Done Filming in Anji

We have filmed several fights in one place after another, starting in Shanghai and ending in Anji in the Zhejiang province. We have been filming at night, so I have not had a chance to dictate my diary, so now I will just try to share my feelings about what I’ve been doing these past few days.

I have never been to Anji before; I didn’t even know it was on the map. They told me that Anji is very famous for its bamboo forests and its hand-picked bamboo shoots. We are filming a scene in the bamboo grove where they also filmed a scene from “The Banquet.” The bamboo here is very tall and the green branches, some thick, some thin, are very beautiful. My makeup artist Si Jie told me a riddle: ”When is bamboo not bamboo?” I couldn’t figure out the riddle, so she told me the answer. “When it’s a bamboo shoot.”  (You probably won’t understand why this is funny; it’s funny to Mainland Chinese, though.)

Speaking of bamboo, it’s really worth tasting the bamboo in Anji. At dinner, the bamboo shoots we were served were delicious. This is the first time I’ve had them cooked this way and I never thought the flavor would be so tasty! The cooking procedure is quite simple; all they do is put the bamboo into some salted boiling water and it brings out the natural taste. I joked with my stunt boys that if they ate too much bamboo they would break out in hives. Ha ha!

Everyone who ate the bamboo shoots thought they were delicious. I wanted to bring some back for my friends to eat, but the waiter told me that the bamboo shoots are only good when they are fresh, therefore everyone would have to come to Anji to taste them. The waiter told us some more about the town of Anji. He said that Anji was originally one of ten big bamboo townships in China. The bamboo groves in Anji have 389 different types of bamboo! I didn’t know there were that many types of bamboo and I felt a little sorry that I was making a movie and could not spend more time looking around Anji. Hopefully I will have time later to see more.

Drive Carefully!

We finished quickly in Anji, and when we stopped work for the day it was seven in the evening. We ate dinner quickly so we could get on the road for the three and a half hour drive to Hengdian. It was already dark when we left and I noticed that the lights from the approaching cars were very blinding. I kept reminding the driver Xiao Wei to be very careful. I want to remind all of you to drive carefully, especially when oncoming lights can affect your line of sight, making it very dangerous. Everyone certainly must be safety conscious.

"There’s no business like show business”

When we arrived in Hengdian it was already midnight. This is a new place for us.  I don’t know if everyone knows the English expression “There’s no business like show business,” but I will tell you what it means from my point of view: There’s no profession more interesting than the movie making business. In the past month I have been in the US, Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore, then Dunhuang, Wuyi Mountain, Anji, and finally in Hengdian. Each place is so different; the people are different, the scenery, and the culture. You can learn so many new things! A lot of people, especially those who work day after day in offices, envy those in the movie profession because they travel everywhere. I thought about the Chinese philosopher Confucius who believed in the importance of a union of man and nature. He said "the wise enjoy the water, the benevolent enjoy the mountains." He thought that there should be harmony between people and nature and that in order to be happy, people must be connected to nature in some way.

Everyone should take time to travel and relax, but society puts so much pressure on people to work! Ha ha! I should take my own advice. It’s just that there’s never enough time. Speaking of time, it’s very late now and I have a meeting. See you tomorrow!

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