The World The Way the Migrant Worker Is Aligned With the Theme Park Employee - Essay Example

The World – The Way the Migrant Worker Is Aligned With the Theme Park Employee The film The World is a story about a theme park employee in China named Tao and a Russian migrant worker named Anna. Anna is a World Park Russian performer who cannot speak Chinese but who can communicate with Tao through her emotions although the latter does not really understand what the former means. In the film The World, the migrant worker is aligned with the theme park employee in a way that both are limited in their skills and in their rights and that both are equally exploited by the Chinese society, while the whole event emphasizes the dark secrets and limitations of Chinese modernization. In the movie, one limitation of Chinese modernization is shown in the problem of language barrier. In one scene, Tao could not speak Russian in the same way that Anna could not speak Chinese, and no matter how much they seemed to understand each other’s emotions, it was not enough. The only thing that they could afford to say was each other’s names and apart from that, they could not say any other word in the other person’s language. When they met in the bathroom, when Anna asked Tao, “How are you? Why are you looking at me like that?” somehow both knew that it was because Anna became a prostitute. Moreover, Tao and Anna simply cried with Tao not even realizing that what Anna meant that time was that she has resigned herself to becoming to a prostitute. On the other hand, Tao seemed clueless why such a thing happened. Perhaps too, she was crying out of confusion, because she could not clearly understand why Anna had to become a prostitute. The language barrier between Anna and Tao is somehow reflective of the rather limited context of Chinese modernization. China is modernized but not in terms of language, perhaps in order to prevent communication of important issues between people like Tao and Anna, while at the same time perhaps because China discriminates against foreigners like Anna. However, Anna sees the positive side of this when she told Tao, “We do not speak the same language but we are friends. You are the only friend I have here.” Nevertheless, although friendship abounds between two people of different languages, it is still obviously extremely difficult for each one of them to express their true sentiments to each other, considering that both may think the other may not totally understand her. In the same scene where Anna had to become a prostitute, it also illustrates the exploitation of both the migrant worker and the theme park employee. In a scene before both women met in the bathroom, a Chinese man in coat and tie approached Tao just along the hallway at the bar. The Chinese man got along near her and started grabbing her tight as she got off his grip while yelling at him, “Some other time.” Inside the bathroom, she met Anna, who was dressed up as a prostitute but was obviously just forced into the job. In this particular scene, one can see how the modern Chinese society exploits Tao, the theme park employee, and Anna, the migrant worker, and reduces both women to the level of the prostitute, or someone who is merely a slave of men and money. This is a negative picture of Chinese modernization, where although China develops international relations with other nations, it still keeps its prostitution business. Moreover, since the Chinese government has not done anything to prevent a foreigner like Anna become one of the prostitutes, it simply implies that the Chinese government is one merely of ceremonial good image but the truth remains that there is no concern from the government for any foreigner and foreign worker. Both the migrant worker and the theme park employee also suffer from poverty. In one particular scene at the theme park stage, where one can hear the voice of a sister and her brother, and where the sister is obviously one of the employees who has gone home to bring money, there is a disagreement that ensues between the two siblings. The reason is that the brother, who is implied as a gambler, seems dissatisfied with how little the money that the sister has brought to him. The sister then recounts her experience of taking a 6-hour bus just to get home while emphasizing that they (theme park employees) are not made of money, that they work hard to earn it, and that “money does not grow on trees.” In the same way, for the migrant worker Anna, she told Tao that decided to leave the amusement park because she said another job was waiting for her, which is actually being a prostitute, and that she “[hates] to do it.” Anna also admits, “I have no money.” Thus, one can see the pressures of poverty in this situation. Moreover, while the Chinese theme park employees have to leave their poor families in the rural areas, Russian migrant workers like Anna have to leave their children in Russia. Anna showed Tao a picture of her two children and somehow hinted that she missed them. In fact, there is a possibility that Anna thought China was better than the Soviet Union, which was a country “enduring years of socioeconomic collapse and supposed reform,” and perhaps she herself was surprised to see the same “poverty and humiliation” awaiting her in China (Szeto 102). Also, in another scene, we find out that Little Sister died because of an accident at night simply because he would work at night for “the pay is better.” It is therefore true that poverty secretly rules modernized China. There is also a lack of love for both theme park employee and migrant worker. In Taiyuan, Taisheng met a girl named Qun, who seems to be a fashion designer, and he seems to have fallen in love with her because of several occasions when they were together. Although, in Wenzhou, Tao made Taisheng promise not to cheat on her, he actually almost did when he met Qun in Taiyuan. Taisheng and Qun have been seeing each other and everything had been a secret until Tao eventually found out in a text message. This culminated in a suicide attempt between Tao and Taisheng. Although this suicide is not totally foreshadowed, somehow it is based on two reasons “Taisheng by Qun’s departure for France and Tao by Taisheng’s infidelity” (Gaetano 33). These are indeed reasons that show the deep loneliness of the people in modern China. This scene also somehow shows the lack of love and the high degree of distrust in a typical relationship in modernized China. Lastly, there is no freedom in modernized China for both the theme park employee and the migrant worker. During the conversation between Tao and Anna, the former told the latter, “I envy you. You can go abroad. You can go anywhere. What freedom!” This obviously means that typical Chinese women like Tao have no freedom to leave their country China, perhaps out of mere hesitation or lack of opportunity, or perhaps out of a lack of choice. Perhaps these women have to stay in the job to continually provide financial assistance for their families in the rural areas. In fact, as Qun told Taisheng, “People from Wenzhou are attracted to going abroad,” but perhaps this is because, by mistake, they view the foreign lands as a sign of hope for them to end the poverty that they are experiencing in their own country. Nevertheless, this is what Gaetano calls an irony in modern society, where there is the ideals of “freedom, progress and prosperity” on one hand while “social inequalities…and the metaphor of immobility” on the other (Gaetano 26). It is therefore true that while the rural Chinese workers of the theme park and migrant workers like Anna desire more and more freedom, they ironically plunge themselves further and further down into poverty. The irony is also further interpreted as an absurdity, even in the very first scene where Tao was shouting for Band-Aid where the audience may have noticed that she was dressed in a grand and elaborate Indian costume but she wandered “past exposed popes through the cramped hallways of the backstage area,” signifying “an ironic punctum,” which is the “social reality of the film” (Hayot 86). The film therefore, even at the beginning, already wanted to show the audience the idea that no matter how well-dressed some people are, like Tao, they actually live deep down in the dumps. In a similar way, no matter how seemingly modernized China is, it hides deep down its darkest secrets of poverty and other social ills. Lack of freedom also translates to lack of knowledge. In one scene, Little Sister asked Tao, “Who flies n those planes?” To this Tao answered, “I don’t know anybody who has been on plane.” This conversation actually shows the ignorance not only of Little Sister and Tao but of perhaps almost all of the residents of rural China, whom both people represent. Lack of freedom further translates to overdependence on someone. In the film, examples of overdependence include those of the gambling brother on his sister, who works at the theme park. There is also overdependence in love by Tao on Taisheng, and by Niu on Wei. While Tao makes statements in front of Taisheng in order to somehow make him admit any guilt he has had regarding their relationship, Niu has been spying on Wei almost every now and then because of his jealousy. Every time Niu asks Wei, “Where have you been? Why was the cell phone turned off?” Wei would say, “Always the same question!” Moreover, Niu would even go suicidal as he tried to burn his jacket in front of Wei. These are actually signs of the lack of freedom in modernized China. While one of the lovers is dependent on one for his or her happiness, the other lover is also consequently tied to such dependence. Thus, there is no freedom in both. In fact, this overdependence in relationships may also be a consequence of poverty or of a totally hopeless life where only love can cure the loneliness and can provide one some glimmer of hope. As demonstrated by the film, modernized China is merely nothing but a haven of social ills and lonely people. Both the theme park employee, represented by Tao, and the migrant worker, represented by Anna, suffered in secret despite the modernization in China. Among their sufferings included the language barrier between them, the prostitution into which one of them was lured, the poverty that beset their lives and directed their careers, the lack of love and the insecurities that Tao and the theme park employees felt as shown in their overdependence on their relationships, as well as their lack of freedom in life and lack of knowledge of things of familiar things around them. This is what exploited not only Tao and Anna but also the people in their midst and all of China especially the rural workers. China may be modernized or globalized but amidst this globalization there lies so much evil, so much loneliness and desperation, and so many lives sacrificed. Works Cited Gaetano, Arianne. “Rural Woman and Modernity in Globalizing China: Seeing Jia Zhangke’s The World.” Visual Anthropology Review 25:1 (2009): 25-39. Print. Hayot, Eric. “Cosmologies, Globalization and Their Humans.” Social Text 29:4 (2012): 81-105. Print. Panahi, Hengameh, Takio Yoshida & Chow Keung. (Producer), Jia Zhangke. (Directors). The World. Zeitgeist Films, 2004. Film. Szeto, Kin-Yan. “A Moist Heart: Love, Politics and China’s Neoliberal Transition in the Films of Jia Zhangke.” Visual Anthropolgy 22 (2009): 95-107. Print. Read More