The Asian Economist

The Ang Lee directed film Eat Drink Man Woman encompasses many Chinese Confucian thoughts within the film but the most important one is that the father knows what is right for their children. This film is another Chinese melodrama by Ang Lee, who also directed The Wedding Banquet; the film confronts many new modern ideas and clashes it with the old ones. Ang Lee brilliant story telling creates an atmosphere of brilliance in term of the dishes that were cooked and he sprinkled in a lot of ingredients that fits very well together within the film. From the film, I realize that the process in which the father prepare all the food for the three daughters symbolizes how the father wants to make a life for his three daughters, offer them everything, but in the end, the daughters does not like the ingredients in which the father uses to cook the dishes, he has lost his taste; even though they love their father’s cooking, they want to cook for themselves, they want to be on their own.

The most superb part about the film was in the story telling by Ang Lee. He tells a story about three daughters who were raised together but all ended up in very different places. Although their occupations were as different as black and white, their home conflicts all involved a man they love whom their father. The story that Ang Lee tells us mostly happen at Sunday dinner, which the father always prepare for. Ang Lee put a lot of emphases on showing the process of how the food is prepare, which causes the audiences to be awe by the end result, a whole table of special dishes just for his three daughters. Throughout the film the father did more then just prepares food, but he also does his daughters’ laundry. In a way the father has been in control of his daughters’ life since the beginning and now they are rebelling.

Even though there are delightful dishes on the table, sometimes the daughters complain about certain ingredients that the father put in, or did not put enough of. None of his three daughters are happy right now with the situation they are living in. They want something more. On the one hand they want control over their life, but on the other hand they love their father very much and it is becoming harder for them to leave home because he is getting older and older.

It seems that the happiest for the father is during the time that he cooks. He loves cooking, no matter if it is for his family or for the restaurant. He was very upset when the restaurant worker threw away the left-over from the banquet. This shows how much he loves cherishes the food, something his young daughters forget sometimes. The biggest he had on screen was when he decided to cook lunches for the little girl. He was very upset at the more modern food the little girls was eating, either hamburgers or bad food the mother made. The father was more then happy to cook lunches for her and her classmates, he even eats her bad lunches that her mom made. The father respects food so much that he eats all the bad lunches. This really shows how much the father has missed his three daughters when they were young. His three daughters have changed a lot and he is now unable to cook lunches for them, something that he cherishes very much.
Throughout the story we can see that the middle daughter really wanted to cook her own food, she really wanted to make a life of her own. Unlce Wen was the one that taught her how to cook, not her father. She no longer wants to live at home with her father. Only the oldest daughter understands the old concept of staying home with the father, and taking care of him. The middle daughter bought an apartment and was going to move out of the house. At the beginning of this film, she has the most distance between her and her father. Ironically thought at the end she became the closest to her father; bringing us all back to the old idea of a close knit family. Throughout the film you will notice that the middle daughter was the one with the most complaint about the father’s cooking and she is the one that wants to leave the house the most.

When she did her own cooking at her ex-boyfriends apartment we see how cooking has a huge affect on her mentally. She reminisced about the past, playing in her father’s huge kitchen. She hated how she was never allowed to cook there. Her father allowing her to cook would mean that she would be in total control of the house. That is something the father did not want. Once again, at the end of the film we see her cooking in her father’s huge kitchen, which is something that she always wanted. Sadly though, by then everyone has moved out and her father was the only one who showed up for dinner that night. The relationship between the father and the middle daughter has the most conflicts because the middle daughter was the one who wants to be the most independent. She feels that her life has been successful and that being at home will only hold her back. The thing that had her give a second thought about this was when she saw her father at the cardiovascular department in the hospital. She was really worried about her father’s health. Here we see the old value of the middle daughter coming into play.

No matter how successful, or how modern she is, there is always be a part of her that she was raised with, the part with the old family value. The core value which states that family comes first, and being with the family is the most joyful thing. When seeing her father at the hospital, this part of her felt really sad and because of this she decided not to take a business trip to Amsterdam. She wanted to stay home and take care of her father because first her uncle Wen has past away, and her two sisters are moving out. She came to the realization that her father only has her. This realization of the old core value was the message that Ang Lee is trying to get through in the film, that no matter how modern children has become, they still carry the core value of family and love for the parents. As for the other eldest daughter, at first she very much believes in that core value.

The eldest daughter was the one who scolded at the middle daughter for telling her to leave the house and make a better life for herself. The eldest daughter replied that she knows the father best and the best thing for him is for the three of them to stay with him. The middle daughter has found herself engulf in the Christian belief, but still carries the old core Chinese value of family. It is interesting to see how Ang Lee shows the influence of Christianity in Taiwan. During dinner, it was interesting to see how respectful the rest of the family was of her being Christian. When she says grace, everyone allows her to say it without interrupting her or making her feel awkward. Even though they do no believe in Jesus Christ, they still are respectful of her new belief.

To me, I feel that the eldest sister was lost in terms of what value she believes in, so turning to the Christian church has helped her in stabilizing her life after passing of her mother. Christianity plays a huge role for the eldest daughter. Even though she has the most core family value, there was a part of her that regrets not leaving when she had a chance. At first she tells her sister that being with their father is important but in the end when she found a man that loves her, she decided to move out with him. It seems as though she felt that since she has sacrifice the most in the family she has the right to leave; she has the right to be with the man she loves. She even forced him to become Christian. In a way she was making up for the sacrifices she has made for the family. I see her as someone that was selfless at first and has become very selfish later on in the film, as appose to the youngest daughter who has the least family value.

The youngest daughter seems to play the least important role in the film but she is the total opposite of the eldest daughter. The eldest daughter has always chosen the family first, but for the youngest daughter, he went out and got pregnant. Here Ang Lee is showing that more and more the younger generations are becoming less and less responsible for themselves and the family. The youngest daughter does not seem to be interested in the idea of cooking or learning how to cook. She works at a fast food restaurant, while her father works in a big fancy restaurant. Even thought she is still a school girl she is now pregnant and must move out to live with her new husband. The youngest daughter’s situation is quite similar to the eldest daughter but the difference is that the eldest daughter was responsible and did not get pregnant and was always thinking about the family first. We can see here as the time passes, the core value of family changes. Less emphasis is being put on family being together, and more emphases are being put on being successful and living and fun life.

The idea that family is becoming less important can also be seen outside of the main family. Their neighbor’s daughter is going through a horrible divorce and their other daughter in the United States is married to a Caucasian man. The mother of that family is very disappointed with both of their situations. Through this example we can see that the core family value in Taiwan, and it could be extrapolate to mainland China, is becoming more modernize and more western. This is something that is not good for the Chinese culture as a whole. The western way of living and their beliefs does not fit in with the culture of China. With this culture conflicts, the one that is getting the bad end of the stick is the core family value. With the influx of modernization and westernization, even the old people are getting influence into it. For example, the father in this film ends up falling in love with someone who is about the age of his eldest daughter.

Near the end of the film, the father made an announcement that he was going to get engage with someone. The audience, including me, was thinking the mother of the neighbor, but it ends up being the neighbor herself who is going through a rough divorce, who has a child already. This is what professor Bi Dai would consider to be “generational incest”. It’s basically marrying someone a generation above or below you. This is not acceptable in the Chinese culture, but here we see the father doing just that. This situation was much unexpected, maybe what Ang Lee was trying to get across is that old people are also taking advantage of the modern values of what is okay and what is not. The old lady that likes the father was upset both because the father did not chose her but also because it was a love between two people with a huge age difference. To the three daughters what the father is doing is very confusing to them. It is ironic that out of all the characters in the film to make the greatest leap in terms of modernization, it would be the father. The character that made the least leap was the middle sister, who was the one that wanted to be the most modern.

The character that changed the most throughout the film and was affected the most by other people’s action is the middle daughter. She started out being very selfish but came to realize that she had to take care of her father. In the end though, her father reveal that his check-up at the hospital shows that he is healthy enough to take on a young wife. The middle daughter was the one that was most affected, because she give up her promotion to take care of her father. Now that her father has found someone else, she feels the loneliest. To use an analogy, I would consider the middle daughter as a boomerang that has flew far away, but in the end, it comes back home. The middle daughter was going to get an apartment or move to Amsterdam but in the end she was the last one to leave the house, her father even left before her.

This film by Ang Lee shows how modernization has changed the society’s norm in Taiwan. Christianity has come into play and the values are being change everyday. Some are scolded for having old values and some are scolded for the new values. The conflicts within the house are just a small example of how globalization has affected everyone, even a small family in Taiwan. The parents no longer needs to cook for their kids, they can just get lunch at school or go to a fast food restaurant. They is no need to stay with the parents because parents are getting stronger as they are old. People are struggling everyday with the old and new values. Which one is ring and which one is wrong is determined by individuals and peer influences. If a generation considers one value to be okay then that value will be okay throughout the society. In a way, it is very sad to see the old family value falls apart because of the new modern ways of living. This film did a superb job of showing how the new values are interfering with the old ones.