Chinese Cinema as Translation of Cultures

Lao Liu (old man Liu), proprietor of an old Beijing bathhouse scheduled to be torn down to make room for new developments; a widower in his 70s in poor health and father of two grown sons; dedicated to serving his customers as a masseuse and very devoted to his second son who is mentally challenged; finds his work spiritually fulfilling and views it as a healing and therapeutic process for others; originally from Shan Bei, a province known for its scarcity of water; wife traded rice for water and bathed once before marriage;

Da Ming, elder son of old Liu and a successful businessman in Shenzhen, a very prosperous economic region one bridge away from Hong Kong, the commercial center of Asia and enblem of Chinese capitalism; visits his father in Beijing after getting a postcard from his brother whose handdrawn pictures mislead him to believe his father is dying; brings an electric massager as an act of filial piety; torn between his career and the life in the past lane, and his duties and obligations to those family members who are retarded and old; decides to bring brother to Shenzhen after his father dies

Er Ming, old man Liu’s second son, mentally retarded and illiterate, emotionally and psychologically unstable and dependent; helps father in his various jobs during the day; enjoys jogging and cleaning the bathhouse with his father after it is closed in the evening

He Zheng, jack of all trades and a slacker; owns an automobile; hopes one day to become a wealthy businessman and live an easy life as his old friend Da Ming of childhood days; thinks of opening up a hot dog stand; talks big but seldom acts to keep his promises; comes to the bathhouse only as a hide-out place from the loan sharks going after him

Zhang Jinhou, one of the bathhouse regular customers; impotent for years after seeing wife running naked in public after the thief who had stolen her gold necklace while in a public bathhouse; sleeps in old man Liu’s bathhouse to avoid constant bickering with his wife; impotence cured when taking a bath with his wife in the bathhouse after it is closed;

Singer, one of the bathhouse regular customers; an amateur singer but often incapacitated by stage fright except when in the shower

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Son, grows up watching his father leave and return so often as an itinerary postman; in his early 20s; thinks his father’s career a noble and worthy one because he is considered as a government employee or a cadre with a salary; taken by his father on his postal rout as an initiation into adulthood, which turns out to be also an instruction to a community of people whom his father respect enormously; through endless details that seem archaic and remedial, learns a moral lesson on modern life in which better roads, telecommunication, TV, computer, and airplanes quickly change the way people structure their lives; the trip to familiarize him to the paths he will be walking on also turns out to be an opportunity for father and son to know each other better

Mother, lives in the mountains before she is married; meets father when a girl who injured her leg one day and gets carried to the hospital on the back of this man she later would marry; even now lives in town with her husband, still often misses the life in the mountains and tells her son that people in the mountains are descents of gods and fairies close to heaven, and that living there is as comfortable and natural as putting one feet into one ‘s own shoes; self-effacing and unassuming, supportive and good natured about her husband’s absence when he has to be on the postal round;

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Gao Weiguo, eldest brother, dim-witted because of the brain illness in early childhood; treated as favorite by parents precisely because of his condition; overweight, prone to epilepcy but harmless to others; an embarrassment for the Gao family; often made fun of by his peers and co-workers who refer to him as “roasted pork;” laid off as a warehouse worker because he nearly commits murder by accidentally locking someone in the freezer; beaten badly when standing too closely to women’s restroom and suspected of lewd conduct; little liked by women around and married to a cripple; has one child

Guo Zi, a young man who likes to hunt with a shot-gun; has a crush on Gao Weihong and likes her for who she really is; never has the opportunity nor the proper etiquette to tell her how he feels about her; willing and able to do anything and everything that Weihong asks him to do, like deating up kids who bully Weiguo and giving moral suport to Weiqiang by pretending to be a respectful policeman and his brother; hangs around Weihong as much as possible and never marries

Father, a typical traditional Chinese father, trying to instill values and morals in his children and does his best to enable them to succeed in life; but quite limited by the ethos of his time in which normal human relationships and kinship are often perverted by radical politics and Mao discourse; at times a moral tyrant and a patriarch (senex), with expectations that his children feel hard to live up to and very little patience with their problems; his failure as a father is characteristic of an age in which order and authority are being destroyed and established anew, either questioned needlessly or obeyed blindly

Zhang, Li na, a divorced woman who marries Weiqiang when big with with child; an entertainer who sings popular songs in festive events and parties; regrets ever marrying Weiqiang for, instead of having to take care of one child, she now has to care for two

Xiao Wanga local government employee whose job is to drive high ranking cadres around; pressured into marriage by Weihong and able to find her a new and better job as promised; quite disheartened to see his wife lose interest in a family life to the point at which she no longer wishes to return home to him while he still dutifully brings food to her at her work place; their marriage ends in divorce

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Wei Minzhi, 13 year-old student in a rural village middle school in Bebei Province, called upon as a substitute teacher in Shuiquan Primary School where the regular and the only teacher has to be away for a little while; promised a small amount of money (50 yuan) if by the time her term is over there are as many students as when she starts; faithfully calls the roster every day and then sets the students to copying lessons from the blackboard; is not overly concerned about whether the students actually learn anything as long as they stay put; ends up doing a very good job and no one drops out during her watch

Teacher Gao, of the Shuiquan Primary School; has to be away from school for a month to tend to his ailing mother; but does not want a 13-year old girl to teach students who are her own age or slightly younger; has 40 students at the beginning of the school year, but increasing attrition has brought that number down to 28; admonishes Wei Minzhi that she must not allow even one more student to drop out while he’s gone and promises her an extra 10 yuan in pay if she succeeds

Village Head, has to find a replacement teacher when teacher Gao is away; agrees to accept Wei Minzhi as the substitute because finding anyone in that rural area who is willing to take the job is not easy, and that at the least she can keep an eye on things while Teacher Gao is away; less concerned than Wei Minzhi about the precise number of kids in class, although genuinely cares about the well being of the kids in his village

Zhang Huike10 years old, one of Teacher Gao’s students; bright but naughty who often tries Wei’s patience; family in serious financial debt; has to go to the city to find work; lost in the city but found again when Wei Minzhi goes into the city and tries to locate him like a needle in a haystack;

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Buddhist Monkpious and living in a small village called Nan Xiao Zhai in Shaanxi Province where the villagers’s life revolves around live stock; feels important to do what he does in the village where slaughtering of sheep takes places daily, which violates Buddhist taboo against killing; content until one day the Buddha statue in his dilapidated temple collapses; with pilgrims to his temple as few as it is and even fewer donations, feels it imperative to fix the statue which, given its size, would cost about 3,000 yuan to repair! told that there are two ways for him: to resume secular life or move to join others in bigger monasteries;

after repeated failures to have immediate financial assistance from proper authorities in his region, begins looking into other sources of money like friends and relatives, but decides against their suggestions that he return to secular society and get married; borrows a bicycle and goes begging alms in nearby towns and villages, which puts him in contact with police, prostitutes, vendors, gangsters, that open his eyes to modern life in China that is often morally repugnant and reprehensible;

dejected, beaten up and even jailed, he also learns to adapt to modern life as most people live it; tells falsehood to people who pay him for what they wish to hear, and who contribute money in order for their names to appear on his records of merit to atone their misdeeds; makes money as a fortune teller and palm reader; has the statue fully repaired in the end after he has enough money, and even managers to broadcast Buddhist songs and music through village loud speakers from a small tape recorder; told by authority that his temple is to be demolished soon to make room for a highway

Officer, in charge of religious affairs in the county government; appears to be friendly and willing to help; but tells the monk that he has directives from above to save big Buddhist temples and to abandon small ones; advises the monk to resume secular life; very supportive of renovation project of local Christian church

Xiao Anin charge of cultural relics in the county government; with no money to give to the monk but interested in buying the window frames in his temple as antique; writes a 2,000 yuan worthless government I.O.U. to the monks after he brings to him the frames;

Uncle, the owner of a barbar shop; also asks the monk to resume secular life; even offer to give him a free haricut and massage; shop soon shut down by the police under the suspicion that it is an underground brothel

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Old Zhao 老赵, a factory worker in his late 50s forced to step down from his post during China’s reform and transformation from a state planned economy to a free market economy; single, broke, and ready to settle for anyone in his search of a marriage partner; stuck with a blind girl whose step mother sees her as a burden and wants to get rid of her; develops real paternal feelings for the girl and puts her up in his own apartment as his romance with the step mother turns sour; well liked by his co-workers who act like his real family till the day he dies after he is hit by a truck;

Fat Woman, a divorcee in her later 40s, with two children from her two previous marriages, and treats one much better than the other; takes advantage of Zhao’s affection for her and asks him to find a job for her step daughter so that she can move out; dates other men while Zhao is doing his best to find work for her daughter; breaks up with Zhao because he is “pretentious and dishonest”

Blind Girl (吴颖 Wu Ying), fat woman’s step daughter; biological mother dies when she is 3 and becomes blind due to a brain tumor; 18 years old and ill treated by her step mother; witnesses how her father and step mother fight everyday until he moves out; has some training as a masseuse, a profession for the blind in China; deeply appreciates what Zhao has done for her which her real father has not been able to do, but leaves in the end so as not to be a burden to him; hopes against hope that some day she’ll find her real father and regain eye sight

Xiao Fu，fellow worker of Zhao but younger, married and still employed; respects Zhao as a dear friend even though he has not paid him the debt he owes; comes up with an elaborated plan to “find a job” for the blind girl to help Zhao even when Zhao himself is jobless; believes that his plan would work because Zhao has a natural propensity to brag and the blind girl cannot see and would have to believe what he says to her

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