"In the midst of life..."

Contigo Coffee Shop, Beijing.

Leaving the day after tomorrow and nearly been here 3 weeks. It’s been fairly eventful. One of those periods in life where I forgot what I didn’t know before I came but realize what I do now. And the more I know, the more I realize how little I do. I want to recap on the last 20 days here in Beijing.

Before I came I made small efforts through the internet to connect with people in Beijing. Those efforts resulted in making a social life here. It created friendships, feelings, fun times and experiences. With the connection with Sexy Beijing, it brought about some work that will be featured on their site. It also gave me the opportunity to come in direct contact with some of the members of the Hip Hop/Rock scene. Not that old and not that new, it is good to be witness to the evolution of this culture.

Of course my internal mood shifted dramatically 2 days ago when I found out that my grandma in Hong Kong passed away. Although I am geographically closest to Hong Kong, The news travelled from Hong Kong, to Holland (where an Uncle lives) to UK to my family and then to Beijing. Of all the family overseas, I am also the one who saw her most recently (3 weeks ago for the Mid Autumn Festival).

Two years prior, Beijing left and indelible dent in my heart and mind and I vowed to come back to possibly live and work. In my 10 days here in late 2006 I found a root to my cultural heritage I never did in the 20+ years of visiting Hong Kong. I started slowly learning Mandarin and I started the documentary about China, ‘Central Nation’. Central Nation is both my personal lifetime research about the history, culture and future of China that also serves the purpose of sharing and presenting this information in an art form, namely a film that eschews a mainstream form.


We must know nothing.
I only have one friend in Beijing and she works ALL the time. I needed more friends. Sightseeing alone is fine by me but getting around and not knowing how to speak the language is a struggle. Especially when I am Chinese, at first glance, most expect I speak it. It was time meet more people and to learn more about China/Beijing, from the people who live in it. I came across a popular site called The Beijinger while doing research in April this year. I came across the idea to meet new people in Beijing as I planned to come back in September. I put an ad out and got some replies from mostly young women. I put another ad out in August and got more replies. I also contacted the ones I had made contact with April. The young women I met here were surprisingly open to meet. And they were all so very different from one another. Personalities varied dramatically. Out of seven women, only one was originally from Beijing. Most were from other provinces. Also surprisingly, half had siblings. The shared trait they all have is that they were hospitable, genuine and loved China without being nationalistic (bar one). Spending time with each of them brought knowledge of new realities to me. I think I made four new friends and will see next year when I come back.


One small step.
I started watching Sexy Beijing early this year. It is an internet TV show that has 3 ‘channels’. One is called The Hard Hat Show which is about the continuing building development in Beijing, the other is Beijing Beat which features work by new film makers about music , arts and culture. The main one, Sexy Beijing features Su Fei (Anna Sophie Loewenberg), a lively Jewish American woman exploring different facets of love in the capital. I dislike most vox pops videos but this one was funny, lively and informative. It owes much to the presenting by Su Fei. I wanted to be part of Sexy Beijing. So I emailed them while still in London. I didn’t receive and reply for a few weeks. When Anna Sophie replied she said to email when I got here. So I did that. During the same week of the Shenzhou-7 space mission we exchanged a few emails and missed an appointment and shoot at Hooters. But we finally met at the beginning of my last week here. We both wanted to work together but due to Anna Sophie’s schedule, time didn’t allow us to shoot a Sexy Beijing. So she got in contact with a friend of hers who is an American Fullbright student researching Beijing Hip Hop. I met with him the same afternoon and we chatted for hours and made plans to shoot a piece about a collaboration between some rappers, MC’s (including Webber) and a rock band called Twisted Metal. So far we have been to the Modern Sky rock festival and done some interviews at their rehearsal. Tonight we shoot the gig.

Next year I hope to shoot more for Sexy Beijing and for the Fullbright student who’s a very smart young man and nice person. Getting in with some of the insiders of youth culture in Beijing and documenting it at the same time is a great unison that suddenly came to being after an email, a meeting and a phone call.

Anna Sophie is also a good person to know as she seems to know lots of people and said would love for me to meet them. To meet more people can create more understanding and also bring about the array of opportunities both social and work related that makes Beijing such an exciting place to be now.


Big Central Nation.
My friend here at Contigo mentioned a photographic book by a man who travelled across China. An ‘amateur’ photographer, he has done what so many in China have wanted to do, including myself. A self published 3 book set, it feels like one is travelling with him. A humanist take on life in various remote parts of China, and as far as I know, the only one of it’s kind. I met the man briefly at the book signing. He was humble and warm and welcomed contact with publishers in the UK if I might help make contact on his behalf. I felt incredibly privileged to have the possibility/opportunity do such a thing for such a book. I was excited.
Even though I know of the large and vast diversity of ethnic groups in China and the majority rural population, to see so much of it in the book opened up China as a whole planet of diversity and complexity. As far as I knew China in a political sense, suddenly it was not just made up of cities and internet users and city populations but also millions of rural populations with different cultural traditions to each other. This was China too.

I had a conversation (through translation) with a friend of a friend and she said if I ever created a film/films that documented what I intended, it would have to be a masterpiece.

The original enormity of the project just became a vast and lifetime exploration. The way I think about the project now is becoming more long term. I need to continually do my research through reading and contact throughout the years to follow. This is reflected in how little I have shot here, because I know it can be done next year.


I came back from shooting the rehearsal/interviews at 10pm on Thursday and got an email from my sister who asked me to urgently call home. It came as a shock that my grandma who I had just seen passed away. I do not yet know how or why. I felt sorrow for my mum who did not get to say goodbye although she had seen her in February this year. Loss is what I felt. The feeling of never meeting my grandma again is a reminder that everything has a finite life and that mortality defines us. We our ourselves and everyone we meet. Therefore, my grandma continues to live through us. My friend said it is said that we will all meet in the afterlife. Whatever we want to call it, I hope this is true.

- J