Documentary China

Pretty is the tea they serve Spring in China is a time when most teachers enter a workaholic phase. It is also the time of the black tea. High up in Shandong's Laoshan Mountains, experienced pickers work nimble fingered to bring us curative, black, Shandong tea. Time has been divided carefully, like tea leaves, between Qingdao and Beijing, then back to school, running up, down, and along the corridors, trying to locate classes that are last minute changing…students rushing along with us, puffing on sweet-smelling cigarettes. And as we rushed, spring went wild with flowers trilling and singing, tumbling down, entwining with other plants, going anywhere their tiny branch fingers can go - a form of social flower consciousness. Midnight flowers Roadside flowers in Beijing Zhou Gu Jing - celebrated brush painter The other day I leant some words in Chinese to describe Qingdao flowers: Savage, 狂野 - Kuángyě, Willful, 任性 , Rènxìng,...

At home in the UK, on holiday from China, winter break, a cold wind howls and I keep looking at flights to Montreal. I want to go visit my daughter, but I dread the flight – Hurricane Candy, or Doris, or Elfie has just hit and stories of planes flying sideways across Arctic skies petrify me. Then I get a call from Beijing that Dr. Sun, who organizes “People inspired by Norman Bethune”, has set up a series of interviews for us. This decides me, and before I know it I am sitting at Heathrow after downing three Americanos waiting for the Montreal flight. Funny how things don’t change and how one misses certain touches. The waiting room looks North American, if you follow me. North American dressed for winter with Canada Goose coats tucked ready for the hit-me-quick cold that hits quick when getting out of the airport. Girls with sleek streaked hair, long legged and sexual, stride with an air I always associate with Montreal – one of certainty, of going somewhere. I sett...

Christmas and New Year It was the night before Christmas and Qingdao lit and dressed up and became Christmas for the weekend. Trees suddenly springing up out of nowhere with plastic beer bottle trees, Tsingtao beer, beer garlands. With this liking for Christmas, last minute Qingdao weddings happened outside St. Michael’s Cathedral. This monument built by German missionaries, which stands on a hilltop in the centre of Qingdao. A symbol. Since 1934 it has seen wars, peace, and Mao's arrival. The city beacon, like a lighthouse, where weddings and funerals merge. Outside the Cathedral, the courtyard hosts hurdy-gurdy players, street artists, cotton-candy-sellers and starfish on sticks. Pretty girls and lithe boys make wedding vows to love and live forever. Central to Qingdao and towering far above the rest, it represents the local community and lures the tourists. Loved, adorned and sometimes feared, St. Michael’s neighbor...