Symbolism in the movie, “The Road Home"

The movie “The Road Home” directed by Yimou Zhang starts out with the son of Ziyi Zhang and Hao Zheng returning home after the death of his father.  His mother wants a very traditional burial service for her husband.  This tradition involves many individuals walking a long distance while carrying the casket back home to the village.  This tradition is rarely celebrated anymore and the son, Honglei Sun is struggling to figure out a way to make it happen.  While planning the arrangements for his father’s funeral, he recalls the story of how his parents met and the movie takes us back through time in a flashback.

Ziyi is a young woman who falls in love with the new village teacher, Hao.  There is a scene when the teacher first arrives in which he and Ziyi lock gazes with each other.  It is at that moment that the viewer gets a sense that this is a love story that is sparked at the first sight of one another. 

One must understand that in the culture and time that this story takes place there is a big separation between men and women.  When the men are working on the school, the women have to stay back by the well where they observe the men and the work they are doing.  The women cook the food for lunch for the men, place it on a table and walk away while they come and get what they want and eat.  Also during this time marriages were more or less arranged.  Women certainly did not get to pick who they fell in love with.  This was all a barrier, a fence if you will, for Ziyi and Hao’s love.

This brings me to the symbol of fences in the movie.  One of the most prominent fences in the movie is the fence around the school.  Men and children were mostly seen with in the confines of this fence while the women were outside it.  Often times Ziyi would make extra trips to the well near the school in hopes of seeing the teacher and maybe even interacting with him.  In contrast, Ziyi would often times follow Hao from a far of distance as he walked some of the school children home.  There was no fence to separate them.  As time went by, she got more nerve to get closer and eventually enough to actually interact with him. 

Another scene where the fence is very symbolic is the fence around Ziyi’s home.  One afternoon it was her and her mother’s turn to host the teacher at their home for lunch.  Ziyi was very excited and made sure to prepare everything just perfect.  After lunch she offered to make some mushroom dumplings for dinner.  Hao had to leave unexpectedly with the mayor of the town.  He stopped by Ziyi’s home to let her know he would not be able to make it for dinner.  She insisted that he stop by before he leaves to take some food on the road for him and they mayor.  All while they are talking this fence separates the two of them.  It is as if no matter how hard they try to acknowledge their love there is some barrier in the way.  It was at this time that Hao gives Ziyi a beautiful barrette. 

This brings us to the second symbol I wanted to discuss; the barrette.  As a child growing up I always had barrettes in my hair.  Usually they were the plastic ones that were in the shape of animals or hearts or something along those lines.  They were always in bright colors.  When I got to about the fourth grade I had given up on those barrettes.  I had grown up and those were too childish for me.  A funny thing ended up happening when I was a junior in high school.  I started to wear those same barrettes again.  It was as if I was on the brink if becoming an adult and I really didn’t want too so I resorted back to something familiar from my childhood. 

The barrette Hao presented to Ziyi was a bit more sophisticated than the plastic ones I used to wear but they represented this transition between being a child to becoming an adult.  She still wore her hair in the braided pigtails just like a young child but by lacing the gift of the barrette in her hair it signified this transition from child to adult.

I have to say this movie and the use of the fence and barrette as symbols kind of hit home.  It got me thinking about how many times I fenced myself in to certain situations in life.  The main one has always been my job.  I hated it but I did it for over ten years.  To be honest, I often thought about what I would do once I graduated and even though I had some ideas I honestly saw myself fenced in to this job because I had seniority or built up vacation time.  After all, it is all I have known for over ten years and I had grown comfortable with it.  I started to think about how many times does being comfortable fence us into situations in our lives that do not make us happy.

Needless to say on September 12 I got notice that my job was being eliminated and November 10^th would be my last day at my job.  Initially I freaked out.  My husband is not working and now I won’t be so there was the whole financial stress that really freaked me out.  But after the dust settled I really thought about it even more.  I graduate this December.  My ten years of service will allow me almost 6 months of my salary starting on November 10^th.  It’s as if the universe aligned up and proceeded to open this gate I never saw and allowed me to see the freedom that laid before me.  I can honestly say I do  not know if I would have left fairly soon after graduation since I was comfortable where I was.  I also know that I would have continued to be miserable and with each passing month it would be harder and harder to open that gate myself.