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East is East and West is West, But ...
Labeled as the "first elite homegrown movie for the 2001 spring season" by the media, "The Guasha Treatment" started showing in first-run theatres across the country on February 23, according to report of China Daily on March 1.
The US$2-million film was shot in St Louis, Missouri, in the United States. Focusing primarily on the different ways Chinese and Western parents bring up their children, "The Treatment" tells a compelling story of the culture clash between East and West, a theme director Zheng Zheng, a veteran scriptwriter and TV serial director, has his own views on the cultural differences between Americans and the Chinese. His first attempt to portray these differences was his popular 21-episode TV serial "Beijingers in New York," a tragic out-of-towners tale of the new generation of Chinese immigrants in the Big Apple in the 1980s.
"The Treatment" marks Zheng's debut as a film director, but it is his second involvement with cultural clash.
Zheng said, "The Treatment" has taken him a step beyond "Beijingers," which mainly deals with the Chinese fighting hard to establish themselves in the United States. In "The Treatment," he wanted to explore how the Chinese try to strike a balance between traditional Chinese values and Western values.
To attract viewers, Zheng assembled a strong, international cast, with Tony Leung from Hong Kong as Xu Datong, the protagonist, Jiang Wenli as Jenny, Xu's wife, Zhu Xu as Xu's father from the Chinese mainland, Dennis Zhu as the young son, along with Hollis Huston, Tamara Tungate, Joseph Erker, Jane Johnson, and Alexander Barton from the United States.
Set in the Mid-western United States, the movie centers on a young Chinese couple who immigrate to St Louis with an "American Dream" in their hearts. They have a bright young son, who they are raising to become a full-fledged American.
At home, the couple, together with the son's grandfather, maintain a mixed lifestyle. When the boy catches cold, the grandfather, who can't read the labels on the Western pill bottles, resorts to guasha - an ancient, relatively painless, Chinese medical practice - to treat his grandson's illness; but the treatment leaves painful-looking red welts on the little boy's back.
Later, Xu Datong rushes out of the house leaving his son home alone when he hears that his old father has been hurt while visiting a friend. When Datong eventually gets back home with Jenny, his lonely son falls and hurts himself while rushing to his parents.
The doctor treating the boy's minor bump notices the red welts on his back. Suspecting that the boy is a victim of child-abuse, the doctor calls social services.
A legal battle follows, dragging the parents through the courts. They are accused of being abusive and neglectful parents, and their son is taken away from them.
To international audiences, the benefits and mysteries of Chinese medicine, both the guasha treatment and the more familiar acupuncture, might serve as an apt metaphor for the precarious bridge between cultures.
"In the West, everything is based on science, facts," Zheng said. "Chinese acupuncture is based on a mystical kind of knowledge. Acupuncture pressure points cannot be explained through dissection. All Chinese traditional medical practices are based on handed-down knowledge. The fundamental basis of knowledge in the West and China is different but parallel - one is based on fact, the other on knowledge."
In Zheng's view, at the core of the film there are clearly defined family values.
The deep love includes the hope and expectations parents have for their children. They may punish the child in order to show love, or they may hover around the child like an old hen caring for her chicks, Zheng said.
"However, they, especially the new immigrants like Xu and his wife and his father, are not familiar with American traditions and values and the American way of life, so they may commit what the Americans consider to be mistakes."
Zheng says he has another message to convey in his film:
"Diverse cultures are one at the core. No culture is inferior to another and human civilization is the combination of all cultures. Thus, meeting, communicating and mutual understanding and tolerance are conducive to the development of peace and harmony and the rooting out of ignorance, bigotry, hatred and war."
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