As I watched Crazy Rich Asians my second time last week, it just gets better and better. This movie did a great job in establishing a representation between being an Asian American and just being an Asian born in a foreign country. Rachel Chu, who is an Asian American professor travels with her boyfriend, who was raised and born in Singapore back to his hometown discovers that he’s from a rich family and the differences between a regular Asian American household and an Asian household.
A scene that stood out to me throughout the whole film was when Nick Young’s Mom has a small talk with Rachel about never being good enough and that the reason is due to her being American. Which means that because you are born in America you tend to learn to put yourself first and make yourself first priority before anyone else. Versus if you weren’t born in America, you would know to put your family first before anything and leave everything behind. I found this vey hurtful, but at the end of the conversation I thought to myself that, everything she just said was in fact the truth but also a lie at the same time. The reason why I believe that it’s not true is because even if you are an Asian American woman, it doesn’t always mean that you don’t put your family first or that your selfish because you have ambitions, goals, and dreams. There are a lot of Asian American woman out there who loves themselves as much as they love their family. It doesn’t always have to be one or the other. As for the reason why I kind of saw it from the mother’s point of view is that compared to Asian woman abroad and Asian American woman, there are differences that I can see. Asian woman abroad tend to have a better sense that they need to have family responsibilities and are better at catering to their family at home. But that is just because social norms and the social changes that happens overtime.
One of my favorite scenes throughout the whole movie was towards the end where Astrid, tells off her now ex-husband that she can’t make him a man if he isn’t one. That whole scene really empowered me and I’m sure it also empowered many woman out there. Not that this has to do with anything related to Asian-American. Anyways, overall I saw many different cultural differences throughout this movie about Asian American’s and Asians’ core values.