Massan Episode 4

Episode 4: The Memorial Ceremony

-The episode opens up with the extended family gathering to honor the deathday of the Kameyama grandfather. This is the 17th one. All conversation stops when she is introduced and you can actually here birds chirping, its so silent.

-The family gossips about her before the ceremony commence. Some remark on how pretty she is. Others wonder if it is true that all foreigners eat meat only and are violent. Masaharu tells her to ignore them but she turns and introduces herself--making it clear she speaks Japanese and everyone is surprised about this.

-The priest comes in and he tries to introduce Ellie but he looks at her and laughs and says 'I see you brought back a souvenir' LOL I thought it was a witty insult

-The ceremony commences and Masaharu walks her through what to do. She embarrasses herself a few times and then her legs start to get numb. So Masaharu helps her up to walk it off and she falls--onto the priest--and she just greets him and says good afternoon! (I laughed so hard)

-After the ceremony Masaharu tries to get the priest to acknowledge her. At first he seems friendly, but then he tests her by having her use chopsticks, and she can't use them. He says you can't even hope to be accepted if you can't even do this, basically.

-Children playing cause Sumire to drop a Sake bottle, it breaks, and the little girl is hurt. Ellie immediately moves to help, and the boy is sent away but Ellie tells him to apologize and this impresses the priest who remarks that she has heart and that's all she needs to be a good wife. Everyone applauds but Masaharu's mother screams she will never accept her and leaves the room.

-Sitting alone, Ellie is very sad and upset by what was sad. Masaharu watches her and thinks back to his own experiences with her family. We learn that he begged for her hand in marriage and her mother was screaming at him and her Uncle was extremely rude and said that he could never make whiskey because it is a Scottish tradition and he is merely an Asian barbarian. He then literally dragged him out of the house. So he can empathize with her.

-Elsewhere his mother sits alone in a room and cries. I imagine she feels like everyone is against her, and frustrated because she wants to do the right thing and feels cornered.

-The kids come over and start to sing a song that is actually a song she knows. They ask her to sing it in English, and she does, but then the mother comes up and just shuts her down with a look.

What will Ellie do?

So the show continues to highlight some of the issues that Ellie might encounter--like how to use chopsticks. not to surprising. but it also had some really funny parts, for instance when the priest was singing she asked him what he was saying and Masaharu was like I don't actually know just look serious which is something that I think everyone experiences at some point in their life--

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