Dishonor on Me, My Cow, and My Whole Family
By: Jessica Chen
Tags: Cross Cultural Thinking, Eastern Culture, Mulan, Marriage, Asian American

A Firsthand Look Inside the Eastern Perspective of Honor

Mulan is one of my favorite Disney movies. I have been singing the soundtrack and quoting Mushu the dragon since I can remember. I was always so intrigued by the mature themes in the movie. One of my favorite scenes in all of cinema is the scene where Mulan ties the weights around her arms, tight, and swings them so they wrap around the pole. You see her struggling, sweating, using her legs to boost her up the mammoth pole, slipping down a bit, then pulling herself up just a little more. Until, as the sun rises, she finally reaches the top. And from that moment, you know she will be able to accomplish her goal of protecting her father and bringing honor to her family.

One of the main themes in the movie is just that. Honor. You hear the word over and over in the characters’ lines.

Right in the beginning of the movie, Mulan is pressured by everyone in her family to “Bring them honor” when she visits the matchmaker.

There is an entire song entitled “Bring honor to us all.”

Her meeting with the matchmaker doesn’t go well and Mulan is rushed out, the matchmaker screaming “You will NEVER bring your family honor!”

As a soldier comes to the house and informs Mulan’s father that he is being summoned to fight in the army, Mulan boldly interjects, asking if he can be exempt. With disappointed eyes he looks at her and says “Mulan…you dishonor me…”

Later in the movie, you hear Mushu yelling at Mulan the infamous line “Dishonor! Dishonor on your whole family! Dishonor on you, dishonor on your cow!”

The list goes on.

This concept of honor is a bit more complex than how we may think of it in the Western world. Some of the words that may come to mind for Westerners are respect, appreciate, or esteem. You may picture an award winner being ‘honored’ at a ceremony. But it is hard for a Western person to comprehend the fullest meaning of the word in the way that it is used and meant in the Eastern world. In Mulan, and in present day Eastern countries, honor has a lot to do with submitting to your authorities, specifically parents.

There is a deep and all encompassing acceptance that your parents hold a special place of ultimate authority over all aspects of your life. From day to day things like what and when you eat, to significant things like religious beliefs or the weight of academics, your parents decide it all for you.

And you don’t really have a say. Where this starts to differ from Western culture is that this acceptance carries through childhood and into adulthood. Even well into adulthood, the understanding between children and parents remains the same:

To honor me, you must obey me and do what I think is best. Always.

This made for an uncomfortable adjustment when I, a basic white girl, began interacting with my Taiwanese husband’s parents as we were dating. My husband was born in Taiwan but moved to America when he was three, so he has grown up here. However, his home environment and relationship with his parents is still very much Taiwanese.

As we approached the first meeting with his parents, I felt a little nervous. But Tim kept telling me to be myself and everything would turn out alright. After all, I had lived in China before. I thought I knew a little something about what to expect when interacting with them. I thought I knew, generally at least, what they would expect of me and how our relationship would play out in the beginning. Unfortunately, I could not have been farther from the truth. Tim and I had no idea what was in store for us. The next two years were grueling. And while it did force me to develop a long suffering love for both Tim and his mother, I would not wish those complicated months on anyone.

Many times in the thick of things, I kept asking myself why. Why is she being like this? Why is she saying such false things about me when she doesn’t even know me? Why is Tim leaning towards her more than me? Why does she so vehemently reject all of my attempts, letters, and gifts trying to connect with her? Why does Tim keep saying we have to wait longer to move forward with our relationship? And I would try to empathize with his mom as much as I could. That did help. But every time we seemed to make progress, it would eventually circle back around to the same place.

After a while, Tim and I both realized what the root of it was.

Tim’s parents, specifically his mom, felt deeply dishonored by Tim.

His mother had expressed her wishes that he would marry a Taiwanese woman for his whole life. I remember when I first met him, I asked if he would ever date a white girl. His answer was a little surprising. I assumed since he had grown up in America, his response would be “Sure! Why not?” Instead he said it wouldn’t be his first preference. He wasn’t entirely opposed, but he couldn’t really see himself marrying a white woman. He knows his parents would prefer a Taiwanese woman so that is what he thinks would suit him best. I was a little disheartened by this answer since I had already started developing an interest in him.

When Tim and I started dating, his mom pushed back hard, insisting that we were only friends the first few months of our relationship. But when he said he was flying back to America to see them and flying me there as well for a meet up, reality began to set in. The first few days of the trip were civil. But by the fifth evening, his mom was broken down in tears, telling him that she did not accept our relationship and Tim was breaking her heart by pursuing me.

Tim had ventured into a strange territory for Asians and Asian Americans alike. A landscape of quicksand and unfamiliar paths that seemingly only led to sleepless nights and withered confidence. Because…he had begun a regular habit of making decisions explicitly against his parents’ wishes. By the time we got married he had done things they forcefully forbid him to do. He was making his way down the rocky path of disobedience. And hence, dishonor.

We had to keep asking ourselves “How can we love and honor your parents without obliging to their unrealistic or unfair demands? Without obeying everything they tell you to do?” But it didn’t seem possible. You can’t have honor without perfect obedience. The whole season was very jarring for me because, well, most American families just aren’t so intense. In my mind, respecting them was being willing to sit down and have thoughtful, meaningful conversations about things we disagree on and maybe come to some compromises. Respecting and appreciating them, and them respecting us as adults, was listening to their concerns, giving up some preferences, working with them as much as possible, but with an underlying understanding that if we still don’t agree on some things, it is ok. And that doesn’t mean that we don’t care about them or their desires for us. It just means that ultimately, they are not the final say.

That concept didn’t make sense in my future in laws’ minds. They reeled harder against us every time Tim made a decision they didn’t agree with, every time we took a step closer to marriage. Even when they briefly entertained the idea of us getting married, they communicated and expected pretty specific demands to be met and all within their timeline. If we challenged anything or suggested a different timeline, Tim would be met with weeks of dramatic texts and audio messages from his mom saying that he had changed, he never used to disobey like this, he never used to hurt her so much.

But she didn’t see how utterly grieved he was every time he got a text or call from her. How much it burdened him to consistently do what he knew they didn’t want. He tried every way he could think of to try and reason with them, help them along, give them more time, do things in a way they would perceive as honoring. But no matter how much love and time and explanation and mediation he poured out, if the result was still him doing what he felt was best instead of what they wanted, it just wasn’t good enough. And it would never be seen as honorable by his parents.

Because of that inseparable link between honor and obedience.

It was a long and tear stained road, but by God’s grace, we did eventually make peace with his parents and tie the knot.

Today, things with my in laws are going surprisingly well.

Mulan went against her parents wishes, in effect dishonoring them, because she believed that protecting her father was more honoring than perfect obedience. At the time, it was very much to the behest of her parents. At the end of the movie, Mulan returns home with gifts for her father from the emperor. She hands them to him and says they’re gifts to honor the Fa family. Surprisingly, Fa Zhou throws the items to the ground and says “The greatest gift and honor, is having you for a daughter.”

In Mulan’s case, I think most people would agree that she DID honor her parents by sacrificing her freedom and potentially her life to take her father’s place.

So even though acts of honor can and will be perceived differently by people from different cultures, the best thing we can do is try to understand each other’s hearts, motivations, and hesitations.

If I had just assumed my future in laws were clingy and didn’t understand boundaries, I never would have learned so much about them and forged on to a place of peace between us. So ask questions. Ask more questions. And even if you end up at different conclusions, recognize and appreciate the value that person and their culture bring to the world.