Wednesday 25th May, 2016                     1830

Well today has been a very mixed bag and with an ending I would rather not have had.

Having got up at the crack of dawn, the four foreigners here all duly presented themselves at seven. It would have been nice to have been warned as to what was about to happen. I thought perhaps it would be a short promotional video but oh no, what they are making is a biography of someone called Zhangqiyu. The government is funding it and the English translation of the title will be The Wild Goose Returns. I am sure it will premiere in cinemas worldwide!

He is blind but as a student studied in China, Japan and finally in the USA where he gained a PhD in medicine. The roles we were given involved scenes wherein the hero is at an American university. Andrei, Juliette and Richard were cast as students, yours truly was suddenly thrust into the role of professor, presumably by dint of my age.

Were we given scripts and time to learn them? Of course not. In fact my first scene was starting a class (the fact everyone else in the class bar we four were Chinese seemed odd for a university supposedly in the States) and a few minutes beforehand I was simply told to say something about anatomy! In one fell swoop I was promoted to professor and doctor. However after the first shot I was taken aside by Anthony. I had actually asked what clothes I should wear beforehand and been told “normal”. No, my shirt would be too shiny under the lights. I had to go home and change into a black long sleeved one and I put on a tie to appear more donnish.

Then the next problem came when they tried to fit the microphone under my clothes. The belt that went around my waist, when fastened, almost cut me in two. They had to find an extra length of Velcro to extend it to a more comfortable fit!

I settled on the liver as today’s topic but it could have been anything I liked and perhaps knew a small amount about.  Now sometime after the retakes had climbed well into double figures, Andrei opined that the actor who was playing the lead must have been the cheapest one available. He certainly seemed to fluff even the simplest of lines (in particular “Sorry professor, I brought the wrong paper”) over and over again. I think I caused one retake for some reason but as I had basically been forced to think up my lines on the hoof so to speak, I found it relatively easy because as long as I imparted the general gist of it everything was fine.

It took four and a half hours to film probably less than five minutes of what will go into the finished article. If the lead actor wasn’t cocking up then the microphone operators were and if not, then the camera angles weren’t quite right. By the end of the day I was heartily sick of hearing “sorry, one more time”.

Richard wasn’t comfortable with one scene in which he sneered at the blind boy (which probably did happen in real life) and so we joked with him afterwards that when old ladies recognise him anywhere in China as that bastard who treated their hero so badly they will beat him with their umbrellas on the street.

As for Hollywood, if that’s how it is I am not interested, although perhaps if I was a big star I would have a trailer to go and sit in to relax between takes. Here I was reduced to going and sitting on my bike for lengthy periods while they shot other scenes in the classroom with the others. Had they provided a stool I could have observed the director’s monitor outside but after all that walking yesterday my legs were like lead.

At 1130 I thought we were done but we weren’t. I had a competition to judge at 1330 although I had warned them there may be a problem, we weren’t finished, we had to relocate to the nursing college opposite our campus. There we were treated to an aeroplane style lunch tray Chinese style, which wasn’t bad but from which I ate sparingly as always.

Lunch over, we donned white coats and pretended to be doctors and student doctors. My God, if the retakes in the morning had been numerous, this time it seemed ludicrous and I am pretty sure we can’t blame the actor for most of them. By the time we got to what felt like retake 186 and I had run out of outraged facial expressions my legs were really aching. It was with great relief when at 1340 (nearly 7 hours after starting) it was a wrap. It was also time for me to thank myself for following the bus which ferried everyone to location two on my bike because although the others got a lift there, they had to walk back!

No sooner was I back on campus than I had to go and judge the contest, which started an hour late because of me. Nine short plays which in fairness were over at 1615 and with a huge sigh I set off for the office and two much needed cold bottles. Whilst there I had a call from a student telling me the film crew needed Juliette to return immediately - whether to retake some of her scenes or not I have no idea but she and Andrei were sleeping when I called them with the less than joyous news. They did however return.

In the meantime, I cannot get a vision out of my head from Airport 1975. You know, the part where the chap on the plane realises he had a bit part in the in-flight movie, tells someone next to him that his appearance is coming up and then he finds his scene has been completely cut!

Sadly when I finally got home I was greeted by two Skype messages from the recruitment agency and the school in Suzhou. The school are concerned about the report of palpitations on my medical report. It would appear it has given THEM palpitations over trying to source medical insurance for me. That’s the last thing I need at the moment.

The 700y I spent on Tuesday may just hopefully turn out to be the best money I have spent in a long time if the 24 hour Holter test shows (and I can get documented proof) that there is nothing to worry about. But of course this will only naturally affect me stress wise so who knows what the future holds. It would be a bitter blow to have to leave China just because of something I have suffered on and off for at least the last 35 years.