Several weeks ago, we enjoyed the movie,“The Treatment”.
This is a movie about the difference between Chinese and American cultures.
The story happened in a Chinese immigrant [ ˈɪmɪgrənt ] family.
Xu Datong and his wife, JianNing, son, Dennis, led a happy life in America. He also brought his father from china to live here together.
Xu Datong was the father who has struggled for 8 years to assimilate into American culture, and as a video games designer he had a great success and got his boss's approval and friendship. His father performed GuaSha (a Chinese traditional treatment) on his son, which left bright red marks on the skin and caused a lawsuit [ ˈlɔ:su:t ] of child abuse.
In the c ourt, Datong lost his mind so that finally he lost custody [ ˈkʌstədi ] (n.监管拘留，羁押抚养权，监护权)of his son.
However,the end is perfect. “GuaSha” was known by the American law. The family got together at last.
The most impressing scene to me is the ending. Datong wanted to see his son in Christmas eve, he had to climb a pipe to the ninth floor which his son lived.
I think the pipe is not only a pipe, but also a gap, a deep gap between American and 5000-year Chinese culture. He wanted to climb over the gap and he would never succeed, perhaps no Chinese people really could succeed.
