{"id":1538,"date":"2014-06-15T19:09:28","date_gmt":"2014-06-15T19:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=1538"},"modified":"2014-06-15T19:09:53","modified_gmt":"2014-06-15T19:09:53","slug":"cairo-in-chinese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/cairo-in-chinese","title":{"rendered":"Cairo in Chinese"},"content":{"rendered":"

ALISON KLAYMAN 06.02.14<\/span><\/p>\n

When Shen Yitong left her home in China to study French at Cairo University in 2008, she didn\u2019t know that she would come to think of Egypt as a second home, or that she would see revolution come upon the country so suddenly. Her parents came from peasant backgrounds and they devoted everything to supporting her education, including moving from a smaller city in Jilin Province to the capital city, Changchun, in 2004.<\/p>\n

I met Shen while in Cairo for an arts festival in the spring of 2013. Interested in how Mubarak\u2019s toppling reverberated through the small Chinese expat community (whose members number in the thousands), I was drawn to how Shen and others perceived the joy and despair that Egypt has undergone. Outsiders to the factional disputes, Chinese expat fates are still intertwined with their outcomes\u2014in part because they live in Egypt but also because they are Chinese citizens, for whom the tradeoff between political freedoms and the uncertainty of regime change has immediate resonance.<\/p>\n

I thought Yitong and her friends\u2019 stories would reveal a side of globalization that American audiences don\u2019t often think about\u2014a globalization that is not centered on the West\u2014and would help illuminate the Egyptian revolution\u2019s global significance.<\/p>\n

I filmed Shen last January and February as part of a larger project I am working on. She has since left Cairo to start a Master\u2019s degree in Paris. This short film produced for ChinaFile focuses on a conversation Shen has with a close Egyptian friend, Asma El Nagar. El Nagar works for a Chinese company in Egypt after having studied Mandarin at Cairo University. The two friends laugh over a meal of Lanzhou noodles and converse in rapid fire, relaxed Mandarin with occasional Arabic mixed in.<\/p>\n

As their conversation turns to current events, the two friends draw parallels between the Rabaa Square massacre and the Tiananmen Square massacre. Neither is a historian, political commentator, expert, or activist, and this film does not aim to portray them as authorities. In fact, before coming to Cairo, Shen, like many of her peers at home, had never heard of the events that transpired in Tiananmen Square in 1989. There are of course many strong distinctions between the Rabaa Square massacre and the Tiananmen Square massacre. What they do have in common is they are both examples of overwhelming state violence against civilians. In both Egypt and China, these events are marked by an inability to freely discuss or even commemorate them without fear of retribution.<\/p>\n

Ultimately that is what this short film is about, a conversation about free speech, about the idea of freedom itself. For me, it\u2019s an example of the kinds of commonalities and tough questions that will necessarily materialize when such cross-cultural connections, exchanges, and friendship are made between young people.<\/p>\n

Alison Klayman
\n\"\"
\nMonic Wollschl\u00e4ger
\nThe New York Times\u2019 chief film critics A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis recently named Alison Klayman one of the \u201c20 Directors to Watch\u201d on their list of rising international filmmaking talents under 40. Alison\u2019s debut feature documentary, AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY, was shortlisted for an Academy Award and earned Alison a Director\u2019s Guild of America nomination. It premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival where it won a Special Jury Prize, and went on to win critical acclaim and many top honors, including an Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Award for excellence in broadcast journalism. NEVER SORRY has now been translated into over 26 languages and released theatrically around the world.<\/p>\n

Klayman lived in China for four years working as a freelance journalist for outlets including National Public Radio and PBS Frontline, and has made many media appearances to speak about her work, from CNN to The Colbert Report. The Sundance Institute, Ford Foundation, and Henry Luce Foundation are among the numerous foundations that have supported her filmmaking.<\/p>\n

From: http:\/\/www.chinafile.com\/multimedia\/video\/Cairo-Chinese?utm_content=bufferdb79b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ALISON KLAYMAN 06.02.14 When Shen Yitong … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[232],"tags":[391,216],"views":1018,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1538"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1540,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538\/revisions\/1540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}