Novel Chinatown Interview (Part 3/8)

Yilin Zhong in Paris

https://youtu.be/KvciZDc_cWU

Novel Chinatown Interview (Part 3/8)

Time: 16th February 2017

Venue: London

Interviewer: UCL Documentary Film student Shi Yi Han

Interviewee: Yilin Zhong (Author of book Chinatown)

Topic: Chinatown, the novel

Part 3 video length: 11’46’’

Yilin Zhong: (continued) I was the lucky one. But to meet those people is not the only lucky part I had, another lucky part I had is, I wrote them. I wrote them down. I didn’t imagine I would have written them down myself, even, but it just happened. I wrote it twelve years ago, it was a book I wrote twelve years ago, but as I said, it was so difficult to get published, that’s why it was just released recently. Because the main society just thought, those people are not important, those people are not existing, why would we bother, to even write about it?

Interviewer:(In Chinese) Can you talk about how fiction presenting the theme of reality? My question is, comparing with the documentary, documentary films are very true, but we all know fictions are fictional thing, so how do you display the reality by the fictional work?

Yilin Zhong: OK, so now the question’s back to the fiction, and the reality, or we say the truth and the false, that’s always a very very interesting question, whatever, in terms of documentary, in terms of film or television soaps, or in terms of fiction or nonfiction.

There’s always one question, is a story you write or you talk about true or false? (It) is your imagination, or fiction, or it’s nonfiction? If it’s nonfiction we need proof, we need evidence to say if it’s really happened, that’s for example, let’s say, the news report or the documentary film, then we need that evidence. It’s truly happened, it’s a true event. Or, it’s completely your imagination, your creation.

This question always lies in all kinds of format of arts. Because artists are supposed to create things, which is not existing, which is not true. That’s why, for example, when you are seeing a film, definitely it’s a creation, when you read a fiction, a novel, it’s definitely a creation. However there’s a boundary, there’s a very tricky boundary in between the reality and the creation. Because all the writers and all the artists were trying to do, is trying to blur this boundary, is trying to make people think, their creation or their creative work is true. 

Everyone was aiming to do that. Because no one wants to write a novel and say, people won’t read it, oh it’s completely fake, it’s not possible, it’s a false. Nobody wants that, so am I. So for me, the difficulty is double. The difficulty not only lies in how I convert all those truly happening reality stories into a fiction, that’s one (that’s quite difficult, trust me); and second difficulty is, how could I create a fictional story and make it as true as what happens in the reality life.

So that’s in two ways I have to do, for writing this book. I got all those materials, as I said I was lucky, because most people, most writers or documentary film director or whoever, they cannot even get those material. I was lucky, I got all those material. Now I need to reproduce all those material into a fiction, into a non-existing story that never happened before. However, I need to make this fictional story to be as true as it could be. 

I remember when I was writing in my early stage, when I was a teenager I started to write novels, and I remember I read a line, someone was saying that, what the difference between the fiction, the novels and the reality is, -- I think it’s quite a good quote, I cannot remember who said it, but I’ve read it definitely in Chinese, -- it says that the difference is, novel or fiction is what could have happened in the past, in that location, in that time, in that place, with those people, but it didn’t happen; documentary or nonfiction, is what exactly happened on that occasion.

So that defines the difference. I was always using that line to tell myself, OK, so this is purely a fiction, because most of those things I wrote in Chinatown didn’t really happen. It didn’t really happen.

For example, let’s take the prostitute A-bao’s story. Well, probably only a few elements, a few very key points are very true, that I am sure it was happened, but all those plots, all those stories, I created.

The person has her real sample in reality, and all these very crucial vital points of her life turning points, that’s what she told me about. But of course she wouldn’t tell me what dialogue she had, and what happened with her and her first boyfriend, and why they broke up, and blablablah, and so many. So all those details I have to do it all by myself. 

Taking that as an example, it’s like the story line, we have the story line scheduled, but I only know a few, let’s say five or six key points of all this story. I only know those key points to make A-bao from the Chinese student studying in the UK, became a prostitute in Chinatown. Okay, so there are five key points, and I know at the five key points, what exactly happened, but I don’t know the dialogue, I don’t know the characters, I don’t know all those supporting side stories and everything. So what I need to do, is I get these five points, but I fulfill all the fictional things in between those five points, and make it a whole story. 

I’m actually quite keen to say one thing. That most people, most readers after read A-bao’s story, they always question me, and they couldn’t believe that, said, is that point true? Because they thought it’s impossible. What is it? If you have read about Chinatown, you would know what I am talking about. It’s about she witnessed, by accident, she witnessed that her boyfriend was giving his mother a blow job.

Everybody thought it’s fiction, everybody told me it’s impossible. And I have to say to them, I’m so sorry, that’s, that’s true. Because the reason I cannot make it more look like reality is because that’s exactly true. That’s what A-bao told me by herself. It’s definitely one hundred percent true, and that was the only reason I couldn’t fiction it. Because that’s the key point, it caused all tragedy happened to her afterwards. It caused her completely lost her confidence and the trust in her whole life, about love, and relationships, marriage, everything.

It destroyed her, on that point. (So) it has to be like that. Because without such kind of thing, she would never become a prostitute, she will still have hope of love, she will still have hope of boyfriend and relationship, and still hope to have a happy marriage. It destroyed her completely, because of that. And it’s a true fact. That thing, I really cannot fiction it. Sadly.

You know what, if I were to create the story myself, I wouldn’t make that, because it’s just too impossible. Everyone thought no, it’s impossible, but I’m so sorry, it’s the reality. The reality is so cruel. We just have to accept it. And the reason I cannot change that point, is because as I said, that point changed her whole life afterwards. So it has to be like that.

Interviewer: So you want to show the cruel reason that led this character become a prostitute?

Yilin Zhong: I have to. I just have to. Because I couldn’t find any other way or any other fake reason, false reason, creative, imagination reason to make her become a prostitute.

It’s just one part of the reason that she became a prostitute after that, but it’s the most important one I would say. As I said, because of that, she can never trust any man anymore, she can never trust a real love like the fairy-tale story, it’s not existing. The scene, the reality scene she witnessed by her own eyes is so so tragedy and so cruel, that’s a lesson as a kind of adult lesson the life gave to her, unfortunately.

No one wants that. Imagine that, if I were nineteen or eighteen years old, I was in my first love, I was so happy with my fairy-tale boyfriend, and everything was so happy. When I witnessed that, what can I do? I will be totally destroyed as well. And the worst thing is, the destroy is nothing to do with this particularly relationship anymore, it’s about my confidence on man, my confidence on relationships, my love, and my confidence on marriage. Because she witnessed his unhappy mother was doing like this most ugly thing in the world, none of us could have imagined that.

And why would she do that? She’s not a widow, she is in the marriage. She married a rich man in China, she’s never lack of any money, and she stays in a happy marriage in some society’s way: she has a rich husband, and she has a very healthy and very handsome and tall, young son. Everything’s magic, it’s a fairy-tale. I mean, his mother, her boyfriend’s mother got everything in life, that the main society will be thinking, oh, she’s a lucky woman, she’s a happy woman; but indeed she’s not. 

She’s not. She’s terrible. She lived in a terrible life! I mean, it’s her fault, but it’s not only her fault. How could his mother become that kind of mother? If you dig inside that, it’s an unhappy marriage, and why this unhappy marriage was caused? And why she would do that with his own son? It’s completely madness, it’s psycho, but how could this psycho possibly happen?

 (End of part 3/8)

To be continued.


Written by Yilin Zhong