A few words of exchange between a father and a son here, after watching a movie, the discussions over poverty, how it affects us, individually, and how it affects the societies we belong in, and the rest of the world around us, translated…
I: is there something you couldn’t understand in the movie: “Wawa No Cidal”?
Summer: (Shaking his head) I can understand it all.
I: then, what do you think this movie was discussing?
Summer: (thought for about a little more than ten seconds), on the matter of restructuring of a community.
I: not a bad idea. At the Q&A session with the directors (Cheng and the native, Leshar. Shumi) after the movie, they said that being poor is not the same as not having money. Then, how do you think these two are, different?
Summer: are they, different? Being poor means not having the money, without the money, then, we’d be, poor. It’s, quite easy to understand.
The film, “Wawa No Cidal” is the movie made by a native director I’d seen that I’d cried the most in. One, two, three, four………I’d counted the number of times I’d cried afterward. The final time, was after one of the directors, Lesha. Shumi stated, of how the woman who’d stood up to fight off the industrialization of the land on the field that the ancestors left in the tribe’s people’s possession for the farming, was his mother. At that instant, I’d started, crying again, so that’s what, five times I’d cried. Is it too much? Not, at all.
I’d still recalled, how I’d, cried so hard at the movies that very first time was when I was in Beijing, watching the Japanese director, Tatsuta’s “Okuribito”. It was in the springtime, there was, only, some snow that hadn’t melted out completely. Back then, Summer was only a little over a year old, he probably couldn’t understand, why I’d, cried so uncontrollably, and can only lean on into my wife, as he’d watched his father, kept wiping his face away.
As I was younger, I actually, didn’t allow myself to cry, nor did I understand, what crying served the purpose of. This has to do with my socialization as a young boy. Grown men don’t cry—that father of mine who’d amounted to nothing much, made sure I’d, followed that rule to the t, and so, I’d, closed my eyes too tightly, and, throughout my puberty and my adulthood, I’d started, training myself, to NEVER shed a tear, as a “standard” of my life. Until I saw my uncle, who’d had a tough time in life, melting down completely alone before me, that was when, I’d felt, different, and changed my mind: men need to know how to cry, and the expressions of their own, tears.
After I’d started holding my conversations with Summer, I’d told him often, it’s okay, for boys to cry. It’s just, that after you cried, you need to think, did my crying solve anything? In his childhood, Summer always shook his head, with tears still rolling down his face. And now, as he’d recalled the hardships in his young life from time to time, he’d understood to cry too. After it took a little while for him to sort through his emotions, Summer would, get back on track, to face the problems in his own life. I think, this was, the first step to understand, the purpose of, crying.
It’s just, that after you’d cried, the problems are still right there: what’s the difference between not having enough money and being poor? This seemed to be an easy question to answer, but it’s, actually, not. I’d thought of how there are, different standards of the wages of varied industries being different, and, who makes the standards of what constitutes as making a lot of money and not enough of it? How much would you have to make, for you, to be categorized as “well-off”? How much does a person make, for her/him to fall below, the poverty, lines? The adults who’d grown up, often, fall into this, confusion, me too. Then, how do the children of the sun on this island, conceptualize, the concept of, money, and how is, poverty by its, true definition, calculated? What level on the status quo would you have to be, to make you, truly, happy?
There was that sharpened needle of my family of origin, that kept, sticking to my childhood and coming of age: as we’re pressed by money, we’d felt poor. I have two feelings toward the use of money. First, not having enough is, poor, reducing our needs, and wants will, balance that out. Not only in the tribes up in the mountains, but also, in this, concrete jungle we’re, living in. Secondly, not feeling impoverished in our daily lives, these simple thoughts from before, became, ever the more, complex nowadays.
And all of this, is just, my own, opinion. That evening, in that darken theatre, I’d not sobbed, just felt that my tears, kept, rolling down the sides of my cheeks. I’d cried because of the movie, but couldn’t resolve the issues of “poverty” of those who lived on the lower end of the socioeconomic statuses. Not having enough money, and being poor, they’re, totally, different. Not having money, it may be due to the individuals, but, poverty is a signal, that the entire society, the whole system, may not be operating correctly. When a person doesn’t have money, surely, s/he can, cry, but it doesn’t resolve the matter of, not having money. But, as the poverty expand itself through the society as a whole, then, we really need to, cry for, each other then, really hard too.
Back then, I couldn’t help Summer understand the difference between not having the money and being poor, doesn’t necessarily mean the same things. And now, I still, can’t take advantage of this time, to explain it to him. But, for an adult like me, what can I do, for the children of this island, of the sun? I actually, wanted to, ask Summer this who’s slowly, coming of age, to hear what he has to say about it.
And so, this is on poverty being a problem of the entire society, but we normally don’t interpret it like that, because if we’re living in poverty, we don’t have the foods we needed, the shelters to cover ourselves, so how can we take care of any and everything, and others around us, let alone, care about the larger issues of the society, like, poverty? So, the given of this, is that we must be, somewhat, well-to-do, meaning that we need to have food, shelter, and clothes, and the basic living needs of ours, made, in order, to contemplate what we can do, for someone else.
Life, the Obstacle Course 