Boat People, the original title “ Tau ban no hoi”, which is the Cantonese pronunciation literally means, “ jump into the choppy sea”, is a film released in 1982. It illustrated a story about “a Japanese photojournalist revisits Vietnam after the Liberation and learns harsh truths about its regime and its "New Economic Zones"(IMDB). The title subtly has two meanings in Chinese. One is “jump into the choppy sea”, and the other one is “jump into the angry sea”, which implicitly reflects the fates of that generation back in Vietnam. Throughout the whole film, numerous details can be interpreted from the perspective of sociology.
First, from the view of structural functionalism, the opening scene of the Japanese journalist taking pictures of children singing and dancing in a yard of the intentional exhibition area, which is to show “how happy” people are under the control of Communist Party, is reminiscent of 70s China and today’s North Korea. Brainwashing starts from education----that is the priority of a totalitarian regime, i.e. the Communism government. The new Vietnam government has built a “New Economic Zones”, and the district 16 is particularly shown to international visitors and journalists. Domestically, it establishes the authority of the party to civilians; diplomatically, it propagandizes a plausible sound image of the party to foreigners. Furthermore, common people in Vietnam are deprived of the right to go abroad. Government controls everything in the whole country in terms of economics, education, religion, culture, etc. All of these actions are implemented in order to maximize social cohesion and equilibrium even though in an inhuman way----an involuntary re-socialization.
As to the symbolic interactionism, a number of interactions in daily life is embodied in a delicate way by the director. Vietnam is like a microcosm and simulacra synthesized French and Japanese culture. Western, especially French, folkways are ubiquitous in Vietnam due to colonization. An old man wants to be buried with American boots; the Vietnamese heroine gives the finger to the Japanese hero journalist during their first encounter; the younger brother of the heroine can speak simple English to make a living. Besides, there are other scenes also reflect symbolic interactions. The communications between two protagonists, Vietnamese girl (Cam Nuong) and Japanese journalist (Shiomi Akutagawa), are sort of a qualitative research of cultural interaction. Shiomi teaches Cam’s little brother Japanese song to calm the little child; the scene of Shiomi rejecting to have sex with Cam in the hotel room out of his own morality; as well as the most beautiful scene of the two taking group picture in the rain to show the sincere friendship between them and the most tragic scene of Shiomi being shot by Vietnamese soldiers as a result of assisting Cam to get on a boat----a boat to a better country. These scenes all contribute to Herbert Blumer’s theory of symbolic interactionism: “that people act toward things, including each other, on the basis of the meanings they have for them; that these meanings are derived through social interaction with others; and that these meanings are managed and transformed through an interpretive process that people use to make sense of and handle the objects that constitute their social worlds”(Wiki).
Postmodern theory is fully demonstrated via the figure of the Vietnamnese Communist officer----Qi. He is skeptical of the Liberation of Vietnam, because it makes him a liminal being between France and Vietnam. He is always in a dilemma of choosing his standpoint. On one hand, he loves French cuisine and wine, and he has received higher education in Paris, in his early age, which means he is fond of French culture. This can be found in the scene of his arrest by Vietnam Communist Party in the end of the film. He first kissed the landlady’s hand and give a valediction in French, and then kissed Shiomi’s cheek twice(bisous), says “we are true comrades!” to Shiomi (similarly in previous scene when he says to Shiomi, “the revolution of Vietnam succeeded, but the revolution of myself failed”). He doubts the ideology imposed on him, and can think critically of the Liberation. Another example of postmodern theory is that Shiomi does not want to take pictures in the specified area, he would like to take some real pictures of common people----the true slide of life, not the “exhibition” in New Economic Zones. This indicates that he wants the voice of the deprived to be heard in discourse rather than those of the powerful.
The inequality of female is prevalent in Eastern culture due to its patriarchal and feudal tradition. There is a distinctive character in the film---the landlady, which is a typical example applied to feminist theory. Her mother escaped to Vietnam during WW2 from China when Vietnam was under the control of Japan, and threw herself into the lap of a Japanese officer to survive. Similarly, to make a living, the landlady sold her virgin to a China man. Afterward, France took over Vietnam, the landlady bartered away her honor to a French man for his patronage, and when Frenchmen left after the Liberation, she subsequently fell into the arms of Americans. On one hand, the fate of this woman alludes to the 20th colonized history of Vietnam; on the other hand, the society objectifies females as commodities during that time. The fate of the landlady highlights the unfair social conditions of women back then. Similarly, the depiction of Cam’s mother is also an example of feminist theory. To support the family, she eventually drifted into prostitution with her sickly body under the abetment of her neighbor. Unfortunately, she was arrested under the crime of prostitution and humiliated by soldiers in public, in front of her children’s faces. Out of ignominy, she committed suicide. It seems that women has quite limited choice in society such as Vietnam, Philippines and China. Gender discrimination is confirmed in Asian culture, yet also embodied otherwise in other culture. It is still a hot issue in focus nowadays.
Finally, for the conflict theory, the impoverished are searching corpses that were just been executed in public space to find something valuable. By contrast, the authorities are enjoying deluxe French cuisine, drinking western beer in a dining hall. The social resources distributed are extremely unequal. This theory is epitomized by another character in the film----To Minh, a Vietnamese youth, managed to steal into America throughout the film. He was forced to labor in the New Economic Zones, and then was arbitrarily sent to do the landmine-eliminating job, which is an extremely perilous job that may easily make himself killed. He was incarcerated into an oil drum just because he was running towards his friend’s body which been exploded during the job. Once again, he suffered hyperpyrexia but has no right to see a doctor, and only the Shiomi and his friend used the stretcher, which was just used to lift dead bodies, to send him to a doctor, and after being operated without anesthetic, the doctor found three pieces of gold plaque, which were used to pay the fee of smuggling, and then was confiscated by Communists officer. Meanwhile, another Vietnamese Communist officer was dancing tango in his room accompanied by tape recorder. After undergoing all conceivable hardships, he finally made it to the boat, the boat of his future, the boat bearing his dream of running a restaurant in New Orleans. Suddenly, after strafing by Vietnamese soldiers, all of this comes to nothing but his wild-open eyes staring at the bright moonlight. Throughout his transient life, he failed to change his fate no matter how hard he was trying to. That can be ascribed to determinism, which means that his fate can barely be changed by his free will, all he need to do is to be resigned and succumb to the inevitable in his destiny.
Overall, this film is a desirable sample of sociologically analyzing eastern modern history. It is a miniature of eastern society in 20th century.
Work Cited
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084807/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_interactionism
Boat People. Dir. Ann Hui. Perf. Paul Chiang, Shui-Chiu Gan, George Lam, 1982.
Bluebird Movie Enterprises Ltd., 2011.DVD
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