…in fact I’m only about 10 minutes in. I’m actually going to drop a podcast episode on the movie in April, giving my view on the media’s emphasis on the character’s heritage, and of course, I’m going to talk about how I’m not a fan of that. I’m not going into too much detail…
But in the 10 minutes I’ve seen, I can tell you there are some feels, especially when Mei wasn’t able to hang out with her friends. Except in my case, it was my fear of Poh Poh getting mad at me and thinking I was a bad kid (listen to my podcast on fitness addiction to get a bit of an understanding). It was always about that. I think I missed out on a lot of middle and high school fun because of that fear. I probably should have talked to my parents at that time, but I was also too nervous, worried that they’d be on her side. Anyway, more on the movie itself and how I felt about the media’s focus, the BIGGER focus on the lead character’s ethnic background in my podcast. In the mean time, I’m just going to finish the movie and enjoy the fact that it’s set in my city!! That said, I’m left wondering where exactly in the city Mei is supposed to be from. I realize it’s a fictionalized version – if she lives near Chinatown, then her school would be called “Senior Public” rather than Middle – schools called “middle schools” are mostly in North York. Of course, people outside of Toronto might not know what a “Senior Public” school is. I think we were are the only ones who use that term. And what temple is the one the family works at supposed to be based on, if there IS one at all? The only big one I can think of is in Thornhill (I think). To be honest, I’m not familiar with downtown Chinatown at all. We did most of our shopping and dining in Markham and Scarborough. Closer and better parking!
Also, I might want to be a bit picky about accuracy of pop culture. Tamagochis weren’t really a thing anymore in 2002 (I was well out of high school by then. 2002 was the year I graduated from university), were they? I’m about a decade older than Mei and only remember the in high school where they often went off during chapel or class. And the girls (for those who are new to this blog, I went to a girls-only school) got theirs confiscated, leading to their virtual pets’ untimely deaths. Anyway, enough of my ranting. I should probably get back to the movie.
