“Flame” and Our Society Today

Overall, I thought “Flame” was an interesting story with similarities and differences to our society today. In both the story and our society, we tend to want to present ourselves in a better light. This is seen through social media and pop culture. People use photoshop on both their social media and in pictures of celebrities and also dress nicer or in different outfits for different situations. In “Flame”, Nimei wanted to present herself and her family as doing better than they were actually doing through planning for her husband to get a promotion that was influenced by the director, who was also her patient, decorating her house, and losing weight before Hsu Peng, her former “flame” had come to visit. “Flame” is different from our society today because in the United States it is not common for people to be involved in arranged marriages. Nimei had originally wanted to marry Hsu Peng, but her mother had told her no because he could not support their family. Nimei’s mother and father we apart of an arranged marriage and she had thought that Nimei should be in a relationship that could support the two of them after Nimei’s father had died. Today in the United States, arranged marriages are not common. Although we do not have arranged marriages, we do have blind dates and online dating. Both of which two people go into a situation where they do not necessarily know everything about the other person, but they are not required to marry this person, or even go on a second date with them. Overall, I enjoyed reading this story and I could understand how revenge, or the desire for revenge could build over a long period of time, even in a different culture, as there are not many differences between the setting of “Flame” and our society today.