There's a Chinese saying illustrated in [[🎬 The Farewell]]: > When people get cancer, they die.[^TheFarewellCancer] But it's not the cancer that accelerates their terminal decline. It's not even the diagnosis. It's the way they _feel_ following the diagnosis. It's the feelings of fear, helplessness, loneliness, hopelessness, etc. that cause them to take actions that result in their decline. For example, feeling hopeless results in further deterioration of your health because you stop taking care of yourself--stopping exercise, eating unhealthy, and refusing treatment.[^TheFarewellHopeless] But it's the feeling of hopelessness that drives these actions. Even though Billi's Nai Nai has lung cancer, she doesn't know because her family decided not to tell her about it. (From her perspective, her CT scan just shows benign shadows--nothing to worry about.) As a result, she remains cheerful and empowered about the same underlying circumstances. She spends time with family, laughing, practicing Tai Chi, trying different medicines, going to the hospital for follow-up tests, etc. _She continued to survive at least 6 years later (as was revealed at the end of the movie)._ [^TheFarewellCancer]: [[The Farewell - Chinese people have saying "When people get cancer they die."]] [^TheFarewellHopeless]: [[A hypothetical CTFAR model of the fear in The Farewell]]