Synopsis

This film presents my experience of living in the UK during the global pandemic as a Chinese person, where I began to reflect on my position/identity in this world. It also reflects the crisis of self-identity of the younger generation in the context of rapid urbanisation in contemporary China. The film consists of personal images filmed during the lockdown and the footages filmed in Jiaoxing village between 2017 to 2019. As well as a soundtrack which is derived from personal monologues, this film expresses a journey of self-examination and self-reflection by looking at the visual image, my personal connections and experience in my ancestral village: Jiaoxing village. The embodied experience represented by the visual images of Jiaoxing village in my film reflects my position in the world. I arrived at a deeper understanding of myself in respect to the world I inhabit when I read and analyse the intellectually and physically embodied filmmaking practice in Jiaoxing village. This film is the start of further self-searching and self-recovery, I will continue to read my village and myself and our relationship; so-called – Reading Jiaoxing Village: Chapter one.