Yung Chang – Up the Yangtze
By Caroline Planque
Posted June
28, 2008
Exploring the seldom
told human toll caused by the Three Gorges Dam, Chinese-Canadian
filmmaker Yung Chang embarks on one of the cruise ships offering
farewell tours of the
Yangtze River.
While western tourists on the main deck comfortably observe and
photograph the riverbanks soon to be engulfed by the flood
waters, Chang walks the lower deck and connects with two of the
younger employees whose lives are being changed, for better or
for worse, by the pharaonic project. Yung Chang presented this
moving documentary, one that makes us ponder about the
consequences of “progress”, at the Seattle International Film
Festival, a few weeks prior to its general release in theaters.
-Your parents are
first generation immigrants, is that right?
Y.C.: That’s right. My
mother is from
Beijing. My father is from
Shanghai.
I am their first child born outside the mainland.
- So how do you
position yourself? Do you feel more Chinese or more Canadian?
Y.C.: That’s an
interesting question, because I think I fall in the middle. I
really don’t feel I am Canadian, nor do I feel Chinese. I am in
this middle ground and I think that really helped me to make
this film, to be in a position where I could see both sides of
the story: to be able to speak the language, Chinese Mandarin,
and then offer in the film these different perspectives,
different point of views. It was really important for me to
capture something that at least was open, in the sense that it
was 360 degrees. It was important not to label things in black
and white terms, which is easy to do as a Westerner. That’s a
major mistake. Being Chinese “Canadian” put me in a position
where I could feel those conflicts in trying to understand a
complex society.
-Have you traveled
often to
China?
Y.C.: My grandfather,
who is from
Beijing, moved to Taiwan in 1949. So I used to go to
Taipei
a lot. It’s an amazing place. It is also a culture that is full
of different cultures, since it once was Japanese. So I used to
go to Taiwan and study Mandarin in the summer. My first trip to
mainland China was in 1997. Consequently, I lived in
Hong Kong
and travelled a lot in
China.
Now, I have family there. For me, it is a place of constant
discovery. I think many people say there are 1.3 billion stories
to tell in China.
-Do you think that the
fact that you were born in
Canada affected your relationship to your parents in any
particular way?
Y.C.: I was born in
1977 in a small town east of
Toronto. At that time, we were the only Chinese family in that
small town environment. I was somewhat isolated in that I was
somehow able to retain a certain amount of my Chinese
upbringing. I grew up in a Chinese family, so there is this
interesting contrast going on. At that time, it was important to
leave everything aside, focus on being English, speaking
English, and assimilate. And I think that was valuable, because
there was a process of self discovery along the way where both
my brother, who now leaves in
Beijing,
and I fell into a very sincere and important process of speaking
Mandarin and reading Chinese literature. That was an important
step. What was interesting is that my parents were not dogmatic
about it. They allowed us the space to explore. I think that’s
important.
-How was the cultural
shock for your parents when they immigrated to
Canada?
Y.C.: I think it was
similar to many immigrant stories. There was a real sense of
displacement, but there was comfortableness in their own skin,
having grown up with a very clear cut identity. They were
Chinese. So the process for them was not what my brother and I
went through. It was a different experience. For them it was the
immigrant story.
-You went back to
China with your parents and grandfather to take a farewell
cruise on the Yangtze and that’s how you stumbled on the story,
is that right?
Y.C.: That’s
right. In 2002, they invited me on a trip. I had never been on a
cruise boat before, so I had conjured up the images of some sort
of romantic river boat journey along the lines of, maybe, Herzog
or Fitzgerald, and I had this feeling that there would be this
sort of irony: the fact that it is called a farewell cruise. I
went onto this trip knowing that there would be these
disparities. I brought a camera and filmed the experience of
that first trip. The very first time, it was much more about
exploring the culture of tourism and the tourism of culture. But
one moment really changed everything for me: a conversation with
one of the employees on the boat. His grandmother had told him
that she’d rather be drowned by the flooding waters than have to
leave her home. And that was in the environment of this luxury
cruise ship.
-And that’s not the
type of stories you hear on those cruise ships…
Y.C.: Exactly. So that was a very stark reality for me. It made
me realize that this cruise ship could become a microcosm to
explore, in a sense, contemporary
China. That on these boats, you have this upstairs/downstairs
world. I thought this was a fascinating way to talk about China.
-In your documentary,
it seems that the suffering of common Chinese people is a bit
trivialized by enterprises like the cruise ships because they
tend to mask everything in favor of progress…
Y.C.: True and I
would say that is similar to any tourist destination around the
world. For me, as a jaded traveler, it is much more about
peeling back the surface and seeing what is really going on. But
the juxtaposition of the perspective of a Westerner versus the
Chinese underbelly experience is also very important. And I
think that, from that experience, we can see and get a sense of
the complex layers and not trivialize anything.
-So do you view mass
tourism as having a bad influence?
Y.C.: Well, there
often is the debate between tourism versus the travelers, and I
would say that both have an impact on a culture. In some ways,
tourism is superficial, but it could be the safest way not to
infiltrate a culture, a community, and not affect that culture.
When I was backpacking through
Southern China, we went to a small village that has
become a backpacker destination. It used to be a farmers village
but over the years, it has become… well… now, there is a
Starbucks, the environment where all the backpackers stop, and
from there, they have their little hotels and it’s very
“authentic”. From there, they backpack through the countryside,
and I think the impact of a traveler, in that sense, can be much
more detrimental to the local community. So there is this
debate: perhaps a tourist is much less of an explorer, in the
sense of changing the culture. And then again, these are
government sanctioned trips, with a Disney aspect to them. I
think there could be a whole other film about that aspect of
tourism.
-Do you feel that, in
a way,
China is selling its soul to the devil by incorporating some of
the worst aspects of capitalism?
Y.C.: Well, I think
progress is always a questionable venture. But you can look at
it from the other side and see that the Western World spent 270
years industrializing, ravishing their environment, and that
process of industrialization, that process of progress was also
into question. I never forget. You see the paintings by Manet of
the
Thames and there is this smog, in a similar way to what is
happening in China. I always like to try to see the other
aspect. We can say that progress is an evil thing and China is
selling its soul, but we can also look at it from the Chinese
perspective, having an understanding of their culture,
especially in the last 50 years, having gone through communism,
the Cultural Revolution, the great famine, all these movements
that caused so much trauma to the people of China.
-But do you think
progress benefits the majority of Chinese people or that more
people actually suffer because of it?
Y.C.: That’s the
ultimate question mark. In my film, you see that happen. There
are people that are able to climb the ladder and become
successful. In
China,
as I say in my film, it’s true that peasants can become
millionaires. I don’t want to see short the impact of the film,
but my ancestors through my grandfather’s family were
themselves, at some point, in the city of Shanghai, migrant
workers. My great grandfather used to be a farmer and a gardener
in the city of Shanghai and he, like many people at the time,
paid a few dollars to learn a word of English everyday and,
through that process, became a landowner and a very wealthy
person. In China, in this sort of futile society - dare I say
that it has always been this sort of futile society - some
people make it, some people don’t. And my film does want to
focus on the people that fall through the cracks in the name of
progress. I think it is important to see that side, only to know
where we are going.
-Are you taking a
political stance with your film?
Y.C.: I think no
matter what kind of film you make, whether you try to be as
apolitical as possible or not, you always have a political
standpoint, and I think that may sip trough in my film. I would
say that my story, through focusing on human lives and emotions,
is a humanist story, but it does touch on the complications and
complexities of Chinese society in regards to the relationship
between the local government and the common people versus the
central government. There are a lot of barriers.
-Have you been
able to release the film in
China?
Y.C.: This is really
great news: we just heard from the Guangzhou International Film
Festival that they would like to have our film on a double bill
with Manufacturing Landscapes. We’ve shown the film in
Beijing because my crew was a Chinese film crew. I worked with a
lot of Chinese filmmakers and producers in making my movie. I
would say that there is a real tradition of documentary
filmmaking coming out of China since the mid 90’s and even
earlier. These films are seen by and audience and there are also
often seen in
China,
through other means like downloading, or pirated DVDs.
-How was it to make a
documentary in
China about a subject that has the potential to be very
controversial?
Y.C.: For me, it was
very easy. It was also unusual, it was an eye opener for me to,
first of all, realize that the Three Gorges Dam is not an
illegal subject. You can criticize it. The Central Government
has now admitted that there could be a catastrophe in the Three
Gorges region. I think this has really become a very “platform”
kind if issue. It is not like making a film about
Tibet,
it is about an environmental issue, hand-made by humans. Working
with a Chinese crew, traveling the country side and shooting
this film revealed to me that is was a very easy process.
People would think that we were actually from the local media.
They thought we were from the TV station. And that revealed to
me the importance of the media with common people and the
structure of the media and the government, because it is very
allowing. Because of the corruption that’s involved at the
local level, media is a good way to, in a sense, petition, to
the central government. That’s what many people thought we were
doing.
-Are most people
suspicious of the government?
Y.C.: No, I would say
that many people are very proud of the central government and
what’s happening in
China. The irony is, you can talk to the poorest peasant and he
will say wonderful things about the country, and really mean it,
because in China, there is that sense of sacrifice to the bigger
family. There is a real recognition of the nation and I think
that is driven home by this sort of communist idealism. You can
talk to the taxi drivers and they will expand on the beauty of
the country, and how everyone is making a lot of money, and
progress is great. Generally, many people are very proud, but I
would say that there are the people that sip through that, and
are upset about corruption, on a local level. It really does
happen on a local level. And they will voice their opinion, as
you see in my film.
-You were very
persistent in making this film. It took you over 4 years?
Y.C.: It took 4 years
to make the film. Most of that time was spent trying to convince
the funding agencies and the broadcasters that I had an idea for
a story. We spent four years on researching and development.
And during that very solid one year of 2006, when I moved to
China, I shot the film and made the movie.
-What kept you going
for so long?
Y.C.: You always want
to give up, especially after four years of the same thing. But
what kept me going was to come upon my subjects and really know
that it was out of my hands at that point. It was much more the
stories of their lives. When I looked at them in the eyes, I had
no excuse not to want to finish my story.
-Are you still in
touch with them?
Y.C.: It was really
important to me, once finishing the film, to show it to everyone
involved. It’s the first thing I did, actually. I went back in
the fall of 2007 and showed it to everyone. Yu Shui saw it and
she was very moved by it. In fact, she wrote to me a couple
weeks later and told me that through the film, she was able to
see her destiny and her fate and that she had decided to leave
the boat and go back to high school. And our production helped
pay for the rest of her high school tuition and since then,
we’ve begun a fund on our website to help the family. So it is a
way for our audiences and ourselves to give back to a family
that went through so much. I think it was important to establish
the relationship with the subjects, just so that they knew that
I wasn’t just going to walk away at the end of the day. As a
documentary film maker, you have a responsibility, I think, to
be connected through life. You do engage in this relationship.
In fact, I was just chatting with Yu Shui online on the internet
yesterday. I think it is great to keep in touch with her.
-Have any of the
tourists pictured in the film seen it and what do they think?
Y.C.: What seems to be
interesting is the demographic for the film. We released the
film in
Canada, in New York, and L.A., and the general reaction has been
that the demographics have been tourists, people who will be
going to
China,
who are fascinated by
China,
who have been or will be going on the Yangtze cruise. It’s not
my position to say: “Oh, you’re a tourist” or to make a comment
about that aspect. And even people who have been in the film
have come to see the film. For them, it is like reliving the
experience, but exposing a little more of what was happening in
front of them. There is an aspect of tragicomedy and I could
have gone to the extreme of mocking the tourists, but for me it
was not about that. It was much more about these perspectives
and I think that, in many ways, the tourists were innocent to
the experience, in a sense. They were there to have fun and
vacation, for many people, is a way to gain access and to learn
about a culture. Of course, on the other side, it is also about
the Chinese way of giving them what they expect and it becomes
unauthentic; it becomes “exotified”. It’s very weird.
-How about your
parents and grandfather? When they saw the movie or took the
cruise, were they nostalgic?
Y.C.: Very nostalgic.
Even my father… it was his dream to go to this Yangtze River
Three Gorges. For many people, it is a privilege, because it is
so steeped in history and mythology. For them and for many
tourists, including Chinese tourists, the idea that it is
actually disappearing is actually a tragic thing. But I think in
their opinion, it is always going to be there, the Three Gorges
is always going to be the Three Gorges fifty years down the
road. But there was sentimentality, nostalgia about the history
of the past.
-And for you, has
making this documentary changed your perspective on
China?
Y.C.: Yes, it was a
very steep learning curve for me to be able to make a film
working with a Chinese crew. Communicating and living in
China was very important. I learned a lot from it. You learn to
be humble.
-Are you working on
another documentary project?
Y.C.: Yes, I am
currently producing a documentary that my collaborator has made.
He shot for two years a migrant family during the Spring
Festival, which is basically Chinese New Year. It is the most
important holiday of the year. And for more than 100 million
people, it is the only opportunity to go back to their home town
from the city, and it is absolute chaos. So he has followed a
migrant family working in the South of China, who is trying to
get home for 5 days by train. It is crazy and there is real
drama in the relationship between the mother and father and
their daughter, who is trying to break away from the family. It
is very intense.
Now playing at
the
Varsity Theatre
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