Let’s talk about it. So before we even saw the short, we knew the story featured an Asian woman whose children had left the nest. And as you watch the short, you pick up that this woman is likely to be a first generation immigrant.
When we meet Bao, we hear baby gurgles and giggles, so the audience knows that we basically just witnessed a birth. And as we see Bao grow more and more, we witness the immense care and affection the woman puts into caring for Bao, establishing that it is her “child”. However, with the care and affection, also comes an extreme protection, in which she attempts to keep it by her side at all times, away from soccer – and most importantly– away from non-Asians. As an Asian-American who was brought over at a young age, this is incredibly familiar behavior. Our first generation parents love us AND their home, and they try to instill that same dedication to our native culture, despite what our individual interests may be. This can cause a rift between the two figures, the Asian parent and the Asian-American child. One wants to keep the other close and safe, away from the unfamiliar, while the other, unaware of the dangers of unfamiliarity, wants to learn and explore. This rift grows as the two continue to pursue their goals.
Eventually, it comes to the climax. Bao comes home with a non-Asian fiancé and it’s leaving home. Unequipped to cope, the woman eats Bao. This scene hit me the hardest. Instantly after eating Bao, the woman regrets it. My interpretation? She realizes that in trying to protect Bao by keeping him home against his will, she destroys it. Kills it, really. But wait!
A new character appears: Bao, but human and grown. We can connect the dots that THIS is the child who left the nest, and what we witnessed was this man’s youth leading up to his departure from home. So we can start piecing things together. Bao from the start, has always represented this guy. And the woman had wondered “how could I have kept him with me?” And through reliving her motherhood with Bao, she realizes she couldn’t. Her child wasn’t going to live life the same way she does, in her ethnic enclave, and she forcing him to do so would have destroyed him. She realizes she has to meet him halfway, thanks to him taking the first step of coming home. So the sharing of the bao making process with her son and his wife is the Asian parent reconciling her son’s Asian-American identity with her own Asian identity.
TL;DR As an Asian-American, seeing the struggles of cultural reproduction vs. cultural assimilation and its relationship with immigrant parenthood on the big screen induced tears, and I’m not ashamed.
I respect your opinion. I just disagree about extreme cases.
There can be extreme cases, like the defense of self and others. In those cases it’s really outside the usual spanking/discipline discourse, other than the fact that kids who are spanked are likelier to have behaviorial problems and be violent.
@missisjoker Or maybe just telling him “countless times” to cut something out is a fucking useless way to get a child to behave and he could have been given better discipline, not just in that instance but over time, so that he could appropriately have his frustrations heard and addressed, and learn how to deal with these situations. Maybe he could have been carried around so he wasn’t stuck in one place, maybe he could have been distracted with more interesting activities. Hitting a kid is a lazy and terrible parenting method that is proven to exacerbate rather than help behavioral problems, and it’s ignorant and harmful to advocate violence against children.
Everyone remember when Kylo Ren ordered the slaughter of a civilian village called Tuanul? Notice that not only men were in the village, but woman, eldery and children too?
In fact if you look up at the picture you can even see some of them crying.
Remember how Finn refused to fire on the unarmed civilians that Kylo Ren ordered the Stormtroopers to kill and had been so traumatized that he left the first Order and then fought against them while Kylo went on to lead them?
Remember how people still think Kylo is not a complete and Finn ins’t a hero? Remember how people excused this by saying war is war and didn’t know the difference between self defense and cold blooded murder?
Yeah, fuck those people.
There’s the Kylo apologists’ “enemy combatants.” Absolute fuckers.
“Spread her wings” by telling her she is nothing but to him, So she can cry and make her breakdown enough to exploit her for his own selfish gains of trying to get her to join his side. Nah no woman needs a man that “challenges” her by belittling her and purposely exploiting a painful part of her life to get her to breakdown enough and bring her down to his level for whatever he wants from her.
Stop trying to make it seem a man wanting to convince a woman that she is worthless and nothing to everyone and in everything except for in relation to him, as something honorable, loving, or romantic on the man’s part.
Finn is a real man who doesn’t need to painfully exploit Rey’s past to break her down or to use her parents as a weapon to get her to bend to his will. Real men build a woman up from her painful past not use it to tell her his version of the “truth” that she is nothing except to him.
This ask is sad because it parrots a common lie about abuse–that it toughens you up, builds your character, and is otherwise “for your own good.” That’s how abusers justify torturing their victims. It took me a long time to see through the lie and realize that tearing down someone’s self worth to make them compliant is NEVER necessary for their growth. That is the antithesis of growth–not a progress into independence but a regression into dependence on the abuser’s goodwill and approval. It is always immoral and unjustifiable, and serves no one’s interest but the abuser’s.
Anon, if someone told you that the way Kylo treated Rey was good for her, they’re wrong. If someone made you believe you or anyone else had to be told they are worthless in order to be “challenged” and “grow,” they are a liar. If you yourself believe you are justified in berating someone and calling them nothing, and if you threaten someone’s well-being for not doing as you say, then you are an abuser. Ship what you like but you don’t have to justify Kylo’s actions toward Rey to ship it.
I suspect there’s magical thinking at work here, that natural is always best and if a woman just stuck it out she’d have given birth vaginally…. somehow. There’s also a lot of fetishization of pain as proof of “real” motherhood. I mean, I could have stuck it out while the fetal vital signs deteriorated and possibly given birth to a dead or seriously injured baby, if I had not died myself first. I’d much rather be less of a natural woman while living with a healthy baby. There is much to criticize about hospital birthing practices that make C-sections likelier, but none of that is the fault of individual women. (Thank you while I hold my phone out of my covetous offspring’s reach!)
@fellow lesbians, what’s the reason you don’t date bihets? I’m asking coz I’m seeing more and more reasons not to date bi women with the way they act and want to know your stories, what is something you’ve noticed bihet women consistently do that lesbians don’t ?
For me: bi women are more attracted to gender roles than actual women. They will say they are not feminine but to them that means just not wearing makeup, everything else they do, they are not gnc the way lesbians are gnc, and they treat lesbians like men.
Anyone else?
Call me a bihet again. I dare you. I am going to politely agree to disagree here with you. The term bihet is false. You cannot be a bisexual heterosexual.
Also, your experience with one or two bi women in the past doesn’t mean every single bi woman is like that.
This post is disgusting.
Bihet.
Aw and I made IT cry too!
So many bihets tears, not enough cups ☕
….Literally calling bi people “it”.
Honestly, my bi ass wouldn’t want anything to do with their transphobic bullshit anyway. Do they think this is some punishment?
“I would never date a bi woman!”
Yeah,
well, that’s like saying you’d never serve me a plate of shit. Glad
it’s off the menu, but I wasn’t interested to begin with.
L.J.'s Obsessions 