NANYANG ODYSSEY

Documentary filmmaker Zhou Bing reveals hissecrets about bringing the subjects of his work closer to audiences far removed fromhis field of study, writes Raymond Zhou.儲存 Zhou Bing has lots of friends in Southeast Asia. When they have a party, his friendswould use multiple languages to talk to different people in the same room. "Many of them can speak seven languages and dialects, includingMandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Fuzhou dialect, southern Fujian dialect, Malay and English. They would keep on switching from one to another and sprinkle one language with words from others," explains Zhou, a documentary filmmaker. Zhou spent much of the past three years visiting nine countries in Southeast Asia that are collectively known as "Nanyang" in Chinese. It was the destination ofmany Chinese emigrants in the old days. Zhou and his team embarked on a mission to chronicle the current lives of these people aswell as the history of their ancestors. The result, South of theOcean, has beenbroadcast ontheHistoryChannel in the United States. That was a twohour highlight, and the fulllength10episode versionwillhit the airwaves on the documentary channel of China Central Television. "Nanyang is a mirror, which can reflect not only China's past, but its present and future," says Zhou. "Once you mingle in that society, you'll knowhowour ancestors lived and their customs, including how they decorated their homes and worshipped their gods. Even traditional holidays we celebrate today aremore elaborate and complicated over there." Zhou is especially impressed by the popularity of ancestral halls that dot urban and rural landscapes in Nanyang. "These venues are not just collectivehomesteads of antiquity,but still have many functions. A new arrival can stay there, and get help in job hunting or even obtaining loans for a business startup.After youmake it big, you can donate to the organization. Many of the big halls run schools and other nonprofit activities. InMalacca, a townwith a small population, it is like a senior citizens' entertainment center, where people sip tea and sing karaoke." Many of the customs can be traced back to the Ming Dynasty (13681644), but tanghao probably originated in the Song (9601279) or even earlier Han Dynasty (206 BCAD 220), analyzes Zhou. "It refers to your ancestral root. So, you'll see posted on some doors place names, such as Yinchuan or Dunhuang far in northern China. Young people in China have never heard of such a practice or even the name tanghao." Not only are Zhou's documentaries richly informative, but they employ a filmlanguage that is lavish and engaging. "One ofmy collaborators is a graduate from film school and I sharewith himthe notion that ourwork shouldresemble aEuropean art filmin visual style," he says. In South of the Ocean, made for a total cost of 24million yuan ($4million), some of the images, including the aerial shots, are so eyecatching they would not be out of place in a bigbudget feature film. Ten years ago, Zhou made The Forbidden City, a 12episode documentary thatmade extensive use of dramatization and computer imagery. The enormity of the project and its huge influence turned it into a milestone in Chinese documentary filmmaking. "We had been trying to learn the creative model of National Geographic, and by 2003 we had the chance to work with them. We designed The Forbidden City to appeal to a global audience," Zhou recalls. "Ifwewant Chinese arts and culture to be accepted by mainstream Western media, we have to find out, in concept and technique, the international way of c迷你倉mmunication." Whenmaking South of the Ocean, the techniques andtechnologieshad advanced, but the concept remains the same, suchas the visual style, the quality of the shots and editing and narrating skill should be up to the par of a good feature film, says Zhou. However, in the decade of exploring a globalmarket, Zhou has found that there is no single "Western market". Every country and every channel has its own distinctive features. "Take the pace of storytelling and editing. Documentaries shown on American channels are the fastest. France and Germany are somewhat slower. NHK of Japan is the slowest, even slower than those in China." Zhou joined China Central Television in 1993 as a producer for its news magazine that followed the highest rated evening news program. The CCTV show was mostly investigative, but occasionally it would feature scholars, writers and artists. The diversity of the show provided himwith opportunities to tap into his fields of interest. "I was lucky that I found myself in a work environment that encouraged me to do what I loved to do." In the ensuing years, he made multipleepisode documentaries on the Dunhuang Grottoes; the Peking Opera legend Mei Lanfang; the Bund in Shanghai; the Louvre; the Palace Museum of Taipei; and, of course, the wildly successfully Forbidden City series. About half of the projects were commissioned rather than initiated by himself, but they all enticed him with challenges. One of the challenges is the mountain of information from which he has to cull the most relevant and most exciting to be used in his films. He does not shove it to a team of researchers, but would conduct the indepth probe himself so thathehas a firmgraspof the subjectmatter. For the first episode ofThe ForbiddenCity, forwhichhewrote a 6,000word script, he devoured historical documents to the tune ofmore than amillionwords. "We evenmade discoveries that went beyond what the scholars knew, so our film benefited their research." Zhou experimented with the BBC format of using an expert who acted as a guide for his film on the Great Wall. But he is not optimistic about the format in China because, as he sees it, it would require talents who must project trustworthiness and eloquence as well as knowledge and erudition. "Most of the time, we would use a narration and a voiceover that is a friendly third person and an allknowing god, sight unseen." For his next project, Zhou intends tomakeafilmontraditionalChinese medicine, which will ruffle a few feathers as the topic is polarizing. "I'll incorporate differing views on it," he notes. But above all, he wants to show TCMas "part of China's ancient value systemand a vital expression of the culture". He even dreams of venturing into the realm of fictional feature films, but it has to be about ancient Chinese history and he does not trust others to do the script for him. "It must be the Chinese cultural genes insideme.Whether Ido adocumentary or a fictional feature or even a cartoon, I want it to carry on traditional culture andvalues. It can be entertaining and it must have strong aesthetics, but ultimately you're responsible for contributing to the culturalheritage. It's a burden I carry onmy shoulders." The serieswill air on CCTV9 from Dec 20 to 29, with one new episode per night at 10. Contact thewriter at raymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn. If we want Chinese arts and culture to be accepted bymainstreamWestern media, we have to find out, in concept and technique, the international way of communication." ZHOU BING DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER self storage