Aloha Jason

This is a Chinese movie about a village family where the parents migrate to the city for work and leave their children behind with the grandparents. It is a glimpse of one family’s story of the 130 million workers that migrate back home from the cities during New Years. Though this movie was not joyous or action packed, it showed real scenes of China and Chinese life as I’ve lived it in person there and in my family in America. I can relate somewhat to the eldest child because she is constantly faced with pressures of the world to fit in and indeed from her parents to do work hard to be successful.

I see the same mentalities of this family in mine growing up. Like in the movie, I was told growing up: Working hard long hours is better for your family and studying hard and getting good grades is the only way to be successful. Parents make tremendous sacrifices for the children for what they believe is best for them. Ironically though, those sacrifices to help the family eventually take their toll on the family. Leaving the children behind at an early age, the parents in the movie could not maintain a healthy relationship with their neglected children. Though their intention was to make money for the well-being of the family, the results were the opposite. Constant pressures to study hard and work hard became one of the reason it pushed the teenage girl in movie to drop out of school and chase a new life in the city, doing what she learned from her parents, leaving family behind.

I could easily see the similarities in my family. Having lived a version of what they were going through, I saw the warning signs in the family and am not surprised at what happens. Parents are people too – they know what they know from their parents and society. My (Chinese) parents and the parents in the movie want only the best for their children and the only way they know to get there is by working hard and doing well in school. Because my mom worked and my dad worked nights (to get a slightly higher wage) and I stayed after school a lot for orchestra or gifted programs, I did not have a lot of quality time with my parents. When we did have time together, most of the conversation was focused on studying hard and making good grades or practicing your instrument.

In the movie, it goes as far to show that the girl cannot hang out with her father and she admits that she prefers her grandparents who raised her over her parents. In one violent scene she snaps back, like I and any teenager has done, in resentment of how she’s been neglected right before they give in and let her drop out of school. Interestingly, in an earlier scene when the parents arrive home from so many months of being away working, they bring back a very nice cell phone for the daughter, as if this will make up for the neglect. Money alone cannot be the answer to success, for you can see many rich people have detrimental lives, and it comes from faults somewhere in the child’s upbringing and the worthless things they value above important things.

Like in my family, constant focus on work and pressures of “success” also take a toll on the father’s health. In the movie, you can see that it brings more complication as the wife admits that she wants to go home to raise the children but cannot since has to look after her sick husband. For me, it changed into a single parent family.

This is more than a story of parents trying to catch the last train home. It is a story of parents trying to catch and hold onto the last chance they have with children.