October 20, 2019
I don’t usually watch documentaries for pleasure, but the viewing experience of American Factory was beyond satisfactory. The film was well shot and directed, focusing on a recently reopened factory in Dayton, OH that had been purchased by a Chinese company. The story revolves around the worker’s adjustment to new management, having Chinese international coworkers, and realizing that the factory floor isn’t what it used to be. It beautifully interweaves an incredibly rich and perplexing story with real meanings of consumerism, the clashing of cultures, and the human condition. There are many conflicts that the film presents throughout, but I’ll talk about some of the ones I found particularly interesting.
The documentary prominently shows the interactions between the Chinese workers and the American workers as a point to demonstrate miscommunication and stereotyping from both sides. The Americans assume that the Chinese have a superiority complex and work extra hard to outshine and embarrass them. They think that the Chinese workers will undercut their pay and their hard work, and they have different standards when it comes to safety and work ethic. The Chinese see their English counterparts as lazy and uninspired. One of the Chinese presidents even remarks on the American educational system’s obsession with undeserving praise and how it leads to an inflated ego. Both sides make incorrect assumptions about the other, mistaking key characteristics of a few for the personality of every person. The film never outright states this fallacy but respects the attentiveness of the watcher and presents it in other ways.
They show the duality of backgrounds between American and Chinese workers, even how they intersect at times. The Americans lament the loss of their old factory and jobs, ones that were much higher paying and less work intensive. The Chinese struggle to adjust to life in a radically different culture and save their money for their families back home. This dichotomy of lifestyles perfectly illustrates the human condition and how everyone struggles with something in their lives. No matter how idyllic the other lifestyle seems, both have their own issues and must overcome the cultural divide to solve it.
This film speaks to my own heritage and even to this campus and its interesting relationship with international students and inclusivity. I feel as if there exists a cultural divide between the students here on our campus, due to a language barrier and a sense of familiarity. Most people are not willing to break from their known culture to enrich themselves, and the fear of being caught in the middle between your people and another’s is often enough deterrence. This is not to say there is hostility amongst the two groups, but any friendships past courtesy are few and far between. If this documentary has anything to teach us, we must share in our commonalities of being human and rejoice in each other’s strange and different ways of life. It’s only through discomfort and venturing out can we grow as people and understand the world at large.