For those of us lucky enough to have them around, grandparents can help us experience a different sense of belonging and identity
In Lulu Wang’s recent autobiographical film The Farewell, a 20-something Chinese-American woman travels back to China to spend a week with her Nai Nai, her paternal grandmother, who is dying of stage-four cancer but doesn’t know it. The whole family has chosen to keep the diagnosis secret, lest the distress hasten Nai Nai’s demise.
The central character, Billi, spends time with her ailing grandmother but it quickly becomes clear the trip nourishes something in the younger woman too. Billi leaves behind her empty city apartment, career disappointment and recent rejection from a prestigious fellowship program. With her grandmother she finds an intimate bond, a sense of identity rooted in cultures she has been dislocated from – both Chinese culture and the idiosyncratic, close culture of her family – as well as some perspective on her own existential malaise.
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