The Wedding Banquet

What did you do for Chinese Philosophy today?

For today's post, I watched the last part of the movie The Wedding Banquet which was one of the supplementary materials given in understanding the course.

What idea did you encounter that turned out meaningful?

In our Philosophy of the Human Person class, there was an idea presented that the thinking ability of males are greater than women. Another idea that was brought up is that women do not argue with solid and valid arguments. It was said that women reason out using their feelings making them irrational therefore, based on the given definition that in order to determine a human person is through its ability to rationalize (not the real and valid definition as the defining of the word "Human Person" was part of the quiz), women are not considered a human person.

In relation to the movie, I am some sort of enlightened that truly male thinking is higher than of women thinking. I got this idea in the part where both of the parents can't speak English and they lived with their son which was living in America. On Simon's birthday, he got shocked when the father spoke English and when asked how he learned it, he said he listens and he learns. Although the case may not be the same with every male there is still this fact that in the little time he spent there he was able to speak and understand English. Also in connection to the second idea, I can say that men do not let their emotions and feelings overcome their reasoning. In Chinese tradition, it was so important in the family to have a son in order to continue the family's legacy. Upon knowing that his son was gay, the father did not let his disappointment to cause him to disown his son, rather he thought of other reasons to why his son turned gay and to why his son did not tell him. These reasoning, maybe, was the reason why he learned or is in the process of learning to accept his son's decision. In the part of the mother, when her daughter-in-law decided to abort the child, she used her feelings and emotions as arguments to convince her not to continue with the plan. In this case, the mother was not being reasonable but it does not mean that she is irrational. Women think rationally and as what I have said or written, the mother's case may not be the same with all the other mothers and with all the women. Ones unreasonable argument should not be used to generalize the people of her kind. Also, the rationality of a person is not the only basis in calling someone a human person.

I am still not finished in watching the movie but in the little episodes that I was able to see, those were the insights that came.