Sun, Sep 03, 2000 page20

• Exploring the uncertainties of cross-strait friendship

  'So-called Friend' uses the wanderings of an unemployed Taiwanese youth through the backstreets of Beijing to explore the complex emotional ties between Taiwan and China

  • By Yu Sen-lun / STAFF REPORTER
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  Several images in the first five minutes of the film focus your attention on the cross-strait issue: two Taiwanese cameramen wearing A-bian hats shooting scenery on the Great Wall, with a Beijing youth as their assistant; a packet of Taiwanese Long Life cigarettes floating on the waters of the Southern China Sea.

  And then there is the dialogue between a Taiwanese and a Chinese: Taiwanese: "Hey, should Taiwan be independent or be re-unified?

  Beijing guy: "Independent, of course. Otherwise I would not feel the sense of going abroad after making such an effort to visit Taiwan."

  

  A thief who is constantly bumping into protagonist Lin.

  PHOTO: COURTESY OF CMPC

  Taiwanese: "No, the Straits should be unified, so when I come to Beijing to visit [next time], I will only have to catch a domestic flight."

  This is a slow-paced, chilled-out, prose-like story about a Taiwanese youth's journey through the old streets in Beijing. Partly funded by KMT-owned Central Motion Picture Corporation (中央電影公司), the film give out a message of reconciliation across the straits, at least on the level of human relations.

  Lin (played by Lim Giong), a cameraman on a TV crew shooting footage of the Great Wall, makes friends with a young man from Beijing, Chou (played by Huang Lei). He hires Chou as his assistant. In a series of misfortunes, Lin loses his job and then his Taiwan Compatriot Certificate (台胞證), without which he cannot return to Taiwan. He therefore decides to live in the old but friendly lanes of Beijing for a month waiting for his new certificate to be processed.

  

  Cross-strait "ger'er men" Lin and Chou get their hair cut in Beijing.

  PHOTO: COURTESY OF CMPC.

  In his wanderings, he befriends Chou, a semi-unemployed worker -- his factory being on the verge of being shut down. Chou dreams of making a fortune by selling his grandfather's antique clocks or selling his prize pigeon Xue Zi, which he believes can fly to Xinjiang in China's far west. He wants to use the money to open an elementary school for his mother, so that everyone can listen to the talkative old lady.

  Ger'er men (哥兒們) is a phrase Beijing people use to refer to each other, and means much the same as "buddy," and can be used to friends or complete strangers.

  "You can stay in my place 'cause we're buddies," Chou tells Lin. In the course of Lin's stay in Beijing, he meets lots of "buddies" in Beijing, undergoing a variety of experiences that Taiwanese who have visited China may easily relate to. Apart from the theft of his compatriot certificate, Chou has his jeep stolen, Lin is tricked when he tries to change money and gets pulled over by a policeman. These small events are used to focus on the cultural incongruities that exist between Taiwan and China.

  Questions of identity, alienation and emotional burdens are gently probed in the film. For a Taiwanese to travel in China, the sense of strangeness amid familiarity gives rise to complex feelings, and Lin has plenty of time to explore different aspect of this feeling as he drifts through a cold, snow-covered Beijing.

  In befriending Chou, Lin finds a companion much the same as himself -- unsuccessful and unsophisticated. They hang out, go to hot springs, have their hair cut and sing old Chinese folk songs together. Lin also engages in a couple of small affairs.

  But can Lin make himself one with Beijing, or is he, after all, just a passer-by? This is a question the directors often project on to the narrative. Lin's experience is contrasted with that of Chuang, another Taiwanese living in Beijing.

  Chuang met his wife while travelling to Xinjiang, and after marrying opened a cafe called Sculpting Time in Beijing, a place popular with Taiwanese overseas students. For him, home means his cafe, Taiwanese students and his wife. In contrast, for Lin, and for the directors Tai Tai-lung and Lien Chin-hua, the warmth and love he experiences in Beijing only emphasizes his alienation from his environment.

  As Lin's Chinese girlfriend tells him: "You can come here and go home whenever you want to. But I can't." This sentiment is a reflection of Tai and Lien's own experience. Both directors spent time studying at the Beijing Film Institute and roaming the cities of China. "It is meant to be a cute movie in which feelings are genuine but lighthearted," Tai says.

  But the ending of the story is confused, a reflection of the puzzle which is the cross-strait problem in the political realm. "I did not want to give [the film] a conclusion," says Tai. "For me, those feelings, and also the future of cross-strait are still full of uncertainty," he said.
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