In this week's assignment we had to listen to a podcast by LuLu Wang called "What You Don't Know". I'm not to sure how I felt about this week's podcast, but I definitely got insight on how other cultures handle their family dynamics. Their traditions and their way of doing things, I must say first the 5 minutes of this podcast, I was a little annoyed, I thought how anyone could do that to a loved one. Further on into the story, I understood a little bit more and know that everyone has their own ways of doing things.
Did you agree with the family's choice to deceive Wang's grandmother? It was tough to say at first, I lost my grandmother in August of 2016 to lung cancer. She was given till Christmas to live and passed away 6 weeks after diagnosis. I still remember my mom sitting me down and telling the awful news and telling me that Nan did not want treatments. It broke my heart and I was so angry at her. It took me a week or two to understand my Nan's perspective. I believed that Lulu's grandmother should've known in the first place because she had right to know what was going on with her body and how to take care of it, instead of getting lied to by her family. Hosting a wedding early to have everyone together would've been more sentimental and special if Nai Nai knew her situation instead of seeing her grandson cry waterfalls at his wedding and not because he just gotten married. I would want to spend as much time as I could with my loved one and not have to pretend everything was normal, so no, I did not agree at first, but I do respect that other cultures do things differently. When have you made an important choice to tell someone a difficult truth or you made an important choice to tell a lie that had a major impact on you and/or someone else? A friend of mine, we'll call her Chelsea, had left for bootcamp and she had a boyfriend that I wasn’t fond of, pretty much since they started dating. He was controlling and super shady all the time which throws up some huge red flags for me. I mentioned to her several times that I think he might not be a good guy. Of course, she tried to reassure me that he was truly a nice guy and to give him a chance. He had cheated on her before and she was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt that he had "changed". A week after of Chelsea being gone, TRAINING to defend our country, Mitchell cheated on Chelsea again. A couple friends called me super early in the morning to tell me about what happened at the party the night before. I was clearly furious but had to be smart about how to go about the current situation. Chelsea had no communication to the world beings all technology was taken from her the moment she landed for her training. She looked like a fool without knowing she looked like one. Words were exchanged between Mitchell and I cause quite frankly, it was a long time coming. After a lot of thinking, I decided to wait till I knew Chelsea would be able to handle the information and not get off track. My one friend and I told about two weeks before she graduated. She was heartbroken for about 5 minutes and then called Mitchell "just to tell that he was single and he's a pig". I withheld information for almost seven and a half weeks and it totally killed me.
3 Comments
Sabatino
2/12/2018 07:38:25 am
This post provides personal and relevant responses to the questions. I offer my condolences over the loss of your grandmother. In response to the reading, I think you give us a thoughtful answer about the family's decision -- how your initial opinion changed a bit when you considered your own experiences as well as when you learned more about the family's culture.
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Jen
2/12/2018 04:48:34 pm
The podcast was interesting this week, and as for my friend, I do believe I made the right decision in holding the information so she could stay on track. I didn't go through the training myself obviously, but when I finally got the chance to actually talk to her, she explained the training required all of her attention so I knew not telling her till later was best. I was a little nervous she wasn't going to be thrilled with me after I told her for not telling her sooner but she let me know that wouldn't have been an easier way since she was pretty much cut off from the outside world. Her graduation was still awesome and she enjoyed her time with her family.
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Andrew Barone
2/13/2018 03:49:58 pm
For the reading I agree with mostly everything you said, also I didn't like the wedding idea either to me it was pretty cruel. Leave a Reply. |