My Mom and I have been listening to the soundtrack while we complete our routine for a while. I remember just after I bought our house, I ended up teaching a short story from the literature books we had.
It was a terrible story about towns people gathering together on the same day every year and stoning whomever chose the paper with the black dot on it. The reason they did this was because it was tradition. they had no further explanation than that. Thinking about this fact, I showed my kids this clip from the movie, Fiddler on the Roof:
I showed my kids this song clip because there was no explanation for traditions they had. I also remember that I gave them all a fortune cookie and told them that that is a family tradition of mine. When I was young, we always used to go to a Cantonese restaurant as a family that has since closed and we would ceremoniously open our fortune cookies on the way home.
While I was previewing the clip to show my students, I just watched the rest of the movie. I remember growing up with this movie and watching it with my cousinTs and we would laugh at Tevye dancing during this song:
So, when I watched this movie about 10 years ago, Sean came out of his room and saw that I was crying. He asked me why I was crying and I told him because it is a sad movie and then he asked why I was watching it and I told him, “Because I love it“
So, my Mom and I watched it the other day and of course I cried again and I can’t believe I used to watch this movie with my cousinTs when I was young! We didn’t know what was going on. But now, as an adult and a mother I know! I paid attention to the songs that I never really paid attention to before:
And the most heart- wrenching:
So, of course I cried A LOT both times since we watched it twice.