In Lulu Wang's podcast she tells a story about when she and her family chose to lie but in order to protect someone. This story outlines a mode of culture that differs greatly from our own, one much more steeped in tradition and values differing from Western ideals. It paints a vivid picture of a family that truly cares for each other so much, that they would all be willing to do anything to protect each other, including lying about something potentially life threatening.
Do you agree with the families decision to lie to Nainai? No, I can not say that I can agree with their choice to lie to Nainai, I can however, understand the choice. Personally, I would like to know if I or my family members had any terminal illnesses. I don’t find it fair to allow cancer to ravage someone’s body and them to not have at least a fighting chance. For perhaps a more selfish reason, I don’t believe that I could suppress information like that for so long. It would gnaw at my insides if I knew something so terrible, even if I had agreed not to share. I would like to argue that the mind is an incredibly powerful thing, and that giving someone the knowledge that they have a terminal cancer may give them more of a fighting chance alongside medicinal help, of course. Perhaps if Nainai had told her relatives of her breast cancer she could have been given more support earlier and her cancer gone into remission. Its impossible to tell if simply not telling her/lying made any difference and wasn’t mere coincidence that she stayed alive longer than the doctors anticipated. I do not claim to be familiar with Eastern culture, it seems to be much more focused on the family unit, whereas in the West culture focuses much more heavily on the individual. Perhaps in some odd way (though it defies my definition of logic, I consider myself more of a pragmatist) Nainai was helped by the joy she felt rather than the grief and heartache she surely would have felt instead. When have you made an important choice to tell someone a difficult truth or you made an important choice to tell a lie that had a major impact on you and/or someone else? When I broke up with my ex-girlfriend. I used to study at Concordia University in Montreal and unfortunately had to leave because of some mistakes made and a lack of funds. Telling her that I was leaving for PA was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. It took me weeks before I finally worked up enough courage to tell her I was leaving and more than likely not returning for at least a couple years. We had really started to grow on each other and things were starting to feel more serious. I could have just left without saying a word, but it would have been wrong. In a way it was important to finally break it off, in-person. Truth isn’t always easy or pleasant, but in the long run I think it’s the best way to heal, no matter how deep the scars are afterwards, at least it isn’t an open wound. I think if you tell people the truth people may often surprise you. I firmly believe that telling the truth is the first step to dealing with most problems that we create. If we were a bit more introspective, and honest the world would be a better place.
1 Comment
Sabatino
2/14/2018 12:14:57 pm
Thanks for sharing this post. I appreciate how you differentiate between your own personal believes and the believes of the family in the story. And particular, you make a point to say you understand their decision but you do not agree with it. That seems fair to me. I also appreciated how you commented on the cultural differences in how these cultural beliefs systems which shape a person’s opinion.
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AuthorShane Zandotti, Blogger extraordinaire. This is primarily to bolster my composition skills. Archives
April 2018
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