Simon Lewis: Comrade Hack

On the fourth day I stopped caring about time. I thought it was the fourth day, but it might have been the third. Beijing was a receding memory, Moscow impossibly distant. I had slipped into the habit of sleeping for four hours and then getting up for four hours, it didn’t matter whether it was light or dark. Life inside the train bore no relation to the outside world -Siberia- which barreled past, cold, unwelcoming and as predictable as wallpaper; birch trees, hills, birch trees, plains, birch trees.

‘I hate those trees,’ said the elderly German in my compartment, ‘I want to cut them all down.’

Occasionally we passed an untidy village of wooden cabins but mostly the only human touch to the epic landscape was the telegraph poles at the side of the track.

My first Russian was a young guy in a shellsuit with a moustache and an anarchy tattoo. ‘The Beatles,’ he said, on hearing I was British.

‘The Rolling Stones,’ I countered.

He nodded. ‘The Doors.’

‘Pearl Jam?’ I inquired.

‘Nirvana,’ he asserted, ‘Napalm Death.’ Which seemed to seal the matter.

Once or twice a day the train stopped and I’d emerge for fresh air, dizzy and blinking, onto a platform swarming with frenzied shoppers. Traders stood in the carriage door and the townsflok, who had waited all week for two minutes of consumerism, rioted to get to them. To save time the traders threw money over their shoulders into the corridor to be collected by colleagues. They sold world cup t-shirts, plastic jewellery and Mickey Mouse umbrellas. Even the man from the dining car had a cupboard of trainers, which was perhaps why he could only offer gherkins and soup in his official capacity.

I played cards then slept, battleships, slept, charades, slept. It was an invalid’s life – a long slow delirium in comfortable confinement. But on the seventh day, or perhaps it was the sixth, when grey housing blocks started appearing and Moscow was imminent, I felt nostalgic for that easy sloth. When I finally got off, something felt terribly wrong; it took me a while to figure it out – oh yes, the ground wasn’t moving.

| ROUGH GUIDES | 25 Ultimate experiences Journeys |

I finished work and went down the road to check out Mao’s Livehouse. Its logo is Mao Zedong’s distinctive hair, which has nothing to do with what it is about, which is local bands. Usually there’s about twenty people in there but that night it was rammed. On stage was a Chinese skinhead band, wearing docs and braces and singing Sham 69 covers. The audience were all Chinese kids and some waved Union Jacks. Another band came on and did Cure and Blur covers. What was it all about? Of course, I had stumbled upon ‘English music night’.

I felt proud of being from the same country that Suede came from, which is something that you would never think back home. It is a phenomenon I have observed before. For example, back in the UK, Manchester United football club are, as far as I’m concerned, just another faceless corporation. But when you come here and hear a Chinese cabbie speculate about their new signing, you feel a surge of affection for those distinguished ambassadors. And it’s better than being known for starting ill conceived wars.

At the gig I bumped into one of Y’s friends, this style magazine writer, and ended up in a bar with a bunch of Chinese intellectuals. It turned out that two of them had studied art at my college, Goldsmiths. They were quite high brow. Like this one girl told me her English name was Sabrina. I said, ‘So were you a teenage witch?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Did you name yourself after Sabrina the Teenage Witch?’
‘Huh?’, she said, a little frostily I thought. ‘I am called Sabrina after a character in Milan Kundera’s the Unbearable Lightness of Being.’

We played a drinking game. I think only cultures where people don’t really like to drink play drinking games. In the UK having to drink two fingers of tequilla as some kind of forfeit just wouldn’t work because nobody would think that was any kind of punishment at all. We like drinking, and getting drunk, and need no cajoling.

In this drinking game you think of a famous person and other people ask you questions to which you can answer only yes or no, and they have to guess who you were thinking of. I play this with my family every year at Christmas, which is about as frequently as a person could want to play it I feel.

When you were guessed, you had to drink, and also if you guessed someone else and got it wrong.

When my family play, it’s all Princess Diana, JFK, Donald Duck and so on. But not with these folk. The first person was Yoji Yamamoto the fashion designer. Then we had Ang Lee the film director. Then Haruki Murakami the writer. It got so that the first questions asked of a new interviewee were, ‘Is it a he?’ then, ‘Is he a living person?’ then, ‘Does he work in the cultural industries?’

I was Santa Claus, which took them quite a long time to get. It was Sabrina’s turn next, and I got her straight away. She was, of course, Milan Kundera.

J said he had to get an early night as he had an exam in the morning. He is German, studying at a Chinese film school, I assumed the exam would be on Hitchcock or Truffaut or somesuch and he had to hit the books. No; he wanted to go home to practise basketball, which he had never played before in his life. Because it was a sports exam. Which he had to pass. Every student in China, whatever their subject, has to have a certain basic competence at sports.

I said fail, what does it matter? Qualifications don’t matter to a filmmaker, and he agreed, but he was still desperate to pass the dumb sports exam. Because otherwise, he said, what was the point? He had done the crazy thing of learning Chinese, and then going to a Chinese film school, which was even stupider, and what was the point of it any of it if he didn’t even pass the exams?

We’d met to discuss a script and were sharing a bottle of wine in a French restaurant by my hotel. I said I would help him write a ten minute film which he would shoot and use as a pilot to make money to make a feature. The feature was based on his girlfriend Chun Sue’s novel, Beijing Doll.

Bejing Doll was a cause celebre when it came out in 2000 because it was banned for being immoral. It’s a teenage girl’s confessional, about dropping out of school and dying her hair and becoming a punk and annoying her parents and so on.

Because of all the hoohaa she got famous, regarded as a spokesperson for China’s Gen X; she was on the cover of Time Asia. The publisher changed the title from ‘World of Ice’, (probably a good idea), and the book was packaged in a pink cover with yellow ransom-note writing, in pastiche of the Sex Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks, and it sold hundreds of thousands of copies all over the world.

J asked me if I had read it. I said I’d read half of it, which was an exaggeration. It was well written but it didn’t go anywhere. I had reviewed it for the guide; I said, ‘A rambling roman a clef about a confused teenage girl who has unsatisfactory sexual encounters with preening rock and rollers – though if it wasn’t China it wouldn’t be interesting.’

I told J that the fact that the book did not have a story does not matter. The title and the controversy would be enough; someone somewhere would pay money to have it made. Probably not by him, of course. They would just go straight to Sue and buy the rights and give it to a more experienced director. Still, it was worth a shot.

Chun Sue came round to say hello. Mostly she looked like the voice of a discontented generation, with spiky hair and a pop art t-shirt with guns on it, but like many successful twenty something Asian girls she carried a Louis Vuitton bag. I pointed out that it didn’t fit her image and she said she’d spent a couple of thousand dollars on LV stuff but now regretted it cause she couldn’t afford to go on holiday.

She was celebrating; she was to become singer of the band ‘Demerit’, and had just come from Modern Sky records and they had given the band a record deal. I asked her how many songs they had, she said three. But it was okay; their first gig was in a couple of months and they’d have six by then. She ordered another bottle.

Her third novel had just come out (Red Children) but she was stuck on her fourth. Like most confessional writers she had continued mining her life, but it seemed she had enough material to keep her going.

The fourth book was to be about this time she went to Thailand to see some American guy she’d met on the internet and he turned out to be really fat (every story that begins ‘we met on the internet’, ends ‘but he/she was really fat’). And not just fat but mad, and he locked her in a hotel room and threatened to slit his wrists. And she called the Chinese Embassy and they said, ‘well what did you expect’, and she called J and… but she didn’t know where to take it as what really happened after this wasn’t satisfying.

I thought it was obvious; get all the principals in the same place, bring J and the man’s wife (oh yeah he was married) out to Thailand too, bosh, there’s your book. Doesn’t matter that that’s not what happened.

More wine appeared. They were a sweet couple but I could see she was hard work; J said she was like a hyperactive kid, always demanding attention. He said she only focused when she wrote, between 8pm and 3am every day. I left them to it. I shouldn’t think he got much basketball practise in.

The photographer wanted to take pictures of Beijing duck so I took him to this new ‘Imperial’ restaurant I’d read about.

It was one of the most over the top places I have ever seen. As we walked in, robed greeters shouted, ‘the honoured guests have arrived!’ and we were shown into a dining room made out to look like a hall in the Forbidden City. Except there were goldfish beneath the glass floor and a waterfall ran down one wall. The chairs were bright yellow thrones and as well as cutlery there was a flywhisk and something like a sceptre at the table settings.

But never mind the décor, it was the staff who were really striking; all were tricked out in full historical gear complete with elaborate headgear, long fake nails and the like.

We went for the cheapest set meal, about fifteen quid each, which turned out to be pretty good value considering. With some ceremony we were presented with a whole plucked duck, including its head of course, and given a brush and a pot of what I think was its blood and asked to write something on it. As we were going to take a picture of the thing we asked the guy just to write ‘duck’ on it in Chinese. They took it away to be cooked and then brought out an endless succession of courses, starting with fried duck’s webs.

Our waitress said ‘the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty is greeting you!’ and three heavily costumed people came up and bowed; a Tang Dynasty Emperor, the Empress, and a foxy concubine. The man’s hat looked like the top of a Doric column and the queen’s headpiece like a gold pagoda. I guess we should have taken a photo or said hello back but I think we were both a bit shell shocked and unsure how to play along.

Never mind, they just smiled dreamily and continued in stately procession, greeting all the diners. When they left, I though that was the end of the shenanigans, but no, later on we introduced to some Song Dynasty royals, and after that, Yuan, Ming and Qing.

Of course you see pictures of Imperial finery but the full magnificent haute couture silliness of the costumes doesn’t come across until you see someone dressed up in them and trying to walk. It’s as if every dynasty tried to outdo the last in impracticality and colour contrast. Actually what it reminded me of was the most recent Star Wars films; the look of the Chinese court was obviously the inspiration for the dresses of that Queen wotsefarface.

It was all very well done, I have to say. I’m seen attempts at this kind of thing before but they’ve always looked a bit shabby – the robes cheap, and trainers visible beneath them. Not here though; the footwear was period, and the staff must have had deportment lessons. The ‘Imperial family’ had just the same kind of glassily benevolent look that the Queen manages. There was, I felt, a Walt Disney kind of figure behind this, a strong character obsessed with realising his fantasy.

When the roast duck finally came we were quite relieved (though no longer, sadly, very hungry); at least it meant the photographer could do some work. A chef skilfully evicerated the thing for us on a trolley. I’d have thought that would make a great photo, but, partly thanks to the transparent plastic gloves the man was wearing, the pictures looked like illustrations of some grisly medical procedure.

Our waitress plucked pancakes out of the bamboo steamer, slathered them with plum sauce and put on the duck shreds and spring onion and rolled them up into packages. To be honest I’d rather roll my own duck pancakes. But that’s the Chinese idea of luxury – having lackeys hover just behind your shoulder waiting for the moment when they can spring forward and do something for you. It made for some good photos anyway.

It was fun but I think we were quite glad to get out of there. The greeters carried the photographer’s tripod out for him and as we left shouted, ‘Their work over, the honoured guests take their leave!’

We went to a bar round the corner. It was called ‘The World of Suzie Wong’s’, and it was done up like an opium den, with rose petals floating in stone ponds and the like. And just over the road from that was a housing estate of high rise blocks. There was nothing special about the blocks of course, but the entrance to the estate was a giant Proscenium arch, faced with marble, with full size figures of Roman warriors in niches and topped with an equestrian statue. Theatre, kitsch and pastiche – sometimes Las Vegas has nothing on China.

The guide photographer was here. He took my advice and bought a fold up bike. He was diligently riding to all the places on the list I had emailed him which made me feel a bit guilty as I dashed that off in about ten minutes.

I couldn’t believe the contract he was on every single picture he takes is automatically copyright the employer, so even if he snaps me on his camera phone, the resulting picture is not his intellectual property. He could see aliens land and film it and the film would not be his copyright so he wouldn’t be able to make anything from it. I was shocked. I can’t believe that’s legally enforceable.

But apparently that’s how a lot of photographers have to work these days. Digitalisation and picture libraries have made it much harder to make any money at the game. It used to be, if a magazine wanted a shot of the Tokyo Tower they had to send a photographer to Tokyo and pay him well. Now the mag just go to a picture library and choose one out of the million or so shots of the Tower on their files and pay about fifty quid, of which the photographer gets half. Very little travel photography is commissioned any more.

He showed me his portfolio, on his little Mac. He had just come from India(bureaucratic nightmare) and Madrid (full of thieves).

And before that he did Laos. He was asked to take pictures of Akhe tribespeople, so, being the conscientious fellow that he is, he went right into the jungle and hiked for days till he found some of the most isolated tribes in the whole country.

This one village he went to, they didn’t know what electricity was. Just to find some level on which to relate to them, he tried showing them his portfolio (all stored on his I-pod). He had a guide who was translating, saying things like, ‘Look this is the Eiffel Tower, it’s very famous, it’s in a place called France which is on the other side of the world. And the people were like, ‘whatever.’ Whether being shown the Taj Mahal or a flamenco dancer, they just looked at the screen blankly, bored. And the photographer began to think, they just didn’t know how to relate to photos, for them it’s nothing but a little patch of shifting colour.

He was getting worried. Not everyone was happy he was there and the atmosphere was awkward.

Finally, he came to the pictures that he’s recently taken – on the same trip, of another set of Akhe people. And suddenly everyone got really excited, and crowded round, or hurried to fetch their relatives. Every person in the village had to be talked through every picture so he had to spend the rest of the day flicking through these pictures until the I-pod battery ran out. The women in particular were fascinated at the slightly different ways their co-tribespeople did their hair or embroidered their black jackets or wore their jewellery.

Then the village head, not wishing to be out done by the tribe down the road, ordered everyone in the village to put on their best clothes and pose for group portraits. The kids were washed and dressed up and the women put on their finery, which is very beautiful, but it was a bit of a surprise when the men came out to pose holding cigarette cartons.

It turned out that factory cigarettes were status symbols. The cartons were kept unopened, on display, as a sign of a family’s wealth. They were the only non functional objects in the whole place. The village head had three. So, what, thirty packets of fags – worth about a quid – to show you had cash to spare.

It’s easy to romanticise tribespeople living in harmony with nature but God they are poor. On the same trip he saw a village that had just been completely abandoned. Everything that could be carried had gone but the houses and animal stockades were intact. The people had just had enough. They had upped sticks and set off to walk a few hundred kilometres down to the road to see if they could get on better as part of this thing called the modern world. Presumably their only hope of work would be as heavy lifters but they figured being on the bottom rung of modernity was better than where they were.

The Akhe are in China too, all around the Laos border, in Xishuangbanna. China is much more developed than Laos and there is no escaping the modern. I hung out with an Akhe guy in Jinghong, a few years ago, H. He had gone to the big city and made a business selling Akhe embroidered clothes. H cooked me shredded beef with mint, one of their signature dishes, and told me how worried he was about his village.

Xishuangbanna is the poor Chinese man’s Thailand, with a big sex industry, and all the village girls were working as prostitutes in the city. But there was nothing for the guys to do and they still did what they always did. So the girls would go back to the village after a couple of years and marry some local guy, but, H complained, they would have big city ways and a taste for money and the marriages never worked.

H introduced me to his Akhe girlfriend. She worked as a barmaid in the YES Disco, where she wore a red dress covered with sequins. Her high heel shoes were too big for her so she stuffed them with tissue paper. She stayed awake all night on Thai red bull. And she smoked, of course, factory cigarettes.