Picture Bride

The film “Picture Bride” retells the common story of young Japanese women who were sent for by Japanese men in the United States. Many of the Japanese immigrated to Hawaii, which is where the film is set, to begin their new lives. They came as laborers. Around this time the Gentlemen’s Agreement was created. It restricted the amount of Japanese coming into the United States. However, as an insurance that the Japanese men would work more productively, they could request a picture bride or send for their wives. This also was a benefit for the bosses since they could cheaply hire the women to do other work either with the crops, laundry, or other miscellaneous jobs. Later on in 1921, the Ladies’ Agreement was created which terminated the picture brides’ emigration.

In the film, Riyo is expecting a young man to come and fetch her however, she is horrified to realize that her husband is a 43-year-old man. After her first day of work she insists that she will work diligently to earn the money to return to Japan. Of course, her husband, Matsuji, is frustrated since he was hopeful when he requested for her to be sent over. In one scene, she stubbornly defends her money when her husband wants to use it to fund the strike that they are planning. Gradually, she accepts the idea of being married to him, and in the end she doesn’t return to Japan. This story is very typical of the young bride who comes to realize that her husband, who might have sent a misleading photo, is way older than her. The coping with this situation would be tough and stressful. Learning to work all day in back breaking circumstances and then having to do the housework at the end of the day would have been a shock from their lives back in Japan.

In comparison to the Japanese way of life, in “Eat a Bowl of Tea” the Chinese are living in similar circumstances in the United States, but with other factors. Most of them are bachelors and only Ben has a wife that he went and got back in China. Both films are similar in that the man and woman are matched together and do not really have a say in the marriage. In contrast, the bachelor society of the Chinese and the married society of the Japanese reveal the differences in their lifestyles. In “Picture Bride,” the men have the company of their wives and have families. Their wives work in either the fields or do laundry, which contributes to the family wealth. Whereas, in “Eat a Bowl of Tea,” all of the men seen in the movie seem to be bachelors and spend time gossiping about Ben and his wife or other matters. They also spend a lot of time gambling and hanging out together. The differences in the laws that applied to Japanese and Chinese affected how they worked and lived.