. She was not able to explore the world or enjoy her youth. Although Cui Qiao lamented the fact that she wasn’t able to make a decision on her own life, she accepted it as her fate. It must have been natural for her to work hard, accept the situation she was in, and hold back her strong emotion or feelings including tears. As I mentioned earlier, in traditional Chinese philosophy, people are supposed to accept everything that happens to them as their fate. This way of thinking seems to help Cui Qiao and other people back then to feel slightly better about their lives that they cannot easily control. They must have felt somewhat better when they try to accept their years of hardships as their fate because unlike today, lots of effort and hard work were often not rewarded and they couldn’t improve their social conditions even after they put a lot of effort back then.
According to Helen Hok-Sze Leung, “the open ending arises from us not being able to- and not wanting to- give audiences a clear answer about what we are trying to express or what the feature holds for this child.” To me, it seems that the people back then had always hoped for better lives, but they must have already known that it would take time to better their lives because the life is uncontrollable like the yellow river in many cases. To me, the ending of this film implies that those people in countryside have known how tough and uncontrollable their lives were but at the same time they have continued to hope for their next generations.

2 comments:

  1. "As I mentioned earlier, in traditional Chinese philosophy, people are supposed to accept everything that happens to them as their fate"

    This caught my eye and I was wondering if you follow by this tradition. Also, it seems Cui Jao did not since she decides to run away after her marriage.

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  2. Daniel,

    Thank you for your comment! Although Cui Qiao ran away after her marriage, she once got married to a man she didn’t even love. In the folk song, it says that “girls marry with nothing,” and the young girls in rural towns could not choose to whom they got married.

    I don’t really follow by this tradition. Today, we can decide to whom we get married, and we don’t always have to get married. However, if I had been born in China during that time, I would have tried to accept the situation I was in as my fate or destiny and got married to someone I didn’t love. The society people live in seems to make a significant difference in their ways of thinking.

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