A post written in November 2016, during my first trip to China, with my film The Closer We Get:
Beijing to Xi’an
I travel to China the day after Trump’s victory in the US
election, and the social media control combined with the fact that it’s Just
Not That Big A Deal Here has it feeling like a bad dream pretty soon. Until an
American-Chinese woman working on the event I’m at tells me how the
trauma made her forget to take her passport to the airport in LA, I’d all but
forgotten about crying in front of the BBC news at 6am that morning.
If I was going to do a Tripadvisor review for our Beijing hotel (The Traveler (sic) Inn) – and who knows, I just might – I could complain about the tepid bath water,
the flea I found biting my shin, and that the sound on my TV didn’t work, but I
would praise its globetrotting breakfast (steamed buns, waffles, tofu,
conflakes), its atmospheric little garden and chiefly its location, on a
central but quiet ‘hutong’ fascinating enough to spend your entire Beijing
break in. These higgledy piggledy, low rise areas which mix houses old and new
with shops, restaurants and bars of every variety, are being fast cleared away
by the city authorities, so I feel lucky to be staying in one and not one of
the shiny highrises by the motorway, even if they do offer power showers. Every
eating place I tried locally was fantastic, and my picture-pointing was usually
augmented by the ubiquitous smart phone and its translation apps.
Invariably,
after much typing, the phone was turned towards me, and on it were the words
‘It’s a bit spicy’. I always communicated that this was fine by me.
The iDocs documentary film forum kicked off with a
speech-based ceremony at Beijing Film Academy, that I expected to go on for
much longer than it did. Beforehand, a trailer filled with extracts from the
selected films was looped on the enormous screen. Some of the crowd were asleep,
some on their smart phones and some were paying attention. Dignitaries from
various countries whose filmmakers were present, took the stage. A young Polish
woman spoke impressively fluent Cantonese, whereas the avuncular Israeli
Ambassador spoke in English, telling us that ‘his’ and the culture of China
were the oldest in the world. With my father’s voice in the back of my head, I
couldn’t help thinking that a tie wouldn’t have gone amiss.
All the film-makers lined up on stage and the mic was passed
along the row to each of us. My ‘Ni hao’ elicited a little wave of applause
with the huge audience and caught on with the other filmmakers who followed
suit. My previous travels in Japan made me prone to bowing unneccessarily
though and I made a mental note to try and rein it in. I was certainly far too
smartly attired in my green silk dress, but I could at least hope it stuck in
the audience’s mind and that they’d return when my film was on.
We film makers realised that our international array of films
were not going to be screened with English and
Mandarin subtitles (as is common in other international festivals) so, a little
frustratingly, we wouldn't be able to easily watch each others films. Most of us
agreed to exchange screener links later. So the enticing opening film, Twilight
of a Life (which had been in several other festivals with mine, but which I
hadn’t managed to see yet) was not one I could stay and watch as it was mainly
in Hebrew. So most of the film makers got back into our minibus and were back
at the hotel within an hour.
The fantastic Cherelle Zheng, film-maker and founder of iDOCS, had
assembled a team of (almost all female) festival helpers who kept everything
running smoothly, that is as long as we all had downloaded WhatsApp onto our
phones and looked at it very regularly. Cherelle had curated and subtitled the
impressive selection of global docs presented herself, an epic work. Most
shared the theme of an exploration of love, and I would liked to have spoken to
her more about her selection and its resonances with the Chinese audience, but
as with all film festivals, it’s a bit of a whiteout for the organisers who
have so much to do they often don’t even get to watch the films or the audience
Q & A’s.
The screening of The Closer We Get drew an almost full
auditorium of circa 300, and I sat in for the screening, which I rarely do
these days. It was incredibly special to hear the audience’s ebb and flow of
laughter and tears, a testament to Cherelle’s skillful translation. The Chinese
reactions and questions afterwards (simultaeneously translated) were broadly
similar to those in every one of the now over a dozen countries I have screened
in, and it’s hard to describe how good this makes me feel. In a world of
conflict, it’s beyond heartening to realise that we are the same at heart,
everywhere. After the screening a small crowd asks for autographs, photographs
with me etc. and I am introduced to a smiling woman who is in charge of
marriage guidance in Beijing. She pops a pink scarf on and we have our photograph
taken together. She is full of excited praise for the film, and I promise to
her that I will get a copy to her for her organisation to use.
My ‘Masterclass’ was intended to be a delivered from my
pre-prepared and pre-translated script, but instead it’s decided it should be
in a ‘chat show’ format, opening out to questions informally. I’m okay with
this, as I am now so used to talking about the film that I actually enjoy being
put on the spot a bit unexpectedly. Some of the audience are clearly film-makers
and field some technical questions about solo shooting and which parts of the
film were ‘re-enacted’ for camera. But in general, questions are philosophical,
and it seems that there is a hunger amongst the film-makers here to embark on
personal stories but much inhibition and fear of offence. I try and talk about
the ‘personal development’ aspects of my film, the terror I felt at its
inception and how I overcame this, and I try and reassure them that whilst such
films change a family dynamic forever, it can be the most positive
transformation they will ever experience.
Xi’an is the nearest city to the Terracotta Warriors, so
this is my first stop when I take the train out of Beijing. It’s a 5 hour high-speed
journey, and my first class carriage has no laptop-entranced businessmen, as it
would in the UK, just snoozing Chinese. It’s a marked contrast to the nonstop
activity of almost every Chinese person you meet elsewhere. The ‘first class’
of the service is marked with luxurious recliners, a gift box of snacks and a
woman who cleans the toilet after each visit. When I can’t find the flush and
leave the cubicle, she takes my arm and returns me to the site of my shame,
demonstrating the flush button in use.
Xi’an train station is beautiful, more like an airport than
anything else, and I am the only Western face amidst the thousands of
travellers. If there are 8 million inhabitants in Xi’an, there must be a
restaurant provided for every single one. Eating places of all sorts outnumber
very other shop at least five to one, and they range from ad hoc
woks-on-the-back-of-bikes, to Korean barbecues to vast and eerily empty
‘banquet’ retaurants filled with circular tables each with a Lazy Susan at its
centre. I choose what looks like a bog-standard one that is full of locals. As
in every place I have eaten in China, I am the only lone diner - for the
Chinese eating is an intensely social activity, and portion sizes make no
concession to the smaller appetite. I eat an excellent ‘salad’ of beansprouts,
cooked spinach, peanuts and strips of spongy wheat gluten, spiced with dried
chilli and aromatic Szechuan pepper, with a room-temperature beer (the norm
here) and chrysanthemum tea. Outside, charcoal braziers with lamb kebabs and
vast arrays of condiments (seaweeds, mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, coriander
leaves, sesame seeds, peanuts) are everywhere from dawn to late, and there are
also pyramids of local pomegranates split to reveal their rich ruby interiors,
candy-making stalls, spice-crusted tofu, and deep-fried-whole-anything stalls.
They could teach the rest of the world a thing or two here, and not just about
cooking. I awake in the morning to the unexpected sound of a Mosque’s call to
prayer: Xi’an has lived peacefully with its large Muslim population for over
1300 years.
My brilliant guide Eric tells me about our forthcoming visit en route,
to the Walrus Museum. I don’t remember this from my itinerary, and he’s talking
as if it’s an important one, but I feel too awkward to ask for clarity. After a
while of zigzagging through the city walls and out onto the freeway, hazy with
smog, I realise his excitement is about the Warriors Museum. That is, the 8000
Terracotta Warriors Museum that will be today’s focus.
On the way in, as in every transport hub and visitor
attraction in China, bags are security scanned. Eric tells me this is a quiet
day, but nontheless vast crowds of Chinese people surrounded by tangles of
selfie sticks are everywhere, screeching and laughing. It’s actually a delight
to witness their joy here, and the lack of Western faces. How often we turn up
at an attraction in the UK to find that there’s not a single other Brit in
evidence, finding their own heritage worth a look. In fact, a Western face is
so rare here that I am invited to join in a number of schoolchildren’s selfies,
presumably for my sheer ginger-novelty value.
Despite the competition for a front row view of Pit 1 -
which offers the ‘money shot’ of the ranks of warriors that I recall from the
National Geographic magazines we devoured in the 1980’s - my first sight of
this silent army brings tears to my eyes. Their number, artistry and
preservation defies belief. Their sheer miraculousness is intensely moving. It has you thinking what else lies beneath our planet's mud, awaiting our future wonder.
As we move around the vast sunken area, individual warriors
in various states of preservation are visible closer to the visitor boundary.
Their individuality and benign smiles belie their identities as warriors – as
if they knew the afterlife would not present any real conflict to concern
themselves with. Eric tells me contemporaneous written accounts exist that show
that the Emperor’s top general in fact came up with the idea for the facsimilie
army, to prevent his boss from slaying the 8000 best-trained soldiers in the
land, and presumbly soldiers who would protect his son, the next Emperor. Like
the sculptures of European antiquity, the warriors would have been gaudily
painted originally (this is approximated in a rather shonky film projection
that concludes the visit). What a fantastical, Disney-esque sight this would
have been.
The steep, earthen walls around each pit strongly convey
death, and they serve as raised walkways for the odd archaeologist with a wheel
barrow, dwarfed by the arched roof and the crowds. The scale is akin to that of
a football pitch. Eric tells me that excavation and conservation work here will
have no end, and that China accepts this onerous responsibility. I am drawn to a large
flat area near the exit with rows of regimented desks, spaced far apart as in
an exam hall. Each has an overhead lamp, and behind them there is a hospital-style
bed.
At one desk a single archaeologist bends over something far from our view, his lamp glowing orange in the cool, bluish haze of the enormous hangar. He has a lifetime of work ahead.
At one desk a single archaeologist bends over something far from our view, his lamp glowing orange in the cool, bluish haze of the enormous hangar. He has a lifetime of work ahead.
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