World (DVD)

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Everything that a writer writes becomes a part of a macro-diary. The same holds true for the reviews that a movie reviewer pounds out on his keyboard. A reviewer reveals his attitudes, his beliefs, his maturity, his intelligence, and his experiences when he responds to a movie. My review of Jia Zhangke´s "The World" ("Shi Jie") is more of a diary entry than it is a "straight" review because, given what has happened in my life during the past twelve months, I have an intensely personal reaction to Jia´s fourth directorial effort. Jia is already being hailed as one of the masters of contemporary cinema. "The World" covers much of what I saw first-hand. I appreciate it as much for being a visual memoir as for being an excellent movie.

In May of 2005, I completed my master´s thesis about Ang Lee´s first three feature films. In June and July, I visited several European countries for the first time. On 26 July, I set foot in China for the first time; even though I was born in Taiwan, China is my ancestral homeland because I am a wai sheng ren. The first movie that I saw in a Chinese movie theatre was Steven Spielberg´s "War of the Worlds". While in China, I received a note from James Schamus, Ang Lee´s long-time collaborator. Schamus patted me on the back about my thesis. I visited a KTV lounge and became friends with two ladies who work there. Not long after my first visit to the KTV lounge, I saw my favorite actress Zhang Ziyi in Wong Kar-wai´s "2046", in which she played a "hostess" in a complicated relationship with a writer. After I returned to the United States in December, I saw Zhang Ziyi in "Memoirs of a Geisha", in which she played a "hostess" in a complicated relationship, and Steven Spielberg´s "Munich" on the same day. I also saw Ang Lee´s "Brokeback Mountain". Even though it was made in 2004, I saw "The World" in mid-January of 2006. On 31 January, I woke up to hear that Ang Lee and Steven Spielberg would be going head-to-head in several categories at the Oscar ceremony.

"Freedom of choice" is a good idea in principle, but sometimes, people want bad things. One of the most-noticeable bad things in big Chinese cities like Beijing and Shanghai is the abundance of KTV lounges, which started in Japan and quickly spread to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, and South Korea. KTV lounges are the kind of decadent vices that old-time communists railed against. In East Asia, groups of men visit KTV lounges to "unwind"; this involves a "Mami" (a female pimp) leading a line of girls into a room, the men picking female companions, and everyone pretending to have a good time listening to bad singing while kissing and groping. There´s also an attendant in the room; she´s in charge of picking songs on the computer, bringing in food and drinks, and throwing away trash. The evening concludes with drunkards staggering out into the streets. (Some companion girls also make money "after hours", though KTV lounges don´t officially encourage this business. On the other hand, when you stay in a major hotel, you´ll likely be the recipient of business cards advertising "massages" slid under your door even though prostitution is illegal in China.)

Why did Eddie patronize a KTV lounge? Disclaimer: two of my uncles took me there to "show me how it is". I can´t sing, and I hate playing dice games. I wasn´t even interested in having a companion girl, as I was afraid of getting into more than meets the eye. My uncles picked one for me anyway. What was a guy to do? I talked. While my uncles sang and bullshitted about being Sichuanese with their Sichuanese girls for four hours, I chatted with my companion girl. (Sichuan Province is famous for its spicy peppers. In Chinese, the term for spicy can be used to describe sexiness, ala "hot" in English. "La mei" is a literal translation of both "hot chick" and "Spice Girl", which is an example of how English is transforming Chinese. "La mei" is also the reason why my uncles wanted Sichuanese girls.)

Because of my upbringing, I had never really met truly poor people before going to China. Despite the fact that China now has the fourth-largest economy in the world, at least 70% of its people live in third-world conditions. In the four hours that Mao Yuanyuan and I spent on chatting, I learned a lot about what it´s like for the hundreds of millions of Chinese who have not enjoyed any of the benefits of China´s economic boom.

Mao Yuanyuan stayed in my mind, and a month later, I visited her again. On subsequent visits, I also became friends with Luo Huiqin, an attendant there. I can´t sing, and I hate playing dice games. What was a guy to do? The three of us just talked. I wanted to know as much as possible about growing up in China, and they wanted to know about growing up in the U.S. I was a bit of a curiosity in the KTV lounge. I speak Mandarin Chinese without an accent, but my reading and writing skills are not so good. It took a while before the KTV´s employees believed that I really was an American. (They weren´t flattering me. Some of them got mad at me when I told them I wasn´t from any part of China, and they accused me of lying.)

Though the two girls hate their jobs and though I encouraged them to find other jobs, my repeat visits were good news to them and made me guilty of perpetuating their situation. The standard "tip" for companion girls is 200 RMB ($25 USD) per girl; the standard "tip" for attendants is 100 RMB ($12.50 USD). This is for the whole night, and while cheap by American standards, is a lot of money for people in China. The good news for Mao Yuanyuan and Luo Huiqin is that I gave them more money than the standard, sometimes as much as they could earn in a week. My guilty part was that I was Mr. Easiest-to-Please; they got more money from me doing less than usual, so why would they feel compelled to look for other employment?

In China, education is compulsory until 9th grade. After that, you can leave and start working. Hordes of young people swarm into big cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Yes, people in big cities make more money than they would in rural areas, but living expenses in big cities negate the notion of savings. Also, even though people are lucky to earn 800 RMB to 1600 RMB ($100 USD to $200 USD) per month, it seemed to me that everyone had a 3200 RMB ($400 USD) Moto Razr mobile phone. You know, every mobile phone I´ve ever had has been free, and I make more than 800 RMB to 1600 RMB per month.

Since leaving China, I´ve kept in touch with Mao Yuanyuan and Luo Huiqin by calling them with Skype. I sent them letters, lucky spending money, and stuffed toy dogs for Chinese New Year since 2006 is the Year of the Dog. My letters included maps of the world and maps of the U.S. to show them where I´ve been in my nomadic life. Since all of China uses Beijing time, it has been difficult for them to understand that I now live fourteen hours behind them. It turns out that I got involved in more than meets the eye after all.

When I got back to Texas in mid-December, critics were issuing their best-of-2005 lists. Several mentioned Jia Zhangke´s "The World"; when I heard about the characters´ frequent reliance on mobile-phone text-messaging, I was reminded of all the text-messaging that my friends and I did in China. I lucked out when I caught "The World" here in Austin. It had already played for a week, which was its contracted length, but because it did so well, it played for another week, so I was able to see it on the big screen.

"The World" isn´t about KTV lounges, but there is a key sequence set in one. Tao (Zhao Tao), the main character, is invited by her friends to join a party. While in the restroom, she runs into Anna (Alla Chtcherbakova), a Russian woman whom she knew at another place. Anna got a job at the KTV lounge because she wants to make money quickly in order to visit her sister in Mongolia. A person could be flippant and say that capitalism empowers people to achieve goals quickly. The reality of the situation is that a rapid shift to free-market economics reduces people to commodities. Remember the saying about the guy who knows the price of everything but knows the value of nothing? That´s what´s on display in "The World", from the rampant use of mobile phones, simultaneously connecting and distancing people, to construction companies handing out money for job-related deaths without implementing safety precautions (it´s cheaper to pay for a death than to prevent a death).

While given only a few scenes, the friendship between Tao and Anna is the most-powerful relationship in the movie. They don´t understand each other´s languages, but talking to each other allows them to vocalize their dreams and frustrations. Tao says that she admires Anna because Anna can travel all over the world while Tao has never been anywhere other than her hometown in Shanxi Province and Beijing. Anna, like many Russians and North Koreans, works in northern China because the economy of her country is in shambles. Anna is unable to communicate to Tao the idea that traveling abroad is a necessity rather than a luxury. Yet, the depth of feeling conveyed by the actresses transcends the fact that their characters are talking past one another. This is in stark contrast to Tao´s relationship with her boyfriend; they speak the same Shanxi dialect and text-message each other constantly, yet they´re not in dialogue.