Another odd encounter here in Beijing this week. As I've mentioned before I have great faith in Beijing and the potential here. Whenever a new opportunity arises I like to seize it and foolishly believe that this will be the time that I attend an audition that is legitimate and professional, that will not be monopolised by the blond-haired Russian Mafia, or the American frat-boy sex tourist trying his hand at actin'.
Oh Lee. This week I received an excitable call from Miss Wang, a casting director I've met a couple of times. She usually seems on the ball and the odd auditions I've had with her have been in relatively clean studios, which I take as a benchmark for professionalism. This week I was asked to meet her at a subway station in order for her to take me to a 'movie audition'. I arrived at the specified time, only to be told that she would be an hour late. I am obsessive about punctuality. This did not go down well. Anyway, she told me to 'just wait in McDonald's' so I did and thought it rude not to nail a box of nuggets. When she arrived, with yes another eccentric American cap-wearing chap in tow, we started walking. I enquired as to how long it might take to get there but got no response, so we just kept on walking, down alley after alley, scaling a motorway at one point before finally arriving at what I think was a hotel, or maybe a prison.
Once inside we trailed down the dark corridors and eventually came to a room. The room was minuscule; tiny twin beds on a carpet which my feet felt like they were sticking to; black streaks running down the walls; an enormous TV from the 1990s. I cannot exaggerate how revolting that room was. Anyway, me and yankee doodle dandy went in with Miss Wang, who would act as translator, as we met the director. We had an awkward shuffle in the gap between the two beds as we negotiated who was going to sit where. Maybe we were going to shoot a porno? The director was a well-dressed, well-coiffed man who had clearly been snoozing on one of the beds. What happened next was an epic soliloquy translated through Wang which went a bit like this: "...you will win an Oscar... you will come to Hollywood with me... you will hold the gold statue on the red carpet... you will make $20,000... this film will be the biggest film ever made... you will win an Oscar...." You catch my drift.
All the while I was nodding along, feigning interest, but mainly thinking why we would be huddled in a back-street hovel if this was going to be massive. He also said it would be a musical. Did he want to hear us sing? Or even see us act more to the point? Nah. The American dude was almost yee-hahing with excitement. I, on the other hand, could only muse about how I needed to stop wasting my time and indulging some guy's fantasy.
As I left, skulking back through Beijing's famously disappearing hutongs, I caught myself thinking how obsessed the Chinese still are with perceived Western culture. From the presumption we are all scoffing McDonald's 24/7 (my Chinese teacher began with 'McVocab' in our first lesson) to thinking that every actor aspires to win an Oscar (okay bad examples admittedly because both of these things are actually true). I want to see more of what the Chinese already have; to see them have confidence in their identity, because, low-and-behold, we might actually be interested in it. Maybe then we could entertain the idea of a low-budget Chinese-made film scoring big at the international box office. But surely the concept should be more important than the endgame? No?