Saving Face

I think that the title of the film, Saving Face, goes perfectly well with the plot of the story. Wil, a well-educated and successful surgeon, seems and is expected by her mother to follow the model minority stereotype. Throughout a majority of the film, Gao disapproves of her daughter’s sexual orientation. In the scene where Wil finally comes out and admits to her mother that she is gay, her mother simply questions her and says how could you say that you love me and that you are gay, those two things just don’t go together. This shows how collectivism plays a huge role in Chinese culture. The so-called mistakes that go against popular culture or what is considered the norm are unacceptable because those mistakes are symbolic of how one is brought up in the family.

What’s interesting however, is that Gao’s disapproval of her daughter’s sexual orientation is all due to her own upbringing of how she was expected to be the model minority daughter; thus, Gao married a man she did not love and almost did it again when she became pregnant.

All of this thus shows how Chinese values and traditions have a differing degree of impact on first, second, and even third generation Chinese-Americans. Older generations are often more traditional, but like in Takaki, it is very true that it is often very difficult for Chinese-Americans to assimilate into the American culture. Chinese-Americans who are born in America, often have strong American values and follow the casual American way of life of pursuing freedom and opportunity. This freedom however, is often limited by family expectations, which is something Americans do not understand very well. For example, in the scene where Wil’s co-worker did not really understand and questioned why she took in her pregnant mother, Wil responded and knew very well that it was her responsibility as a Chinese daughter to take good care of her mother.