Traditional Values in Modern Chinese Society
             The directors in Beijing Bicycle, Not One Less, and Shower, deal with the significance and relationship of traditional values in a post-Socialist Chinese free-market economy and modern society through dramatic confrontations between rural and urban entities. Each director has his own way of manifesting this relationship through different means. In Beijing Bicycle, the collision between urban and rural worlds takes place through a bicycle. Wang Xiaoshuai uses a bicycle to illustrate a chaotic relationship between tradition and modernity when rural and urban identities collide. In Not One Less director Zhang Yimou brings traditional values to a modern setting by displacing a rural girl in an urban city. Through the collision of the rural character in the urban setting, Zhang exemplifies a modern society which exploits traditional values and rural lifestyle. Finally, the confrontation of rural and urban entities takes place through the relationship of modern and traditional characters in Shower. The director of Shower, Zhang Yang shows the emptiness of modernity without traditional values and the collision of father and son in this film suggests that traditional values are slowly being displaced by modern ideals.
             Material possessions in Beijing Bicycle create a collision between rural traditional and urban modern values. The significance of particular material possessions differ between individuals of rural and urban backgrounds. In the film the differences in the value of a bicycle for different individuals vary in accordance to necessity and accessibility. Objects seemingly mundane in urban culture prove luxurious to individuals from the countryside. The initial frames following the opening credits and introduction in Beijing Bicycle introduce jam-packed streets lined with bicycles in Beijing. These frames depict a prosperous bicycle industry where bicycles are far from scarce...