2021/1/8 "RE Meetup Internet People Gathering" Documentary: Life is painful most of the time, but it embodies value because of that little bit of happiness
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Date: January 8, 2021 (Friday) 9:30-11:30 am Location: Yipin Bookstore, a long wooden table, coffee, and hardcover books fill the left and front walls Participants (clockwise): Su Yuting (Angel), Vista, White Bear, SMILE, Tong Shangwei, Dolphin Fei, Harlem, Mr. 6
Following the first meeting on December 18, 2020, we quickly prepared for the second meeting. This time, we specially invite Su Yuting (Angel) to share her life story with everyone⋯⋯
Angel: Hello everyone, my name is Su Yuting. Today I am very happy to be invited by Mr. 6 to share with you! Looking back on the first time I met Mr. 6, it was probably when I was still serving in the Information Policy Council. Having said that, it was also at that time that I met my husband (who founded Atticus Wu (https://www.facebook.com/atticuswu)). I still remember that at that time, I was working in a certain company specializing in government bidding projects, and I just happened to bid for a project (USD 120,000) from a major channel to shoot a one-hour documentary.
For some popular science, the budget for producing a documentary abroad is about US$120,000 to US$150,000. But the situation in Taiwan is not so optimistic. The production budget for an episode of documentary is probably less than NT$1 million.
Well, let’s put aside personal work experience sharing for now, let’s do a small warm-up activity first! Please write three questions. The first question is what is your definition of success? The second question is when do you think the most failed moment in your life was? The third question is what do you want to write on your epitaph?
Mr. 6: Okay, let me start a speech for you first. If possible, please wait for Vista to speak for us and formally introduce Angel.
Our combination is really rare. We are all people who have written together on the Internet. The one thing we all have in common here is that at some time in the past, such as ten years ago, or including now, we were all text workers, bloggers, or ran text, video and other related self-media, or started a business, etc. - Well, this is a common memory for everyone.
Yes, including new companies, we originally wanted to invite Erica, the co-founder of Aiping.com, to come today. We do it slowly, hoping to slowly bring everyone back to the past.
Angel: Okay, would you like everyone to briefly introduce themselves?
Harlem: Okay, I’ll go first! My real name is [Changzhou] (https://www.facebook.com/harlem.chen). “Chang” means time and “zhou” means space. This is the name given by my father. The English name Harlem has nothing to do with the singer Harlem. It was only used when he was a soldier. My student career is quite different from others, and I am still studying EMBA.
I come from an information background, and what I am currently doing is very complicated. Five years ago, I published a book called “[Go to France to Drink Red Wine]” (https://www.books.com.tw/exep/assp.php/vista/products/0010662816?utm_source=vista&utm_m edium=ap-books&utm_content=recommend&utm_campaign=ap-202101)”. Of course, this is also because I drink red wine and run marathons. I am often teased for combining the healthiest and the most unhealthy things. Recently, I have been using gamification to create places. Yes, it is because I have been doing these things in the past five years that I have become more involved in self-media than before. I have not limited the scope of my development.
I used to cooperate with Vista on the self-media platform, but because I was too lazy to write, I mostly recorded Podcast in the past six months. My previous website “[Marathon Tipsy Moment] (https://courant.winetracer.com.tw)” is still in operation, and it mainly writes about the past when I went to France to drink red wine. There will be some wine information in it to guide people to want to drink red wine in France, and it will also provide some information about marathon running.
Mr. 6: By the way, I will still be responsible for taking notes when everyone introduces you.
Bai Xiong: This time I used “Sogou” and a microphone for recording, just as a backup.
Mr. 6: Thank you for your support, White Bear! Well, this system is really easy to use.
Dolphin Fei: Hello everyone, I am Dolphin Fei! I have retired, so my life now focuses on studying art, music and piano teaching, and of course writing calligraphy well. I am very happy to see my old friends when I have time. My blog is mainly to record my ordinary simple life and share my life of leisurely clouds and wild cranes.
By the way, our “RE Meetup” is very interesting. In fact, I don’t really attend parties because I haven’t liked them since I was a child. However, because the main participants in this event are bloggers, everyone has different personalities. I felt very good about it the last time we met. Based on these friends now, we will spread slowly, not too fast, not too complicated, it feels very fun, really. Yes, I usually just write and sing. I have passed the days of struggle, and now I really enjoy the beauty of Xianyunyehe. So I look forward to seeing “new classmates” most every time (for example, I feel very happy when I see Harlem and Angel). New classmates are naturally the highlight of every gathering, but old classmates continue to be active and have great responsibilities!
Speaking of the marathon that Harlem loves, it has something to do with me. Because, my brother specializes in designing clothes and peripheral products for marathon running! Well, you know what? The moderator of “Jianghu Runtang” is my brother.
Harlin: Wow, it’s really famous.
Dolphin Fei: Yes, he is currently hiding from the epidemic in Tokyo, so he usually stays at home.
Tong Shangwei: Hello everyone, I am Steven. Today I went north from Taichung again. I am currently engaged in online marketing, mainly as a corporate consultant. Regarding the blogging career, I talked about it last time… Mainly because I wrote a few blog articles many years ago, which were reported in the media. However, after understanding the power of the Internet, I stopped writing! However, I’m going to get back to writing now! Well, the blog that talks about SEO has already started. In the past, my main writing work was to help companies write business copywriting, such as corporate product introductions and sales copywriting. Now I am cooperating with teaching institutions such as Wenhua University and Tiandiren to give lectures.
SMILE: Now I am working in self-media and teaching “Pin Dou” as a talent class teacher in school. Do you know what “Pin Dou” is? (The friend next to me responded: I played with this kind of thing when I was a child, but it was not called Pindou). Nowadays, there are all kinds of after-school talent classes, and children can choose what kind of classes they want to participate in. As for writing, I have been fond of reading words since I was in junior high school. I returned to blogging at the beginning of last year. I wanted to give myself a fixed frequency of writing. For blogging, I have maintained it until now, about two posts a week. For Instagram, I started trying in May last year and now have three posts a week, but I think I won’t update it after that. Yes, this process has some twists and turns, because I still prefer to write longer articles. I have other new plans this year, including giving my own lectures and so on.
White Bear: I am Fabius, Qin Zhenjia. People usually call me White Bear. Well, can I be considered an old man in the industry? Yeah, I can sing AIR SUPPLY. I am mainly doing “ODM” now, and my customers are usually foreign high-tech companies (such as Red Hat, VMWare, etc.). The more server-side and hard content will be thrown to me. I have worked in the media before, worked in a public relations company, worked in public relations for original foreign companies, and worked as a marketing director for a local manufacturer. Now, the main thing is to take the cases myself. I do ODM, and people think I’m making chips for others, but I’m actually making text.
Vista: Oh, everyone here probably knows me, so there doesn’t seem to be much to introduce about me, right? Otherwise, you can read the Wikipedia entry on Vista (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/正伟猌).
Recently, I joined the Business Thinking Academy and also participated in the online training camp on the other side, where I met many classmates from different backgrounds and stages. Some were young college students, and some were office workers, managers, or entrepreneurs. I found that I seemed to be seeing various stages of my past. For example, one classmate said that he yearned for the public relations industry, and another classmate said that he wanted to be a powerful product manager like Zhang Xiaolong! I thought about my own experience. In fact, I have done similar jobs. I have worked in the media as a reporter and editor-in-chief. Because of my background as a product manager, I am familiar with electronic companies, technology industries, Internet industries, and even e-commerce. Recalling these past events, I feel very, very close, as if I have fallen into a time tunnel.
Today is our second gathering. Mr. 6 and I have often discussed online before. Although our gathering seems like a “Buddhist management” at first glance, it can be called an organic and casual development. In fact, this is quite good. The most important thing is that everyone is happy. Generally, activities will have goals or set KPIs, OKRs, etc., but our activities do not necessarily have to be so serious. For example, I just listened to Harlin’s sharing and Dolphin Fei’s life notes after retirement, which I thought were great. And everyone’s communication is also a diverse, organic and fun-filled collision.
Gatherings like ours grow gradually and slowly. We don’t have to bring a few friends alone, or deliberately collect hundreds of business cards every time. In turn, we can have more in-depth and interesting exchanges. Of course, value may not be revealed in just one or two gatherings, but “it’s faster to take your time.” I also hope everyone can find some fun here.
Angel: Okay, everyone’s introduced! Now let’s go back to those three questions. Before I start listening to everyone’s sharing, let me share my answer first. I still remember chatting with Zhang Weixuan, the founder of Women’s Fans, at the end of last year. After reading her book “[Dear, Don’t Be Afraid to Be Different] (https://www.books.com.tw/products/0010862298)”, I had an idea: Everyone has asked themselves these three questions, and what is the definition of “success” for me?
Will what I do be meaningful to my children or the next generation 100 years from now? At the end of this year, I will set up a company called “One Hundred Years Later”. I make documentaries, so the definition of success for me is that everything I do is “passing away”, that is, it is still meaningful after I die. Then, when I was most defeated in my life, I happened to meet Mr. 6 (laughing). When I was 28 years old, I wanted to start a business. I participated in the “Two Entrepreneurship Matchmaking Meeting” and mentioned something called “TV 2.0”. I still remember that I wrote a project at that time. I like island hopping very much. I went there after I graduated from college and rode a bicycle around the island. I thought Taiwan was so fun, so I wanted to make an online competitive island hopping game. On one screen, you can see who is traveling around the island every day. Isn’t this interesting?
I want to find students in colleges and universities, ask them to upload videos of themselves traveling around the island every day, and let netizens vote. Maybe one team will be eliminated by PK on the second day, and whoever remains on the channel will be the champion. I hope to make the world of television more interesting. At that time, TV stations were still prosperous, so a one-hour program could cost up to one or two million (if there were stars or artists, the budget would be higher). In 2007 and 2008, it was considered the peak period of the TV industry, and various investments were made… At that time, people from all over the Internet circle also met my husband. At that time, I felt that the Internet industry was very fun, and I wanted to work in the Internet industry. I even gave my resume to my husband. My husband only replied: “Are you here to bully me in the company (laughing)?” I laughed and said, “Uh, is your intention that obvious?”
At that time, the people in charge of some TV stations were a combination of chauvinism, opportunism and capitalism, and they were not easy to adopt any ideas. At that time, I was working for a certain channel and negotiated for a one-hour program worth more than NT$3 million. The boss’s first words were “Hurry up and sign the contract.” After signing the contract, he told me, “Hey, you can bid for the next one!”
But people like us just want to make movies, so we will make movies! So, I ended up leaving work again. Therefore, that was the moment when I felt the most failed in my life. I really wanted to do something, but I had no choice but to do it well. Later, when I entered the new website, I was probably the seventh or eighth employee in the company, right? At that time, I felt it was too boring, writing press releases and streaming traffic, so I left. Around 2009, I started working as a freelancer, taking on various video projects… In 2012, I started doing my own creations. The so-called creations meant that I would find the money myself, shoot the photos myself, and then try to get them to participate in film festivals, sell tickets, etc. after the shoots were completed.
If I have no money, I will be a producer, and if I have money, I will be a director. Last year I made a movie and went to the theater, it was called “Wish Me a Good Pregnancy” (https://docs.tfi.org.tw/zh-hant/film/5527).
In “Wish Me a Good Pregnancy” released in 2016, directors Chen Yuqing and Su Yuting recorded the midwifery profession with a sparse number of practitioners. Two years later, in “Wish Me a Good Pregnancy”, the camera turned to mothers who chose to give birth gently, showing the courage and hardship of Taiwanese women during pregnancy and childbirth.
Anyway, that’s it. I have been doing this for 11 years, and I have participated in several websites during this period, mainly my husband’s website. My husband invested in a website called “Text Direct Delivery” (Content Party) for text exchange. When I first started building this website, I mainly focused on authorizing some articles between websites. For example, my husband is the webmaster of Addiction Technology. Authorizing articles is too annoying, so I came up with this idea. By the way, this website still exists! I was the PM (Product Manager) who followed the engineers and built this website from scratch. I was also responsible for BD (Business Development) at that time. In the beginning, the main sources of articles were major domestic 3C blogs.
After talking about success and failure, let me talk about the epitaph. In fact, the epitaph I hope to write is “Happy together”. I hope to work happily with my partners who work together until the day we die. We, a group of people, love to take pictures. We can take pictures with 50,000 yuan, 20,000 yuan, we can take pictures with no money, and we can take pictures with mobile phones. A friend of mine was like this. One day he said he was bored, so he invited another person to film. He made a short film with no dialogue at all. The content was also related to death. It was a man sitting quietly at the table and starting to slide his mobile phone. Then he seemed to be driving out, but he installed a water pipe, connected it to the car’s exhaust pipe, and then connected it to the car… Obviously he wanted to end his life. Unexpectedly, when he opened the car door, a basketball happened to fall, and then he ran to play basketball. The next moment, he came out of the room and his wife came out of the toilet, holding a child.
That’s it. Anyway, we just love shooting, so I said, let’s start a company together!
Okay, now please give me the answers you have written on your hands, and then I will send you the answers of others. Please read out the answer first and guess who wrote it? Then, ask that person to explain why his three answers are written the way they are?
Harlem: When you fail the most, you just don’t know that you are attacking the third child (laughing)? I used to be a professional soldier, and the traditional belief was that “a good man should not be a soldier, and a good man should not make nails.” As a result, my father agreed to sign for me to join the army, but my mother refused to sign. Fortunately, only one of my parents signed. At that time, my mother felt that she should not join the army, but things took a turn for the worse. When I applied for early discharge from the military at the height of the Internet in the late 1990s, my family thought I was crazy again! Being a professional soldier is so good, not to mention water and electricity are half price, and there are many discounts, why should you retire? To this day, I still hear, “Look at that so-and-so going to be a soldier and how much money you have now when you retire.” And you will compare it with me, “Look, who has given birth to a child, so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so.” Later, when I came into contact with palaces and temples due to work, my family had to worry about who was more interested in which color.
To me, the epitaph is a record of “This person did some things that are confusing to people, but if you come to him for anything, you can get some inspiration.”
SMILE: The epitaph is to be the light for others and the power to influence others. The biggest failure is that you have worked hard for a long time, but you are still far away from what you want to be. When I was 25 years old, my father was already old. At that time, he was doing business, and the economy, work, and relationship were all at their lowest. He had to stay very optimistic. He wanted most to become an entrepreneur to solve the problem of wealth gap and insufficient educational resources. I once helped my former boss in a rural area for a long time. I saw that some rural children were really pitiful. Their parents were away at night and the environment was very poor.
Mr. 6: The definition of success is to be able to be remembered or thanked by everyone after death. The epitaph says “dots and dots” because I want to remember a lot but the tombstone is so big, so I write “hard to describe in a word”. But in future generations, maybe future generations will scan the QR-code with their mobile phones, or maybe I am writing a diary, so I would like to invite interested people to read my diary, right?
I have been reading a lot of history recently, especially the modern history of the Republic of China, and I have found that some people may think that they are successful at the moment, whether they are very rich or very influential. Unexpectedly, a hundred years later they are still forgotten and nothing is left. I have feelings for Hu Shi myself. Because our family lives in Nangang, if you ask a random elementary school student in Nangang, he may say: “Hu Shi is not a person, but the name of an elementary school.” Having said that, the students of Hu Shi Elementary School probably don’t know why the school is named Hu Shi. Recently, there is a new building called “Hu Shi Lang Yue”. Many people think that the name is because of Hu Shi Elementary School. Hu Shi should feel that he is great now. He popularized the vernacular, but when he returned to Taiwan, in a small Nangang, where he finally passed away, his children didn’t know who he was?
Dolphin Flying: Oh, living in the present is success. What is failure? Sorry, I don’t think there is such a thing as failure, it’s just about doing it or not doing it. The epitaph is “I’ve played this time, come back next time!”
Angel: This is a very classic answer to three questions that I have heard. Sorry, I want to interrupt. It is related to a film I recently shot. I shot an amateur named [Yang Saner] (https://orange.udn.com/orange/story/121414/4083606). He lives in Fangliao because he started to teach himself how to build wooden buildings without using any nails in 2003. At that time, he thought that it could be completed in two or three years, so he spent millions of yuan to buy wood and spent eight years grinding wood. I met him in 2012 and felt that this The subject matter was so cool. At that time, no one knew how to shoot this thing, because I had no idea when the film would be completed, so I thought that I would shoot it myself when I had time. If I had no money, I would take the train all the way from Taipei Station to Fangliao for six hours and stay there for a few days.
I didn’t have any children at that time, so I reported this to my husband, “My wife has been missing for a few days.” Then I filmed for about four years and applied for two amounts of money, one of 120,000 and one of 150,000. At that time, I felt that my life was unsustainable, so I started working on website planning. This year, I finally had to edit the film, because I received a subsidy of 1 million yuan, and I found a recording engineer from the Golden Melody Award to help me with mixing, and a light modifier to help me with dimming… Having said that, this is also a kind of accumulation and multiplication of connections. So, as Dolphin Fei said, in fact, no moment in life is a failure.
Dolphin Fei: I just listened to what you said, and I found that you were not talking about “yourselves”. You were talking about your family members, such as parents, children…etc. Therefore, a lot of life is about relationships with others. In other words, you include many people, not just yourself. Now let me talk about “living in the present”. We often think about the past and then worry about the future. However, we have not dealt with the “now” seriously. There are really very few people who will do this seriously (now). I think I am like this because personality is health. If I do something now, I will forget it after doing it, so I have to write a blog to facilitate my memory.
I went to a class reunion yesterday, and I couldn’t remember a single thing my classmates told me. I’m the kind of person who has to rely on my classmates to help me remember. Then, there is no such thing as failure in my life, because the definition of failure is your own decision. When I do things, I don’t have much concern for gains and losses - I treat the world as a playground, just to play! Yes, come play with you, come play with my friends, come play with my family. Life is about being happy. Some people are very miserable, and the whole family suffers as well. If you get a lot of things but are not happy, it is meaningless, so you must feel very happy.
White Bear: I just thought of at least a dozen epitaphs, right? The first thing that came to mind was “Please solve the square circle problem”, and the second thought was “Please solve the largest prime number problem”. I want to write like this because on the one hand I feel that everyone has left, so of course I want to leave some fun for everyone! Therefore, the final version of my epitaph is: “Seeing that you are unhappy makes me very happy.” I even want to tell my wife that after I leave, the only trouble is to set off firecrackers, roll out the red carpet, and try to entertain everyone! In the last stage of life, if you are willing to come and see me, you will actually be very happy, right? What should I do if I come in front of me with a sad face?
Harlem: Just like when Jiang Weishui sent his mother-in-law to die, he posted advertisements to get rid of superstition and not to be extravagant.
Dolphin Fei: I don’t want to hold a farewell ceremony with my family, because if you just leave, you will make a group of people cry and look sad.
White Bear: When it comes to history and mathematics, there are two books that I strongly recommend. They are by the same author. They are an introduction to cryptography. The second book, “Fermat’s Last Theorem,” is the same. You see how mathematicians spent 350 years to conquer a problem that everyone thought was unsolvable, just to say a sentence next to the book, well, I have a wonderful answer to this problem, but the space is too small for me to write it.
What is Fermat’s last theorem, does everyone know it? Everyone should know that Sze’s theorem that a to the power of 2 plus b to the power of b is equal to the power of c. Fermat’s last theorem is that a to the n power plus b to the n power is equal to c to the n power, but n is greater than 25. Solve it. Later, the proof was solved by a British mathematician, who wrote more than a hundred pages and used at least four or five fields. The novel was really a novel. In the 20th century, some people still said that they might not live to see it.
I was at a parent-teacher conference in high school, and some parents asked me how do you communicate with your children? I said I just threw these things to him and told him stories like this. In fact, my son’s first choice was the history department, just because I threw two books to him when he was in middle school, “Qin Mystery” and “Qin Collapse” by the same author (Li Kaiyuan). They are detective novels written by historians. They use a lot of first-hand information, such as archaeological tombs. The excavation of these materials once again proves that he is not Lu Buwei’s son.
When we teach children, we cannot just throw a logic book at them and say, “You should learn logic!” Children will cry unless you show them Conan, but Conan’s stuff is too linear and there is no evidence; Sherlock Holmes or Yassen Lupin are not bad, but the problem is that what the children are watching is how a rigorous historical expert with a background in science makes inferences and does not speak without evidence. There isn’t much in my house, except that there are a lot of books.
Tong Shangwei: Success means fully utilizing one’s abilities. Epitaph: Live hard. There is nothing bigger than living hard.
Angel: Before the last person is left to share, let me share another important point. Didn’t I first start creating in 2012? But eight years later, it was only this year that I started doing post-production. In addition, my previous film was actually shot in 2014. 2014 was more than six years ago, right? Unexpectedly, the film was delayed until last year because the child I photographed died 94 days after he was born. Oops, it was originally going to be a happy event, but it ended up being death. People remember those painful dates very clearly throughout their lives - the baby was born in September, and he was very healthy and cute. But one day, he had bleeding from his mouth and nose, so he went to the emergency room, and his heart stopped for a while. The doctor rescued him, and then the family began to live a very miserable life. The father is on leave from work and takes care of the other two children with the mother. Then you see that their money is getting less and less, but no one around them knows how to help them?
At that time, the parents made up their minds to take good care of the child for a lifetime. During this period of time, I didn’t dare to contact them, and then… it was the farewell ceremony. The week before, I said I would go to the farewell ceremony, and then they asked me: “Angel, can you help us shoot a farewell video? Our eldest sister wants to sing a song for her brother who passed away…” On the day of the farewell ceremony, I actually attended two funerals, one for the child I photographed, and the other for my former colleague. She loved tracing rivers, but she died in a mountain accident on the same day when she was only in her thirties.
Later, the protagonist of this film told me some good news. Yes, she was pregnant again, and then I thought, “Hey, the story doesn’t seem to be over yet?” I asked her, “Do you want to record it? I can help you record your pregnancy.” And then, I filmed it.
God will always give me some gifts. These gifts will make you feel very embarrassed at the moment because they involve so many things. In fact, most of the production scenes we filmed were exposed. I have been on a TV station and know that they may never broadcast these videos with scale concerns. So, who is this film for? Who is the protagonist willing to show it to? To be honest, these are very difficult things about making a documentary, and these difficulties were completely unknown to me when I was young. There are some things, really, that you will never talk to anyone else in your life, not even your family, not even your children.
Some things are just hard to talk about, but when it becomes a documentary, it seems easy—when they are willing to show their most vulnerable side.
For example, I encountered a very scary thing recently. As soon as a kindergarten parent saw me, she said: “Hey, I talked to you, remember? When you were showing it, on May 25 last year (you know some days you will never forget), she said she walked with me for a while and chatted for a while…” That mother is a psychologist, and she recently published a book called “So What if I’m Not Gentle?” A collapsed mother loves her warm son: Emotion guidance exercises for boys aged 0-8 years old](https://www.books.com.tw/exep/assp.php/vista/products/0010872417?utm_source=vista&utm_medium=ap-books&utm_content=recommend&utm_campaign=ap-202101)》.
She said, “You know what? I had just lost a child at that time.” When I heard that, I kept getting goosebumps. In fact, when the film was released, the box office was extremely poor, only 720,000 yuan! However, we raised 2 million online and offline, and I have always felt very sorry for these investors. However, later I also understood: It turns out that people who need it will see (this movie), and later this movie also toured more than 100 campuses across Taiwan, and it will continue this year.
We will eventually leave this world, whether we die today or some other day, we will eventually leave each other and our children. You see, I photographed a child and left after three months. I am not sure when I will leave the child? Then the most important thing for us is to give the child the ability to live on his own, so that he can change his own diapers, bathe himself, and eat by himself…
It is difficult to make documentaries in Taiwan because foreigners do not regard Taiwan as a market. Basically, there is no market for documentaries in Taiwan. They will first ask: “Oh, does the box office exceed 10 million or more than 100 million?” OK, I bought it, but it is impossible for a documentary. No matter how hard we work, it will be 720,000 yuan! You know, this is still a leader in the documentary circle, and hundreds of people watched the film. Think about it, how do you find 30,000 people to watch it? Or how do we get 300 million people to watch it? This is not “Demon Slayer”. It is said that film is the eighth art. In my opinion, documentary is the minor among the eighth art.
Vista: I am very impressed, [Li Guoxiu’s father](https://www.businesstoday.com.tw/article/category/154769/post/2009050700 36/Li Guoxiu: I only want to do one thing well in my life) once told him: “I learned this craft at the age of sixteen to support you, but have you ever been hungry? As long as you do one thing well in life, your merits will be complete!” There are many things in the world, but you only need to do one thing well throughout your life. For example, when I worked in the media, I interviewed many well-known entrepreneurs, successful people, scholars and experts at home and abroad. You will find that everyone has a different definition and pursuit of success. Later, as I got older, I gradually felt that success didn’t need to be so complicated, and I didn’t need to be like others at all.
Therefore, I think success means working hard to pursue your ideals and then go all out.
As for failure, everyone’s definition is different. Some people would think that failing a test in childhood is considered a failure. For me, I think the most failed experience may have been before my father passed away, which was many years ago…Those years were probably the lowest and most frustrating time in my life. My work was not going well, my studies at the graduate school were not going well, my family’s situation was not good, and my father was sick again. It felt like nothing was accomplished at that time and nothing went smoothly…
But when I think about it, that kind of failure is actually a very special life experience. Now that I think about it, it may be because my work was not going well at that time, so I was able to resolutely put down my work and studies during those few months, and instead I could spend time with my father. That was great! Therefore, success and failure are not necessarily two sides of the same coin, and life is often not so absolute.
I don’t think success is necessarily good and failure is necessarily bad. Therefore, I have no particular preference for “successful learning”. I feel that at this stage of life, it is quite interesting to “taste failure” now.
As for the epitaph, I didn’t think too much about it. I think my version could be “Here lies a man who loves creation.” For people like me who are currently single, have no children, and no significant other, do you think anyone in this world would care about me? Well, I don’t know either. Therefore, I think the meaning of epitaphs is simple self-statement.
Angel: It seemed like it took a while just now, now I’m going to talk about my next documentary! The English name of this film is “After Passing Away”, and the Chinese name is “Family Tree”. You may not know that many wooden houses in Japan are actually built from a tree. The base of the wood is made of roots, the beams and columns are made of hard bark, and the center wood and upper branches become the furniture. So, we humans actually just disassemble a tree into a house.
To put it simply, the inspiration for this documentary was to record the experience of an amateur who wanted to build a house. In order to shoot this film, I went to two places. The first one was Shenzhen. I went there for two weeks. One of Yang Saner’s apprentices worked with Yang for two years in exchange for studying carpentry. Before he even graduated, he was invited to build teahouses in Shenzhen. So, I went to take pictures of the whole process of building the teahouse. However, the lumber had been stuck at customs since then, so I went there for two weeks. I only managed to take a little bit of the small project, but not the whole situation. I actually spent two weeks there, and I flew twice, but I couldn’t take any photos of the completion.
The second place of business trip was Tokyo, and Yang Saner started to learn to build a wooden house by referring to a Japanese book “Wooden House”. The author is called [Matsui Ikuo] (https://www.facebook.com/matsuiikuojp/). So, I went to Tokyo to visit Mr. Matsui. The year must have been 2016! I didn’t know I was pregnant at that time, so I ran to take pictures of him. After taking pictures, I felt extremely tired every day and wanted to sleep. Only when I came back did I find out that I was pregnant. Of course, the post-production process was also delayed due to pregnancy. At that time, I felt that I was almost finished filming. After my child was born, I became even busier. In the meantime, I went to participate in some film festivals in Hong Kong and Busan (for another documentary). This year my child will be in kindergarten and we can finally start construction. My life will grow with my child.
As for why it is called “Family Tree”, it is because I discovered that the male protagonist is 68 years old and he has spent 12 years of his life building a house. You may be curious, but actually he just wants to have a family. His wife actually doesn’t care where they live? The top floor of the restaurant where they originally lived still leaked, and the two-square-foot space that was cracked by the September 21 earthquake has been the couple’s home for 30 years. Whether they want to live in a beautiful Japanese-style house or not, it doesn’t matter to the wife. After all, she just wants to live with her husband! Oh, it’s not easy to have such a hard-working woman in this world! In this case, why does Mr. Yang Saner want to build a house? Later, after filming for a while, I discovered that it was actually related to his life experience (well, I have to give a hint here first).
Finally, in November last year, the house was almost completed, so Yang Saner drove his wife around the island, a bit like making up for the fact that his wife had not gone out to play in the seventeen years since they were married. As you know, they drove an old car. A 68-year-old man drove his wife in a 50-year-old car. The wife was too scared to sleep because the car could break down at any time.
White Bear: I understand. That classic car must be able to sound everything except the horn, right?
I just followed Master Yang around the island for four days. When I arrived in Kaohsiung, I felt that I had reached the end of my photography. Although I have always felt that I had an ending a few years ago, now, I feel that this ending is really great. At this time, I had kicked my assistant back to Taipei and my photographer back to Pingtung, leaving me alone.
I said, “No problem, I will shoot this ending myself.” The next morning, I found that everyone had gotten up early and the baby had woken up. Everyone took turns looking at the baby on the tatami and smiling. Then I said, “Ah, the rolling cut is here.”
At this moment, I suddenly had an realization: About 99% of life is painful, but all the pain is for that little bit of happiness. At that moment, you will feel so comfortable, so cute, and so happy.
150 hours of film, just watching the film took me half a year. After filming the ending, I suddenly felt a sense of sadness welling up in my heart.
The title of the movie is “Family Tree”. I look forward to seeing you in the cinema next time. Okay?
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