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IMAGING BEIJING |
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Beijing, June 23rd, 2007 The Communications University of China set me up with two graduating students, (Peter) Guo Yu and (Daisy) Xu Sha to assist, interpret and to become the subject of the "Imaging Beijing" project. By this time I had chosen a specific location and arranged to meet them there early one morning. We made the initial panoramic shots from the street and I had begun the first video dolly shot into the demolition zone when we were stopped in our tracks by a government official. We were told in no uncertain terms that photography at the site was forbidden. After some fruitless negotiations we decided to regroup and walked over to Yandaixie Jie near the Drum Tower. Yandaixie Jie is historic and quaint market and has begun to attract the cafe and wifi crowd. Yandaixie means pipe and the street is indeed shaped like a pipe. It is a little more touristy than I am comfortable with for the "Imaging Place" work, but we could begin along the waterfront of Qianhai Lake, work our way through the market, and then strike into the residential hutongs just behind. 
Things went fine until we again made the initial shot into the neighborhood. I walked the cammera down to the first T in the road, being sure to keep the camera steady and straight. It just so happened that a woman had put her underwear out to dry, right there. I didn't even see it. I was just trying to keep the shot ligned up. She was sure that I was trying to take pictures of her underwear. Some excitement ensued and a crowd of on lookers began to gather. Guo Yu had begun to talk with a group of older men. They asked where I was from. When he told them that I was from the United States one replied, "Oh yah, they were in on the Franco-Anglo invasion of Beijing of 1860, during the Second Opium War when the old summer palace was burnt to the ground and looted." This gives a sense of the collective living memory of these old hutongs. The issue is not the United States' foreign policy in Iraq, but the foreign policy of the entire west and colonial practices throughout the generations. In the meantime the underwear lady had begun to raise her voice. There was absolutly no chance of reason or expaination. When the whole thing began to escalate we turned back. Again, stopped in our tracks.  So we stumbled through the rest of Yandaixie Jie and over to the Drum Tower, off kilter from the experience. We all began to question what we were doing, but continued to work. It was pretty exausting. I got some great matterial but it was forced and rot with tension. After several hours of trying to get it right and only getting halfway there, we decide to take a break and eat some lunch. We found a place that served fantastic crab meat dumplings and almond juice. We were out of the heat and it gave me a chance to download all of the files to the laptop and clear the cameras memories for more work. I processed some of the work so Yu and Sha could see what it will look like. That got them recharged. We talked later and it turned out that we were all more shook up from the woman and her underwear than any of us were letting on at the time. We discussed what to do next and we all agreed that we had to try to get to the houtons again. We headed back out into Huoyaojie Hutong east of the Bell Tower. At this point things just fell into place. Yu and Sha did great with memory work during the video testimonials. People were friendly and accepting for the most part. It was one of those situations were it was clear that I had been intent on imposing the demolition subject on the place. I just simply needed to experience the hutongs and let the place tell its own story. In the end the demolition issue was raised by the people themselves. We did not have to mention a thing. We shot until we ran out of disk space. There was one funny situation at one node where we caused this huge rikshaw traffic jam out of nowhere. It was perfectly quiet then this black sedan with dark winows pulled up in the middle of us taping one of the local denizens. I continued shooting to let her finish. The black car honked once or twice then 40 or more rikshaws from both directions arrived at once. It took 10 minutes to clear. We spent the rest of the afternoon drinking espresso and mango smoothies and killed time talking politics. The students are very smart and engaged. Then they took me out for famous Beijing Roasted Duck. |
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