Art and Leisure: Movie "City of Joy"

(Just to clarify, I didn’t watch this movie online. My family rented it but they turned it back in before I thought about getting a picture with it, so a picture of the movie on the computer will have to do) Last weekend I watched “City of Joy” for the first time. The movie, made in 1992 and based on a true story, is primarily in English, but also has a good bit of Hindi, and it can be considered an ethnographic film because it shows a lot of Indian culture, specifically in the slums of Calcutta (now Kolkata). The movie focuses on one particular slum called the “city of joy.” In the beginning of the movie, the Pal family, who lives in a small rural village, is unable to pay off a loan due to economic hardships caused by a famine. They are forced to move into the city of Calcutta, in hopes of finding a more successful life. The father of the family eventually finds a job as a local rickshaw “runner” hired by a powerful man who owns and runs the city of joy. At the same time that the Pal’s story is taking place, an American doctor, Dr. Max Lowe, comes to Calcutta escaping his life as a medical doctor in the states, because he’s been fed up with his job. He eventually crosses paths with the Pal family, as well as a British lady, Joan Bethel, who runs a very sketchy makeshift clinic in the slum. At first Dr. Lowe wants no part in the clinic, providing medical care to the locals in the slum, because of the slum’s overwhelming needs and his desire to remain detached from it all. Eventually his heart changes, as he grows attached to the people in the slum, especially to the Pal family, and he decides to volunteer at the clinic. However, just as he and Ms. Bethel get to be on the same page, the “Godfather” of the slum, the powerful man who Mr. Pal works for, passes away, and his son, who is much less compassionate for the people in the slum and who wants the doctors to go back to their home countries, takes his place. The son takes charge and orders that the clinic be shut down. Dr. Lowe, Ms. Bethel, and others who live in the slum stand up to the son, and struggle through numerous hardships to fight for a decent standard of living for the people of the city of joy.

I found this movie especially interesting because I’ve actually been to Kolkata, and some of the places I rode by looked very similar to scenes of the slum life shown in this movie. Honestly it disturbs me to actually realize that there are people who live in these conditions literally every day of their lives. Their way of life, the system that is in place in the slums as each family fights to just survive, is so different from my own life, that I don’t even know where to start comparing the two. One of the most interesting things that I learned from the movie is that certain slums are “governed” by families who have power and authority over the locals in the slum. The movie didn’t really explain how these certain people come to power over the others in the slums. I would guess that it’s probably based on wealth, but I’m not sure. I’m also not sure how much of a role the local Indian government plays. Relating these things to anthropological concepts, I understand that, although I can learn some things about a culture from short-term exposures to it, such as watching a movie or even travelling through a certain city, I cannot gain a holistic understanding of that culture without prolonged exposure, and a lot of time being invested in observing and immersing myself in that culture. I wish that I understood more about slum life in Kolkata or other places around the world, but in order to do that I will have to invest more time in gaining an understanding that truly is holistic.

Extra Credit Blog: Culture Shock in India

I’ve heard people say that it doesn’t matter where all you may have travelled around the world—go to India and you will have culture shock. Last year (Nov-Jan of 2009) I had the chance to go to India with a missions team. For the majority of the time, we were in Darjeeling, a city located in the foothills of the Himalayas in the very northeast tip of India. Darjeeling itself is a very interesting city, with such a unique blending of ethnicities, cultures, and religions. (And it grows some of the world’s BEST tea) I would love to talk more about Darjeeling, but I specifically want to talk about part of our trip to Darjeeling. We flew into Kolkata and stayed a night before taking a train that took us to another city from which we took jeeps up into Darjeeling. But Kolkata was the kind of city that I envisioned when I thought of India. (Unlike Darjeeling, which is much more like Nepal than most other parts of India) We got into downtown Kolkata by taxi at about 2 in the morning, which is sketchy enough in and of itself. But as we walked around the dark seemingly abandoned streets to find our hotel, we began to notice a handful of people wrapped up in sheets sleeping out on the streets, huddled up against the sides of buildings. After just a little while it was like our eyes were opened and we realized that it was not just a handful of people sleeping out on the streets, but dozens and dozens all over the place, in front of nearly every building around us. It felt a bit eerie to be honest. (One reason it felt so eerie is because we weren’t sure if some of the people we passed were sleeping or dead. Before we left for India, some friends who had travelled to India many times warned us ahead of time that often at night, people in the poorer areas will put out the bodies of those in their family who have passed away, to be collected in the morning, because they are too poor to afford to do anything else with the bodies)

The next morning we got up and out and about to head to the train station. The same quiet streets were now jam packed with noisy traffic, crowds of people flooding the sidewalks, and local vendors who’d set up little shops and market places beside the streets. We took taxis to the train station, and I literally wondered if we were going to die on the way. I went to high school in Taiwan, and Taiwan is notoriously bad for having horrible taxi drivers—driving in the opposite lanes, no concern for speed limits, nearly hitting bicyclists and motorbikes every few minutes, etc. But this taxi ride was far, far worse than any that I’d taken before. Many parts of the road were totally unmarked, so in a stretch of payment that should have been perhaps three maybe four lines, you would have six lanes of traffic all trying to merge in together. In certain areas there was no sense of being behind another car in your lane; it was more like a mob of cars all jammed packed together trying to fight each other for positions. I remember our driver speeding out in front of an oncoming truck to get around a driver in front of us, and swerving back into our “lane” at the last second. At one intersection, a taxi in front of us, with the other members of the group, pulled out directly in front on a huge bus that had to slam on its breaks, stopping just a few feet away. Our driver then proceeded to take advantage of the opportunity and gun it while the bus was still stopped. Every few minutes, the drivers would have to swerve or hit the breaks to avoid the cows that wandered freely in the roads. It was pretty intense.

It was crazy to me, but the funny thing is that it wasn’t crazy to them; it was normal. Everyone knew that there were little or no markings on the road. That was not an issue like it would be in America, or many other countries of the world. Every driver drove offensively rather than defensively, with a common mentality of looking forward and, as long as every driver understands this shared mentality, there is a system of driving that works. My initial reaction was culture shock—I was in a situation that did not make sense to my system of what traffic rules and driving should look like. But now, thinking back on that experience, it’s easier to understand that although I felt endangered, being out of my system, the taxi drivers, as well as the other drivers, were quite at home in their way of driving which is mutually understood.

Foods: Surin West Thai restaurant

Saturday night my family and I went out to eat at Surin West in Five Points. It was the first time I’d ever eaten there. I’ve had a bit of Thai food before, but not much, and I wasn’t sure how authentic it was. We ordered a couple plates of Thai noodles (or “phad thai”), which is the only Thai food that I have had before, a plate of chicken masaman with avocado, a plate of a variety of vegetables in Thai sauce, and fried rice. All of the food that we ordered was delicious. I’d heard a lot about Surin’s before, and many people I’ve talked to have referred to it as one of the more authentic Thai restaurants around Birmingham. It was great food and a great experience. I’d love to go back again.

It’s hard to say whether eating at a certain culture’s restaurant should be considered similar or different than my own culture, because food tends to cross cultural boundaries more easily than other things. For example, “American food” might invoke images of hot dogs and hamburgers, yet, if you ask a handful of Americans what different kinds of foods they eat, you’re likely to get a handful of completely different answers from each. “Foreign” foods are becoming less and less foreign worldwide. So I guess that I could say eating Thai food is different from my non-Thai culture, but it is becoming more and more similar as different culture’s foods spread throughout the world.

Hearing that Surin’s was one of Birmingham’s more authentic Thai restaurants, I envisioned that the restaurant itself would be smaller and more casual, and that it would have a larger percentage of Asians than non-Asians. I was surprised to see that it was a larger, fancier restaurant with a mostly Caucasian population. I think there’s a stereotype that most of the different ethnic/cultural restaurants within the States are not very authentic, because food has to become “Americanized” (think fortune cookies or Chinese buffet) for Americans to appreciate it; however, eating at Surin’s made me wonder if more Americans than we realize are actually looking for more and more authentic “foreign” foods.

I don’t know that there’s one particular Anthropological term that I can relate all of this to, but I believe it can be compared to the way that anthropologists attempt to understand not only cultures, but also the blending and meshing of different cultures as they come together. It’s interesting to see parts of different cultures like fashion, music, or in this case food, travel across cultural boundaries as they are embraced by people of other ethnicities in different countries all over the world. It’s also interesting how a place such as Surin West in southside Birmingham can be a representation of two cultures: A little taste of Thai culture in downtown Birmingham, as well as a picture of a newer broader culture forming in America as pieces other cultures from all over the world are incorporated into our own.