meeting points and disconnects: the cultural nuances of emotional expression.

She came over. She is such a lovely person. Gentle,quiet, but at the same time, a great conversationalist who is giving me a lot of insight into the everyday idealogies of China. She has started to help translate my shoots with the funeral cryers. She is studying oil painting. She is worried how she will survive as an artist in China. There is no government support here for the arts here – and she needs to connect with a gallery, and become commercially successful. Some artists have a great livelihood here, and earn a lot of wealth – you see them pulling up to their studio in the 4 wheel drive porsches, but most don’t. She says she wanted to become an artist becuase she has always loved the feeling of doing art since she was child, much like myself. I have sent her a lot of opportunity lists for artist in residencies around the world, etc, but she then wonders how she could ever take advantage of them, and she says the english is hard to understand. Her parents support her at the moment, but university is expensive, around 15000 RMB a year. I sent her some successful applications I had written to give her a point in the right direction.

I wonder how Organhaus Gallery survive? – but they are a great organisation. Their residency program has been really good – its hard to meet up with them, becuase they all start work so late – but they seem to be a gathering place for local artists, etc.

We will do a few translations day. She went off to have a big dinner with a friend, and Matt, Pablo and I need to venture out onto the crazy streets of Chongqing and do the same.

Here is the first translation from the funeral cryer.

DC.2828.mov

8.07

mama

11.21-14.01

your children come back to see you.

15.03 – 22.02

I was far away and I hear sad news.

23.20 – 25.21

My heart is really broken

23.30 – 30.14

I came here with tears

30.20

My dear mother

33.00 36.10

My tears can’t stop falling

36.10 – 43.04

All of your children came here to say goodbye to you.

43.04 – 52.11

Ma ma……

52.11 – 59.18

We are reluctant to let you go.

1.02.11 – 1.21.14

My tears are like a river flowing

1.21.14-1.37.13

The drops of tears are falling down in front of Mamas alter

1.37.13 – 1.47.10

our mama

1.47.10-2.03.16

You bring us up through hardships

2.03.16.- 2.15.00

Your whole life was hardworking looking after our family

2.15.00-2.24.00

Our good mama

2.24.00-2.36.21

Mama we miss you

2.36.21-2.49.08

we have seen your ghost and its feels like our heart has been cut with a knife.

2.49.08-2.57.03

remembering the past days we spent with you, chatting and laughing.

2.57.03-3.06.13

but today we have to face the cruelest fact in our life

3.06.13-3.09.22

we are apart, never to meet again

3.09.22-3.16.00

mama….

3.16.00-3.33.05

My tears are like a river flowing

3.33.05-3.51.13

The drops of tears are falling down in front of Mamas alter

3.51.13-4.00.03

Missing you so much.

4.00.03-4.07.19

Your life is so hard working mama

4.07.19-4.16.07

You raised us to adulthood

4.16.07-4.27.04

I am crying with tears and calling for mama

4.27.04-4.34.12

Our good mama

4.34.12-4.47.15

we reluctantly let you go

4.47.15- 4.55.08

you spend your whole life, taking care of four generations.

4.55.08-5.03.04

our four generations grew up with your care, happily.

5.03.04-5.13.12

God is so emotionless to let you go

5.13.12-5.20.14

We are really reluctantly let you go

5.20.14-5.29.02

We reluctantly let you go

5.29.02-5.38.13

We reluctantly let you go

5.38.13-5.47.22

You bring us up through hardships

5.47.22-5.55.08

we won’t forget your loving kindness for ever

5.55.08-6.06.11

oh my god

6.06.11-6.12.18

Why do you take our mama away

6.12.18-6.33.22

Your children kneel in front of your alter calling your name with deep emotion.

6.33.22-6.54.20

In this last night you spend with us, let your dedicated kids call you mama one last time.

So. today back in a cab to give the final letter to the visa office. It rained last night, which cleared the buildup of smog, so for the first time – I saw clearly accross the yangste and the sprawling expansion of chongqing – the building is incessant, constant – the city goes on for ever, weaving ist way around the yangste.

After a slow perusal and a flick through the excessive amounts of documentation, the visa officers accepted our documents, and tell us to pick up our visa on Tuesday. We then hop back in a cab, the driver gets completely lost, or pretends to be lost, a half an hour cab ride took 50 minutes, and then he stops to fuel his car, tells us to get out, then keeps the meter running while he fills it, then we get back in. And despite for some reason, getting annoyed at getting annoyed about the extra dollar he is going to charge us, I am seeing a lot of chongqing I have never seen before. This city is never ending, and expanding at a mighty force.

so..the last two days I have been immersed in trying to etend the visa – we did this last month in Shanghai, and now this is our last visa extension. We had initially asked to get a six month visa outside of China, but the chinese embassy gave us a 1 month tourist visa instead, so with in China, we have had to extend twice. This is the last extension they will give. Yesterday we first had to register with Police, then with She, we sped off in a cab to to Public Security Bureau, armed with passports, invitation letters, photos, birth certificates and marriage certificate.

The smog yesterday was so heavy, it was hard to breath. The cab driver was a wild women, weaving in and out of the traffic. We sit in the back, holding on for dear life, as She, my assistant, falls asleep in the front seat. I decide I want to shoot some video, so I have my camera out the window, while trying to hold on. The petrol fumes and the cab movement got to Pablo, and he tells me he feels sick. The next minute he is vomiting all over the back seat and himself and us. Poor guy, Great start to the day. I was worried – thought he might have had food poisoning, but I think it was just the wild driving, because he was fine after the cab experience. We cleaned up what we could, offered the cab driver more money, she says no, then she races off again into the smog.

We line up at the visa office – and are told we need to show that we have $3000 US dollars in each of our bank accounts – including Pablo’s bank account? He is 4…Then they work out, as we are with Organhaus, we won’t need this but we need the invitation letter to be in Chinese. Back in the cab, and back to organhaus. More forms to fill out, and then back in Cab. The pollution was so bad – you couldn’t see a few hundred metres,flying about in a bubble of grayness, with the bridges accross the yangste dissapearing into nothingness of smog. As we zoomed alongside the yangste – I looked out to a wall of grayness. There was no river, no buildings, just gray. We are then told by the visa people, we need new photos – ones taken here (our other photos were a month old..). So off to the photo place, I get my photo, and then pablo walks up to get his. He then decides he doesn’t want a photo, and turns his head. We try to bribe him with lollies, then icecreams – didn’t work, we then try threats with removal of toys, then removal of DVD’s. Its worse. He is now crying, and nothing is persuading him to get a photo. Since he has been in China, he gets his photo taken so often by everyone, he now hates the camera. The photographer takes one of him crying, then edits it in photoshop, making his head straight, removing my arms that were around him trying to coax him, and then finally copying and pasting someone elses lips on the photo. Strange. But the visa office accepted it.

We arrive back to the visa office and they tell us the invitation letter is still wrong – we need more information in it. Also, we need to do another set of photos taken by the visa people as well, this one via webcam… Back in the cab to organhaus, more paperwork, official stamps.

• 
• 
• 

The bed we sleep on is a few blankets on top of some plywood. Its incredibly hard, and also hard to get used to. I got a massage to compensate – and also have started yoga. Last night there was beeping from an electricity box – all night a constant high ptich beeping. I thought it might have been our electricity box – as it was beeping when we arrived home last night, but we found the card, and tomorrow we will put more money on it. It was somebody elses electricity box – but oh, how annoying – is there not another way of paying for electricity? – I think I got about 2 hours sleep last night.

Wow it was pretty intense in that shoot – they are professionals – they start slow, then throw themselves onto the ground, bang their chest and scream off the top of their lungs. Bash the ground, then throw themselves forward. Its intense. There are tears, a mix of sweat and tears I think. Its an intense job – 10 minutes each song. All yelling out for papa and mama.

The funeral cryers help induce emotional intensity – eliciting the family to cry. Also, the louder the mourning, the more affection for the dead person – So the criers scream very loudly – They have come back in to fashion after being banned for many years under the cultural revolution – The funeral criers are mostly hired by families with money, hence all the negotiating that had to happen to organise the shoot. They seem to be professional singers – peking opera singers, who perform at night – and also take on funeral singing. There is good money in it – I was paying $50 for 10 minutes – It ended up more because I am a foriegner, but the organisation was mostly done by organhaus, and as far as I can discern, its mainly rich families who use funeral criers. This tradition only seems to happen in the Chongqing/Chengdu region as far as I can work out from She. She says she lives near a funeral area – near the hospital, so she sees the funerals all the time, and hears the singers.

After the wailing, I am told a pop type of band might play – lots of sparkles, sequins and everyone has a good time. Another man I met tells me that the bodies are cremated, and then a little memorial stone is erected if you can afford it – and every 20 years you have to pay another bill for the land space, otherwise the ashes dug up – he says ‘oh, in china, we can’t afford to live, and we can’t afford to die’ and he laughs. There is also some sort of maintenance fees for the urns. Tiny plots of land are only for the rich, grave plots cost more than luxury houses – the prices are soaring – having been jacked up due to people hoarding land at the cemetry – to ensure burial of future generations. Where you are buried is important – the place needs to have good feng shui. . However scams are poppling up -newspapers recently exposed scams where “living person’s graves” (the graves bought by the living for their death) were each sold to multiple people. In the Mao era, cremation was made the norm and funerals were discouraged and looked upon as superstitious acts associated with feudalism. After 2000, the CPR changed it, you could not bury a body as there is not enough land – all have to be cremated. I think my translation seems mixed up? I think the statistic are that 9 million die per year in China.