In one of my German 300 classes, we were shown the film Eat Drink Man Woman directed by Ang Lee. During the film food was used to symbolize many things, especially for the father, Mr Chu.
In the first scene we are introduced to Mr Chu or Lǎo Zhū, the widowed patriarch of a family of 3 daughters. He is a renowned chef in Hong Kong, where he lives with his 3 daughters. Ang Lee decided to use his kitchen to show us who he is as a person in the opening scene where he is peacefully cooking a meal for him and his daughters. He is interrupted while eating his family meal to attend to his busy restaurant which is the source of his stress.
At the restaurant we meet Mr Chu’s best friend ‘Uncle Wen’, who will later in the film get sick and die. Before his death he would help Mr Chu taste his dishes.
Mr Chu needed help tasting because he had lost his taste. He had lost his wife, and then his close friend. These experiences caused him to lose his taste. During his lowest point he would rather drink hot water because he could not taste at all.
Even when he couldnt taste, Mr Chu still enjoyed preparing food for the people he cared about. Instead of using his words, Mr Chu expressed his feelings with the food he would prepare. We see this with the weekly family meals. Preparing lunch boxes for the daughter of Liang Jin-Rong also shows how Mr Chu expresses his emotions with food and cooking.
Falling in love again, as well as opening up with his daughter helped Mr Chu regain his sense of taste. At the end of the story, his sense of taste was the best measurement of his happiness.
