Although I had said that to-day's class, following on from one of the presentations last week, was to be about music it was, instead, the movie "Mamma Mia" [which, in Italian, means My Mother]. I'd mentioned this movie last week when none of you seemed to have heard of Sweden's No. I pop-group to date, ABBA.
ABBA is a very old group which shot to world fame in the 'Seventies. Although I wasn't a fan myself, there are very few people in the Western World who lived through the ABBA days who don't know all the words to almost all their songs because they were played everywhere: at parties, on the radio, in restaurants, in pubs...wherever there was music, there was ABBA. So their songs became immortal and even to-days generation know them - both my sons, who like me, are into way different kind of music, seemed to have learned ABBA songs along with their A,B,C!
The movie we watched to-day then, was also a very popular movie which most foreigners are familiar with as it was both a stage-show and a movie. The story, of course, has got nothing to do with ABBA themselves, but using such familiar music and songs made sure that it attracted large audiences for many different reasons. Because ABBA is an old group it was certain that many of to-days parents went to see it to bring back old memories, while it became a movie younger people would go to see as well just for the story: or because the whole family went to see it together.
For that reason, there were actually two stories in the movie: one of them was the story of the young girl who wanted to know who her father was and the other was the story of her mother. The actor who played the girls mother is an American - Meryl Streep - a very famous Oscar Award winning actor, who has made mostly much more serious and important movies: it was amazing to see her play this role. The actor who played her friend (the plump one with glasses) is also an extremely brilliant actor - an English woman named Julie Walters. The guy who turned out to be the real Dad was Pierce Brosnan - also English - who is equally famous and whom you may have seen as James Bond. So, a truly stellar [ made up of stars] cast.
Seeing this movie was therefore good as the songs, the actors and the film itself are a very familiar part of Western culture. But it may also have made you realise something else about the culture you are going to take part in: the older generation - thus parents - are mostly quite a lot different from the older generation of Chinese people and, I expect, your own parents.
Most of you, and the people you know, will have been brought up by two parents. This is not so common in a lot of Western countries. And, even in the countries where it is common, everyone accepts that "family" doesn't always mean a mother, father and two sets of grandparents. It can be step parents, step brothers and sisters; only grandparents and children; two mothers and no father, two fathers and no mother - or even people who are not even related by blood. Single parent families are also quite normal. I myself brought up my two sons on my own. I was very lucky because my parents were fantastic people so my boys had grandparents but, we mostly lived in separate countries. The girl in the movie has never even met her grandparents because "Donna's" mother, back in the Seventies, banished her from the house when she became pregnant.
So, that is another thing many Chinese people don't realise when they talk about people from many Western countries being much more "open" or less traditional: - this is only quite a recent thing, dating back from the Seventies.
Around the same time things were changing in China and Opening and Expansion took place, in the West things were also changing and Women's Liberation, Free Love and Anti War movements suddenly exploded all over the world. Some people refer to this time as The Hippie Movement - but it wasn't only Hippies who were changing the world. Equal rights movements were also begun and the great American leader Martin Luther King fought for the freedom of the American black people who, until this time, had been treated shamefully.
All the time China has been changing since the days of your grandparents before Opening and Expansion, The West has also been changing since the time of our grandparents. This has led to what is known worldwide as The Generation Gap: older people in every part of the Globe [world] have lived through such a period of change (and, unfortunately, wars) in the last 30 or 40 years, that the world, to them, is no longer the place it was when they were young. This sometimes leads to lack of understanding between the old and the young as both sides are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the ideas of the other.
Just as many Chinese people still live a traditional life and Opening and Expansion has not yet affected their lives very much, so in many countries in the West, there are communities and countries where things have not changed very much either and the traditional life is still lived. So, just as in China, in the West we also need to accept that there is a mixture of communities and ideas: some which are very modern and open and some which are still very traditional. Do not expect everybody to be the same.
I first saw Mamma Mia last year in England when an old friend dragged me along to see it very much against my own wishes. Actually I think I fell asleep! So seeing it again to-day a couple of things struck me that I hadn't realised before. Firstly, I think that perhaps the idea of a film where a mother herself is not sure who the father of her child is, and where the child herself accepts this - although, naturally, being curious, might not be so acceptable in China.
But in the West, even if we were not even alive then, we know how different things were back in the late 'Sixties and the 'Seventies. It's called the time of Revolutions: though mostly the revolutions were social and not violent. The slog [saying; a phrase that everybody believed in] was "Make Love, Not War." It was a time of love and peace and flowers and...yes, there are two sides to everything so..sex and mind-altering drugs as well.
Things have changed a lot now. AIDS has meant people have to be much more careful about sex; although marijuana is still popular as it is a natural herb, people have realised that chemicals and drugs can have lasting effects on their bodies or kill them; The Bush regime's so-called "war on Terror" has meant that people have started to accept violence again; and, most of all, while the 'sixties and Seventies led to a whole generation of people who did not agree with capitalism and who had no ambitions to be rich, Corporate greed and Capitalism is now the rule (as the recent events on Wall Street has shown us).
So it seems that a lot can be learned - even if indirectly - from this movie. It took place in the Greek Islands and it was easy to see that the Greek men and women were very different to the American and English people in it and, even amongst the main characters, there was a lot of difference: the one older woman who was now very rich and had had face-lifts and cosmetic surgery and three husbands; Julie Walters who had never married and had put on weight; "Donna" who still did not care too much about money and lived a much more free and unconventional life while the three "Dads" were also very different: one an adventurer, one who had never really achieved anything and one who was now living a very 21st century life.
So, the final thing this movie showed is that the idea that many people have that all Western people are the same or live the same kinds of lives or have the same values is very far from the truth. Being "free" means being free to make your own choices - whether you want to be traditional, ordinary, unconventional, crazy...you are going to meet a lot of very different people doing a lot of very different things. There is no such person, really, as the Typical Westerner. Be prepared for diversity and to accept people for their hearts and nothing more!
ABBA is a very old group which shot to world fame in the 'Seventies. Although I wasn't a fan myself, there are very few people in the Western World who lived through the ABBA days who don't know all the words to almost all their songs because they were played everywhere: at parties, on the radio, in restaurants, in pubs...wherever there was music, there was ABBA. So their songs became immortal and even to-days generation know them - both my sons, who like me, are into way different kind of music, seemed to have learned ABBA songs along with their A,B,C!
The movie we watched to-day then, was also a very popular movie which most foreigners are familiar with as it was both a stage-show and a movie. The story, of course, has got nothing to do with ABBA themselves, but using such familiar music and songs made sure that it attracted large audiences for many different reasons. Because ABBA is an old group it was certain that many of to-days parents went to see it to bring back old memories, while it became a movie younger people would go to see as well just for the story: or because the whole family went to see it together.
For that reason, there were actually two stories in the movie: one of them was the story of the young girl who wanted to know who her father was and the other was the story of her mother. The actor who played the girls mother is an American - Meryl Streep - a very famous Oscar Award winning actor, who has made mostly much more serious and important movies: it was amazing to see her play this role. The actor who played her friend (the plump one with glasses) is also an extremely brilliant actor - an English woman named Julie Walters. The guy who turned out to be the real Dad was Pierce Brosnan - also English - who is equally famous and whom you may have seen as James Bond. So, a truly stellar [ made up of stars] cast.
Seeing this movie was therefore good as the songs, the actors and the film itself are a very familiar part of Western culture. But it may also have made you realise something else about the culture you are going to take part in: the older generation - thus parents - are mostly quite a lot different from the older generation of Chinese people and, I expect, your own parents.
Most of you, and the people you know, will have been brought up by two parents. This is not so common in a lot of Western countries. And, even in the countries where it is common, everyone accepts that "family" doesn't always mean a mother, father and two sets of grandparents. It can be step parents, step brothers and sisters; only grandparents and children; two mothers and no father, two fathers and no mother - or even people who are not even related by blood. Single parent families are also quite normal. I myself brought up my two sons on my own. I was very lucky because my parents were fantastic people so my boys had grandparents but, we mostly lived in separate countries. The girl in the movie has never even met her grandparents because "Donna's" mother, back in the Seventies, banished her from the house when she became pregnant.
So, that is another thing many Chinese people don't realise when they talk about people from many Western countries being much more "open" or less traditional: - this is only quite a recent thing, dating back from the Seventies.
Around the same time things were changing in China and Opening and Expansion took place, in the West things were also changing and Women's Liberation, Free Love and Anti War movements suddenly exploded all over the world. Some people refer to this time as The Hippie Movement - but it wasn't only Hippies who were changing the world. Equal rights movements were also begun and the great American leader Martin Luther King fought for the freedom of the American black people who, until this time, had been treated shamefully.
All the time China has been changing since the days of your grandparents before Opening and Expansion, The West has also been changing since the time of our grandparents. This has led to what is known worldwide as The Generation Gap: older people in every part of the Globe [world] have lived through such a period of change (and, unfortunately, wars) in the last 30 or 40 years, that the world, to them, is no longer the place it was when they were young. This sometimes leads to lack of understanding between the old and the young as both sides are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the ideas of the other.
Just as many Chinese people still live a traditional life and Opening and Expansion has not yet affected their lives very much, so in many countries in the West, there are communities and countries where things have not changed very much either and the traditional life is still lived. So, just as in China, in the West we also need to accept that there is a mixture of communities and ideas: some which are very modern and open and some which are still very traditional. Do not expect everybody to be the same.
I first saw Mamma Mia last year in England when an old friend dragged me along to see it very much against my own wishes. Actually I think I fell asleep! So seeing it again to-day a couple of things struck me that I hadn't realised before. Firstly, I think that perhaps the idea of a film where a mother herself is not sure who the father of her child is, and where the child herself accepts this - although, naturally, being curious, might not be so acceptable in China.
But in the West, even if we were not even alive then, we know how different things were back in the late 'Sixties and the 'Seventies. It's called the time of Revolutions: though mostly the revolutions were social and not violent. The slog [saying; a phrase that everybody believed in] was "Make Love, Not War." It was a time of love and peace and flowers and...yes, there are two sides to everything so..sex and mind-altering drugs as well.
Things have changed a lot now. AIDS has meant people have to be much more careful about sex; although marijuana is still popular as it is a natural herb, people have realised that chemicals and drugs can have lasting effects on their bodies or kill them; The Bush regime's so-called "war on Terror" has meant that people have started to accept violence again; and, most of all, while the 'sixties and Seventies led to a whole generation of people who did not agree with capitalism and who had no ambitions to be rich, Corporate greed and Capitalism is now the rule (as the recent events on Wall Street has shown us).
So it seems that a lot can be learned - even if indirectly - from this movie. It took place in the Greek Islands and it was easy to see that the Greek men and women were very different to the American and English people in it and, even amongst the main characters, there was a lot of difference: the one older woman who was now very rich and had had face-lifts and cosmetic surgery and three husbands; Julie Walters who had never married and had put on weight; "Donna" who still did not care too much about money and lived a much more free and unconventional life while the three "Dads" were also very different: one an adventurer, one who had never really achieved anything and one who was now living a very 21st century life.
So, the final thing this movie showed is that the idea that many people have that all Western people are the same or live the same kinds of lives or have the same values is very far from the truth. Being "free" means being free to make your own choices - whether you want to be traditional, ordinary, unconventional, crazy...you are going to meet a lot of very different people doing a lot of very different things. There is no such person, really, as the Typical Westerner. Be prepared for diversity and to accept people for their hearts and nothing more!
No comments:
Post a Comment