American Girl (美國女孩) is a slice-of-life drama that captures a short but turbulent period in the life of 13-year-old Fen (Caitlin Fang, 方郁婷), who is suddenly transplanted from Los Angeles to Taipei, where her father works, due to her mother’s cancer treatment.
The much hyped film was made available last week on Netflix after a strong Golden Horse showing last year: Fiona Roan Feng-i (阮鳳儀) won best new director, Fang claimed best new actor while the film won best cinematography and the Audience Choice Award.
The challenges of adapting to a new culture and its school system will resonate strongly with diaspora kids caught between both worlds. The details — from being hit by a teacher over bad test scores, to being called “American” by classmates and wolfing down banana floats at Swensen’s for a taste of home — are trips down memory lane.
Photo courtesy of iFilm
Meanwhile, the 2003 SARS epidemic looms, and the film puts great care into reconstructing the social and cultural atmosphere of Taiwan during that era. The story mirrors Roan’s real-life experiences, drawing from a period in her upbringing and her family’s relationship.
Even though they can speak Mandarin, Fen and her sister Ann encounter difficulties adapting to their new environs while dealing with their frazzled parents. It’s reverse culture shock for Fen, who already had to go through this process when they first moved to the US. She adapted well, becoming a straight-A student with a best friend who shares her passion for horse riding, and desperately wants to return to America. Whether simply going back will fix all her problems is something she has to grapple with.
Their mother Lily (Carena Lam, 林嘉欣) isn’t coping well with her illness, and it’s taking a toll on the family. She frequently brings up her possible death and seeks something to blame it on, while father Huay (Kaiser Chuang, 莊凱勛) is under pressure to provide a better living for his family. He cares for the children and tries to connect with them, but he barely knows them.
Photo courtesy of iFilm
Even though Fen is the main focus, she’s not the only one who is dealing with distress; the entire family is in turmoil as the adults are not well enough to keep their lives entirely together.
Lily and Huay have much to figure out as they’ve been living in separate countries, only reunited under unfortunate circumstances. They aren’t just relegated to the background as the protagonist finds her way; they’re given depth as flawed, complex characters, providing some genuinely happy moments for their kids during this unhappy time.
Huay and surprisingly mature Ann play vital roles too as they cope in their own ways, but Fen and Lily’s temperamental conflict is what makes the film.
Most of Fen’s frustrations are directed toward her mother, and she lashes out whenever Lily speaks about dying. While Fang won the acting award, Lam does a solid job portraying Lily, who isn’t the most sympathetic character. She resents her illness and her circumstances, especially Fen’s constant complaining about Taiwan and acting out. The two do share some poignant conversations that speak to gender roles in Asia, such as Lily wanting to be reborn as a man in the next life.
These nuances add much to the film, keeping it from becoming another feel-good, melodramatic, coming-of-age movie with a big message and teary reconciliation.
In fact, there aren’t really any major transformations or revelations in the movie. Life just goes on.
Instead of harping on the obvious, Roan seeks more to explore the intricate mother-daughter relationship — especially in Asian society — and make sense of the messy yet often-unspoken emotions and ties that ultimately bind a family together.
July 1 to July 7 Huang Ching-an (黃慶安) couldn’t help but notice Imelita Masongsong during a company party in the Philippines. With paler skin and more East Asian features, she did not look like the other locals. On top of his job duties, Huang had another mission in the country, given by his mother: to track down his cousin, who was deployed to the Philippines by the Japanese during World War II and never returned. Although it had been more than three decades, the family was still hoping to find him. Perhaps Imelita could provide some clues. Huang never found the cousin;
Once again, we are listening to the government talk about bringing in foreign workers to help local manufacturing. Speaking at an investment summit in Washington DC, the Minister of Economic Affairs, J.W. Kuo (郭智輝), said that the nation must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers for high end manufacturing by 2040 to offset the falling population. That’s roughly 15 years from now. Using the lower number, Taiwan would have to import over 25,000 foreigners a year for these positions to reach that goal. The government has no idea what this sounds like to outsiders and to foreigners already living here.
Lines on a map once meant little to India’s Tibetan herders of the high Himalayas, expertly guiding their goats through even the harshest winters to pastures on age-old seasonal routes. That stopped in 2020, after troops from nuclear-armed rivals India and China clashed in bitter hand-to-hand combat in the contested high-altitude border lands of Ladakh. Swaths of grazing lands became demilitarized “buffer zones” to keep rival forces apart. For 57-year-old herder Morup Namgyal, like thousands of other semi-nomadic goat and yak herders from the Changpa pastoralist people, it meant traditional lands were closed off. “The Indian army stops us from going there,” Namgyal said,
A tourist plaque outside the Chenghuang Temple (都城隍廟) lists it as one of the “Top 100 Religious Scenes in Taiwan.” It is easy to see why when you step inside the Main Hall to be confronted with what amounts to an imperial stamp of approval — a dragon-framed, golden protection board gifted to the temple by the Guangxu Emperor that reads, “Protected by Guardians.” Some say the plaque was given to the temple after local prayers to the City God (城隍爺) miraculously ended a drought. Another version of events tells of how the emperor’s son was lost at sea and rescued