How to break down Chinese officials’ resistance 02 (China)

Film shoot of 1988:  We had arrived at Jiāyǔguān (嘉峪关).  It is where the last western section of the Great Wall is to be found, so we wanted to shoot the travelogue “star” riding off into the sunset, bound for Xinjiang out of China proper.

There was a building with turrets, from which we thought it would be most atmospheric to shoot the departure (from China proper) scene.  

As we approached the front entrance, a bristling gatekeeper barred our way.  (They seem to be always bristling, if not actually barking — maybe because this makes them look authoritative.  It’s almost as if being polite and mild-mannered would put them in a subservient position by inference.)  

Out came the name card bearing Shanghai Film Studios, a form of handshake with the man (the producer’s palm ready lined with some notes), and we were waved in.

As we approached one of the turrets on the far side to do a recce (reconnaissance), another man came charging into the courtyard, also bristling with outrage at our intrusion.  The film producer placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and said, “Shall we step to one side and talk about it?”  As the man turned to walk towards one corner of the courtyard, the producer gestured to me with his eyes to get on with it, and be quick about it.

We did a few hurried shots from the turrets.  Going down to the courtyard some ten or 20 minutes later, we found the producer had become what I call “squatting pals” with the second bristler at one of the walls of the courtyard.  The latter was puffing away at a cigarette, most likely from the producer’s breast pocket, and not the first one either (see blog entry How to break down Chinese officials’ resistance 01).  

During the time we were up in the turrets, the producer had managed to engage the man in a conversation about the latter’s background:  he was not local but from somewhere much further out east, and only saw his wife and child once or twice a year.  The producer even got the man to show him a photo of the wife and child — which is another fail-safe conversation winner. 

David Bonavia mentioned in his 1975 Penguin paperback The Chinese a similar incident when he was caught speeding in Beijing, late for an appointment.  As he took out his very-full wallet to show his driver’s licence to the officious traffic policeman, out fell a wad of Chinese dollars that was the equivalent of some Chinese person’s monthly — if not yearly — wages, which made the gathering onlookers laugh (at the stupid, clumsy foreigner).  This probably helped him in a way because he was partially humiliated, therefore not so threatening.  However, a photo of his blond(e) and blue-eyed child also fell out of the wallet, which then started a conversation about the child and completely defused the situation.  

I’ve since been recommending that my students carry a photo of a blond(e) and blue-eyed child on them, even if they’re childless or not even married.  Who knows, it might save an awkward brush or two with Chinese law enforcers...

*关 guān is “mountain pass” in Chinese, where one crosses from one side to the other, so 关 in a place name would usually signify a border place — there are Tang Dynasty (618–c.960 A.D.) poems about people going off to border lands, probably to war or in exile.

(China, 1988)