China in the 1980s was sparse and rough-edged. Even on a college campus, we were surrounded by classmates who swore freely, smoked, and played cards. In such an environment, a “gentleman” was an oddity, sometimes even a joke. I was young and swept along by that atmosphere: narrow-minded, sharp-tempered, petty, quick to take offense and quicker to repay it. I did my share of foolish things. I was let down by others, and I let others down. “Good person” would have been too generous a label for myself.
Without Peck as a reference point, I would most likely have drifted with the current, sliding all the way into mediocrity, becoming the kind of man who boasts loudly, speaks crudely, and lives without a purpose.
Joe Bradley, as played by Peck, wasn’t a saint. He had his flaws. With only a few dollars in his pocket, he did consider cashing in on an exclusive story. He could be greedy, down-and-out, even a little calculating. But the compassion and restraint at his core ultimately held that greed in check.
Peck planted a seed in me, a quiet understanding of how a civilized person might live with some measure of grace. The film didn’t turn me into a gentleman. What it did was simpler and, in a way, more important: in those murky, rough years, it showed me what “good” looked like, what “right” might mean.
It was a lighthouse. I was far from it then, and I walked a crooked path for quite some time. But the coordinates were there, fixed somewhere inside me. As my life improved and my place in society rose, I found myself, almost unconsciously, adjusting my course toward it. I began to learn to yield, to make room, within my competitive nature, for a basic respect toward women.
It wasn’t a transformation overnight. The process was messy, threaded with struggle, mistakes, and things I’d rather not revisit. I know I’m an ordinary man. But the power of an example is rarely about lifting us in one leap. It’s about giving us direction when we’re lost, and, once we come to our senses, giving us the will to correct ourselves and walk toward the light.
Every time I revisit Roman Holiday, I’m still moved. Not because the plot is so extraordinary, but because in that interplay of light and shadow, I catch sight of my younger self, rough, unformed, and the version of me who was clawing his way out of the mud, trying, however clumsily, to reach the shore.
Even now, I don’t quite deserve the word “gentleman.” But I know which way to go. I may never fully arrive, but my heart leans toward it. And perhaps, one day, I might grow into that man like Peck, wry, generous, at ease with the world.
By all means, Peck.
Postscript
I sent this piece to my sister. She replied almost instantly, across the ocean, with two photos: one of her standing before the Mouth of Truth in Rome, the other of Castel Sant’Angelo by the Tiber. She told me she has watched Roman Holiday no fewer than fifteen times. When she first traveled abroad, she chose Rome without a moment’s hesitation.
Back then, what we chased was not only Peck, but also the Vienna of Sissi. She later settled on the U.S. East Coast. Europe became almost routine for her; she has traveled across much of it, following in Sissi’s footsteps, walking through the palaces and streets we had once seen only on a screen. And after each trip, she writes long, careful travelogues.
It turns out the films we watched in our youth were never just one-time entertainments. They were like two seeds, carried off by the wind, landing quietly in our hearts. In those rough-edged years, we didn’t know what taste meant, didn’t understand what grace was, and had no clear sense of what civilization might look like. Yet those flickering stories gave us an answer, softly and without ceremony: that a person could live with restraint, with gentleness—that there existed, somewhere in the world, a kind of beauty worth setting out for.
People like to say that lovers of art are merely indulging in sentimentality. But for us, these “useless” works were a hand extended from the mud. They didn’t pull us ashore at once, but they showed us where the shore was. So I learned, in the bustle and grit of everyday life back home, to carry myself with some measure of dignity; she wandered through Europe’s streets in search of light and shadow. In our separate lives, we were both, in our own ways, correcting our course—toward the same direction.
We didn’t know then when those seeds would sprout, or when they would bloom. But they were there all along, taking root, slowly growing into what later became our sense of beauty, our values, and the quiet resolve not to be swallowed by our surroundings.
Good art, it seems, is never just a passing emotion. It is a lifelong compass. It allows you, even after seeing the coarse and the vulgar, to keep believing in something finer; and amid the drifting crowd, to know, with a certain calm, which way you ought to go.
About the Author
Eddy Lee traces his lineage to Yashan, site of the last battle of the Southern Song dynasty in 1279. A member of the Third Front generation—families relocated during China’s industrial campaign of the 1960s and 70s, he now lives in Guangzhou, China.
© Eddy Lee 2026 Copyright
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Article Information
Category: Non Fiction / Essay
Tags: Movie / Rome / Life
