Vision statement
Above and middle: Chen Guoyue enjoys Wen Qiufang’s narration of a movie at the Beijing Hongdandan Educational and Cultural Exchange Center. Photos by Tian Chi |
Li took a two-hour bus ride towards the city's center arriving at a siheyuan courtyard near the ancient Drum Tower. Li entered a two-storey building. Inside, a board on the wall read: "Beijing Hongdandan Educational and Cultural Exchange Center (BHC)".
At 9:30, Li sat down in front of an old TV set with 13 visually impaired people to watch The Young Empress, the second part of a movie trilogy about the Austrian princess Sissi.
Moving movie
Microphone in hand, Wen Qiufang, a lawyer and volunteer, stood by the TV. Between dialogues, Wen described the noble's delicate costumes, the magnificent interior of the imperial palace of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the facial expressions of the different characters. Her voice was soft and pleasant.
The listeners slightly lowered their heads as if they'd fallen asleep.
Onscreen, a baby started crying. When Wen cheerfully explained that Sissi had given birth to a daughter, the listeners' heads shot up in surprise. Some women smiled sweetly. A man sitting in the front said excitedly: "She is a mother! Amazing!"
"It's a beautiful story," Li Guizhi said after the movie. She missed the first part of the Sissi series shown the previous weekend.
It was a sunny day, and more than 30 of the center's regulars squeezed into the tiny projection room. Li could hardly find room to stand.
"I am impressed with the difficult relationship between Sissi and her mother-in-law. The film makes me feel the importance of mutual understanding," she said.
The audiences left the room, except for a blind girl who was fondling a long blue skirt on a Barbie doll with Wen Qiufang.
"I made the dress according to the descriptions of this film. I sewed a wire circle as the bustle to make it look like the skirts of the women in the movie," Wen said. "I am not a good tailor. This tiny thing took me several hours."
Founded in 2003, BHC is a non-profit organization dedicated to the development of the disabled. Both Li Guizhi and Wen work as volunteers and frequent the office on Saturdays.
Wen learned about the center and its movie-narrating project for the blind through a TV program last October. She was touched by the staff's selfless devotion.
"I have a good voice, I speak standard putonghua, and I am articulate. Why can't I help?"
She visited the center, joining as a volunteer movie narrator on November 1, her birthday. She saw it as a meaningful present to herself.
Her first task was narrating the movie trilogy of Sissi, which she had seen many times. But during the first scene, she found herself speechless.
"There was a flood of details, and I didn't know where to start, what would be the most important to the listeners and how to not interrupt the dialogue," she said.
Dozens of scenes passed before she could finish describing the first.
She spent several weekends listening to other volunteers and preparing for her next show. On her way to the center that day, she kept practicing tongue twisters in the cab. A confident lawyer in court, she felt like a nervous student before her new listeners.
"They look so eager that I feel obligated to present clear descriptions. Their understandings of the film, based on my narration and the picture it creates in their minds, are as good as ordinary people, which exceeded my expectations," Wen said.
Founders' dream
Wang Weili appreciates her efforts. Wang co-founded the center with his wife, Zheng Xiaojie. He is probably the first movie narrator catering to China's visually impaired.
Before that, the couple were television producers. They did a weekly program focusing on the life of the disabled on the China Education Channel in 2001. Their work inspired the couple to establish BHC.
The center organizes professional and legal training for the disabled. But the movie-narrating project for the blind has captured the most public attention.
The idea dawned on Wang while he was watching Terminator at home. When a blind friend paid him a visit, he tried to describe the plot and scenes.
"My narration was awful. But my friend looked so happy that he held me tightly, lifted me up and spun me around," he said.
Every week, he narrates a film in a 30-square-meter room in the center. It brings great joy to the listeners, whose number now surpasses 200. They regularly listen to Wang and volunteers who narrate movies on Saturday morning, even though many of them live several hours away in the suburbs.
In order to understand those he works with, Wang often shuts his eyes and asks his wife to lead him for a walk and tell him about TV series.
"Ordinary people do not understand what the disabled really need and think, unless they experience the same life," he said.
Meanwhile, many volunteers, including students, white-collar workers and local celebrities, have participated in the project. Wang believes that the bonds between those who are disabled and those who aren't, such as those formed during film narration, narrow the gap between them.
Once Wen Qiufang sent a dress to a girl she knew in the center. She asked her to choose between yellow and red, but she soon realized that the question might hurt her feelings. The girl was born blind and had no concept of color.
"But it also occurred to me that she had the equal right to choose as we do. She was not upset at all and picked yellow, saying it sounded like a warm and bright color."
Now more blind people can hear the volunteers' movie-narration on Sunday nights on the Beijing Radio Station's news channel.
In the French movie Amelie, the main character guides a blind elderly man to the subway. She describes to him everything she sees on the road. When she leaves him at the station, the blind man gazes into the sky and thanks God for His mercy.
"I hope more and more people can be an angel like Amelie," Wang said.
(China Daily 01/16/2007 page20)
