What You Don’t Know by Lulu Wang is a podcast in which Lulu tells the story of her grandmother who is diagnosed with terminal cancer but is not aware of the diagnosis. Her family makes a decision to not tell her grandmother hoping to protect her from emotional and psychological suffering and to preserve her health. In the beginning of the story I thought the decision seemed wrong and unfair to the grandmother because I felt that it was her right to know about her own health. As I heard more of the story and listened to the family members justification, my opinion began to change. Lulu comes from a traditional Chinese family and her parents, aunts and uncles maintain many customary beliefs and morals from their home country. Lulu’s mother reveals to her that when Lulu's grandfather was sick, the grandmother prevented him from knowing the truth in the same belief. I think it was difficult for Lulu to understand because she has spent most of her life exposed to different ideals living in the United States. Lulu talks about an old Chinese belief called “Chongxi” which means that you can wash away a misfortune with joy. I would loosely translate this concept to mean “out of site, out of mind” in American culture. By keeping the truth from her grandmother, they are protecting and prolonging her health and happiness. The whole family puts a great amount of effort into staging a fake wedding as an excuse for each family member to be with the grandmother one last time. In retrospect these efforts are a testament to the strength of this family and the amount of respect that they feel for their matriarch. I believe that they blocked the emotional burden from the grandmother and instead carried it with themselves in order to protect her. Towards the end of the story, Lulu explains that her grandmother continued to live in good health for three years, unaware of the three-month diagnosis that she had been given. Maybe their actions had indeed had a profound effect? About one month ago I began my workday by driving a company truck to a job location. The truck was new and it was emphasized by management that drivers needed to ensure that the trucks weren’t being recklessly damaged during daily operations as much of our older equipment had been. The truck that I am driving is equipped large side view mirrors designed to give better visibility when towing a trailer. These mirrors extend much further away from the body than a normal passenger car. I proceed to drive under a bridge at the same time as an oncoming truck. Upon passing each other, I hear a loud crash and know immediately what had happened, our mirrors had collided with each other. I exit from under the bridge and look at the driver side mirroring disbeleif to find that the plastic housing and small convex mirror have been shattered but the largest and most important mirror was still intact. The other truck had continued driving until it was out of sight. A feeling of panic set in because I knew that management would be disappointed with the situation. I quickly sorted through my options and came to the conclusion that I could either quietly park the truck at the end of the day without saying anything and no one would know what happened or I could take direct responsibility of the situation and admit to my mistake. I spent the rest of the day contemplating my decision. At the end of the workday when I arrived back the office, I spontaneously decided to explain our fleet maintenance manager what had happened and showed him the damage. He was understanding of the situation and ensured me that it would be repaired easily and that it wasn’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. I felt relieved after explaining myself and was freed from a sense of guilt. I believe that deep down I would have revealed the truth about the situation no matter what. It seemed as though my subconscious was telling me to make the right choice the whole time and the final act of confessing felt more like an instinctive reaction than a troublesome task.
4 Comments
Sabatino
2/13/2018 09:34:09 am
Thanks for sharing this post. In this post, you
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Ali
2/13/2018 03:46:19 pm
That situation you were in was inspires me to be more honest. I can see as a lesson that honesty sets you free. I'm glad everything worked out too.
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2/13/2018 03:46:42 pm
I remember one time a former boss of mine asked me to move his brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT and when I moved it, I scraped the underside of his front bumper on one of those concrete parking curbs. I felt terrible about it but had to say something in the end to clear my conscience. Luckily we were close enough at the time that he didn't really care and was actually planning to get rid of it soon. It still feels bad having to tell the truth sometimes but definitely better than keeping it a secret!
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Rebecca Stevens
2/13/2018 03:52:07 pm
I enjoyed reading your response to the first question, you explained your opinion in a clear and logical way. I liked hearing your stance and your reasoning behind it. Also, I agree with and applaud your choice to be honest with the maintenance manager, because accidents happen and it's always better to be truthful than try to cover up a lie.
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