Saying Goodbye to Your Roots in 'The Farewell'

My grandmother used to make this soup that took hours with lots of different Chinese herbs in it, every Chinese New Year she’ll serve it with noodles, and because of how much effort it takes to make I only got to eat it once a year. When she passed away I never got to eat it again. I can still remember the taste but I don’t even know what it’s called. I realised how much is lost when a person passes away. My grandmother was skilled at many handicrafts like sewing and knitting, and an excellent cook (she used to make and sell traditional pastries). My mum learnt several of these skills from her as well, but not everything. Meanwhile I barely know anything. I feel like as the years pass and the generations pass, I’m losing more and more of my culture

"She's not just afraid of loosing Nai Nai, She's afraid of loosing what used to be such a significant and meaningful part of her life.... in billie's eyes, Nai Nai's mortality raises a grim realization that without her she has no true link to her heritage" This really stuck a chord with me. As a 2nd generation immigrant I grew up in a house and group where I was too American to be really Chinese- and went out in the world where I was too "Ethnic" to be American. The fear of feeling life you're loosing half of who you are is very terrifying to me and something im trying to understand and navigate.

for me, it's kind of sad being asian american, you explained why well. i tell myself pretty much daily "you're not two halves of 2 cultures, you are completely both". but my subconscious feels a bit in limbo, 2 families that see me as a foreigner.

I've never seen this movie but this video alone made me cry, the cultural disconnect and the fear of losing a grandmother hit close to home. Thank you for this beautiful analysis <3

I'm terrified of losing my mother's parents. I'm mixed, my mom is Native American, and neither of us are fluent in the languages my grandparents know. when they die, part of the language will die with them and I feel like time is running out to inherit their knowledge. Mvto for making this.

As a chinese american, the scene where billie expressed how she felt when her grandpa passed away to his mom had me balling. I remember specifically when my parents didn't mention a word about my grandfather's illness until that week when he passed. I think they really nailed the dichotomy between eastern and western culture.

I am Swedish, but I grew up in Singapore and attended an American-based international school. I am definitely a third culture kid. My friends have always been people similar to me, kids growing up in another culture foreign to their own. Currently, I also have friends who are 'hidden immigrants'; they are American-born Chinese, but moved to Singapore later in life, where people assume they are Singaporean. They get recognized for being something they are not; I, on the other hand, who has spent most of my life in Singapore, will never be given any credit for my experiences. I will always be 'the foreigner'. While that is something I have come to accept as part of my life, it does not mean it's a painless reality.

Hey man, I'm literally sobbing watching this video because I've had so many feelings like this of not feeling connected to my Chinese heritage and feeling super guilty because of it, and I hadn't even realized this was even a valid emotion or something that others went through as well.. This video was literally life changing and it feels so nice just to know that I'm not the only person experiencing this!! Thank you thank you thank you!! I love your videos!

I'm generation 1.5 Mexican-American (?). I came to the US as a 6 year old. It's hard to balance my very obvious US upbringing and my parents' way off thinking. The hardest thing to come to terms with, however, is realizing that my father's treatment of my mom and I might be the standard for a Mexican household, but in an American household, it's abuse. Growing up, I saw my uncles isolate my aunts and their children for others outside the family. So when I saw the same behavior from my dad, I thought it was just our culture, perfectly normal. But many college courses, therapy seasons, and deep conversions with my best friend, who is Latina and a counselor, I've come to see my father's behavior as abuse. But the hardest thing from this realization, is trying to figure out how I can still love my dad despite it all. My boyfriend is white, and when I tell him about the things I've had to go through, he gets angry. He tells me how I don't deserve to be treated like that. That makes me feel sad, angry, and confused. And when I talk to my friend, she kind of puts it into perspective. She too had to grow up in a Hispanic household while trying to be American. And of course, I feel extremely guilty whenever I think of all the sacrifices my parents have had to make for me. It feels like no matter how hard I try, I'll never be able to live up to their expectations, real or imagined. I feel like I'll never be Mexican enough for my family, and never American enough for this country.

I’m a Vietnamese Canadian, I can’t speak or understand any Vietnamese though. I always kinda jokingly say “I’m a failure to my ethnicity” whenever anyone asks if I can speak Vietnamese or try to speak it to me. I haven’t even been to Vietnam since I was a baby. I only hear stories from my mom and it all just sounds so… foreign. I honestly take a lot of pride in my identity and how my parents were war refugees and my grand parents surviving imperialist Japan but I also feel so distant from it that it kinda just feels like an act..

first time ive cried at a film essay ty :)

As a very Americanized Asian-American, I remember feeling really conflicted with the decisions the characters were making, but I feel like you very clearly articulated what I was having trouble grasping. Very well done, thank you!!

You know what hurts the most? Not being fluent enough, if not at all, in your grandparents’ native tongue. My grandparents from both sides of my family speak in dialect, and know very little of the common language, so I always had to rely on my parents to translate what they’re saying. It always breaks my heart when I had to resort to communicating in smiles and nods instead of actual words. Watching this video reminded me of how important my grandparents are in my life and made me want to start learning their dialect, even just to say ‘hi’ or ‘I love you’.

As someone who identifies as a Chinese-American, I resonated so much with this film. The scene where the mom asks Billie how many wantons she wants to eat and the mother says that is too few before settling on a number the mom thinks is adequate is a conversation I've had with my mother all my life.

I'm not a U.S. American and I'm not an immigrant, but this really made me think. I'm from Argentina, a country heavily influenced by immigration, of which I am a result. My grandfather was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, and after he saw his hometown bombarded by the Allies, he moved to Germany, where he learned fluent German and became essentially fully germanized. People used to ask him what region of Germany he was from, his German was so good. But the war was still raging there, so he eventually applied for entry into Canada, Australia or Argentina, and Argentina answered first, so he moved there. There he met my grandmother in the German speaking community in Buenos Aires. His brother was married to a German woman and German culture was part of their every day life... in Argentina. He was a Bulgarian who was a German immigrant in Argentina. On the other hand you have my grandmother. She was not born in Germany, she was born in Paraguay, in a German speaking community. Her father was Swiss and her mother Austrian, and she spoke German at home and Guarani, an indigenous language spoken by most Paraguayans, with the kids from the neighborhood. She didn't learn Spanish until she started school. Her parents died when she was young, and she moved to Argentina, where she had family... in German speaking communities. Eventually she moved to Buenos Aires to look for work, where she frequented... the German speaking community. And that's where she met my grandad. I always think about their identities. What did they consider themselves to be. My grandfather went from country to country, taking bits and pieces but always ready to transform all over again, having a harder time each time the older he got. Eventually he was an honest to god mix of all of his experiences. My grandmother wasn't even born in the old country, but she carried that with her her entire life, never truly becoming of any land she was at, always connected to her heritage. At home, my dad and uncle were spoken to in German, not Bulgarian. They ate Fleishpflänzerlchen and danced around a Tenenbaum on Christmas. But interestingly, as my father started losing the language, they welcomed it fully. My father was more like my other grandfather in that way... My maternal grandfather was born in Argentina, but both his parents were Ukrainian Jews who separately came to Argentina. There are plenty of interesting stories of doubtful accuracy about their ordeal, but very little about what it meant for him to be the children of immigrants reached my ears. As far as I know he only spoke Spanish, and he married my grandmother, who was a devout catholic, so he couldn't have been hugely religious, having no qualms with his children being raised catholic as well. What was his relationship to his Ukrainian Jewish heritage? I don't know. I don't know if he spoke Yiddish or Russian at home. I don't know if he fought with his parents over religion or culture. All I know is that he was a good father to my mother. A good Argentinian father, in every way I know. My grandmother was a more traditional Argentine, her father was Italian, but that's extremely common in Argentina, and her mother was fully Argentine, with ancestors going back to the colonial era, and supposedly related to one of Argentina's founding fathers, Sarmiento. So when my grandmother met my grandfather, he just met another Argentinian man. I wonder what that was like for him. He died when I was three, so I'll never know. My father had a very similar experience. As a young child, he stood out because he was very blonde and German looking, in a neighborhood with no other German immigrants. He used to run around crying out for "Kartoffeln und Fleische! Kartoffeln und Fleische!" (meat and potatoes), which made the men working at home with his father building plastic trinkets laugh at him. He soon forgot all his German. He is one of the most Argentinian people I know, culturally, now. Both of his parents were okay with this. At the time, there was a false belief that bilingualism in childhood meant the kid wouldn't be able to speak either language properly. But I also think it's because they both knew how hard it was to be from elsewhere, to feel an other in your own home. They wished he would just grow up to be comfortable as a member of this new world of his. Even my grandma let it slide, with her love for all that is German. They were probably tired, and wanted a fully non-immigrant experience for my father, I don't know. I guess Aquafina's character shouldn't forget that what she thinks the U.S. is, and what makes it different from her background isn't fully what the U.S. really is, because the U.S. now has her, and lots of other Chinese Americans, changing the U.S. as she goes through it. I don't think I could conceive of what it means to be Argentinian without my ancestors' experience as a part of it. They came and felt the need to change themselves, but they couldn't help but change the place they came to as well. Billy will continue to live in the U.S., and although she may feel alienated from both sides, as she stays there, builds a life, and influences others around her, she is effectively contributing to turning the U.S. more like her. Other Americans without Chinese heritage will have aspects of what she brought to the table because she was there and was herself. Maybe she'll never feel like she truly belongs on either side, but she is unwittingly becoming part of what the U.S. needs in order for it to become something new, where her belonging is just part of the whole. As she loses her heritage, that loss isn't truly complete, because she is creating a new heritage in the U.S. that people after her will cherish and need the way she has cherished and needed her Chinese heritage. I mean, I can't relate to Bulgarian culture, I don't know anything about it. I can't truly say I'm Swiss or Austrian, I'm not really Jewish or Ukrainian... all I am is Argentinian. But I carry those stories with me. My heritage is in that struggle. What my forbearers went through stripped away the purity of their heritage, but that forced them to create something new, which is what they had to give to me, willingly or not, knowingly or not. IDK, just felt like commenting.

The first time I saw this movie I was (ironically) on a plane to see my grandparents in Asia and was one of the rare times I’ve cried because of a movie. I won’t go into how it’s impacted me but as a first generation Asian American, it is one of the most important films to me. I don’t think I’ve seen an analysis for this film until now which is a damn shame so thank you for covering it. Edit: Fuck this video has me in tears

i thought i'd be safe from crying watching a video on the farewell and lets just say i was so wrong

I’m Latino and I don’t know how to speak Spanish, I can understand it mostly but I can’t speak it. It is not a good time visiting family let me just put it that way.

2nd Gen Asian American here. This movie definitely hit home for me. I remember walking home from the theater with my wife, both of us still sobbing. I struggle to get a grip just thinking about the goodbye scene. Thank you for your thoughtful video.

This speaks to me a lot, and I’m really grateful you’re talking about this film. I’m an immigrant (we’re Mexican), my gramma is the person I love more than anybody on this earth, she’s very old and I haven’t seen her in 5 years. I can’t afford to see her more often, but I genuinely feel like the earth will suffer a loss when she’s gone, like all of humanity is losing her and nor I or the species will ever really recover. I could never express how much I love her. I was raised there though, and to me it feels like my my Mexican-nes is dying, like I’m slowly allowing it to become ill and weak from daily pressures and insecurities around assimilation. I wasn’t raised here, but I’ve “adapted” beyond a point where I’ll ever cease to be American, I left my family, my country has changed and outgrown me and is unrecognizable to me now. My grandmother reminds me of this. Despite being a brilliant, loving, incredible person, despite accomplishing amazing feats, she’s going to die poor, Foreigness feels like an incredible, beautiful, grandmother who loves me, and I’m just helplessly watching her die. I’ve never felt like first or second generation immigrant experiences are very different. You’re too close to America to see home anymore, but you’ll never reach America, you’ll never stop being foreign. (Though not being allowed to vote and losing everything to immigrants, that might be just me, but then again I didn’t have to experience racism as a 4 year old and grew up unquestionably loving my culture.) PS. You have no idea how appreciated you are for making content about foreign experiences. It is such an underrepresented and immense topic. When you start your patreon, I’ll be sure to be there.