刮痧

  I love you I love my wife I love my son
  初看名字，以为是伦理片，刮痧，中国一门医学上传统的手艺，在两千多年的历史长河里，一直稳稳健健地在中国大地上繁衍生息，然而有一天，它出现在自由民主的美国社会中，便被人误解，以至于上演了一场家庭的悲欢离合，可喜的是梁家辉将父亲角色演绎的动人心弦，蒋雯丽也以一贯的荧幕形象几乎是本色出演，很准确的把握了作为妻子的恨、爱、心碎与心疼，只是在母亲的角色上稍稍淡化了些。当不得不以分居为条件来换回孩子时，妻子毅然“恶狠狠”地转身“I agree!”当事情逼迫地不得不真的要丈夫离开时，妻子心疼地抱着丈夫不忍心丈夫一个人生活。从丈夫在法庭上被敌人激怒地掉进了别人的圈套开始，妻子的气愤到后来的疯狂最后的心灰，像是个妻子对丈夫地无奈～因为她知道，丈夫的任何表现都会让孩子离自己越来越远。
  梁家辉在里面是个可以把自己割裂开来只要孩子回到自己的身边的父亲，而淡化了丈夫的角色，跟随着事情地进展，电影一步一步推向高潮，在法庭上被’敌人’逼得控制不住情绪，为别人指责他是个不负责任的父亲而气愤，为别人亵渎中国的传统文化而愤慨！事情向不利的方向进展，他怪自己的朋友，恨美国的不兼容！在美国生活的8年里，遇到了多少困难与艰辛，多少不易与挫折，他忍受了，坚持了，但是这一次，他再也无法妥协，他站起来抵抗！站起来作战！因为他们夺去的是自己的孩子，自己的骨肉！所以他的不理智行为我们都是可以理解的。
  影片有个几个亮点，其中之一便是父亲载着孩子在马路上和警察追逐，与其说追逐，不如说是为了孩子，孩子什么都不懂，他觉得好玩，所以父亲可以什么都不在乎，忘却一切地满足孩子的快乐！只是车终究要停下来，他们的家庭要面对的噩梦依然存在。夫妻分居了，孩子终于回到了家里，只是父亲离开了，父与子不能相见，妻子去看望颓废的丈夫，一起喝烈酒，让酒精刺痛喉咙麻醉身体。他们想呐喊想反抗可是不能，只有让所有的委屈所有的愤恨往肚子里咽。
  本来父亲想带着孩子和爷爷一起逃回中国，但是爷爷坚决地说：不能这样做！生活就是这样，什么事情都可能发生，你躲是躲不开的。
什么事情都可能发生，一语道破这个事件的玄机！不能躲不能逃，我们对家人的爱，成为我们接受一切不幸的勇气。
  因为爱，父亲打扮成圣诞老人，从下水道上爬回自己的家里。幸好，故事有个圆满的结局。没有让人失望与遗憾。
  这部电影以中西方的文化差异为背景，除了表现父子夫妻之间的不容割裂的爱之外，还让人看到了中国人的骨气，也是一个成功之处。

   When a member of one culture produces a message for consumption by a member of another culture, intercultural communication occurs, which is a kind of communication between people whose cultural perceptions and symbol systems are distinctive enough to alter the communication event. People are alike and different. We carry our culture with us wherever we go, and it influences how we respond to the people we meet.
   The leading man in the movie Gua Sha Treatment has been in America for eight years as a new immigrant. At the beginning of this movie, the man, Datong addressed a speech in American way to show his love to America and American dream. It seemed that he has gained great success in the American mainstream society. Yet it was just an exaggeration of his success when used to make the comparison with the ensuing events.
   Datong and his wife were born and raised in China, while their son was a Chinese American. They taught their son in American way and spoke English all the time. In the celebration, we can find Datong was praised and encouraged by his boss, who can be taken as a representative of the mainstream business. At the party, because of the quarrel between the two children, the son, Dennis was beaten by his father, which is just a very common action in Chinese culture. The grandfather of Dennis also admitted the way of education. Because the other boy is the son of his boss, Datong gave his son a lesson to show his respect to the boss, who can not understand it at all. The boss was shocked and accepted it temporarily. In American culture, individualism is the key point of American cultural pattern, even between the father and the son. But in Chinese cultural pattern, fathers have the right or responsibility to educate the sons, no matter in a legal way or his personal way. We tend to take it as family privacy, instead of family violence or child abuse. In traditional Chinese culture, family conflict is often solved between family members and it’s a shame to spread family conflict outside of the house, while in America, the law and regulations make the difference.
   There was a very plain role in this movie, Lao Huo, the man who acted terra-cotta warrior, which was a loser in pursuing American dream compared with Datong. There were only the daily life and death of Lao Huo in this movie, which reflected the pursuit and struggling of an ordinary person in America. The death of him made the father of Datong think a lot, which was a clue to tell us the old man will return to China finally. According to the two different results of pursuing American dream, two different result of cultural conflict revealed.
   After the Gua Sha treatment rendered by the grandfather, Datong and his wife accepted it because of their Chinese culture background and the previous experience. It’s natural for the couple to keep the accident of child abuse secret to their father. And Datong confessed it was he who gave the treatment to the child, although his wife showed a little reluctance and hesitance. Actually his father gave the Gua Sha treatment to the son. There was an obvious culture difference in the episode. Chinese people behave on the basis of experience, while American act with the reference to the specific evidence. It’s praiseworthy for Datong to be a scapegoat for his father. In Chinese traditional culture, the law is important but sometimes affection counts. It’s dutiful and responsible to reduce the pains of parents both in China and America. If Datong admitted his father gave the treatment to the child and his to father will be accused by the court. Although it’s lawful, it’s unfilial in Chinese culture, which is an unforgivable fault.
Chinese view on interpersonal relationship network has been illustrated richly in this movie. When Datong needed a lawyer to help him, he sought help of his friend, who is actually not a lawyer of family law, but copyright law. Because of the lack of legal knowledge and the good relationship between them, Datong insisted on his help. Before the hearing commenced, Datong’s wife asked why the court was not the same as she saw before on TV. The tiny episode accounted for the difference between the judicial systems. Because Datong was in trouble, he turned to his friend for help, regardless of his professional field. Chinese weak legal consciousness was also criticized and satirized in this movie and Datong’s family became victims of culture shock.
   Although Gua Sha treatment is common and effective in China, we never tried to understand how it worked. We learned our culture from folk tales, mass media, and education. Culture is transmitted from generation to generation, so we never question the therapy. Everyone is a product of his own culture, it’s undoubted for American to have nothing idea about the treatment. But we can also find strong prejudice and ethnocentrism of America in the response to the case.
   The trial of this child abuse case could be regarded as the climax of this film. Datong’s family fights against the charge, which is an intense conflict between the Chinese and American cultures. Traditional medical treatment cannot be proved and admitted. They have no interest in proving why Gua Sha treatment is advisable but tried to prove how much the couple loves their son. The judgment and condemnation are just based on the scratch, the judge never showed a fair and sensible attitude to the medical treatment. Chinese classical book Journey to the West is considered from the negative perspective, even though the accuser knew it was wrong. The malicious and deliberated objection described American competition and materialism. The aim of the dispute is just for the victory in the court, regardless of the wicked ways. The prejudice and discrimination are two apparent obstacles in the intercultural communication. Moreover, the ethnocentrism of America was also perceivable. The judge and the accuser never showed justice to Datong’s rebuttal. Because of the ignorance of the treatment, they were very indifferent and pride to Datong’s statement. This uncooperative attitude made this event worse. It seems all of them are well-educated and civilized, but the communication problems repeatedly arose. Both of the parties held respective strong cultural background and different values, which have implemented enormous impact.
   Additionally, the stereotyping to Chinese or easterners are mentionable. When Datong said he hit his son to save his boss’ face, to make him feel better. The boss felt it was twisted and absurd. When Datong said it was a common sense to save his wife rather than the child, the female accuser said, your Orientals are barbarian. Stereotypes were a means of organizing our images into fixed and simple categories that we use to stand for the entire collection of people. In most distances, stereotypes are the products of limited, lazy, and misguided perceptions. In the movie, some Americans never delete their confirmation bias and tend to put Chinese to shame. Then, the failure in intercultural communication occurs.
   According to Hall’s high-context and low-context communication, the Asian mode of communication is often indirect and implicit, whereas western communication tends to be direct and explicit-that is, everything needs to be stated. Westerners are more prone to making very explicit statements and have little capability with nonverbal forms of expression. High-context cultures tend to be more aware of their surroundings and their environment and do not rely on verbal communication as their main information channel. According to the analysis of the movie, we can find the difference between high-context and low-context communication. At the beginning, Datong’s wife disliked the grandfather’s smoking, but she said nothing directly and opened the window. Certainly the grandfather understood it easily. On the contrary, Americans often get permission first. And if they want to show the objection, they spoke it out. But it’s not impolite and respectful to ask the elder not to do something. When Chinese show their anger, it is also implicit. Datong was very angry to his boss, because he has thought his boss would help him on this issue. Datong hoped his boss to support him, but the fact that the boss told everything straightforward, which was unfavorable to Datong. In Datong’s view, they were friends and it’s responsible for the boss to help him and he took the frankness of his boss as a kind of betrayal. He was unwilling to work there any more and planned to quit that job after no discussion with his boss. It’s normal to a Chinese man to show his anger and express their spilt relationship. From the perspective of the American, it has nothing to do with their friendship. It’s reasonable and lawful to tell the judge all the truth. They don’t show personal emotions in the business and persuaded Datong to work, which is a way to show his kindness and concern.
The ending of this movie is happy and warm. The boss understood Gua Sha treatment and Datong’s family gained reunion on the important western festival. No matter in East or West, family reunion and family love are enjoyable and happy. In the end, the grandfather educated and taught his son again. It was warm and moving because we can feel the father’s love; no matter he expressed his love explicitly or implicitly. The grandfather left America because he found it was troublesome and upset for a person like him to live in the Western culture. It was a failure for an elderly like him in intercultural communication, and it was a success for the young generation in America.
   The last episode in the movie was the boy’s learning mandarin, which was a strong contrast to the beginning of the movie, where the boy was educated to speak English to prepare for the competition of the future. No culture is more advanced than others and cultural diversity should be advocated and protected. Human brain is an open system and supposed to appreciate the diversity.
Finally, the name of the leading man in this movie, “Datong”, is also a Chinese Confucian classical term, which means great harmony. Obviously, the name was created with the implied meaning. “Datong” society is the perfect and ideal society in Confucianism, which conveyed the hope and wish of the movie producers. Although there are so many different countries, cultures, systems, races, etc, it’s a pursuit to build such kind of harmonious society without discrimination, prejudice, conflict, war…

　　每个人，每个民族，每个国家都有属于自己的文化，文化与文化间的迥然差异必 然会带来个人行为思想的不同，世界是个多元化的世界，当东西方文化相遇时，对于某个文化现象，我们能做出是非判断吗？文化与文化之间本身就存在的冲突，马克思是用他的哲学辩证法向我们展示了矛盾存在的普遍性吗？为何总是要有绝对的是非曲直的判断标准呢？
　　
　　在美国人看来，中国人打孩子是虐待儿童的表现，把孩子单独留在家也算犯法，那我只能说，美国的法律还真是考虑周全，所有细微的细节都被立法的人想到了，所以不得不佩服现代人类先进的智慧，还有美国那伟大的法律系统。

　　不是完全否定美国的法律，但凡事过犹不及。密密麻麻的法律文件，一套套繁琐的法律程序体制，是为了体现出美国是个人权主义的法治社会国家吗？

　　刮痧，在中国盛行2000多年，可就因为没有美国人所谓的科学依据，就这样被否定了，从而打破了一个美好家庭的宁静。
在陌生的文化环境中，我们几千年来熟悉的文化传统就这样被人曲解，不知道这是有意还是偶然误解。

　　影片中最经典的场面必然是男主角许大同在第二次听证会上与原告律师争执那场戏。我的心情也随着男主角的激动而激动。
当一直以来作为你心目中的神话英雄人物被别人说成恶魔，并且曲解了他的价值观与传统道德时，作为一个中国人怎能忍受？更何况那是中国人所信仰的正义的化身。

　　如果可以，我想换个角色来说，当被西方人认为是天父，帮助他们脱离苦海的神-耶稣，被人曲解为是个完全意义上的蒙骗者和怯懦者，他们会是什么感觉？还要继续保持他们的理性主义、他们的冷静吗？

　　他们以自己的文化思维方式来审视中国的文化传统，中国的教育方式，偏执的认为自己坚持的一定是真理。但，“真理”一词何解？什么才是真理？是以那些尘封不动的毫无感情的白纸黑字为基准吗？美国一直在强调自己是个人权主义的国家，那么请问毁掉一个幸福美满的和谐家庭，也是人权社会所必须的吗？

　　全世界所说的多元化融合在哪？尊重各国的文化传统的方式又在哪？指给我看。

　　近年来，美国一直在说中国没有人权，那么请问什么是你们的人权是表现哪些方面？是否只要是美国法律没规定的，那都不是人权？为什么美国人总是以他们认为的来限制其他国家的文化，甚至其他的人的思想与行为？
 
《刮痧》这部电影，很好的向我们展示了，何谓美国的人权，何谓西
方人的文化。东方文化有上千年的历史传承，岂能是你一纸法律所能明白与了解的。

　　我只能说，人权有多远，你们就滚多远吧。

  I have heard of this movie for many times since I seen it last week. Till now, I am still confused by the concept that “difference and discrimination “, which are conveyed by this movie. There are so many cultural gaps shown in this movie. Ways of child education, value of friendship and concept of familial affection, all of these Chinese traditions torture Da Tong, the leading role of this film, and his family during their assimilation into American culture. All the disasters are triggered by a Chinese traditional medical treatment－Gua Sha. Because of a awful scar on Dennis’(Da Tong’s son) back left by Gua Sha, the child protecting organization accuses Da Tong with child abuse and Da Tong is deprived of the custody right, then the whole family go divided.
  
  Most people regard Da Tong’s family tragedy as misunderstand resulted from cultural difference. However, I have another peep on it. I have to say I was shocked by the scar at the first sight since I haven’t known about Gua Sha either, but as soon as I know that it’s really a tradition treatment, I rest assure my worry. I can sympathize the American’s shock caused by the horrific scar and accept their legal action at the very beginning, which is the only thing can be regard as cultural difference in my point of view. Nevertheless what they do after their initial action is motivated by racial discrimination rather than cultural difference, which I have to point out. I have several reasons for this.
  
  Firstly, after the first hearing, they can know that how much Da Tong care about his son and get a brief idea about Gua Sha. I am even quite outraged about the American civil servants’ scrimshank when they bring an accusation against Da Tong to deprive his custody right. The most important point Da Tong pose on the hearing is Gua Sha treatment, but they seem to “forget” it that maybe the main cause of that scar since I haven’t seen they do any research on GuaSha in their following investigation.

  Secondly, When it comes to finding witness, the witnesses they find are Da Tong’s boss and janitor and even the midwife. How ridiculous is that! I mean the witnesses they find have seldom or even never talked to Dennis. How do they know or they sure about the relation between Da Tong and his son Dennis? If I am the investigator, I would find Dennis’ teachers as witness cause the time they spend with this child is only less than his parents.
   
  Last but not the least, they totally “forget” the “victim” of this case. Although I don’t familiar with US law, I suppose Dennis’ opinion in this case should be taken into account which maybe a most valuable one since he is the very person who knows what happens to himself most. In private or public, they should inquire the child himself about the situation goes on him. Regretfully, I haven’t ever seen them do so .
  
  To conclude, this series of matter was mostly caused by racial discrimination rather than cultural difference, I finally confirm.

  PS: This article was written in one year ago for my "English Culture Class". Hope to find someone to share a view on it.

这是我第二次看这部片子。
我记得当年看这片子的时候我还尚小，最喜欢梁家辉带着孩子开车和警察跑高速的那段。
那时候我以为这是喜剧片，这么多年过去，我才发觉它的温情。
我实在看到片名的时候才想起它的，时间隔了太久，我都记不得那些情节，只记得被踩坏的孙悟空和爬窗子的圣诞老人。
于是，我又一点一点地回忆起来。
老实说，我一开始并没有怎么觉得这片子很吸引人；甚至，我一度抱怨着谁谁谁的演技太差而谁谁谁表演不尽如人意。
但是我呢，总是因为一句话就会被轻而易举地打动。
简宁说“Because he's Chinese.”。然后镜头切到许大同扶着父亲小心翼翼上楼的画面。我始终觉得那是无比美好的画面，在昏黄的灯光下，青年和老年的身影交错在一起，被拉长的镜头舒缓而伤感，隐藏在平静之下的波涛汹涌在这瞬间都变得微不足道。
那就是父子。
所以之后我看到许大同背着给丹尼斯的孙悟空要爬上九楼的时候，这种情绪便更加地激烈了起来。
我不想说所谓的文化差异所谓的民族精神，我也不想分析那些站在楼下围观的路人都纷纷有着怎样的心理。
我是只看我想看到的东西。
那是无论怎样都不会被埋没的天经地义理所当然的感情，不要求回报，只有心甘情愿地付出。那是父母和孩子之间不可违背的羁绊。没有理由也不需要证据。
我记得爷爷写给许大同的信，说“吾儿勿念”。
普天下的父亲皆是如此。