WET SEASON

CP

Wei Lun, a KongFu-loving student, enters and adds some hormone scent to Ling's gray and melancholy life. Wei Lun was the few and the only student who placed importance on Mandarin and came to Ling's office hours almost every time. Wei Lun's parents are occupied with their business, and Wei Lun often lives alone. What happens when two isolated magnets meet? They come closer and closer until they touch. The relationship between Ling and Wei Lun gradually reached the moral boundary.

A pearl in Southeast Asia and a representation of a modern finance center, Singapore, has been described almost as a utopia. It is a country of modernity and is governed by law. In the movie *Wet Seasons*, a high school Chinese teacher, Ling, who moved from Malaysia to Singapore for marriage, lives a middle-class life. If Singapore were as ideal as it was broadcasted, Ling would live a well-pleasing life. Unfortunately, advertisements always differ from the actual product, and so does Singapore. Ling, a woman struggling with a broken marriage, societal indifference towards her profession, and the responsibility of caring for her father-in-law, represents the harsh reality of many in Singapore. Time-worn white light of food courts cannot be covered with the modern skyscrapers' warm yellowish color. For many people in Singapore, life is gray and white.

While the movie focuses little on the moral judgments of the illicit relationship between Wei Lun and Ling, it portrays the life of a heroine in Southeast Asia—ordinary yet resilient—and everyone takes their resilience for granted. Ling, a woman who sees her husband cheating on her and bringing his lover to his father's funeral, and her husband's siblings discuss whether they should kick Ling and her husband out of their apartments, which they only let Ling live with because she is taking care of their father. Ling, despite all this, remains indifferent. This indifference—a skill she has learned to navigate the hardships of life—is a testament to her resilience in the face of societal expectations.

Heavy Rains, Umbrella, and Wet Seasons in East Asian Society

East Asia and Southeast Asia are regions heavily impacted by Confucian culture. Being born in Confucian culture-based societies comes with duties to fulfill and social norms to follow. Ling carries the duty of caring for her father-in-law, carrying on the family line, and being a teacher. In modern societies, it is easier for men to escape from their family duties, such as caring for older people, because they are the breadwinners of their house. However, nowadays women also take responsibility for working while they must take over the family duties left over by the men. In Asian societies, this phenomenon is seen the most because the Confucian culture attached women to the family.

These Confucian-based social norms aren't the umbrella for Asians. They are the raindrops that consistently drop on the umbrella, the threshold for the pressure of norms of many people. Rains are light: how could any single raindrop be heavy? But at one moment, the umbrella is too heavy to hold because water drops will accumulate, and people under the umbrella will break some social norms as the rain begins to sweep through the hole of the umbrella, like how Ling silently accepts her illicit relationship with Wei Lun. To any culture's standard, such a relationship is inappropriate, but it is not until that point that the rain begins to stop.

Asians are always tied with the tags of being introverted and reserved. Though defining culture with a definitive word is very obtrusive, Confucian culture is reserved. For example, probably more of a personal issue, I cannot say "I love you" comfortably to any of my relatives. We live in the rain. The rain covers most of the words we want to say. We are used to hiding our emotions. Even in open-minded, progressive international schools, talkative students are not as common as in Western classrooms. Being inexpressive through communication often causes many Asians to struggle in their relationships, within and outside of their family.

For some Asians, the wet seasons begin many years before birth. Of course, Asians can be expressive, bright, and direct—anyone of any ethnicity can be. However, the raindrops, which consist of dust from Confucian culture and many social and cultural factors, unavoidably shaped our characters. These social conventions, like rain in the summer of Guangdong, are making the society tired.

Ling was discharged from her job, and Wei Lun's phone, which had many photos of her, was discovered. For Wei Lun, the relationship is love. For Ling, it could not be simply characterized as love. It is a mixture of affection between family members, the pulse that has long disappeared in her life, and empathy for someone who also lacks care from his family. In the end, the wet season ends as Ling returns to her home in Malaysia. Will the wet and damp season ever end permanently? It would come again, but for now, Ling could finally rest from the heavy rain.