The film Pushing Hands tells a story of an old Chinese man named Mr. Chu living in New York. Mr. Chu has a son called Alex Chu living and working in New York. Alex Chu married an American woman called Martha. The difference between eastern and Western cultures, the difference in age, language and living habits, makes it impossible for Mr. Chu to communicate with Martha and integrate into his son’s life.
In the beginning of the film, director presents the cultural difference between China and America, old and young. Mr. Chu is used to Chinese food while Martha is used to Western food. Mr. Chu likes listening to Beijing Opera and he plays it loudly while Martha listens to her song with headphones. In their free time, Mr. Chu and Martha still do not communicate with each other. Mr. Chu practices calligraphy while Martha uses laptop to work. Soon, they cannot accept each other anymore. Martha thinks Mr. Chu is so traditional and she thinks that playing opera so loudly is impolite while Mr. Chu does not accept Martha’s directness and almost impersonal democracy.
From my perspective, such conflicts between Martha and Mr. Chu are inevitable due to so many different identities. I think of Persepolis when I watched this movie. Marjane in Persepolis also has various identities and she also experienced cultural differences when she went to Austria. By contrast, Mr. Chu is a respected and popular person in China but when he comes to the US, his identity changes a lot. His incompatibility with the environment makes him unable to adapt to new life and rarely communicate with other people. The film skillfully shows this problem and director also tries to tell audiences that it is very hard to solve these conflicts caused by cultural differences. Mr. Chu’s and Martha’s habits have long been ingrained. I think this work inspires a conversation that can be discussed: are conflicts caused by deep-rooted cultural differences really unavoidable, even on such a small scale?