June 4 in Tian'anmen Square

This is a post I wrote a month ago. I wanted to wait until I had left China to post it, because I was really enjoying my time there. Chinese minders - if you're reading this please don't deny me a visa next time I want to visit you country.

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I accidentally ended up in Tian’anmen Square today. We had planned to shoot in interview at Zhongshan park. However neither my partner or I realized that Zhongshan park was, in fact, the park surrounding the west side of the Forbidden City. When I asked her what subway stop we were to get off at, and she obliviously replied ‘Tian’anmen’ I knew we just should have turned around and went back to class, but we were almost there at that point so I didn’t say anything. The mood at the station was somber and there were noticeably more guards than usual. When we got up to the street, the usually bustling crowd was subdued and traffic was snail-paced. Soldiers in green uniforms marched in pairs in seemingly random patterns through the square, I guess to break up any crowds. Since we were working on a project about marriage and relationships, I noticed that the looked a lot like the couples strolling through the park that we had shot the night before. There were a few foreign tourists, many more Chinese tourists, but not many people taking pictures. I felt really self-conscious carrying our camera bag and tripod. The students at CUC where we’re taking classes had been warned not to talk to foreign journalists this week. I tried not to think about it and walk confidently past the guards, after all we were working on a fluffy love story and didn’t have anything to worry about. Walking through the park, row upon row of soldiers, both uniformed and plain-clothed, waited in various staging areas. Their expressions seemed to reflect the same attitude of my 23 year-old partner. The day was ancient history, before their time, not a China they knew or recognized. They were bored, and if they had any feeling about the day, they didn’t show it. We found our subjects and started the preliminary interview, I tried to keep the camera bag and tripod out of sight, as we were within 10 meters of a long row of guards. Our conversation was going well, and I almost thought we could conduct the interview as long as I made it obvious we were talking to our friend and not at all interested in the soldiers, but as we were walking a volunteer security guard stopped us and told us that if we shot anything they would break our camera. So much for that. My partner and our subject calmed the man down and assured him we weren’t shooting anything. As we left, our subject said that it was because I was a foreigner that they were suspicious of us. We wrapped up the interview, didn’t shoot anything, and headed back to class.

Done, and done.

We finished our film last night. The polishing that I thought was going to take 3 hours took over 12 hours (classic Beijing inefficiency) We were in the lab until almost midnight, and they usually lock the building at 10:30. We thought they were going to lock us in and we'd have to spend the night. I was horrified at the thought -- the building is disgusting, filthy and home to mice, and mosquitoes the size of humming birds. No one cleans ever. There's trash everywhere, the floors are spotted with dirt. The bathrooms almost made me vomit the first few days (but then i got used to them, which is truly horrifying). And what's scarier than a Chinese public toilet? A Chinese public toilet in the dark! -- there was a power outage last night as well. The place feels like an eastern european prison. I'm not prissy-princess type girl, and I have a lot of patience for tough situations, but this was my absolute limit. There was no way I was going to spend the whole night in that place. Thankfully the Chinese students talked the 'uncle' who minds the building into leaving the gate unlocked so we can leave. I'm officially done. I'm ready to re-join civilization. I want a soft bed. I want clean things. I want peace and quiet.

Working

It's been a trial working here. It takes extraordinary patience and cunning to get anything done, but many places in the world are like that. The real difficulty comes to trying to do original and creative work where the established aesthetic is so deeply ingrained. Even when compelled to think outside the box, the work is still “box-shaped”, as a Chinese friend I met here describes it. Any question that doesn't have an absolute right answer freaks them out. It seems that students here are most challenged when they’re asked for their opinion. You get a blank stare… “buffering” my friend calls it.

Coming from the Hollywood school, most of our stories involve a character’s personal struggle. The Chinese faculty, however, have encouraged us to make our pieces about society, because one person’s story is just not that interesting.

My partner here is absolutely adorable, and we've become good friends. She’s very motivated, and interested in crafting a deep personal story about our subject, but doesn’t know at all how to go about it. She's kind of a country-mouse in the big city. She’s stunningly beautiful, but speaks really loudly, chews with her mouth open, sits on the floor, but she's really good at getting people to talk, getting access and getting the producer things done. We mostly understand each other, but i've taken to using some of her colorful phrases so she understands me better... my favorite - "deeply things" = "emotionally deep content for our movie". When we uncovered a juicy piece of information yesterday that exposed our subject’s more devious side, she took it very personally herself. As if our subject has broken her heart as well.

West street

Everyday I walk down west street to the CUC campus. If it’s raining it’s a miserable sea of muck (the hepatitis sea, as Laura would say), but on a sunny day it’s vibrant and pleasant barrage of color, smell, and sound

– spring onion pancake,
fish belly-up in a shallow tank,
cigarette smoke,
car exhaust,
steamed buns,
chili pepper that burns your eyes,
motor cycle exhaust,
peanuts with chili,
Lady Gaga on repeat at the hair salon,
puppies,
urine,
fresh fruit,
rotten fruit,
garbage,
blood from the butcher,
fried dough,
toilet stink,
sewers,
bakeries,
barbecue.

One World, One Dream

In our first week in China we have been visiting some of the more popular tourist locations, The Great Wall, Houhai Lake, Sanlitun… and there have been grumbles within the ranks at the ‘disney-fication’ of these sites-- the Starbucks, the prominently displayed English names in flashy lights. I don’t know how to interpret this. Why are we disappointed that Beijing is so much like … well, LA? I can’t help but feel that these feelings are tied up in some romanticized idea of a pastoral, third-world China. The destruction and neglect of culture and heritage is one thing (for example the destruction of traditional courtyard houses, and their replacement with modern apartment building and shopping centers), but is it possible that China’s rise disturbs us as Americans on a deeper level? Last night we had a lecture about the cultural heritage of Beijing, and our professor mentioned Antonioni’s film “China” and how it depicted a negative image of China. I asked if China was still as concerned about its image in the west and why. At this moment we Americans seem to be more dependant on China than China is on us. Everything I brought with me in my suitcase originated in China. The Chinese are suspicious that I might contaminate their country. Our economy is tanking, and China kind of owns us. These points are not at all lost on the Chinese, but they seem to be very careful (and gracious) not to let us know that they know. They continue to humor us and our superiority complex.

The sign reading “One World, One Dream” with the Olympic logo on the hillside by the great wall, sums it up. Most of the Chinese tourists taking pictures in front of it see it as a source of pride, and that sentiment seems to echo throughout the country. Some of my classmates complained about the crowds at the Great Wall, but crowds are an inherent part of life in China, and certainly in Beijing. I was really happy to see so many Chinese enjoying and taking pride in their national treasure. I’d estimate only 5-10% of the visitors to the Great Wall today were foreigners, and the rest Chinese.

Places like Sanlitun and Houhai may seem like simulacra to us, and lacking in authenticity, but these are places where people in Beijing live, work, and play. They’re as much a part of the city as the Temple of Heaven or Tian’anmen Square. These entertainment districts might seem like cheap knock offs, but they learned this stuff from us.

7 non-blondes

All the USC students that have come with me to China have one thing in common – we’re all second generation Americans or have ties to countries other than the US. We are not only representing the US to our hosts but also Libya, Turkey, India, Mexico, and Japan. I can’t think of a better way to represent the US in China, especially in the context of multicultural exchange. I feel like we are setting a good example of working through cultural differences though the diversity within our own group. I also feel that the potential conflict that might come out of our collaborations are the same sort of conflict that would arise anyway out of strong minded artists working together. So far everyone seems to be getting along. There seem to be some minor misunderstandings about style but all that’s to be expected. We start shooting this week… let the adventures begin.

The Great Firewall of China

This entry's a little late. I arrived in Beijing to find that I couldn't access blogspot, so I had to find a creative workaround... thanks Rob!


We made it safely to Beijing on Monday. I didn't get quarantined by the Chinese government, but the University decided that we should all stay in our hotel for the week and not go to campus, just in case. our gracious hosts gave us a welcome basket of face masks, thermometers, antibacterial wipes, and powdered health drink. yum. We all had dinner together - my first real Chinese food meal and it was all good! the duck was very tasty - other things we had were tofu & egg soup, mushrooms, steamed fish, and lots of veggies. There's a market around the corner from our hotel where they've got lots of street food that looks pretty tasty.

Yesterday we had our first class. Since our hosts had given us our quarantine kits, I I was still feeling under the weather, I thought It would be proper to wear my face mask to class to show that I didn't intend to infect all my class mates with H1N1. They all stared at me, so I had to explain again that I didn't have Swine flu, and it was just a little cough.

I feel much better today, though I can feel that the air quality is going to make it a little more difficult for me to totally back to to normal. Yesterday we ventured into the city for the first time. I made friends with a beautiful girl in my class named Tshow Jing Pin (her name means Crystal, but she goes by Amy). Amy offered to show us around the city. First stop - Shopping! On the way we stopped at an arcade (I couldn't resist) and played a beat-matching game with japanese drums, and another game where we threw plastic balls at a screen trying to hit fish in a pond, or knock out a boxing bull, or knock bottles off the shelf.

We went to the Sheitan Hua Way mall - a super colorful shopping center where they sell everything you could imagine. On the first floor they sell colorful candy and snacks (and souvenirs, and small electronics... i think a man tried to sell me a vibrator). We ate at the food court - I had the Chinese version of Macarona Mbakbuka - Super spicy noodles with beef. Other treats similar to libyan food I discovered here - there's a flatbread pastry/ pancake thing that's just like fteera they fill with sesame paste or onions and spices, also we had a delicious dish at lunch they call a "dry pot" which is a sizzling pan of chili oil, onions, garlic and vegetables and tastes just like tabahij. Most of the food has been deliciously spicy, and I haven't had anything super exotic yet, but we're going to the Wangfu jie street food market soon, and there will lots to write about there, I'm sure. Oh yea -- and last night we went to Sanlitun to hear a band from the Philippines and the singer told me I look like Alicia Keys. I'll take it.