Thursday, September 24, 2009

Warm Reunion in "Disneyland" Vineyard



I met this vineyard-worker lady on my first visit to Chateau Changyu AFIP (which I call the "Disneyland" of Wineries). At that time she went out of her way to be kind. First, she offered me her coat because she thought I was cold wearing shorts. (Chinese just don't wear shorts, well, perhaps one in a million. So do the math on how many shorts you see in China.) Then, when one of my tripod legs slipped into a small divot, she found a rock to make the ground level. Finally, when I pointed to a pipe coming out of the ground while saying "water" in Chinese, she runs over to her water bottle to offer me a drink. I felt adopted.

On this second visit there was a crew filming in the vineyard and my kind lady was one of the "background extras". We instantly recognized each other and I greeted her as warmly as my 20-Chinese-word vocabulary allowed. Language, however, was not a limitation. She excitedly explained to the other vineyard-worker lady "extras" how she and I first met. With lots of hand gestures above the knees showing the length of my shorts the picture was clear. The film crew was a bit upset. All of our commotion stopped the filming process as the "background extras" were not in position faking like they were working (in their clean white uniforms). Looks as if human kindness is more powerful than the Chinese version of Hollywood (would that be Chinawood).




This video clip is taken with the new Nikon D300S, kindly provided by Pro Photo Supply in Portland, Oregon. Thank you Jon. I hope to write a from-the-field mini review of the camera in a new blog hopefully later today. The gentleman in the pink shirt with the camera is one of the French film "stars". Oh yes, sorry about the hand-held shakiness and file size. This is my first attempt at video on the web.




1 comment:

Pierre said...

Janis
I am not a movie star, we were just there because Changyu and us signed a contract for distributing Chateau Liversan with them.
Then we help them on technical advise for AFIP.
This is why they asked us to participate in their movie, in order to give education to the chinese customer. WHich is a very good idea! Cheers my friend
Pierre