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There is a few different ways I could improve my health this year. For example I

could utilize the gym at school or I could actually sign up at a gym closer to my home. I could also go to the park a few days out of the week and walk for thirty minutes or so. Something that would help greatly with becoming more healthy is I could stop eating fast food and junk food and instead start eating more salads, fruits, and vegetables, and also start to drink more water. Additionally I could stop eating late at night when I get home from work and I could start to simply eat the three times a day and if I want a snack make it a healthy snack.

If I were to make these changes I could benefit a lot because, I would have a healthier heart, lower risk of high blood pressure and diabetes and every other sickness that comes along with being overweight. Also I would feel better about myself emotionally, and physically. I would have a high self-esteem and

physically look better. I would have better mental health and over all feel fantastic about myself.

Some barriers that make it difficult for me to actually put these actions into play are I am full time student which means; more papers, as well as more reading then part time students. Also I am a full time employee, which means; working 40+ hours a week. If I’m not at work I am at school and vice versa. It is already difficult enough to make time to study so, trying to make time to work out would be impossible for me. Buying healthier is expensive, although I work I like

everyone else have bills of my own to pay. Changing my eating habits is a little difficult at this time.

The most recent pyramid had six vertical strips that represented the six food

groups we should be eating, along with a flight of stairs, to show us that we need to exercise with eating well. The food plate is an everyday plate divided into four sections, and a side of dairy intake we should be taking. The food pyramid doesn’t show how much of each food group we should be eating; it just shows what we should eat. I would use the food plate to remind me every day what I should be eating.

I think the best model for me would be Transtheroritical model. I am already in the preparation stage. I am also ready to start my commitment to a better healthier lifestyle like the H.B.M. I know that I will have to sacrifice but, I know that in the end the benefits of me changing my behavior will be well worth it.

Romulus, My Father and Gran Torino

Experiences that promote belonging in one’s life are fluid and change with the influence of the environment and people we interact with. Raimond Gaita’s memoir of the migrant experience Romulus, My Father (1998) explores the significance of family ties, particularly within a foreign setting. Clint Eastwood’s 2008 film Gran Torino deals with a man who is unable to let go of past mono-cultural America and the adverse affect his prejudice has on personal relationships. Both texts portray belonging as the interplay between the environment and the influence of social interactions.

By refusing to let go of past cultural ideals, individuals reject opportunities to integrate into new environments. In the memoir, the clash between the influence of Romulus’ Romanian culture and the pressure to be accepted into 1950’s Australia is explored. Romulus, still deeply attached to his cultural roots, views Australia through “European eyes” and only sees the “barren landscape”. “Barren” has connotations of emptiness and thus is a metaphor for Romulus’ sense of isolation in his foreign setting. Christina, Romulus’ tumultuous wife, has a similar outlook as the “red gum”, a uniquely Australian tree, becomes a symbol for her “desolation”, thus representing her inability to adjust to Australian customs. The two individuals’ failure to interact with their new environment results in their feeling of being “Othered” in the community. In contrast, extensive visual sensory imagery represents Raimond’s complete acceptance of Australia’s “unique beauty”. Raimond has adjusted to his new environment by widening his Romanian perspective to accept the Australian way of life, allowing himself a sense of belonging to place. Despite the positive influence of integrating into local community, the motif of foreign language used to highlight Raimond’s gradual loss of cultural heritage as he “forgets his first Romanian word”. Thus, the memoir expresses that whilst embracement of change is essential to belonging in a new environment, sacrifice of previous roots is inevitable.

The impact of generational barriers results in a lack of understanding and acceptance between individuals from different social contexts, limiting interactions which can promote a sense of familial belonging. In Gran Torino, Walt Kowalski, due to his traumatic experience in the Korean War, strongly believes in patriotism and apparently bitter towards the rapidly diluting monoculturalism of America. Walt’s dismissive attitude towards foreign ethnicity is evident through his sarcastic tone “would I kill ya to buy America?” in regards to his son’s Japanese car. A close up shot of the Toyota logo contrasts with Walt’s prized, all-American Ford Gran Torino, a symbol for traditional America. Multiple long shots with diagetic sounds of Walt polishing his car represent his obsessive efforts to keep it in mint condition, a metaphor for his battle against societal change. His refusal for compromise results in a lack of familial connection in his life. Walt’s grudging remark about his “spoilt rotten family” alludes to the materialistic values of modern America, which directly contrasts with his own traditional values of honestly and a lack of self indulgence. By continuously comparing the past with present, Walt widens the generational gap between him and his family, building an unwavering intolerance which results in a limitation of interactions that promote belonging. Family ties can enrich our sense of belonging by providing individual identity and basis on how to interact with others.

In Romulus My Father, Romulus offers Raimond a stable family environment, allowing him to experience the emotional security of a steady relationship. Romulus’ sense of care is expressed through the accumulation of parental duties “he washed my clothes, made my meals”. Through his actions, Romulus gives Raimond an external connection allowing him to feel loved and thus, enriching his sense of familial belonging. The hyphenisation in “[Romulus’] desire -need- for Raimond to grow up decently” stresses the word “need”, offering an urgent tone the express great paternal commitment in their relationship. This notion of filial bonds is also evident in Gran Torino, through the interactions between Thao, a Hmong boy with a migrant background, and Walt. Walt refers to Thao with the colloquial reference “the pussy boy I’m trying to man up”, when introducing him to his Italian barber friend. Despite the derogatory terminology, the jargon suggests underlying affection. Romulus and Walt become role models and symbolize the need for at least one strong relationship to aid one’s search in identity, especially when feeling displaced in society.

When there is a lack of social and moral understanding between family members, this sense of understanding can be provided by others. In Gran Torino, Walt is unable to relate to his immediate family due to a difference in values. The opening scene is set at a funeral, symbolizing loss and is a symbol for Walt’s lack of connections. The nonchalant attitudes of his family are portrayed through their inappropriately vivid colour palette and juxtaposes with Walt’s grim facial expression, further illuminating their lack of common ground. Due to their differences, the Kowalski family is unable to accept and influence each other to promote belonging. On the surface, Walt’s language seems to isolate him from the Hmong neighbours due to the blatantly racist attitude evident in his offense slang “goddamn gooks”. Walt’s racism works as a barrier from possible connections within his community as he purposely withdraws from the multicultural society.

However, he reveals his respect for the Hmongs by contrasting their “hard working values” with his own “spoilt-rotten” family, foreshadowing his inevitable acceptance of the migrant family. This hyperbolic reference to the people he should be connected with expresses Walt’s sense of dislocation in his environment. Walt’s changing attitudes is further highlighted through the change of camera angles. Prior to his acceptance of the Hmongs, low camera angles represented his sense of individual superiority. However, a high angle shot with shadowed lighting following his relationship with Thao expresses Walt’s willing loss of pride and power as he sacrifices his life to ensure the safety of “new friends”. His selfless nature is comparable to the triple utterance of Romulus’ values “loyalty, trust and mutual respect”. Experiences which influences belonging in our lives are not only found in family but can be found in the community through compromise and understanding of others.

Individual’s experience’s in life mould identities which allow strong bonds with others and the places we live in. The interplay between environment and situations forced between family and the community is evident in both Raimond Gaita’s memoir Romulus My Father and Clint Eastwood’s film Gran Torino. Both texts successfully explore the powerful influence external forces have on one’s sense of belonging.

“Remittance Man” paragraph.

Superficial relationships in society and with its individuals can limit a deeper sense of belonging, resulting in the need to discover personal interactions elsewhere. In poem

“Remittance Man”, Wright emphasises the idea the not belonging to original communities can be beneficial through the unnamed man’s search for new experiences and his eventual discovery of spiritual connections in Australia. The triple utterance of negative descriptions in the opening line “spendthrift, disinherited and graceless” alludes to the man’s poor reputation and his absence of strong connections with his family. The symbolic “pheasant- shooting” and “the aunts in the close” represent the typical social claustrophobia of the early 20th century English upper class individuals which restricted further interactions with the world around them. The optimistic attitude “took to the life dropped easily out of knowledge” suggests that the man’s banishment from England is his “track to escape” from the suffocating rules and regulations of the tense society. Dissimilar to Romulus’ unwillingness to embrace the Australian environment with its “skeletal trees”, the accumulation of sensory imagery and synaesthesia “blue blowing smoke…red blowing dust…swinging shadow trees” highlight the remittance man’s belonging to the Australian environment, a metaphor for his newfound sense of place and spiritual relationship with his new home. The negative connotations in the anonymous description of the “pale stalk of a wench” juxtaposes with the use of proper noun and intimate tone in “black Mary’s eyes”, contrasting the previous isolated relationships with the intimate romance the man has found in Australia. The hyperbolic personification of Australia “closed its magnificence finally around his bones” offers a mood of finality and accomplishment, validating Australia.

Would you be able to An American drama film directed and produced by Clint Eastwood which has gained recognition worldwide particularly because of Clintwood’s appealing directing style. It was recognized by the American Drama Institute as one of the Ten Best Films of 2008 and featured for the very first time the writer Nick Schenk who later won laurels for his script. Clint Eastwood demonstrates, through Mr. Walt, is that if your past negatively affects your life and they way you see things then its best to let go from it and start a new beginning. An intimate film told with great humor, Gran Torino is a cinematic masterpiece. This film succeeds in its development in portraying the aspects involving multicultural communications and the bond formed by people from two extremely different generations.

Mr. Walt is portrayed as an arrogant racist Korean War veteran with his prized possession, a Gran Torino who lives in a neighborhood filled with gangs and crimes. It is clearly shown in the beginning that his children did not have much love to give him and wanted to send him to an old age home. Therefore, he prefers not to talk to them. He hates the fact that the neighborhood was filled with Hmong people. The state worsens when Thao his young Hmong neighbor falls into the wrong company of his cousin brother and tries to steal the most precious item in Mr. Walts life, the Torino. But things start to change when he mistakenly saves Thao’s life who was forcefully being taken away by his cousin to do unacceptable things which he had rejected to do after realizing that stealing Mr. Walt’s car was just wrong. Mr. Walt was just trying to get the gang away from his lawn and had no intensions of saving a life. Sue, Thaos sister, is a wise young girl and tries to converse with him. But the guilt of the Korean War pulls him aback. It gets better when he progressively overcomes this guilt by giving Sue a chance to introduce the Hmong culture by having lunch in her house. Mr. Walt also mingles with Thao and as the film progresses Thao is seen doing something very ironic, cleaning the Gran Torino, the same car he had tried to steal. The movie takes a sudden shift in gears when the cousin randomly fires a couple of bullets on Thaos house and then rapes Sue. Seeing this Thao gets hungry for revenge and blood but Mr. Walt tells him to have patience and that it’s best to have a plan. Little did Thao know that Mr. Walt’s plan was to leave Thao behind and face the gang in front of the whole neighborhood without a gun. Mr. Walt gave them the unexpected by showing up with a gun. Which lead to the climax scene, his death. The film thus, starts with a funeral and ends with a funeral.

The theme of the film highlights the relationship between the main characters even with the huge generation gap where Mr. Walt seems to be as old as 70 and Sue and Thao fall in the 15-25 age categories. This huge generation gap was the main reason why Mr Walt was able to make friends. He was never able to communicate with people his own age like the old grandma sitting in the porch. One funny instance where this was clearly visible when Mr. Walt steps on his lawn and comments on the woman whilst spitting out something from his mouth, the old grandma in return says “Why does this American man still live here when everybody else has left” and spits a huge amount of some sort of tea from her mouth showing that she hates him more than he does.

We can also relate such experience in our lives. Haven’t we all had great time mingling with our grandparents?

The movie creates a racial atmosphere from the beginning. As we go through, we see that with people like Walt it becomes very hard for expatriates like the Hmong people to live in the country peacefully, the reason being Walt’s experience in the Korean War where he killed a number of Hmong people. His guilt keeps him from being open minded and stops him from mingling with his Hmong neighbors. For instance, when Mr. Walt tells Sue that “You should be hanging out with your own people, Hmong people”. The question here is why can’t Sue hang out with an American guy? Whats wrong with that?

In conclusion,

Have you given your dad or your grandfather the love he deserves?

The movie “Gran Torino” directed by and starring Clint Eastwood can best be seen as a

study of how one man learns to let go of his prejudices and find peace and happiness within him.

Clint Eastwood’s character Walt Kowalski is introduced as a cantankerous and miserable

newly widowed man who has emotionally isolated himself from his family who in turn show little to no respect for him and are only looking forward to sending him away to a retirement village so they can inherit his personal belongings. He is also haunted by the memories of something that he was not ordered to do when he served in the Korean War that has left him with deep feelings of self-hatred and guilt and because of this, he uses very racist language toward his new neighbors because they are of Asian descent, more specifically Hmong. Despite the racist language he uses, he is not necessarily racist himself partially because of his self-hatred and that he does have a group of friends and they use racist language to each other all the time, albeit in a sarcastic manner.

His prejudice against his neighbors starts to break down when he unwittingly rescues their son Thao from his older cousin, who happens to be in a gang that has been pressuring Thao for some time. After that night, his neighbors start leaving flowers and food on his doorstep as a sign of respect and gratitude. Walt however refuses the tributes at first because of his prejudice and also because Thao tried to steal his most prized possession, his Ford Grand Torino, in an attempt to get initiated into his older cousin’s gang.

Later on, he gains respect for Thao’s sister Sue after he pulled a gun on black gang members who were harassing her. This also shows that he is not necessarily racist because, if he actually were racist, he would have driven past the incident. She later invites him to a party at her house on his birthday where he begins interacting with her family and starts to develop a genuine interest in learning more about her family’s culture and customary traditions, even though he unintentionally performed some gestures that her family considered offensive. He even has the family’s shaman read him. It is here that the shaman tells Walt that people have no respect for him, he is not happy, and not at peace.

As penance for trying to steal Walt’s Grand Torino, Thao’s family sends him away to do small tasks for Walt and the rest of his neighbors. During this time, the two begin to form a mutual respect for one another with Walt beginning to become impressed with how hard Thao works. He soon helps Thao get a job at a construction site and gives Thao dating advice, which subsequently keeps him from going down the wrong path.

Throughout the film, Walt occasionally coughs up blood as a result of being a chronic smoker. This is something that he tries to hide from his family and his neighbors even though Thao eventually finds out.

One night, Thao’s cousin’s gang open fire at Thao’s house, kidnaps Sue, and rape her.

Walt decides to take down the gang himself even though Thao is persistent to let him help. It is here that we learn Walt shot and killed an enemy soldier who was trying to surrender and he doesn’t want Thao to live through the guilt he’s been living through. He then goes through his own rites, which include a bath, a fitted suit, and he even goes to Confession, which is something he’s always hated to do.

He then pulls up to the gang’s house and starts to berate them for all of the crimes they’ve committed. He then appears to be reaching for a gun so the gang fires several shots at him, killing him. In fact, he had actually been reaching for a lighter he had since he was in the Korean War. If Walt had still had his prejudices, he would have killed the gang, but in this scenario, we see that he is a changed man and he sacrificed himself to protect Thao, his family, and his future. After Walt’s funeral, we learn that because of his family’s selfish ways, he has not left them anything in his will. He left his house to the church and the Grand Torino to Thao on the grounds that he must not modify it in anyway.

In conclusion, even though Walt Kowalski appeared to hate everyone around him, deep inside, he had actually hated himself. Throughout the film, Walt Kowalski over came his

prejudices and learned to find peace and happiness within him and to respect other people no matter what ethnic background they might come from.

Walt Kowalski, a disgruntled, grumpy, and prejudiced widower holds contempt for his

children as well as for his neighbors. After Thao tries to steal Walt’s mint-condition 1972 Gran Torino as a way of being initiated into his cousin’s gang, Walt finds himself on the path to cleaning up the neighborhood as well as its youth. Gran Torino exemplifies intercultural conflict, the development of empathy between Walt and his neighbors, as well as great differences in the sociorelational context of Walt and his family versus his neighbors’ relationships.

According to Neuliep, intercultural conflict is defined as the implicit or explicit emotional struggle between persons of different cultural communities over perceived or actual incompatibility of cultural ideologies and values, situational norms, goals, face-orientations, scarce resources, styles/processes, and/or outcomes in a face-to-face (or mediated) context within a sociohistorical embedded system. Gran Torino would be a prime example of intercultural conflict exhibited by one cultural group to another. Since Walt despises his neighbors only due to their race, it shows how intercultural conflict is still relevant today. I believe the type of conflict would be the intermediary level of intercultural conflict because there are observable differences between Walt’s family culture and the Hmong culture. One major difference is the language barrier between the older Hmong members and Walt. Sue and Thao have to act as a translator between Walt and their older relatives. Walt also doesn’t understand the Hmong tradition of bringing food and gifts as a thank you for protection of their friends and family members. Although Walt does finally accept the gifts and friendship of his neighbors, the relationship we see between them in the beginning of the movie is a prime example of intermediary intercultural

conflict.

When we first see Walt in Gran Torino, there is no way we would every associate him

with a term like empathy. Quite frankly, the amount of racial slurs and derogatory language he

uses in the beginning of the movie made me loathe his character. However, this changed once he finally saw the light, no pun intended. During the exposition of the movie we see Walt as being a very unhappy elderly man. He is not close with his kids or their families and he hates the way the neighborhood is falling to shambles. His family seems to cause him much more pain than any sort of satisfaction, and they seem to be waiting on him to die so they can have his things. When Thao tries to steal his car, to Walt this is a prime example of how his neighborhood has turned upside down. Once Walt sees how kind and accepting his Hmong neighbors are, he finally realizes that they are more of a family than his own. Once Sue is beaten, Walt gives his life so that Thao and Sue can grow up without the fear of the lurking gang members. Walt also gives Thao the tools and the opportunity to learn the construction ins and outs so that he has a skill set he can grow to get a job. These means will provide Thao a way to support himself as well as his family so that he can make a better life for them in the future. From Walt hating everything about his neighbors, to giving his life for them truly shows the progression of empathy that he has in his heart.

With the Hmong people being a collectivist culture and Walt’s family being more individualistic, we see a great difference in sociorelational context. Since the Hmong people live in close proximity to one another and are close with each other, they are much more supportive and caring. This is shown with the gifts and food that collectively show up at someone’s doorstep. They also have large family gatherings with lots of food and conversation. This is the antithesis of the Kowalski family. Walt avoids his family and finally musters up courage to tell his son he’s sick, but then is told by his son that he is very busy. This forces Walt to just say goodbye and not tell him of his illness. The American family, in this case it is Walt’s, just look for material things instead of emotional support. Walt has kept his 1972 Gran Torino is prime

the

condition, exhibiting the fact that he cares more for his car than for mending the strained

relationships he has with his family. Walt’s granddaughter wants the car when Walt passes away, but doesn’t care about spending time with him while he still is alive. It pains me to see their relationships the way they are. I love my grandparents dearly and cannot wait to see them this summer. I love hearing the family stories and history of my ancestors. Never would I think of them for their material items, that just sickens me.

All in all, I thought Gran Torino was a very interesting movie that shows how people can change over time. When we first meet Walt, he is such a bitter and cynical man that I honestly have no sympathy for. After he starts helping Thao and Sue, we start to see that Mr. Kowalski can actually be a decent human being. Then at the end of the movie when Walt gives his life to try and give them a better future, we conclude Walt’s empathetic journey. Over the course of the movie, Gran Torino, we see Walt complete a 180 degree turn from miserable, crotchety old man to compassionate and understanding human being. I believe this movie showed a lot of intercultural communication examples but my favorites that it exhibited were intercultural conflict, empathy, and sociorelational context.

Healthy Lifestyle

A healthy lifestyle is important because you don’t want to become crazy. A healthy

lifestyle allows you to function at 100%. In order to live a healthy lifestyle you need to have a healthy mind. You also need to have a healthy body. One last thing you need to have is a healthy work style. If you don’t think you have time for a healthy lifestyle think again. A healthy lifestyle will be hard in the beginning but if you don’t start now it will hurt you in the long run.

A healthy mind set allows a person to be calm in all situations. A healthy mind will relieve stress and allow you to concentrate. I believe that meditating will help you get a healthy mind. I also suggest eating antioxidant products. They improve focus. According to psychology today they say you should explore something new every day to expand your current knowledge. More than ever a healthy mind set doesn’t only mean relaxing it also depends on your mood. A positive mood will also allow you to have a healthy mind set. With a healthy mind you can overcome any challenge in your path to healthiness. This is one thing you should do to live a healthy lifestyle.

Having a healthy body is important. It allows you and your body to feel amazing. In a healthy lifestyle you don’t want to be just like a potato. To have a healthy body you need to eat healthy. Eating a salad wrap from McDonald’s is not healthy. You actually need to diet yourself to more greens on your plate, no soda or junk food, and more meats for protein. Another main factor of having a healthy body is exercise. Going to the gym helps with that exercise part. Playing sports or any outdoor activity works as well. Without a healthy body you have a major chance of getting diabetes type 2. These will get you one step closer to having a healthy lifestyle.

The last thing you need to obtain a healthy lifestyle is to have a healthy work style. What I mean by this is that when you work you can’t overpressure yourself. You should only limit yourself to an amount of work that you know you can complete. A healthy workstyle doesn’t mean only “working” it also means something like better posture. Slouching is not healthy for you. If slouching is your thing than you should stop before you look like The Hunchback of Notre Dame. You shouldn’t over think and overwork. “Work smarter not harder”, is a great quote relating to having a healthy workstyle by Allan F. Mogensen.

These are what you need to do to have a healthy lifestyle. “If you’re not willing to change don’t expect your life to either. You need a healthy mind by relaxing more and learning more. You need to have a healthy body by eating good and exercising. You need to have a healthy workstyle by not pressuring yourself way too much. These will all help you obtain a healthy lifestyle.

Learning a New Perspective

The film I chose to watch and analyze for this reflection paper is titled Gran Torino. This movie is one of my all time favorite movies when I watched it ten years ago for the first time it came out. I picked this movie because I like Clint Eastwood for doing a good job of displaying his tough ego and classic humor as a character named Walt, but I also feel like I can relate to Walt’s stressful friendship with Thao. Thao, who is apart of the Hmong community who recently moved to the neighborhood faces conflict with his relatives who are gang members and other people of other races in his neighborhood. I had a best friend named peter in middle school who was chinese and he faced racist acts by people in his predominantly white neighborhood. Some young adults would throw toilet paper at his house and call his parents chinkers which is a derogatory term for asians. Gran Torino is about an old racist white guy named Walt who has just lost his wife to death and he tries to overcome his racist behavior as he becomes a mentor to Peter.

This movie displays an old white male named Walt, who is a korean war veteran and long time employee of Ford build a relationship with a young male neighbor of asian descent named Thao. Thao doesn’t have a vehicle to drive, a job, a girlfriend, and no close friends. Thao’s cousin who is in a gang nearby offers him a spot on the team if he can successfully steal Walt’s Gran Torino. Walt stops Thao from stealing the Gran Torino and Thao is a disappointment to his cousin’s gang. Thao’s cousin causes harm to his family and Walt feels compassion to his new neighbors whom he connects to throughout the movie. Walt is sick and dying from poor health, so he tries to perform a great deed by sticking up for Thao and his family from the gang before he passes away. This film is in the poor neighborhoods of detroit where shootings are common and people of different color stay together.

This film is filled with conflict scenes and it’s ends with a very powerful scene of conflict. Before I analyze my scene of conflict, I need to define what interpersonal conflict is. The term interpersonal conflict, is defined in the textbook we were given for class as a disagreement between two interdependent people who perceive that they have incompatible goals. “Conflict may be neither good nor bad, but it is inevitable”(318). Conflict may cause harm to a relationship, but it can expose issues that need to be resolved and develop stronger character, learning, creativity, openness, and trust. There are many scenes of interpersonal conflict in this movie due to the loneliness and depression of Walt along with the danger surrounding Thao. I wasn’t surprised to see the number of conflict scenes because there are many differences between Walt and Thao, Thao and his cousin, and Walt with his pastor.

Walt’s style of conflict management varies because of the vast differences between his relationship with the priest versus his conflict with Thao and the gang. Walt and his priest are more driven towards a collaborative conflict approach. Walt wants to make his dead wife’s wish happy of meeting with the priest and the priest understands that Walt is struggling and he wants to help him by making Walt go to confession at church. Walt struggles to admit his sins and mistakes because he went to war and relives the stubborn attitude of admitting fault or weakness, while believing that the pastor is uneducated and too young to confess too. Walt and the pastor both lose their conflict multiple times throughout the film because Walt doesn’t want to confess and please the pastor, while he still doesn’t forgive himself for committing horrible atrocities in the vietnam war. Walt and his priest both will eventually win when he asks for forgiveness, while the priest thankfully forgives him, even in shocks of his small sins.

Thao deals with conflict a lot more different than the rest of the characters in the film. When there is a value conflict in the yard of Thao’s house between him and his cousin or sister, Thao will immediately withdraw by removing himself physically from the situation. Thao’s cousin will try and get Thao to join the gang before he tries to steal the gran torino and after he fails to steal the gran torino. Thao’s cousin will use the family effect of stating their relation and Thao’s sister named Ahney will be arguing that their cousin is an idiot, so there is lots of cross complaining and arguing for their reasons for Thao to join the gang. Nothing will be resolved as Thao will not stand up for himself and his sister can’t manage to steer her cousin’s gang from bothering him. Walt knows how to handle conflict by competing and trying to win, like when he saved Ahney from a few African American men who wanted to seduce her. Walt stated how he is the person that people come across and don’t want to mess with while pulling a gun on them to free Ahney. It was a ego conflict, because there were many legal ways to protect her, but he wanted to show the men how macho and dangerous he was.

Walt’s stubbornness and hostility in his conflicts toward people in this film stems from the loss of his wife and horrors he went through in the Korean war. Many people don’t approach conflicts the way Walt does and some people believe it is best avoid conflict. If walt withdraws his conflict to his neighbor’s situation, his neighbors will likely die. Withdrawing from a conflict provides a temporary escape from a potentially uncomfortable situation, but in an ongoing relationship, the issue will come up again(323). When Thao doesn’t manage to get rid of his cousin and the gang, the gang hurts Ahney and they perform a drive by shooting on their house.

Walt is again competing in the end scene of the movie when he tries to eliminate the gang from hurting Thao and his family ever again. Walt has had enough with the trouble going on his Thao’s household when Ahney is brutally hurt from her cousin’s gang attacking her and Thao getting shot in the neck when the gang performs a drive by shooting on the house. Thao’s cousin didn’t need to harm thao and his family, but their ego was offended when Walt intruded their property to try and handle business himself. Walt wanted to prove that his ego was stronger by taking out the gang himself instead of calling police. Walt decides to drive to the household of the gang and he devises a plan to win and have gang lose by going to prison for life. Walt and the gang start mutual hostility by yelling at each other. Walt calls them racist names the gang calls Thao weak and asks Walt where he is at. Walt then pretends to pull out a gun to shoot the gang members, while many witnesses and neighbors see the gang shoot hundreds of bullets onto Walt. Walt confessed his sins before he got shot and he constructed a strong self image by standing up for Thao as he got killed by the gang. Walt was ready to die as he purposely attracted the gun fire by pretending to pull out a gun and the gang went to jail. Walt was still competing in this conflict as he won and the gang lost.

Due to the conflict between Walt and the gang, Thao was safe and his family was repaired from the damage with the gang going to jail. Walt made sure that Thao wouldn’t try to put himself in danger by protecting Walt or trying to attack the gang in the final scene, so he locked him in the basement. Walt made a bold move by giving his life up for Thao and his family, while surely putting the gang members behind bars for life. I would have done the same thing if I was Walt. Walt wasn’t in the best physical shape to try and kill the gang members by himself and he was playing it safe by setting them up to for sure go to jail, while he was innocent for being unarmed. When he pretended to pull out a gun, he was for sure going to die and the only way the gang members would get in trouble was if they shot him, so he needed to make them shoot him. My role models like my dad and football coach would want me to put my life on the line for many other lives and be as assertive as possible by pretending to pull out a gun to get the job done. You didn’t ruin my experience of watching movies because I wouldn’t pay attention in a sports or horror film, while a comedy would be too distracting to notice the communication and conflict process.

Citations:

1. Verderber, Kathleen. Interact. Oxford University Press, 2016.