morabbiton:

BY IRENE SHIH FEBRUARY 26, 2013

Following Ang Lee’s second Best Directing win at the Academy Awards last night, this beautiful essay resurfaced. Here is my translation of Ang Lee’s words, written in 2006 (post-Oscar win). Please credit the translation to Irene Shih (and to this blog), thank you!

In 1978, as I applied to study film at the University of Illinois, my father vehemently objected. He quoted me a statistic: ‘Every year, 50,000 performers compete for 200 available roles on Broadway.’ Against his advice, I boarded a flight to the U.S. This strained our relationship. In the two decades following, we exchanged less than a hundred phrases in conversation.

Some years later, when I graduated film school, I came to comprehend my father’s concern. It was nearly unheard of for a Chinese newcomer to make it in the American film industry. Beginning in 1983, I struggled through six years of agonizing, hopeless uncertainty. Much of the time, I was helping film crews with their equipment or working as editor’s assistant, among other miscellaneous duties. My most painful experience involved shopping a screenplay at more than thirty different production companies, and being met with harsh rejection each time.

That year, I turned 30. There’s an old Chinese saying: ‘At 30, one stands firm.’ Yet, I couldn’t even support myself. What could I do? Keep waiting, or give up my movie-making dream? My wife gave me invaluable support.

My wife was my college classmate. She was a biology major, and after graduation, went to work for a small pharmaceutical research lab. Her income was terribly modest. At the time, we already had our elder son, Han, to raise. To appease my own feelings of guilt, I took on all housework – cooking, cleaning, taking care of our son – in addition to reading, reviewing films and writing scripts. Every evening after preparing dinner, I would sit on the front steps with Han, telling him stories as we waited for his mother – the heroic huntress – to come home with our sustenance (income).

This kind of life felt rather undignified for a man. At one point, my in-laws gave their daughter (my wife) a sum of money, intended as start-up capital for me to open a Chinese restaurant – hoping that a business would help support my family. But my wife refused the money. When I found out about this exchange, I stayed up several nights and finally decided: This dream of mine is not meant to be. I must face reality.

Afterward (and with a heavy heart), I enrolled in a computer course at a nearby community college. At a time when employment trumped all other considerations, it seemed that only a knowledge of computers could quickly make me employable. For the days that followed, I descended into malaise. My wife, noticing my unusual demeanor, discovered a schedule of classes tucked in my bag. She made no comment that night.

The next morning, right before she got in her car to head off to work, my wife turned back and – standing there on our front steps – said, ‘Ang, don’t forget your dream.’

And that dream of mine – drowned by demands of reality – came back to life. As my wife drove off, I took the class schedule out of my bag and slowly, deliberately tore it to pieces. And tossed it in the trash.

Sometime after, I obtained funding for my screenplay, and began to shoot my own films. And after that, a few of my films started to win international awards. Recalling earlier times, my wife confessed, ‘I’ve always believed that you only need one gift. Your gift is making films. There are so many people studying computers already, they don’t need an Ang Lee to do that. If you want that golden statue, you have to commit to the dream.’

And today, I’ve finally won that golden statue. I think my own perseverance and my wife’s immeasurable sacrifice have finally met their reward. And I am now more assured than ever before: I must continue making films.

You see, I have this never-ending dream.

Original text (in Chinese):

文 / 李安

1978年，當我準備報考美國伊利諾大學的戲劇電影系時，父親十分反感，他給我列了一個資料：在美國百老匯，每年只有兩百個角色，但卻有五萬人要一起爭奪這少得可憐的角色。當時我一意孤行，決意登上了去美國的班機，父親和我的關係從此惡化，近二十年間和我說的話不超過一百句！

但是，等我幾年後從電影學院畢業，我終於明白了父親的苦心所在。在美國電影界，一個沒有任何背景的華人要想混出名堂來，談何容易。從1983年起，我經過了六年的漫長而無望的等待，大多數時候都是幫劇組看看器材、做點剪輯助理、劇務之類的雜事。最痛苦的經歷是，曾經拿著一個劇本，兩個星期跑了三十多家公司，一次次面對別人的白眼和拒絕。

那時候，我已經將近三十歲了。古人說：三十而立。而我連自己的生活都還沒法自立，怎麼辦？繼續等待，還是就此放棄心中的電影夢？幸好。我的妻子給了我最及時的鼓勵。

妻子是我的大學同學，但她是學生物學的，畢⋯⋯業後在當地一家小研究室做藥物研究員，薪水少得可憐。那時候我們已經有了大兒子李涵，為了緩解內心的愧疚，我每天除了在家裡讀書、看電影、寫劇本外，還包攬了所有家務，負責買菜做飯帶孩子，將家裡收拾得乾乾淨淨。還記得那時候，每天傍晚做完晚飯後，我就和兒子坐在門口，一邊講故事給他聽，一邊等待”英勇的獵人媽媽帶著獵物（生活費）回家”。

這樣的生活對一個男人來說，是很傷自尊心的。有段時間，岳父母讓妻子給我一筆錢，讓我拿去開個中餐館，也好養家糊口，但好強的妻子拒絕了，把錢還給了老人家。我知道了這件事後，輾轉反側想了好幾個晚上，終於下定決心：也許這輩子電影夢都離我太遠了，還是面對現實吧。

後來，我去了社區大學，看了半天，最後心酸地報了一門電腦課。在那個生活壓倒一切的年代裡，似乎只有電腦可以在最短時間內讓我有一技之長了。那幾天我一直萎靡不振，妻子很快就發現了我的反常，細心的她發現了我包裡的課程表。那晚，她一宿沒和我說話。

第二天，去上班之前，她快上車了，突然，她站在臺階下轉過身來，一字一句地告訴我：”安，要記得你心裡的夢想！”

那一刻，我心裡像突然起了一陣風，那些快要淹沒在庸碌生活裡的夢想，像那個早上的陽光，一直射進心底。妻子上車走了，我拿出包裡的課程表，慢慢地撕成碎片，丟進了門口的垃圾桶。

後來，我的劇本得到基金會的贊助，我開始自己拿起了攝像機，再到後來，一些電影開始在國際上獲獎。這個時候，妻子重提舊事，她才告訴我：”我一直就相信，人只要有一項長處就足夠了，你的長處就是拍電影。學電腦的人那麼多，又不差你李安一個，你要想拿到奧斯卡的小金人，就一定要保證心裡有夢想。”

如今，我終於拿到了小金人。我覺得自己的忍耐、妻子的付出終於得到了回報，同時也讓我更加堅定，一定要在電影這條路上一直走下去。

因為，我心裡永遠有一個關於電影的夢。

By: Didi Kirsten Tatlow
International Herald Tribune, March 6, 2012

BEIJING — Until Liu Ping emerged from the subway and onto a street under bright blue skies one recent Saturday, I wasn’t sure she’d even make it. I feared she’d be stopped on her journey by security officials from Xinyu, her hometown, a common occurrence in China for people who have incurred the displeasure of local officials.

But, suddenly, there she was: 1,350 kilometers from home, a middle-aged woman of average height with bright eyes, hair in a pony tail and frizzy bangs, bending forward under the weight of an old-fashioned, camouflage-patterned backpack that looked like a giant sausage. She stuck out her hand and we shook. Her hands were rough. My relief was enormous.

For my article on the state of Chinese women, I interviewed over a dozen women but two stuck in my mind: Liu Ping and Wu Qing. They were very different: Ms. Liu is a former steel worker; Ms. Wu, a former English professor from an illustrious family. Both were fighting for the right to be freely elected to Parliament, and for women’s rights.

The days before Beijing annual “two meetings,” of the legislature and a political advisory body, are among the worst time to try to see anyone deemed politically sensitive by the government. This time last year, Ms. Liu was in detention in a state-run “guesthouse” and she was concerned she’d be stuck away again any day.

Over days, Ms. Liu and I had talked on Skype, via connections that dropped frequently. Long crackling interviews where I had to shout and she did too, from the one-million-strong city of Xinyu in Jiangxi province in the south. She preferred Skype to her mobile, which she said was heavily monitored. ‘‘They may listen to Skype, too, but perhaps it’s safer,’’ she said.

Divorced from a policeman, the mother of one daughter who attends university, Ms. Liu had been forced into retirement at just 45. Men were also being retired early by her employer, Xinyu Iron & Steel, but most were working about five years longer, which is legal in China. They had more income and a bigger pension.

Facing poverty, Ms. Liu began fighting for redress in local courts. She petitioned the central government. Nothing worked. As she put it: ‘‘In China, if you have no money, you have no status. And women who retire early have very little money.’’

I asked if I could travel to Xinyu to meet her.

Her reply was immediate: ‘‘You can come, but I can’t guarantee your safety.’’

Several supporters and lawyers had been attacked by ‘‘them,’’ she said, thugs hired by the government. The latest incident had occurred on Feb. 12, days earlier, she said.

How about a photographer? Her answer was the same: ‘‘She can come, but I can’t guarantee her safety.’’

To me, of almost more concern was that she said many people who tried to visit were turned back by officials. Time was tight, and I ran a real risk of traveling there and not even meeting her.

But, she said, she traveled quite a bit.

Did she have a trip planned to a big city where the local Xinyu officials had less power? I asked.

At the end of February, she was going to Wukan to observe local elections. Wukan is a village in Guangdong province that rose up last year over land issues, where villagers recently held perhaps some of the freest elections in China in recent times.

Then she suddenly said: ‘‘I’ll come to Beijing.’’

It wasn’t that simple. I do not want to divulge how she got out of Xinyu.

After many sleepless hours on a train she refused my help carrying that large backpack. After we had talked, over a hot meal, she shouldered it again, saying: ‘‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll take care of myself.’’ Then, she disappeared back into the subway station, a 47-year-old, retired, poor, former steel worker who wants to change China, ‘‘One vote at a time,’’ she said.

Ms. Wu, for 27 years a deputy to her local parliament, or People’s Congress, shares that dream.

She comes from a very different social class from Ms. Liu, an intellectual blueblood whose parents studied in the United States before the 1949 Communist revolution.

Ms. Wu’s mother, the famous writer Bing Xin, or ‘‘Ice Heart,’’ was the daughter of a Qing Dynasty naval officer and active in student and feminist politics in the ferment of 1920s China, deeply respected for her wide range of writing. That included a first translation of the Lebanese-American poet Khalil Gibran into Chinese. Ms. Wu’s father, Wu Wenzao, was a founder of the study of anthropology in China.

After the 1989 massacre in Beijing, high officials visited her mother at home and sought her blessing, said Ms. Wu, who today lives in the apartment her parents shared in the Beijing Minzu University.

‘‘My mother was so angry,’’ she said. ‘‘She banged the chair and said, ‘The students love the people, and I love the students!’ ’’ She sent the officials packing.

Now 74, Ms. Wu, a retired English professor, is outspoken: ‘‘I don’t care,’’ she says in perfect English. ‘‘You can quote everything I say.’’

She pointed to a calligraphy in the apartment: one word, ‘‘Listen,’’ a reminder of the importance of the Tuesday meetings with constituents that she began many years ago before her decades as a deputy ended last year when she wasn’t allowed to run again.

The other major duty of a deputy is to monitor the government, she said, something that most don’t do.

Recent years have seen a rights rollback across China, she said.

‘‘Human rights, women’s rights, everything is blocked,’’ she said. ‘‘All these movements are closely connected.’’

Despite that, she said, ‘‘I feel China is going in the right direction. People want more democracy, because the more corruption they see, the more legal awareness grows.’’

She said China today is undergoing a crucial period, an Enlightenment.

‘‘You have to stand up for it,” she said. “You have to fight for it.’’

BEIJING — The men who barged through Shen Jianzhong’s door probably thought it was a routine assignment: Break in and beat Shen’s family into submission. Forced evictions to make way for real estate development are an everyday occurrence in China, and the family may have seemed no different from any in that situation.

It was only after they forced open the door, threw Shen’s wife to the ground and began to beat her that they learned the 38-year-old Shen and his 18-year-old son are kung fu masters.

“I take Bruce Lee very seriously,” said Shen in a telephone interview a month after the incident.

Shen says he does not recall exactly what happened during the fight, but an eight-minute video of the aftermath shows seven of the hired hands piled in a motionless heap in Shen’s doorway. Blood pools around the cheek of one; another lies halfway through the doorway, crumpled on the curb. Survivors mill about unsteadily on the street, glaring at the camera.

The video, shot by Shen’s wife, has attracted nearly a million views and many admiring comments since it was posted online Oct. 30. It has turned Shen into a minor folk hero in China, where many villagers have been forced out of their homes by da shou (“beating hands” in Chinese) who work for real estate developers.

Land confiscation is one of the most contentious political issues in China and accounts for many of the mass demonstrations that occur with regularity across the country. A report by Amnesty International this year estimated that confiscations have occurred in 43% of Chinese villages in 15 years.

Shen and his family live in Bazhou, a city in Hebei province 60 miles from central Beijing. Shen says he has trained in Lee’s Jeet Kune Do style of kung fu for 20 years. He has also been certified by the Hong Kong-based World Record Assn. for completing the highest number of roller push-ups in a minute. The exercise, which involves folding and unfolding at the waist like an inchworm while propped up with a small wheel, is more than a pastime for Shen. He and his wife run a small business teaching the exercise at home and around Bazhou, and they fear that the loss of their house would damage their livelihood.

Shen says he was teaching at a nearby gym on Oct. 29 when a group of more than 30 men assembled outside his house, which a local Communist Party official was planning to redevelop into an apartment complex. The men threatened and verbally abused Shen’s wife as she returned home with groceries.

Once Shen arrived and confirmed to the leader of the group that his family would not leave before receiving guarantees for housing, the assailants, he said, burst through the front door and began to beat his wife. In response, Shen and his teenage son, a graduate of traditional martial arts schools, entered the fray.

Many who have seen the video, which has not been blocked by Internet censors, applauded Shen’s victory. But the incident has also prompted a number of mournful remarks about social conditions in China.

“So do all Chinese people have to go to the Shaolin Temple [a historic martial arts academy] and study kung fu to do something about forced evictions?” wondered one recent blogger.

Shen said his troubles have actually increased since the attack. The next day, he said, nearly 100 men arrived in buses from out of town and surrounded his house. When the police refused to drive off the men on grounds that they were behaving peacefully, Shen fled with his wife to Beijing, hoping that media attention and the central government would help his family.

Shen said that in his absence his house has not been demolished, but that shortly after his departure for Beijing, the Bazhou police arrested his son.

Gangs like the one that attacked Shen’s home often operate with the consent of officials. After tax reforms cut into revenue across the country in the 1990s, local governments began exercising their right to rezone and sell land for real estate development. Chinese reports have said that the proceeds from recorded land sales, which go directly to the governments, far exceed the compensation offered to evicted inhabitants.

Rural Chinese, who receive plots of land allocated by local governments, have no individual land rights and cannot dispute rezoning plans drawn up by officials. But when officials do not offer sufficient compensation to households to relocate, the residents sometimes refuse to leave. Developers then evict the holdouts by force.

These forced evictions can provoke desperate responses. Some villagers have set themselves on fire, according to Chinese media reports.

Spectacular cases of armed resistance have also attracted attention, as when a farmer named Yang Youde used a homemade rocket launcher to drive away assailants from his house near Wuhan in 2010.

Chinese prosecutors often bring serious criminal charges against individuals who fight back. In a similar case in north China in 2009, a man named Zhang Jian was charged with murder after he stabbed and fatally wounded a man beating his wife during a forced eviction.

Shen returned to Bazhou on Nov. 28 to negotiate his son’s fate with the police and the developer. He says his son is still in detention, and unless he comes to an agreement with the developer he is afraid criminal charges will follow.

So while Shen is hopeful that the compensation for his property will increase, he also knows where the hard-won money is bound to go: He’s had to retain a lawyer for his son.

(Editor’s note: Here’s the video!)

By: Peter Van Buren
Huffington Post, 12/18/2012 

Khalid Sheik Mohammed, accused 9/11 “mastermind,” was waterboarded 183 times. Al-Jazeera journalist Sami al-Haj spent six years in the Guantanamo Bay prison, stating, “They used dogs on us, they beat me, sometimes they hung me from the ceiling and didn’t allow me to sleep for six days.” Brandon Neely, a U.S. military policeman and former Guantanamo guard, watched a medic there beat an inmate he was supposed to treat. CIA agents tortured a German citizen, a car salesman named Khaled el-Masri, who was picked up in a case of mistaken identity, sodomizing, shackling, and beating him, holding him in total sensory deprivation, as Macedonian state police looked on, so the European Court of Human Rights found last week.