Eastwood & Tan illustrate cultural differences

Immigrants in Norway are becoming an increasing part of our population, whether they are first generation or second generation. However we are nowhere near being as multicultural as the nation across the Atlantic, the United States of America. The movie Gran Torino and the short story When Rich came to Sunday dinner both display the differences in culture between stereotypical Americans and immigrated minorities in USA. What can we learn from the two, and how do they compare?

Walt teaching Thao what all the tools in his garage is for.

Gran Torino revolves around the ignorance, prejudice and difference between an American veteran of war, Walt, and his Hmong neighbors. The next-door-kid, Thao, is bullied by his cousin´s gang for not wanting to take part in their crimes and habits, and they convince him to attempt stealing Walt´s trophy car, the Gran Torino. Thao is caught by Walt when trying to steal the Gran Torino, and is forced by his family to offer Walt his services in order to make up for what he did. This is a Hmong tradition, and it is considered a great offence if Walt were not to accept. As a result, Walt and Thao become good friends, something Walt has very few of, and they both learn a lot from each other. For more detailed information see my previous post about Gran Torino.

“When Rich came to Sunday dinner” is an excerpt from the novel “The Joy Luck Club”, by Amy Tan. I have seen the film trailer for this book, and the expressed plot was how four Chinese mothers struggle to show their daughters how much they love them. Rich is the soon-to-be husband of the one daughter, though this is not familiar to her mother, and when he is first presented to the parents, two cultures collide like trucks. Especially food related traditions that aren´t very common in the Western hemisphere, makes for an awkward situation when Rich enjoys they Chinese food at dinner.

What these two have in common is that both the Hmongs and and Chinese have roots in Asia, some in China for the Hmongs as well. Traditions for cooking seem characteristic for them both, and family is important. This was educative for me, as I know very little about Asia in general, and here, a variety of scenarios illustrate their cultures. I figure I would reply much like Rich when the mother claims her food is awful, expecting everyone to disagree.

In both Amy Tan´s short story and Clint Eastwood´s movie, Asian people and cultures are in a close encounter with the Western-American culture. At one point they differ however, in Gran Torino there are clear signs of prejudice and ignorance from both the Hmongs and Walt, and while Rich seems quite ignorant to the Chinese traditions of his fiancée´s family, he doesn´t seem negative towards them. Gran Torino illustrates the two cultures in a bigger degree as it is a movie of course, but I think the fact that Walt´s knowledges of the Hmongs were as few as mine, makes it all a lot more educative. Gran Torino also shows the alleged pattern of how Hmong women go to college, whilst the men go to jail.

I think the Hmongs´ situation in USA is an important subject that deliberately has been focused in Gran Torino, and Clint Eastwood intends to put this on the agenda so to speak. It is hard to make something along these lines out of the excerpt from “The Joy Luck Club”, but it definitely goes to show how different people are in the melting pot of a nation the United States is.