Film follows bid to bridge cultures using King’s ideas
Check it out
What: Documentary, “Bringing King to China,” 85 minutes
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday
Where: 194 Chemistry Building, UC Davis
Cost: Free
Being able to communicate is the key to understanding among people.
Few things are as frustrating as not comprehending someone — be it a child’s gibberish or a foreigner’s accent — except maybe not being understood yourself.
Attempting to explore humanity in a second language is an even more daunting task. This is the driving idea in the documentary film “Bringing King to China,” which will be screened Tuesday at UC Davis in 194 Chemistry Building.
The film follows American Caitrin McKiernan’s attempt to stage a production of “Passages of Martin Luther King” in the National Theater Company in Beijing in 2007.
McKiernan, who speaks fluent Mandarin, was teaching in Beijing as the U.S. military was heavily engaged in Iraq. She found herself answering lots of questions about U.S. policy and did not like the current picture being painted of America.
So she started talking about King, the slain civil rights leader, and his nonviolent approach to protesting segregation. She wanted to show another side of Americans.
Her father, Kevin McKiernan, a noted war correspondent, joined her in Beijing to film the proceedings.
“The movie is the struggling of a foreigner doing good, and questions of whether or not they did some good,” he said. “There are things that go beyond language. There are big heartaches, and it’s stressful.
“One thing we try to do in the film is to show that we don’t know that much about China, and that the Chinese don’t know much about us,” he added. “Between the two cultures, Martin Luther King Jr. is a good starting point for discussion and common dialog.”
Most Chinese students are introduced to King in high school. Their education is focused on his striving for equality between blacks and whites and memorizing the “I Have a Dream” speech.
Caitrin found that while the students have a basic understanding of King, they don’t really know the person. During the course of the film, she also learns that people rarely truly know other people — even those close to us.
“It started out as more like my daughter’s home-movie record of the play project, and then it mushroomed,” said Kevin, who lives in Santa Barbara. “In China, everything is bigger and better. They want to do high-quality theater.”
Caitrin, through grants and friends, raised $200,000 to stage the production in the Oriental Theater in Beijing. She also brought over a troupe of gospel singers, making this the first production on the stage to feature Chinese and African-American actors.
“It’s an interesting collaboration,” Kevin said. “The whole play is in Chinese, but you’re also hearing some English spirituals.”
She began the play to help build a bridge between the two cultures. Throughout the film, it is clear this is not an easy task. At times, despite her language skill — or sometimes in spite of it — there are “potholes” on her bridges.
For example, when the Chinese production side wrote up the contract, they did not translate the multi-page document into English. Caitrin had to read it in Mandarin — a task that is more difficult than speaking Mandarin — without a translator’s help.
Aside from the language barrier, there was a style difference in the way the play should proceed. Caitrin wanted to focus on the nonviolence and war protest aspects of King’s life. It seemed everyone knew the “Dream” King; she wanted to show that there was more to him.
The Chinese wanted to focus on the drama: Who was behind his assassination? Could it have been someone inside his own organization?
“They wanted to say that one of Martin Luther King’s buddies had him killed,” Kevin said. “She put her foot down, and that’s when everything hit the fan in the end.”
The movie gives viewers a glimpse into the “face” world of China, which makes understanding individuals difficult. The shame-based culture features many intricate and unwritten rules for “giving face.” Several times, individuals in the movie believe Caitrin has caused them to “lose face” and tantrums erupt.
“With face, ‘no’ means ‘yes,’ and ‘yes’ means ‘no,’ ” Kevin said. “And when they don’t want to offend, they use an intermediary.”
This intermediary position results in Caitrin re-evaluating her friendship with a Chinese colleague. It appears the relationship is patched up in the end.
The other relationship that the film deals with is between Caitrin and her father. Kevin signed on as the cameraman but sometimes she calls him out to be “Dad.” There are several poignant moments as she talks about what it is like having a war correspondent for a father and of the day she thought he died.
In the end, the theater production is stunning. It is not exactly how Caitrin or the Chinese wanted it to be, but that is how cross-culture ventures often work.
“On our side, we think we know these people and we don’t,” Kevin said. “Martin Luther King is a really good springboard. He’s something we have in common to allow dialogue.”
Kevin hopes to continue dialogue with those in Davis as he opens the floor to a question-and-answer session after the showing of “Bringing King to China.”
The film is being brought to UCD with the help of law student Brandon Shelton, who worked with McKiernan in the post-production of the film, while doing his undergrad work at UC Santa Barbara.
“I wanted to bring this film to Davis because I really started to adopt the idea of it,” Shelton said. “I feel like people really should know more about Dr. King’s messages.
“While his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech and his contributions to the civil rights movement were significant and extremely important, a lot of his other ideas seem significant to people today, but are virtually unknown. His hopes to end poverty and war violence are very relevant even today, yet we rarely, if ever, hear about these messages.”
And talking about them is the first step to understanding, which is what Caitrin was after in the first place.
— Reach Kim Orendor at korendor@davisenterprise.net
Short URL: http://www.davisenterprise.com/?p=125440
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Posted by Kim Orendor
on Jan 12 2012.
Last Login: Sat 19 May 2012 02:59:12 PM PDT
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