An Asian versus a Western perspective

A few months ago, I went with T to see the film "The Reader", starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes. One of the reasons that I wanted to see it was that Kate Winslet won an oscar for her role, and indeed, it's a good film.

*** plot spoiler follows! ***

The initial scenes of the film occur shortly after the end of the Second World War. The basic plot is that Kate Winslet's character likes being read to, and gradually as the plot unfolds, one discovers that the reason for this is that she's illiterate. Another secret of hers is that during the Second World War she was a guard at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Eventually she and some other women end up being put on trial for what they did while they were guards at Auschwitz. However, during the trial it turns out that Kate Winslet's character is so ashamed of being illiterate that she won't even admit it when accused of doing something that she couldn't possibly have done because of her illiteracy. The result is that she's sentenced to life in prison, while the other former guards get off with relatively light sentences.

The day after we saw the film, I end up discussing it with T. I may not have mentioned this before but T is Asian, and until recently had lived all of his life in his home country.

"It was fascinating how Kate Winslet's character wrecked her life because she couldn't admit that she was illiterate," I say, feeling pretty sure of my conclusion.

"Actually," replies T, "I didn't see it like that at all, because she got exactly what she wanted."

"But how can you say that?" I ask, astounded that T sees it so differently. "If she'd have admitted that she couldn't read or write then she wouldn't have wasted away in prison for all those years."

"That's true, but for her that wasn't the important thing, because if it had been then she would have admitted her illiteracy. She didn't want to lose face and admit that she couldn't read or write. As it turned out she was able to keep her secret, so she succeeded in her most important objective :-)."

I'm shocked at T's rational analysis of the situation, because that conclusion would never have occurred to me. One can still debate the subject of course, because arguably Kate Winslet's character would have had a happier life overall if she'd admitted illiteracy and avoided the life prison sentence, or early on in her life had made learning to read and write her objective instead.

The fact that T can see some things so differently to me means that it could be a fascinating and rewarding experience if I end up being his boyfriend. However as I said in my previous post, I worry about how closeted T is, and how he can't imagine admitting that he's gay to his straight friends and family. Indeed, I sometimes get the impression that he may regard telling them that he's gay as being comparable to Kate Winslet's character admitting her illiteracy! However, the good thing is that in the film, eventually Kate Winslet's character learned how to read and write :-).