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

OK, So the heater didn’t work in pablo’s room – it brightened up the room so much he didn’t sleep. He then locked himself in his room somehow – a scary moment – but we managed to talk him through the instruction of unlocking it before he got upset. I started to think we were going to have to knock the door down. He spent the night sleeping accross us. Oh, these beds are so hard – its just a blanket across wood – today I want to get a massage.

Great news about beginning the shoot tomorrow – today we are on the hunt for locations. I will keep the location the same as so the focus can just be on the performers. They will be wearing traditional costume. I want the shoot to be closed, just me, she and the performer.

I wish this residency was four months, not three. The people here are really welcoming – chongqing has been an absolute highlight of an amazing few months in China. We run into a lot of people at the restaurant out the front of the building. The food here has been fantastic. We haven’t cooked at home at all, and I doubt we will. Pablo is getting more adventerous all the time – last night he had a chicken dish with heaps of chilli in it. Its still been a bit difficult – he mostly eats plain rice, but he is also eating a lot of fruit. Today he had a tantrum over noodles.

So, leaped ahead. We have six funeral criers booked in – first shoot starts on Thursday. Apparantly the key was to go to the funural homes without the foriegner – the price quartered. We will shoot two a day – around half an hour to twenty minutes each. I now need to find a good studio – I am looking for a studio – to shoot in – there is a great wall in the 501 warehouse – but I am a little hesitant about the noise – and getting electricity for lighting, etc.

Wow, what an achievement. I feel great that things are progressing. She, my assistant here is great. Today she swapped my broken heater – and I bought a bigger one. I hope this one lasts more than ten minutes. I was assured it was ‘good quality’. Lets see – but it will live in Pablo’s room to keep him warm at night.

So – white is the colour of mourning in china – I will go with the white wall as organhaus for the back drop I think.

OK, we seem to have settled in. We had some one to look at the airconditioner and 50 Y later, he cleaned the filter. I got some more heaters and an electric blanket – but I still can’t get rid of the chill in my bones – its not cold here – it has a dampness that reminds me of my uni days in Melbourne – unheated houses, and a wet coldness. Its not cold at all – 14 degrees – and since I spent time last winter in Finland, this is just about summer. But there is no heating – so here, I am working with a blanket wrapped around me, fluffy slippers on, and a heater at my feet. Pablo doesn’t seem to be suffering – he keeps taking his clothes off and running around. The electric blanket is a winner though – I am just worried about Pablo spilling a drink on it though. When I asked the shop keeper what would happen – it was translated to me as ‘ just don’t do it’. So when he comes into our bed at 3 or 4am because he is cold, I get up and take the electric switch out of the wall and we try to make our little quilt cover three. Interestingly, the lady who sold me the electric blanket said it was such good quality, I could come in and exchange it for the rest of my life? Need a new heater already. My heater lasted about ten minutes until the top part of it didn’t work…mmm.. great quality.

So work has started, just. I have been assigned an assistant – She – a student from Sichuan University who speaks english. We went the other day to a funeral parlour to start the discussions about funeral cryers. I am after about 6 – 8 of them – but its seems this will cost around $1000AUD, money I hadn’t quite budgeted for. They want 800 Y each – we need to make a few more phonecalls to different funeral parlours. Again, I am wondering how much I push things, and how much I just be more zen to see what happens. She tends to read my emails which is great, but the messages don’t quite get understood – or more to the point, due to my lack of chinese, there is no disucssion – I guess, more just direction, which means it feels like I am having to push my ideas through.

I already feel anxious about time though – the days so so fast here – we are waking up a lot later – 10am and the day starts, I feel like a take a couple of breaths and the sun is setting. This is strange for us – we are usually up at around 6am.

I know a big part of a residency is just being in new environments – which is incredible – but it always takes a long time to settle before work can begin! When we leave our flat, we are propelled onto the street – strange smells, shouting, food – we can’t stop for long with out pablo getting crowded with mums showing their kids what a little western boy looks like. People are gambling, selling, yelling, going about business. The street life here is incredible. It will make Australia and Berlin feel like it is dead. We went to the dumpling restaurant for lunch yesterday and they bring out a little childrens book for pablo – pointing out pictures to words – in no time, we had about 25 people surrounding us, and adhoc chinese lessons and english lessons had begun.

So today, another meeting with She, and hopefully push things on a bit. Today I want to see Nikun about a potential talk/intervention at the university – I still need to spend more time thinking about things – mapping out the days and the work I hope to achieve here.

Thanked Jan for his help last night. He seemed fine – he could understand it was a bit scary at the time as we had no idea what was going on – great to know that just a noisy air-conditioner causing the problem – they are fixing it today apparantly – its freezing in here, and we are a bit scared to turn the aircon back on (it runs heat). We will be here for a month, so will buy extra heaters as well.

Chongqing is a crazy sprawling city – yesterday we made our way into the center via a chinese subway map (and made it to our destination!) – the subway is actually an overground skytrain – really amazing flying through the city and over the rivers – but Chongqing is so polluted – it feels like your traveling in a bubble of grayness. You get a sense your traveling into nothingness, and you sort of lose your stomach when huge buildings suddenly appear out of the pollution. Apparently yesterday was a good day! And it was – there was a touch of blue in the sky, the dampness wasn’t there. But living in a bubble of grayness is a bit disconcerting.

We met up with Matt Nemeyer, who lives here. I went to school with him in North Queensland – and I just realised he lived here via facebook. His partner, Ling, is from Chongqing. He took us on a long drive out to the country side to a friends’ BBQ celebration – incredible! We went to a big warehouse with BBQ lamb on spit. Everyone was given gloves, and you just dive in and pull the lamb apart – and then move onto big soup filled with vegetables and god knows what else. We then moved onto Karaoke – late night, but lots of fun and met some lovely people. Pablo had a ball at Karaoke – playing with everyone. You hire a room and then buy the alcohol, and then singing for hours. We got back in the wee hours of the morning.

Gosh, the food here has been an experience – an absolute highlight. China is quite amazing.
Going to meet She today – in about half an hour – to talk about work. mmm. Will be interesting to see where this goes. She seems to have been given the job as my assistant/translator, as well as the lovely Strawberry – who has been working out a power, internet, DVD, and TV request.

And we now have a TV that works, and a DVD, so Pablo is content with a few DVD’s. Matt spent the morning putting some artwork up on the walls. Settling in well. Bought Pablo a soccer ball so matt and pablo can spend some time at the Arts Academy football field. I have been told there is a kids park around here as well – so that will be nice to find.

Oh, what a night. We are back in the apartment – the power is back on. Its cold here – so we had both aircons feeding out heat into our room and pablos room. Then at 3.45 am we get a violent knock on the door and shouting in Chinese. We have a security guard at the front of the block – but it wasn’t him. There were two normal dressed men. I said ‘don’t open the door’! to Matt – They screamed and more knocking. We were scrambling for clothes. We were just a bit stunned – Was there a fire in the apartment block? I went to the window, and couldn’t smell anything. Was it something to do with the last guests owing something? Was it a break in? Was it some sort mafia? Were they after Pablo? All of these thoughts are speeding about while half asleep. But, as far as I was concerned that door was our protection. Our neighbours didn’t come to the door – it was just directed at us. For fifteen minutes (not exaggerating) of violent knocking we just looked each other and thought ‘What now?!’. Pablo slept through it. Then we had torch lights shining into our bedroom. Then I called an German Artist, Jan, who has lived here for twelve years and speaks chinese – and lives in the same apartment complex – to work out what the hell was going on. Anyway – apparently it was our air-conditioning that had broken down and was making excessive noise and waking everyone up…

Oh gosh. It took a while to get back to sleep – I don’t remember the last time I had felt scared – but not understanding what was going on, I did feel fearful for a few minutes there! It was a great example of just not knowing what really goes on, certain etiquettes, what things should sound like, (I just thought all the aircons here sounded like that) not knowing the nuances – I am so glad it was just an air conditioning problem.

mmm. I think few could deal with our lives – and the unexpected that constantly pops up – but, for some reason, we enjoy it – its been fascinating, and hard work – but its rewarding. Matt and Pablo have been troupers. I wouldn’t want to many nights like last night – but now we are laughing about it over coffee this morning! Oh, we need those aircons fixed – or we need to buy a new heater for pabs – I don’t want him to catch a cold, and we need clothes to dry more quickly – with the dampness here it would take days for things to dry if we don’t have heaters on – and we don’t have enough clothes for that.

I still can’t think about work – still settling in – got some incense for the bathroom – putting a few pics up on the wall – a bit more scrubbing. Our little apartment is going well. Internet is ON! This is a major step forward. I think I can start some work.