September 2018
School’s
back!
It seemed
like a quick flight back home to China. Beijing Capital Airlines has a new
route directly from London to Qingdao. Got window seat and filmed the last
images for The Sea Hut. My mother was so good with me in
England; even though distraught about Pat my brother and his slow recovery from
the stroke, she managed to do a final interview which basically has the film
tied up.
Got it in
the can!
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| Students |
Of course, I
still have animation to do, colour, motion, resizing images, subtitles, before
I can really say I have finished. Never done till it’s done, and even then we
always think of things we could change, add.
Musings on a
plane. One drifts between time zones and clouds, and sometimes one country
becomes like a meditation. Russia is huge – it takes 6 hours or more to move
slowly from East to West, and then dive onto Turkmenistan, curve around, outer,
then inner Mongolia, to China.
By this time,
and having watched the only four films on offer, I have remade my world, that
of my family, friends, Pat can walk and talk again, and old rifts are healed,
books are written, new film projects are started, and I am able to finish
everything in China that I need and want to, and can come home to be with the
family.
Dreams!
Then
reality, as I stand in front of 25 third year students talking about
experimentation and what I expect of them this semester. It is the first time
that I teach a class alone without Wang Ying. It is an experiment, and we will
see how well I do with my odd Chinese and the students’ bitty English. We all
know each other, we have grown together for 3 years now, so it is not the first
time I have them as students. We are used to each other, but as this is a
primary class, the task before me is a bit daunting.
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| Jeanne and Ying |
Class one
finished very well. We all have a good idea of where we are heading, and let’s
hope by next week everyone hands me in an idea. I showed them some of Thin Blue Line with Chinese subtitles; they loved the fact they could shoot something
which is not purely observational, the norm in China in film schools.
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| Back home |
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| Tattoo girl |
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| Students |
If I leave
next semester, thrn this is the last documentary class I will take. I feel very
sad, so much time given, so much learnt. This is why I look for other chances
to keep my soul here. One is The Blue
Book of Film which finally came out. All those arduous statistics have
finally been put into grids, and
printed, and handed to UNESCO,* - 125 pages.
www.mnialive.com/articles/64-cities-join-the-unesco-creative-cities-network
Wang Ying
and I got the book yesterday. They want us to continue with them each year, so,
no matter where I am in the world, the Internet breaks down barriers. We have
finally become a part of their official team. It makes me so proud, it is all
part of the incredible Chinese adventure.
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| The Blue Book of Film |
Demolition
Outside
school at West Gate they are pulling down more homes. I met a man who was
scavenging; he invited me onto his patch. I found a few treasures. He lived
there last month, now he has moved to the new buildings. Is he sad? Not really
he says, they were old and falling down. (They, the buildings, are only ten
years old!)
Fiber glass
is still used in China, wads of it lying around on the street. “It’s normal,”
he says. It is too complicated to go into here, so a good film to view is
also
applauded here in China. The director is a gentle and warm person. He came two
years ago to the indie festival in Qingdao, and with he left us regarding his
work as totally outstanding for its achievement and bravery.
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| Tea |
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| Old stairs |
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| King for a day |
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| Tiny kitchen |
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| Goodbye |
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| Here's the cups |
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| Jan and man |
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| Self-portrait |
Harvest
moon cake time around the corner.
29 September
2018
Festive,
greedy, the whole of China eating day long and in between sweet cakes filled
with so many types of moon cake that it would take an entire blog to write down
each one.
Walking and
ambling is the thing to do. The weather is still sweet, the sun waning but
strong, and the sea breeze cooling, while the streets of Qingdao are humming
happy holiday songs.
Yuen
suggested we attempt a walk from the railway station to Old Stone Man, 40
kilometers along the shore during National Day Holiday. After moon harvest
festival, the next holiday is one week for National Day, for the new People’s
Republic of China.
Off we head.
9 am meeting, coffee by the pier, and first stop Badaguan, the old German
settlement which nestles on the beach. I am not a tour guide, but this is truly
one of China’s most sophisticated cities, charming, old style, old buildings
protected so much more than in other cities. One can feel the past, walk the
past, and on the way one meets the culture like these holiday dancing ladies - and
then the peanut picker laying out the nuts to dry in the seaside sun.
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| Morning |
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| Ladies |
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| Peanuts galore |
Falling
everywhere are sheets and blankets hanging out to air.
And children
carry the Chinese flag, waving it like a precious toy.
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| Washing line |
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| Boy with a flag |
As we get
past the half way mark, 20 kilometers, the seascape changes and we turn into a
bay, and I thought I was in the south of France. From now on it is small bay
after small bay till we reach Old Man Stone. Exhausted, barely able to walk
further.
Night falls
and the park is lit up with lanterns. Like a mystical land stretching far
beyond us.
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| Boats |
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| Beach marriage |
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| Could be France |
October 2018
Wake Li
and Jinan
Mid-week,
Yuan and I are off to Jinan, 3 hours from Qingdao to film Wake Li, a
performance artist, filmmaker, painter, rebel and radical, who has been around
the art scene since the 70s. I met him two years ago at the Indie festival and
was totally beguiled by him.
Today, at
61, he has an Iggy Pop torso, an energy to die for, a 24 year old girl-friend,
and is finishing his latest film
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| On the way to Jinan |
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| Yuan |
We spend 3
days filming in and around Jinan. In his studio, in the grotto where he has
sculpted a huge Buddha, and with his parents. It is almost impossible to keep
up with Wake Li, and my Chinese is limited for this type of work, but there is
something that shines so deep and so differently, the look in his eyes, the way
he moves his body, the paint brushes in his hands, his eroticism, a devoted and
daring and very young girlfriend. One does not need a language for this. The
man who has made fashionable a toilet plunger hat has won my heart.
We shall
come back in December with the beginning of a very, very rough-cut and see what
we can carve out. He has given me the use of his films, which will be the
backbone of the film. Yuan and I are excited, and I am happy to finally be
doing my last piece here on a Chinese artist.
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| Wake Li |
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| Buddha |
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