Author: hao.300

Text Review — Yue Hao

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Now I want to share a movie called Gua Sha (The Treatment), published in 2001. It is a cross-cultural movie directed by a Chinese director, Xiaolong Zheng, reflecting cultural conflicts between China and America. The story happens in St. Louis. The main character named Datong, Xu, who has lived in the United States for over eight years, has a good job and a happy family. He took his father who used to live in Beijing to move to his house in the United States. Unfortunately, Datong’s son, Dannis, had a fever along with a stomachache. Dannis’s grandfather (Datong’s father) who does not speak English could not understand the instructions on medicine. He decided to use Gua Sha therapy (a traditional Chinese healing technique to achieve better health). It is unexpected an accident exists, becoming firm evidence of child abuse. In the court, American judges have no knowledge of Gua sha. Datong is accused of child abuse, facing unexpected witnesses and testimonies. He does not know how to defend himself and to explain this Chinese caring method to judges. Datong was then deprived of custody and he was not allowed to see his son. There are conflicts and contradictions taking place, resulting in this happy family become fragmented.

This movie focuses on conflicts that cultural diversity brings. Based on Bhabha’s point, Datong and his family are people who belong to two cultures. In this movie, we can find that everyone is working to maintain a healthy, transparent, and democratic legal system. For example, the doctors and nurses came to the police, lawyers fight for the rights of children, and witnesses state what they saw. However, as they are encountering things that they do not understand or conflict with their knowledge, this western rigorous law becomes a weapon for them to stick to their paranoia. These people are placing themselves in their culture, instead of learning and understanding differences. Datong and his family are also considered as “others” to those American citizens.

Image fromhttp:/https://www.cinemaclock.com/images/posters/1000×1500/20/gua-sha-treatment-2001-movie-poster-o.jpg

 

Diary of Systemic Injustice — Yue Hao

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Fashion systemic injustice – Dolce and Gabbana.

In this D&G Chinese advertisement video, one Asian woman is using chopsticks to eat some Italian food, whose facial expression is orotund and makes the audience feel embarrassing. This video features the woman is struggling with utilizing chopsticks, showing her dumbness and stupidness. As a “Chinese woman embraces European fashion”, she is “too uneducated to understand European culture”. After it was released on Chinese social media platforms and Instagram, Chinese people felt offended and became furious because the advertisement expressed cultural ignorance and disrespect to China. The ad with racism leads Chinese people to boycott the brand and asked them to apologize. However, Stefano Gabbana, one of the founders of D&G, did not only refuse to admit that he insulted China but also denounced the model in comments, accusing her of “eating dogs” and calling her “China Ignorant Dirty Smelling Mafia”. After this racist event, the luxury fashion show was canceled in Shanghai, which resulted in the loss of thousands of dollars to the brand and some companies in China

As a Chinese international student, I truly felt offended by D&G. Chopsticks, a symbol of Chinese culture, are used inappropriately. This racist advertisement brought a large negative effect on the image of Chinese people. It would mislead and give people from different cultural backgrounds a bad impression. In fact, they might wonder if Chinese people are so uneducated that they eat food stupidly. Further, Chinese culture could be questioned that Chinese people are laughed by using chopsticks.

This racist event reminds me that it is a systemic injustice that is disrespectful to exotic cultures. Fashion houses create fashion products to make money in a larger market without understanding and about a different culture. It is not fair for other countries or other races that their great culture is disrespectfully used as a stunt. Fashion brands make their effort to make money from consumers, but they do not even know the essence of culture, who simply design something contain superficial elements of clothes from different races without respect. If no objection to this phenomenon, the systemic injustice will continue, which more people from different cultural backgrounds will be treated unequally and be insulted.

Image from: https://www.pinkvilla.com/files/styles/contentpreview/public/Chats.jpg?itok=jMXsV7Q6

 

 

Context Research Presentation (Week 7) –Yue Hao

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During these two weeks, we read the graphic novel of Persepolis and watch the adapted movie. Based on the available resources, we are able to see the cultural and racial issues that appeared in Iran. The experience of Marji, who lives in a fundamentalist regime in Iran, gives every reader opportunities to reflect the systemic injustice. Personally, I love this origin graphic novel Strapi made. However, this book is banned below grade 8 in Chicago. CPS (Chicago Public Schools) expresses that Persepolis is inappropriate that children under this age are not permitted to read it. Why?

Here are three possible reasons:

  1. The negative portrayal of the thuggish fundamentalist Iranian regime. The book is somehow Islamophobic. The ideas are sensitive to Mulsim students, which could lead to a misleading of politics.
  2. The graphic language cannot explain everything. High school teachers seldom using this book for teaching purposes, who believe that”graphic language and images that are not appropriate for general use in the seventh-grade curriculum.” The novel is likely to make stereotypes of Iranian.
  3. A certain amount of violence and sex are included in the book. In the book, Strapi tells how her family and friends were tortured by the Shah and the Revolutionary government. Besides, some pictures of wounded soldiers and blooded scenes are too cruel for children to read.

The reason for banning the book remains unclear. In fact, some parents do not want their children to read the book in school because they believe that is too early for children to be exposed to the negative staff, such as war, violence, and sex. The ideas of Persepolis can be offensive to certain groups of people, resulting in racial discrimination.

So, what is your opinion about whether Persepolis should be banned in school? Do you come up with some similar ideas when reading the novel and watching the movie?

Work Cited: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/03/sex-violence-and-radical-islam-why-persepolis-belongs-in-public-schools/274152/